>> they do community service. that's great community outreach. each clinic as a community person who goes out into the community, promoting care, promoting getting patients to go to the clinic and get the care taken care of. a wonderful model. >> the staff feels good about -- >> the staff feels good. so many other dental assistants

are college educated young men and women. they care. there's just one or two, if you want to go to dental school, dental hygiene school, we will pay your way if you offer to come back. >> so their own national health service. >> they have their own national health service corps. i can tell you, i'm on the board, unpaid as or directors, they want to expand out of state. they are restricted because the ceo is in nba. >> anything in that model we can learn from? >> yeah, i think we could -- >> mic, mic. >> i think the else and could probably learn as well. but the task we are faced with the is not just taking care of medicaid on dental. so you know, we have to contend with adults, content with peoples psychiatric problems,

people disabilities. we have to be a little bit more well-rounded. so, for example, we could make our site more efficient if we didn't include large treatment rooms and wheelchair lifts. we could make our site more efficient perhaps if we'd did include space return. so i think we can learn from them but their model is still fairly focused on this population of we have responsible for everyone. >> isn't mostly focus on gets? >> there are no adult benefits in a state of alabama so the only two children. he is actually write. it is a little different model. they do some development on this table. they recently hired an oral surgeon. if several pediatric dentists who take children to the hospital. >> but only treating kids? >> they only treat kids through age 20. >> okay.

has there been -- let me just say to everybody here, we're going to do our best to focus more and more attention on this issue, why this hearing is so important to you going to do our best to fight for money for the committee health centers. we'll take a look at the issue of dental therapists we're going to take a look at models which seem to be high quality and cost-effective. we want to deal with that. i think your point about philanthropy is great, but it is not the solution to a major, major crisis in this country. you know, the dr. schear today and she oversees the driver dental project. made we conclude, can you tell us, some people may have forgotten, who that is and why the project is named after and? >> he is a 12 year old who died

in prince george's county from an abscess. his parent was unable to access dental care. is medicaid had left and she could not find a dentist to treat the child. the child was taken, he was taken to an emergency room and given treatment and released, and then was rushed back to the hospital. he had to have immediate surgery. when they found the bacteria spread to his brain. he died february 27, 2007. as a result, the governor of maryland said this cannot happen again. the dental action committee was formed, and seven recommendations were made. also from their actions, the deamonte driver project was

initiated. it is a mobile dental unit that treats, that goes to title i schools throughout the county. and we treat all children, insured and uninsured. one thing that we really don't talk about is the children that are uninsurable. we have a large population in the county, and in the state, a children that are uninsurable. by definition, the mobile unit in maryland cannot be a dental home, and that is not our purpose. we work with families through case management to ensure that all children are in a dental home. we are there to treat emergence needs so we don't have another deamonte driver because i talked about earlier, in our process we are trying to establish statewide school screenings. children are required, when they go to school, and immunizations.

why are they not required to be seen by dentist? so in our demonstration project, we saw that there were a number, it was vital that we were there. there are a number of children who had we not seen them they could possibly be a deamonte driver. so we honor the legacy of deamonte driver by being in the schools. we also provide treatment at the schools he attended. and the program has been very successful, and it is welcomed by all the schools that we attend. >> dr. hughes, thank you for the work that you do on that, and i think to remember a deamonte driver from i think we ought to dedicate ourselves to make very, very significant improvements in the dental care system in this country so we never see another deamonte driver situation again

in this country year i want to thank you all, not only for being here today, but each in your own individual way, for playing such an important role and addressing this issue. so thank you very much. and with that, let's adjourn the meeting. [inaudible conversations] >> [inaudible conversations]

>> today, the american forum exams at 2000 a financial crisis five years later. former congressman barney frank along with bill thomas and douglas holtz-eakin are among the panelists. that's live at noon eastern on c-span. >> you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs, weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watch key public policy vince, and if we can the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past program to get are scheduled at our website and you can join in the conversation

on social media sites. spent on the 12th anniversary of september 11 attacks, former homeland security secretary tom ridge, former representative jane harman, and richard coast guard commandant admiral thad allen testified before the senate homeland security committee about threats facing the u.s. this is to have ours. >> well, welcome, one and all for this important hearing. today marks the twelfth anniversary of 9/11. coming down the train today, dr. coburn and colleagues, i was reminded 12 years ago, to the minute of what was going on in our lives, so it's a very poignant day, a sad day, but a day that is not without hope.

but a day for reflection, not only on a day we lost a lot of our fellow americans but a day that brought with it a sense of unity that we don't often see in this town, and in this country. in the wake of really a terrible tragedy. there's going to be a moment of silence a bit later. i'm going to ask to start in with a moment of silence and then i will introduce our witnesses and begin. but if you just pause now for a moment of silence, please. thank you. one of the things that are chaplain from some of you know chaplain barry black, retired

navy admiral, he always encourages us to pray for wisdom, each and everyone of us in on what and is probably a good thing for us to remember on this day. this anniversary also provides us with an important opportunity to think about all the efforts we have taken to secure our country since that fateful day, as well as the challenges that lie ahead. with us today, we have a remarkable group of witnesses that will share their thoughts on what we have accomplished since 9/11 and the future of homeland security. we are just honored to each of your here, delighted you've come from and thank you, so much for joining us, and really for your services to our country. this year, the department of homeland security turned ten years old. while i'm sure we can all agree that the department can do a better job in certain areas, we should not forget about the remarkable progress that has been made in keeping americans safer. since tom ridge helped open the door of the new department, low

those many years ago. there is no doubt, in my view, that we are safer today than we were ten years ago. in spite of greater threats to our nation, to our well being. i want to take a couple minutes to highlight some of the more significant accomplishments, if i could. we've enhanced aviation security through a more risk-based, intelligence driven system that begins screening passengers against national security databases four days before they board an airplane. we've improved our preparedness for and ability to respond to disasters, while cutting red tape at the federal level. we saw the fruit of these efforts in the response following the boston marathon bombings and also the natural disasters that struck my part of the country, including hurricane sandy. we've increased the security of our nation's borders with historic levels of manpower and resources, and we've built up cyber security capabilities to work with the private sector and federal government agencies in preparing

for, responding to, and mitigating against, the ever growing number of cyber attacks. but is there still room for more improvement? and i would just say, you bet there is. one of my favorite things, the road to improvement is always under construction. that is to him this thing as well. one way the department can improve is by doing a better job of preparing for tomorrow's threats today. we do a good job at fighting the last war and preparing for the last type of attack, but to secure our homeland we must be better at anticipating the next type of attack. ten years ago, for example, very few people were even talking about cybersecurity. somewhere, but a lot or not. today, we can hardly go a day without reading about a cyber attack in the news. oftentimes, many attacks. to respond to the challenge of ever-changing threats, we need a department of homeland security that is flexible and ready to adapt when necessary.

and sometimes, we just need to use some common-sense. if a program is not working, we shouldn't just keep throwing good money after bad. rather, we must work smarter with our limited resources and find ways to get even better results for less money. or for the same amount of money. that is why dr. coburn and i are holding this hearing and a series of others. he suggested we focus on reauthorization. i've never done a reauthorization of the department must agree, suggested in a good way to do that is to do a year-long streets of hearings that are relevant, and to the department and its functions and looking forward, and this is one of those hearings and a really important one. we are doing this top to bottom review of the department so we can learn from instances where the department succeeded and what it comes up short. this information will help us focus our scarce resources on what works. as the committee conducts this review process, we will be looking to ensure that the

department is making smarter acquisition decisions, developing even more agile and capable workforce, and improving its financial management systems. this review will also look at how we can strengthen the defenses of our homeland against very sophisticated and highly agile threats. one of the most important things we can do to improve homeland security is to come together to pass cybersecurity legislation. either in pieces or which together is a comprehensive policy, comprehensive approach our country. the threat is too great, and the consequences of inaction are too severe, to do nothing. enacting a thoughtful, comprehensive cybersecurity policy has not been easy, as we have known but we have a shared responsibility, both democrats and republicans, house and senate, government and industry, to get this legislation across the goal line and into the end zone. hopefully this year. we already saw many of these

different parties come together to pass comprehensive immigration reform in the senate a few months ago. i don't agree with everything in that bill, and i know my colleague here, dr. coburn are i suspect senator johnson don't agree with everything either. but i believe the approach we've taken is vastly preferable to our current immigration system, the failings of which undermine both our national and economic security. it is my hope that the house will pass its own version of immigration reform so we can go to conference and pass this historic piece of legislation. so as we remember 9/11 and discuss the challenges that lie ahead, we must seek to recapture that spirit of unity that prevailed 12 years ago today, and we need that if we're going to succeed in making not just the department of homeland security start over the next 10 years but our nation stronger in the future.

i look forward to working with dr. coburn, our colleagues, and even senator johnson is so good coming to hearing faithfully and ask good questions. and look forward to working with administration, with the witnesses and a lot of other folks that will help us figure out how to do this job, shared responsibility. with that having been said let me turn over to dr. coburn for any comments he wants to make. thank you. >> thank you, senator carper. i have a statement that i will place in the record. i have a lot of concerns with homeland security to one of the editorials that was in the new york times today talked about the lack of focus on multiple committees. the focus o focus on multiple cs instead of single committees of jurisdiction, and i know it's difficult for homeland security to answer all the questions from the 80 different committees and subcommittees that they have answered to come and that's one of the things we ought to be about changing, because our frustrations are we can't ever get answers, and i'm sure it's

not always intentional that we don't get answers. sometimes it is, but it's because we're asking so much information all the time with the people who have responsibly at homeland security can't do their job because their busy answering questions to members of congress. so the disorganization. the other concern i have with homeland security is it's turned into an all hazards agency which was never the intent. and it's abandoned risk-based policy that's put money where risk is rather than money where risk isn't. and the politicians at washington every much accounted for that. in my opening statement that output in the record, there are a large number of areas where we are incompetent, whether it is in terms of your metrics or ineffectiveness. and we have not held the hearings that are necessary to straighten that out. i would welcome all of our

panelists. thank you for your service, and multiple areas for our country. and hope that you can give us some wisdom. i've been to your testimony, hope you can give some wisdom how to streamline and not undermine the gold and the long-term changes that need to be made in homeland security and get us back to a risk-based agency instead of a grab bag of political benefits agency. the final point i would make is transparency is important. and the difficult job you had, governor ridge come in terms of bringing all these agencies together, and we've had good homeland security directors, and secretaries, but the idea that you can effectively manage this,

and we have all the data to say that we are not effectively managing it. and so my hope today out of this hearing is that we will hear some great ideas on i changed the structure. and the final point i would make is we have 15 open, 15 of the top 17 positions at homeland security open, and my knowledge we only have two nominees pending in that area. and i may be wrong on that, that's my guess, i think it's too. so leadership matters. having people in positions instead of acting people in positions is very different in terms of publishing the goals that need to be accomplished at home it's a good day. so i welcome you and thank you and look forward to your testimony. >> thank you, dr. coburn. before introduced eyewitnesses i would note of the conduct at 11:00 will be a gathering of members of congress on the steps of the capitol for an observance and my hope is we can work out right up to just before the time, and hopefully we will be

in a position to conclude, to adjourn. and if not i may ask you to adjourn very briefly and come back for about a half-hour. hopefully we can be done. i know at least one of you has a tight schedule herself. all right. i just will briefly introduce -- not separately the first witness. tom ridge and i came to the house together in 1982. actually 1983, 30 years ago today. we were both in the mid '20s. maybe early '20s. but we ended up serving on, we both served in the vietnam war's together. a real distinction, and very modest about. we ended up on the banking committee together. i think we ended up leaving on the banking committee company subcommittee on economic stabilization. people said what did you accomplish in those years on the

committee? i said we laid the foundation for the longest running economic expansion in history of the country. we stepped down from our responsibility in 1993. we were on our way to eight of course years. he went on to become after that, become governor of pennsylvania, our neighbor to the north, and first secretary of the department of homeland security since stepping down as governor, he led the department but also served as chairman of the national security task force, chamber of commerce and on boards, institute of defense analysis, the senate for studies of the presidency, and congress and chairing the national organization on disability. meanwhile, he travels the world as head of his firm, rich global, a number of other entities. somewhere along the line he found time to convince michelle to marry him. they have two wonderful kids that we've been privileged to know, leslie and tommy. i'm delighted to see you, and thank you for your friendship and thank you for your

extraordinary service to our country. next i want to welcome jane harman, former congresswoman from california's 36th district. during her tenure in the house of representatives, congresswoman harman distinguished herself as one of the top national security voices in the house serving on the house armed services committee, intelligence and homeland security committees. she's also one of the principal authors of the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act of 2004. congresswoman harman now serves as the director of the woodrow wilson center and also number of the external advisory board for the department of defense and state and get a and does a million other things. so it's great to see you. we welcome you. >> our next witness is in his cities today with facial hair, and i wouldn't have recognized you had i not known it was you. but it's great to see you.

you're a hero in this country my hero and the coast guard and the department of homeland security come enormous respect and affection for you as you know. we thank you for all that service and i wish you well as i understand executive vice president of booz allen hamilton and we're happy for you for the opportunity. admiral allen led effort to respond to and recover from hurricane katrina and after the first couple weeks of initial response as well to deepwater horizon oil spill. and for that service and among other things that you've done and continue to do we welcome you. i want to thank your family for allowing you to serve our country, share you with all of us. final witness, stewart baker, former assistant secretary for policy at the department of homeland security, are you a partner now? steptoe and johnson here in d.c. and i understand they've got a book out, author of the love these times, skating on stilts,

why we are not stopping tomorrow's terrorism. good luck with it. in his position, mr. baker established the department's policy office. even successful negotiations with foreign governments over data sharing, privacy and establish the secure visa free travel plan. what years did you serve in the bush administration? [inaudible] >> thank you for that. and i want to thank again all of you for being here. your entire statement will be a part of the record so feel free to testify. will lead off i believe with governor ridge. and i just want to say to senator chiesa, nice to see. welcome but always a pleasure, senator from new jersey. a great addition to this committee and to this body. governor, congressman? >> good morning, my former colleague and my friend, chairman carper. it's a great pleasure to be before you. senator coburn, let me associate

myself with the gentleman's remarks with regard to risk based approach, with regard to consolidating the incredible -- jurisdictional maze that the secretary and his or her department have to continually respond to up here on the hill. it's one of the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, and 10 years later that when and the other recommendations they made was with regard to broadband public safety network. that's 10 years in the making. there's legislation a long way from execution so i really appreciate that. it's a great pleasure for me to spend this morning with you on this very historic and very important day. i appear before you and my wonderful personal capacity as a private citizen, as well as the chairman of the u.s. chamber of commerce national security task force. the task force is responsible for the development and application of the chambers homeland and national sector to

policies. frankly, it's a voice for businesses across america. it certainly informs my perspective on many issues that it doesn't dictate it because my work there is strictly voluntary. neither a lobbyist not a paid advocate. we do have certain views tha the share a and i'm happy to advocae when we share them. i welcome the opportunity to have you here to examine ways in which we can secure america's future. since with limited time i would ask permission to revise and extend my remarks. before i begin i want to come on this anniversary, acknowledge the families that lost loved ones on september 11. we all know where we were. i had the opportunity to visit -- the reason we are here is to work together and do our best to ensure that such events do not happen again and that other families don't have to suffer like the families of our 9/11 heroes. with your indulgence i like to make a few general observations

first, and then focus on what i believe is a crosscutting issue that both dhs and the broader federal government have faced in the past, and has the potential to complicate our security for evermore. first of all briefly, it's becoming clear that members of his body intend to pass some form of immigration reform. i think that's relevant to homeland security. dhs component can be expected to play a significant role in intimate thing these reforms. my position is that the time has come, the time has come to grant status to those who wish to enter our country illegally, to work lawfully come and to pay taxes. i think it can be done. i also think congress has to balance this responsibility with providing adequate resources to the department of homeland security and older to affect the outcomes of the broader american

public want to achieve. we can talk about reaching consensus in washington, but unless any reforms are resourced appropriately, dhs components will be saddled with an impossible mission in the critical area of the border security. i'm not going to discuss my deep and abiding concern about the number of critical senior level vacancies at dhs. it's been addressed. it's disconcerting that an agency, if it's perceived by our government to be as important as i believe it is to have 15 vacancies or whatever the number is at any time. and yet the vacancies have lasted for quite some time. you are a winner but i just urge the administration to fill the vacancies quickly and the senate and a judicious manner and timely manner to exercise device and consent responsibilities and fill these positions. i was than the rest of my time discussing the challenges of information sharing, which i

think goes to the heart of homeland security's responsibility. we don't generate intelligence to we are assigned from the get go to share it in a defensive and provide whatever sense of measures we need to protect america. information sharing is an issue that's been with us since 9/11. it cuts across a range of challenges that have will continue to confront the dedicate men and women of dhs. we all know the nature of the terror threat has changed and we've seen in iraq, afghanistan, and today in syria. our enemy is no longer just al qaeda. but like-minded organization and nationstates that are willing to ally themselves and/or to harm the common enemy, the united states. in my opinion this will require the intelligence community to renew its commitment to work more closely with one another than ever before. congress in its own respect will ensure that dhs specifically remains plunged into the federal intelligence communities horizontal across the board. for its intelligence indicates a

physical or cybersecurity threat against the homeland, dhs is the agency required to work with our partners along, required to work with state and local from regard to work with the private sector. that's embedded in enabling legislation. for the we should ensure that the great progress that has been made for information sharing with our state and local partners such as the establishment of fusion centers, continues to be nurtured. no discussion of the data from our but information sharing and be complete without discussing cybersecurity in greater detail. there is no part of our national economy infrastructure or social fabric that is not in some way connected to the internet backbone. our critical power and communications, transportation, product supply chain a financial systems. and dhs owes many of these sector specific relationships. let's face it, the cyber the is

not new and emerging. in fact, when i was secretary in 2003, a full decade ago, the first u.s. national strategy to secure cyberspace was released. greater awareness of this threat made the beat emerging threats of have been with us and will be with us for the rest of our lives. for secretary pomata goodie can i have a particular perspective on this issue. we learned after 9/11 and we learned after katrina, keep learning after all these incidents that information and coordination sharing could have been better. some people refer to a digital cyber pearl harbor. at least in that instance historians say we didn't have notice of the emerging threat. i don't think this is a cyber pearl harbor because we had noticed him and it's not an imaging threat. it's a constant and ever-changing dynamic threats.

so i'm more inclined to say may end up being a cyber katrina, where we had noticed award as prepared as we should and until thad allen got there and got to the gordian knot of problems and begin to address the situation that he can find on the ground. i've got some more pages of testimony. i see my time is running out, i just hope we get to this area in the q&a. at the end of the day, the sharing of information between u.s. government and the private sector specifically, and i can refer to every legislation, its critical and not in a prescriptive form, it can't be in a prescriptive form, we cannot mandate regulations. there plenty of standards out there and, frankly, the president's executive order asking us to set the standard is something that will welcome and engage but hopefully get a chance to work.

and to ensure that the private sector is involved and engaged because it's that kind of collaboration that essential com and you're never going to defeat the cyber in it, whether it's a nationstate organized crime, any organization by having the private sector check the compliance bucks. we did all that congress wanted us to be. that's not enough. is grossly ineffective. there has to be time and continual information sharing horizontally within the federal government, particularly the dhs and then vertically down to the state and local, and particularly the private sector. after all, the federal government relies on the private sector in order to function. as i said before, we have some lessons to be learned about the inadequacy with the federal government is doing to protect its own information. we also need to make sure we facilitate the day today engagement in sharing information with the private sector. i thank my colleagues who were

on the panel, distinguished patriot do so for the opportunity to appear with him and i think the committee and the chairman to share these remarks with them this morning. >> thank you for those remarks, every much. >> as i think every member of the skimming knows i have great affection for this committee. i worked very closely with your prior management during eight years on the house homeland committee, and another ages, some of them overlapping on the house intelligence committee. letter today at the invitation of colorado governor john hickenlooper, i'm flying to denver, where senator lieberman and i have a hearing on a 9/11 power in denver this evening. >> i hope you will give them my best. >> i shall. and as my youngest daughter would say, your former ranking member, susan collins, is one of my best these. we say good close friends and we all work together on the intelligence reform law of 2004 but also great affection for all

of us testifying before you today to work very closely with everyone on this panel on homeland topics and we continue to stick together can which i think is a good thing. 12 years ago today as the towers were falling and the pentagon fire was burning, i was walking toward the u.s. capital. my destination was the intelligence community rooms in the capitol dome, the place most considered was intended target of the plane that went down in shanksville. my staff called to alert me that the capital had just been close, as was the house and senate office buildings. so most of congress, including me, milled around the lawn in front of the capital. there was no evacuation plan. we had no roadmap for response. part of the solution which some of us recommended was to create a dedicated home and she could function come and that function we thought should be in the white house, and tom ridge became its first courtney lee. along the way the white house

proposed a much more ambitious concept, and in order to pass, to get this function as part of law, we embraced that concept and then they became the department of homeland security. now in its 10th year i am proud of my role as one of the department's founding mothers and i think we should in knowledge today the thousands of dhs employees who serve us daily around the country and the world. as we speak, customs and border patrol agents are in megaforce like the port of dubai and our screen use bound cargo for dangerous weapons and materials. space restrained him and security investigation agents are in diplomatic posts everywhere in the world and are reviewing suspicious visas, and tsa screens our daily the pricing al qaeda and other terror groups the ability to turn more aircraft into weapons, a tactic we know they're continuing to attempt.

today, as tom ridge said, dhs remains a work in progress but the efforts of its people are its backbone. and our backbone. we have a safer country because of them. a year ago i testified here, and i noted some of the things that were going well at dhs, but i also noted challenges, and they include an anemic intelligence function, something tom ridge just touched on. the need for dhs to focus more on its relationships with critical infrastructure owners and operators, something that is now happening because the cyber threat is increasing, and as mentioned by you, mr. chairman, the failure of talks to reorganize its committee structure. today as you mentioned, there's a very good op-ed in the new times, i actually buy the print edition i want you to know, called homeland confusion by lee hamilton, our good friend. lee proceeded me as the president and ceo of wilson's hundred and we serve as

colleagues many decades ago in the house. i don't want to touch on all of this but let me just briefly scope the bad news and good news since last year. bad news, we failed to thwart the boston marathon bombing. and extensional increase in cyberattacks, edward snowden, and the fact that th the bomb mr abraham alice series who belong to al qaeda is still alive in yemen despite our good efforts to retire his service. but their significant good news. one is information sharing is improving but i know there's much to continue. second, resilient. we showed resilience after boston in particular after the boston marathon bombing, and commonsense is emerging in the way we approach homeland security, and to senator coburn's point, i think there is more support and should be for a risk based approach.

collaboration with the private sector on cyber that is happening, and credit should go to a i just just just retired to the second of homeland security, janet napolitano and for personal work on this issue. and we are getting ahead of privacy concerns. let me just touch on these very briefly because my time is running out, too. information sharing. tom ridge talked about it, but the committee should take credit for the fact that so should the department of homeland security grant money was critical. according to the boston tv, it help make sure that the city was trying to share information rapidly turning the emergency the dhs also participated in something called the multiagency coronation center that was operational before and during the marathon. it was critical and courtney communication once the bombs exploded. resilience, a very important factor in our country's ability not to be terrorized that it's

not that we won't have future tense amid in successful attempts of attacks but if we fail to be terrorized, the terrorists lose. bhs again in this committee distributed almost $11 million boston through it's an issue. the money was used in part upgrade over 5000 portal radios to first responders, its documentation system inside the tunnels of the boston tea, conducting citywide disaster simulation and court nations with dhs. this is a very good news story. similarly, in hurricane sandy which went fairly well, fema activated in advance a national response coronation center which was critical in terms of preventing more damage and speeding the recovery. collaboration with the private sector on cyber. dhs will never on the cyber mission, but it is responsible for a centerpiece which is

critical infrastructure protection. and in the past year dhs extracted and respond to nearly get this number, 200,000 cyber incidents, a 68% increase from the year before. we will never get ahead of this problem if there isn't a total lash out with the private sector and as janet napolitano and some of her team explained at the wilson center about six weeks ago, that is exactly what's happening, kudos to the department. finally, getting head of privacy concerns, the department itself has a privacy and civil liberties office. that office has trained many in the fusion centers, 68 out of 70 fusion centers have received some training. there's enormous complaint out in the boonies about the invasion of privacy, and it's important that we did to think of what is to protect the american people, and two, protect the american people's privacy. it's not a zero-sum game. it can be handled with proper training. and, finally, the administration

has fully populated the privacy and civil liberties oversight board which was created by the 2004 law, and which was never functioning until may. that should be helpful, too. let me just conclude by saying ths will continue to face difficult challenges him including al qaeda's enormous ability to evolve, the rise of lone wolf terrorist, the cost increase in the type and sophistication of cyber attacks, especially the risk of exploits in software, and privacy issues. but most attempts to attack us since 9/11 have been thwarted for which thousands of selfless dhs people deserve our thanks. and so do our former secretaries of homeland security, starting with governor ridge over here, and so did members of this committee. thank you very much. >> thank you so much. admiral alan, please. again, your whole statement will be made a part of the record. >> thank you, mr. chairman,

mr. gohmert, members of the committee. into the opportunity to testify. like secretary ridge, for the record i'm testifying and my personal capacity today. i'm not represent any particular entity. i would note the op-ed piece that was published this morning by lee hamilton antone keane was result of an aspen sponsored task force on congressional side of the day department of homeland security and i am a member of the task force, for disclosure. i'm also pleased to be your with tom ridge, jane harman, stewart baker. is people i've worked with over the years and hold with great respect and consider them friends and role models. glad to be here with them. as you mentioned earlier, mr. chairman, it's hard not to say secure the cannot recall the events of 12 years ago. and what's transpired in the bedroom. i was the coast guard atlantic command on 9/11, and what happened there was something i thought i would never see in my career, that was a coast guard cutter station off manhattan with its guns uncovered.

it was a chilling sight. we close the port of new york. we close the potomac river north of the woodrow wilson bridge and use coast guard vessels to resupply ground zero because there was such a problem and vehicles in and out. so this was a consequential, difficult for the coast guard as well and i like other members of the panel pass on our best records to the families that were impacted by that terrible event. i have testified before this committee on shown occasions since my retirement and in each of the testaments and including today i'm done a little bit of retrospective on what the department is at. i'm not going to go into the to that today. i was the chief of staff of the coast guard when the department was established over the transition out of dot into the department of homeland security and i've spoken over the years on many occasions about the conditions under which the department was one which was bureaucratic life become just over three months. -- bureaucratic light speed, just over three months. secretary ridge was can from the

day before he became the secretary, if i remember correctly. that's a lot of stuff going on at the same time. we have to move beyond the aggravation -- aggregation. kind of get beyond that, talk about that as a means for why the department is the way it is. i think can usually we have to ask, sit down and say what is going on and what we need to go. i would like to associate myself with remarks that may but secretary ridge and jane harman. they talked about the what i'd like to talk about the why because ultimately we need to move in the future, how are going to pakistan's of what is the best with the visible part of all of this is information sharing. because information sharing is the precursor to unity of effort, a more integrated operations of the department of homeland security not only in mission execution but a mission support. off a backroom operations that enable folks to tsa inspectors, screen people and that's financial operations, h.r.

operations and so forth. i'd like to talk in general about the border, resiliency, counterterrorism, law enforcement and cybersecurity as has been previously referred to. regarding the border, there's a lot of talk right now about the south was born in relation to conference at immigration reform. and while we move forward and get on with the policy is going to be and what we're going to do in relation to number of illegal immigrants are in the country right now, i think we need to remember that we have a board that is very complex and goes will do what i'd call a geographically and physically describe border. it is a functional board that also includes the analysis of data and the movement of cargo that are never touched by human hands but are virtually carried out and went to carry out our functions as a sovereign government in a global commons in a variety of ways including air, land, sea and cyber domains. so when we look at border security, i would urge the committee to try and understand that it is a combination of

functions and it is a systems of systems. it can't be reduced over simplistic fixes like fences or more border patrol agents are quick to figure out what is the nature of the problem and what is the best way to deal with all the tools we have available, including aggregation of data on all border functions int into a picture that senior leaders can take a look at the document all the different license plate reader programs, passenger information, information on private arrivals of aircraft and vessels and so forth, bringing that together and putting that where there can be coherent analysis done against i think sharing infusion of information across all domains is incredibly important. we need to build an architecture to allow us to understand current conditions and threats and how to react to them on the border. we need to visualize that knowledge for our leaders so they ca can understand what we l call a common operating picture. that can be discussed with folks here in the congress with regard oversight, and i think we need

to look along the southwest border and in every part of the board is the same, and boots on the ground and fences are not the way to control the border. we need to look at areas where there's no traffic. and conversations i've had we're using satellite imagery and going back and taking several runs at a time and if there were no movements can you can pretty much say that's a low risk and start concentrate on we think there is a risk involved. i think in the i think in the wake with the public a better job looking at how we are managing the border. congresswoman harman talked about national resilience. i think this is extraordinarily important i think it's important because when you start looking everything is it something that resides way beyond natural disaster and what fema does for living inside the department. i'm in favor of rigidly-based risk assessment. that includes understanding what population entities and critical of for such a day, what kind of risk they present. we need to figure how to reduce

those risks including building codes, land use, going beyond current floodplain legislation and regular to associate with that and try to look at the behaviors that need to be influenced to change how we think and act at a local of all. i think we need to improve our incident management doctrine, hspd-5 is a general framework for the secretary to manage incidents. i'd frankly when you're large complex incidents, it's hard to support a one cabinet to another, and overarchingly to understand incident management a special and complex hybrid events but i think it's extreme important to if you look at the possible of the wicked have a combination of events that start with a cyber attack, but gets into industrial control systems that produce a consequential kinetic effect, all of a sudden you're fema, the fbi to the nci jttf because of the potential crime scene, and then you have the overall incident management. would another coin document on how to move forward on the. and, finally, -- we need

integrated national operations of homeland security. the national response corp. nation center at fema is an excellent operation for the day that the coast guard has an operations in the. one of the big challenges in the absence of being able to consolidate on the campus of saint elizabeth is the inability to great the center with every component their to coordinate direct operation. i have other points but i see my time is that siebel said that the for the record and be glad to answer any question you may have. >> you crammed a lot in five athens. mr. baker, please proceed. welcome. >> thank you, chairman carper, ranking member coburn, members of the committee. it really is an honor to be here with members of the committee and members of the panel. all of us make promises to ourselves and to the country 12 years ago that it's a pleasure to be a tough and opportunity to continue and rededicate myself

on the rest of the panel to those promises. there have been a lot of achievements in those 12 years, and dhs has contributed to many of them. it has many successes that we have heard about from other panel members that couldn't have been possible without the department. it also has some failings that i think you're talking about addressing quite directly your re- authorizing legislation is an excellent idea. the idea of reducing the number of committees that provide disjointed oversight to portions of the department would be an excellent approach, as would be building the equivalent of the defense department's office of the secretary of defense. we've had three great leaders of the department who, when their focus on the problem, have made the entire department singing

like a course. but when they've had problems that they can't defend -- can't spend one day a week on, the components tend to drift off. and there is no institutional mechanism for keeping the department in tune and on the same tune. when the secretary is hold off on the deputy secretary is pulled off in another direction. so finding ways to build the office of policy, the office of management into effective managers would be very valuable. i want to talk mainly about an issue where i think the most opportunity for progress is offered. and that is in cyber. this is a terrible crisis. we are not solving it.

we are falling behind. many of the ideas that have been proposed a rather divisive, but it seems to me that there are at least three issues at the department of homeland security could contribute to that may form a basis for less divisive the solutions. what seems to me -- what seems to be clear while we are falling farther behind them with also learned that we have more information about people attacking us that we actually expected to have five years ago. we know what their girlfriends look like. we know what blogs they write a the are no longer able to secure their to negations than we've been able to secure our networks. and in that, offers an opportunity for actually bringing deterrence to bear, not simply defense. we cannot defend ourselves out

of this cyber crisis. that's like telling people that we're going to solve the street crime problem by making pedestrians by better body armor. that's not the solution to we have to find a way to actually capture or deter or punish the people who are attacking us. how do we do that? it seems to me that one of the ways we do that, the law enforcement is very familiar with the idea of returning and punishing attackers, but prosecuting the people who are attacking us. many of them overseas, many of them associate with government. it's probably not the most effective measure. what we need is new ways of bringing sanctions to bear on the people that we can actually identify, and dhs can leave that. if we use law enforcement capabilities that the department

has advice come at the secret service, integrated them to smaller groups, maybe on its their mental basis with its defensive capability and its understanding of the attacks, we could gather much more intelligence about these people and then bring to bear new forms of sanctions, again something that dhs could take the lead in developing. many of the companies that support these hackers, that hire them after they finish their service for government, universities that trained him need and want visas to come to the united states. i don't know why we're giving them visas if we know who they are. we should find a way to come up with sanctions of that sort, or frankly sanctions of the sort that treasury to do with conflict diamond merchants or the russian officials who will press the human rights of folks.

we have attacks on human rights, the human rights advocates right in the united states. cyberattacks on the likes. we should be treating those attacks and human rights that occur in the united states every bit as seriously as we treat the russian government's abuses inside russia. and again, dhs could be authorized to go looking for ways to bring those sanctions to bear. and then finally with the private sector come it seems to me the private sector knows more about the attackers inside their networks and we will ever know. they are more motivated to find the attackers and to pursue the attackers a into as their competitors, which is often the case, was being stolen is competitive information. those competitors are operating in our markets. and if we can gather that

intelligence and close that loop, we can bring to bear criminal and other penalties on the beneficiaries of these attacks. that is not something we're doing now because there's not enough integration between the people who have the resources and incentive to do that, individual companies were under attack, and the law enforcement agencies that are totally swamped by the nature of the task. if we give the compass that are under attack more authority to investigate their attackers under the guidance and supervision of the government, we could make more cases and impose more sanctions on people are attacking us. so those are three pretty concrete ideas. this poem or am i test in which i will ask you will read into the record. thanks. >> the old testament will be made a part of the record. thank you very, very much for your testimony today. i want to return to the,

dr. coburn, some of you, as was governor ridge, and the issue, i call it executive swiss cheese. we have too many vacancies throughout the federal government. the administration released just in last couple days an extensive list of nominees. we welcome the. one or two are in this department. we're still looking -- senator johnson us were still looking for an ig, ma someone to fill that position in this department, and a bunch of other igs, positions that are big and. this is a shared responsibility the administration has responsibility of that. we have an obligation to hold hearings to that of those nominees and to the extent that we feel they will do a good job, move them probably. the administration needs to do their job. we need to do our job. we will keep focused on that.

governor ridge and i are wearing different uniforms, he in the arm and in the navy, this popular movie called -- some of you are old enough to member jack nicholson movie, great movie. and i think comprehensive, comprehensive cybersecurity policy is not five easy pieces, but maybe six. i want to mention it and i want to ask a question about each of you about one of those. one of the pieces, critical infrastructure, are we better, better protect our critical ever structure. that's a sure responsibly. another piece that everyone it just touched on in your testimony, the third is it's protecting the administration -- the federal government's networks. a fourth piece is workforce. governor ridge and i talked about this recently. dr. coburn and i've talked about this a lot. attract and retain the kind of people they need to do their job

in this arena. research and development would be a '50s. another one that falls outside of our jurisdiction but it's an important one is data breach. how do we respond to data breach? that affects a lot of people's lives. so those are the six not so easy pieces that we are dealing with. ..

>> if the fbi has a german shepard, then dha has a chihuahua. they need a bigger dog, because it's a big fight. and we want to make sure that we figure out what to do and give them that capability. well, i'd say that dhs is much further along in developing cyber capabilities, some people give the department credit for, i do think we ought to provide the department with clear, statutory authority to carry on their current activities so that it can be compared to something a lot stronger, a lot more formidable than a chihuahua. let me just ask each of you, do you believe that it's important for the congress to empower the department, this department with clear and explicit statutory authority to carry out its current cyber activities? these activities include working voluntarily with the private sector to protect against, to

prepare for and recover from cyber attacks. and would a better-defined statutory mission of the current cyber activities -- current cyber activities -- help to strengthen the department's cyber capabilities? governor rich, do you want to lead it off, please? >> senator, i think the enabling legislation that created the department of homeland security embraced in a strong bipartisan way by the house and the senate basically set up conceptually that very idea that dha would really be at the epicenter of engagement down to the state and locals as well as the private sector. so, number one, i think it's certainly consistent with the original intent of congress in terms of the role that dhs plays. secondly are, i think any gray that exists in the alignment of dhs' relationship with the private sector particularly

probably creates a great deal of confusion. i mean, right now i know the private sector is reluctant to cooperate for many reasons, even to share information because of the absence of liability protection of those sorts. i realize you aren't asking that, but i think if there's a gray area that can be cleaned up and a direct line of responsibility -- and, by the way, you also have the opportunity to hold them accountable for not doing the job consistent with senator coburn. we don't think you're providing these very well, you can hold them accountable. thirdly, i would only say, however, it would be important to do two things; one, resource the department appropriately. look, the men and women in dhs right now that are working on cyber -- government generally, let's face it. potentially a lot more lucrative opportunities in the private sector. we've got some real patriots, rs and ds, it's immaterial. thai working hard on -- they're working hard on cybersecurity because it's their contribution

to their family's security and their country's security as well. but we're probably going to need to take a look at some sort of compensation adjustment to keep the best and brightest with us. two, i think clarity would enhance the kind of voluntary collaboration that i think is absolutely critical between the private sector and the federal government vis-a-vis dhs. and then if it's going to be the mandate, i think they need to be properly resourced. >> thanks so much. same question for the congressman, would a better defined statutory mission help to strengthen the department's cyber capabilities? >> my answer -- my answer is, absolutely yes. the administration did issue an executive order last year which is somewhat helpful, but it will take legislation. and secretary ridge outlined a lot of the issues. there's been a difference of opinion among people up here about how robust dhs' authorities have to be, but the

bottom line problem is that the private sector doesn't trust dhs. that has been overcome to some extent by the really impressive efforts that secretary napolitano has made in the recent months to reach out for industry, and there now literally is a floor in the dhs headquarters where the private sector and appropriate dhs representatives are working together on cyber threats. so that's a good start. i just want to add a robust endorsement to your point about swiss cheese. there are a couple of nominations that have been made by this administration, and one of the nominees i know very well. she's been nominated for undersecretary for nppd which is in charge of the cyber function. and i just mention her to all of you. her name is suzanne spaulding. i hired her to be the staff director of the minority on the

house intelligence committee and worked with her for years. before that, she was the executive director of the national commission on terrorism on which i served which was then chaired by l. paul bremer, jerry bremer, who many of you know, a bipartisan commission that predicted a major attack on u.s. soil, one of three commissions that wasn't paid a lot of attention to. but we need nominees. and i would recommend if anyone cares the guy to my left as the new secretary of homeland security. thank you. >> i won't ask if anyone wants to move the nominations. [laughter] we could do a lot worse. i know we could do a whole lot better. but there's no shortage of really good candidates. we just need for the administration to pick one and send us a great name. with suzanne spaulding, i believe we have a hearing for her next week, my hope is we'll be able to move that quickly. she's impressive. admiral, a same question.

>> that's a tough statement to follow, but eu8 try. -- i'll try. i think it's really important. the first one the current status of fisma which is basically a regulatory compliance tool. there's a major step being taken right now to move away from a compliance checklist mentality to continuous mitigation and measurement at the gateways so we actually know what's going on. that will be enhanced shortly by a dashboard which will pull that information up and allow it to be shared across the agencies. that's a phenomenal step forward, but it's been largely done through the congressional appropriations process where money was provided to actually go out and so his sit for that work to be done. so i think we need to move forward and figure out how we're going to transfer from fisma to continuous monitoring of our circuits and how to move that information around. secondly, as jane mentioned, the executive order on cybersecurity and infrastructure protection

has laid out a number of very important steps including a voluntary framework for the private sector that's being developed in cooperation with all the parties. but we need to go beyond the eo as secretary ridge said and start looking at the issues regarding liability and what are the prohibitions that keep the private sector from being involved. so you've got t the fisma revision, the eo on cyber which is going to take legislation to completely solve that, and i think both the other panel u.s.es have said that. and finally, what are the authorities and jurisdictions dhs would need. i think if you put all those three together, you have the complete package. but it should not be separate from legislation that addresses the issue with the private sector as well. >> thank you for those comments. lastly, mr. baker, would a better-defined statutory mission of the current cyber activities at dhs help to strengthen that department's skypeer capabilities? -- cyber capabilities? >> yes, i think in a couple of ways. first, the technology is always evolving, and yet the law that

we're operating under is ten years old at least in cases. authorities were simply therefored. and fisma's a great example. fisma end visioned doing -- envisioned doing security checks that would occur on paper and take months to accomplish. yet the department is now actually rolling out technology that will perform much of the fisma checks in three days. and it's important to revise the law so it takes account of those capabilities and all of the other security measures that are being developed in this area. i would certainly support the idea that a working with the appropriators is the best way to do this. having a single, unified appropriations process by the department is the saving grace for the department, and the more of that that can be done, the better. similarly, the second point that

i'll close on is that in cases the authorizing legislation needs to make clear that while the national security agency has a big dog, it's an important participant, i used to work there, veryportive of it -- supportive of it, but everyone in the country needs to be reassured that when we're talking about cybersecurity, it's dhs that's setting the policy and dealing with the data, not the national security agency. so what i would say is maybe dhs doesn't need so much a bigger dog as a leash. and authorizing legislation can provide that kind of reassurance to the american people. >> thank you all more those responses. i consulted with dr. can coburn. we're talking about how do we better honor the loss of all those lives 12 years ago this morning. do we honor it by recessing and going to join some of our

colleagues on the steps of the capitol, or do we really better honor their lives and their loss by continuing to do our work here today. we believe that the best way to honor them is for us to continue doing that. we're going to continue going through the 11:00 hour and give us a chance to really drill down on some of these important issues, and with that having been said, let me just yield to dr. can coburn. >> well, thank you mr. chairman. a couple points based on what i've heard hear today. the homeland security's budget twice what it was when you had it, and everybody knows we're resource poor right now, and the question is, how do you put metrics on what homeland security's doing. and i would suggest, number one, is there's 45 open areas from oig that have not been addressed by the department of homeland security on recommendationings that they essentially agree with, but they've not acted on. and i don't know if that's a priority problem or a resource problem.

but that list is growing. second thing on fisma, bobby stimpley is a great leader. if we had a hundred of him, we could all sleep great at night. but the fact is, fisma's going backwards according to the last omb report, not forward. so i'm very hopeful based on what you said, admiral, on what we're going to see and what you said, mr. baker, in terms of improving that. the other point i'd make is i asked crs to give us what statutory authorities homeland security has, and they have most of the authorities they need for everything. matter of fact, when secretary or ridge was secretary, he had them start all these things under these authorities. so we need to ferret out what we actually really need to do to give increased authority. the things that i'm concerned about is, first of all, we can't afford to duplicate thing we're doing at nsa.

and we heard from all of you, you know, we do need a -- every time we've seen a problem since 9/11, it's because of either a stovepipe or an individual judgment that was made in the wrong direction. on with boston. i mean, if you go to the the intel on that, we know we had sommer records -- some errors made by individuals or process rather than have flat, good communication that was realtime. so tom carper and i don't disagree about what the goals are. the disagreement is how do you get there, and how do you hold people accountable. so information sharing is the key more us to be flexible -- for us to be flexible and highly responsive when it comes to threats for our country. and how we do that is important. and i think, jane, you said something that i i think is really important. the confidence level by the

public and the private sector in terms of dhs' capability to handle all this is a key hurdle we have to get over. and what we have to do is we have to walk before we run. and we've been crawling, and now i think we're walking, and i would attribute some of that to the most recent secretary but also to bobby and her crew and some of the other things that are going on there. the other thing is privacy is a big deal. we've seen that. but we've had a lot of problems at fusion centers with privacy. we put out a report that said that, and they responded. they were starting to respond before that. but there's no privacy policy associated with the drones, with dhs right now. we have an open letter that hasn't been answered, what are you doing about it? and yet there was no consideration of privacy as they made the policy moving forward use of drones. so there are big problems for us to address.

i guess what i would ask is -- and, by the way, i do need to make a correction. the president has nominated four positions out of the 15. not two. so i stand corrected on that. office of general counsel and ppd, cpb and mr. mayor cuts. so i guess the question i'd ask is how do we make, what do we do, how do we incentivize to make sure we have realtime sharing across all the branches, one. number two is how do we reform congress' oversight of dhs to where we limit the committees? tell me how we do that so that we can make them reactive in a positive way and not spend so much time up here on the hill, but have good, clear communication and single authority coming out. we have most of the authority for home lapp security, but that -- homeland security, but that's not not true in a lot of

other subcommittees. i'd like you to address that, if pucked. if you could. >> i'd be happy to volunteer to just begin the conversation. i must tell you, senator, that i think your frustration with the growth of the department in terms of personnel and dollars is something that i share a little bit. mores is not necessarily better. i remember my first year as secretary. well-intentioned congress on both sides of the aisle wanted to give me more pun, and i said -- more money, and i said you better take a look at how effective we've been. someone told me we'd gone from 180,000 to 240. i just have no idea where the additional bodies are needed, notwithstanding bodies down at the border, i.c.e. and all that.

at the epicenter of the concern you have addressed is the failure of this institution of the united states to consolidate jurisdictions so that there are no end runs to protect vested interests that have been existing in silos for a long time. and i think the only answer to that is the will of this body to affect a change. unless you can consolidate jurisdictional responsibilities so that a small group of republicans and democrats in both chambers have exclusive jurisdiction or nearly exclusive jurisdiction, you're going to see through the process because we all know it is a little byzantine. everybody has allies on all these other committees both on authorization and appropriation levels. we really need to do that. and i think if you can consolidate that responsibility, i think you can affect the kind of change that you're talking about. it is amazing to me that the congress would ask two of america's great public servants -- lee hamilton and tom

cain -- to spend about a year and a half or two years, take all that testimony and say we as a congress want to know how we can help the new department mature and how we can make our country safer. and two of the most obvious and needed recommendations made ten years ago -- consolidate jurisdiction on the hill and provide a prick safety -- public safety broadband network so police, fire and emergency responders can handle future crisis -- and we're not there. >> the third one is racing-based -- risk-based rather than all hazards. >> exactly r. clearly, but i must say they're starting to do it at tsa. i like the preclear program. i know john pistole's done a great job, they're move anything that direction, but i'm going to say then quit arguing about a fail safe border security platform. you'll never make an absolutely secure border. what we want to do is reduce the risk. to we have to risk manage the border, we have to risk manage

commercial aviation, we have to risk manage everything across the board. but i think at the end of the day, senator f you're looking to -- if you looking to achieve the outcomes that i think generally shared on both sides of the aisle, the commitment's that strong, then i think the republican and democrat leaders in both chambers have to sit down before the next congress and say enough's enough. one final anecdote, and i say this with the greatest respect for my 12 years here on the hill. i can't tell you the number of times we've been walking over to a vote, and we've been leaving a committee or subcommittee hearing, and there would be lament among the members, jeez, we've got five or six committee hearings today and subcommittee hearings today and we've got to run from here and there, and everybody decries the pressure on legislators to do their job effectively in all these committees and subcommittees, but nobody wants to relinquish the seat on the committee or subcommittee. it may not be voluntarily relinquished. but if the leaders in both chambers say as of this congress

this is done, we're making these changes, homeland security doesn't report to a hundred, it reports to five or ten, it will be done. so i think the answer to that is you've got to get the leaders in both chambers of both parties to agree, because i think it's at the epicenter of the problems you just suggest. >> mr. chairman, let me apologize in advance. i have to leave at 11 because i serve on a foreign policy board to the state department which has been rescheduled three times. but it is today, and the meeting -- >> we understand. we're just delighted you're here. we'll make the next 17 minutes count. >> all right, so i apologize. let me just address reorganizing congress which i think is absolutely essential and will be very difficult to do. i was in the painful of conversations with i'm not sure if it was the democratic caucus, maybe senator baldwin remembers back in the day, about the need more more jurisdiction for the house homeland committee.

and the pitch was made, and people nodded, and then someone from the house commerce committee stood up and said, oh, no, but, you know, this notion of an interoperable emergency broadband network is central to our jurisdiction. and so, of course, reid -- no change. and people in this institution on both sides earned their power through their committee positions. and giving up power in this institution is not something people will do voluntarily. so i agree with tom ridge that the leadership will have to basically require it. however, the leaders earn their power through the loyalty of their members and making members shrink their own power is not really helpful to leaders holding power. so i don't know how the thing changes, but until it changes we

won't have the robust homeland function that we should have. just one other comment as i kind of implied ten years ago. the concept for the homeland department is more ambitious than maybe some of us would have wished. it was the white house's proposal to put 22 departments and agencies together. some of us had thought about a more modest function directed by the homeland coordinator in the white house, a job tom ridge originally had. but we took it because the administration was behind it. so it's a daunting task to make this thing work. at this point i do not think we should rearrange the deck chairs in the administration. but if there is a way and maybe the members here have more power than members that i observed back in the day, if there is a way to reorganize congress to give with this committee and the house committee more power, i think our country will be safer for it.

>> dr. allen -- admiral allen -- >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> and then, mr. baker, go ahead. >> as i stated earlier, i spent several days out at a at the sunny lands estate with lee hamilton and tom keene as part of the aspen task force that produced the report that was set out today. my proposal would be that be submitted and attach today the record rather than take the committee's time here. i would say i would not have served on that task force if i didn't want subscribe to the concept that we need to make this simpler. there's a subcommittee for the coast forward there. i spend four years without an authorization bill. there were significant bills we needed to deal with from fishing vessel safety to unregulated small boats that were never addressed, and if they were, committees would assert jurisdiction, they'd have have

to be sent over to those committees for review. very, very time consuming, and if you look at some of the issues we haven't addressed, i would direct the committee to take a look because i believe there's a lot of issues on the record that have tried to have been raised. the issue for general security on aircraft is another issue moving forward. the only other point i would ask in response to senator coburn's comments, it's very instructive with flood insurance right now, we have a problem in those that bear the risk don't pay the risk, and we have an extraordinary amount of liabilities built with up trying to pay off the claims for hurricane katrina that still exist today, and there's no clear way how those books are going to be balanced. on the other hand, you start to let those flood insurance fees rise, you have issues with local communities. and what you really need to do is start to change behaviors on building codes, land use anding out there which is a much more stoogic way to deal with this. but you can't do that if you have four or five committees

asecuritying jurisdiction over the problem. asserting jurisdiction oh the problem. >> i fully support the idea of reducing the number of authorizing and oversight committees. let me, though, talk about two ways that we can address senator coburn's concerns about the budget and some of the other issues. it seems to me that proper authorizing legislation can set the framework for actually saving money in the budget. and i'll give you two examples. in fact, you raised one. the question of duplicating nsa's capabilities makes no seasons for dhs to try to do that. nsa has built capabilities over 50 years carrying out a mission that has been funded in ways that dhs' mission will never be funded. they have enormous capabilities. at the same time, both the american people and i think the department of homeland security

want some reassurance that if they lean on dhs to use those capabilities, that they won't discover that policies being made defact the toe, private policy in -- de facto privacy policies in particular, by the people they're leaning on. and so language that could create a set of authorizing legislation that sets aside dhs' authorities and leaves it in control of its area drawing on nsa for talent and for tools and technologies that it already uses, you will end up saving money by relying on existing capabilities and creating at the same time reassurances for people about how that reliance will work. the same thing, it seems to me, is true if you can build a planning and process, a planning process, a budgeting process that uses integration, office of secretary of defense-type

capabilities to say how can we reduce can the budget -- reduce the budget effectively, how can we eliminate redundancies in, by looking at the authorizing language. and if we do that, we'll be building the capabilities at what i described as the second tier so that the secretary doesn't have to sit down and get out the eye shade and start asking about the 14th line on individual components budgets, but that that is being done by a centralized staff that is trying to eliminate recup dancies. so by creating -- redundancies. by creating the right kind of authorization for those central staffs, you have set the framework for reducing the budget. and last, tied to that it seems to me that until it comes when we have eliminated many of the authorizing issues, one of the things that we, that this committee can do is build a

relationship with the appropriators so that when the appropriators are asked about legislation that arguably is authorizing on appropriations, they know that this committee has looked at those ideas, has thought about them, has vetted language. creating authorization language that may in a pinch end up in an appropriations bill is worth considering in the, at least the short run until we get to the promised land. >> good, thanks. i apologize to senator baldwin and senator ayotte just left to attend the observance. we've gone well beyond our five minutes, as you know, and i thank you for your patience. i just thought it was really important for us to allow this panel to answer these questions in the kind of thoughtful way that they've done. we spend so much of our lives here going from one place to the other and in and out as some of you know, and this was just a very, very helpful series of questions and responses.

so senator johnson, if he comes back, is next. senator be case is going to be recognized next and then senator baldwin. and i think he's made the same decision that senator ayotte has made, but this is just an excellent hearing, and just very, very pleased with the way it's going. jane, we'll give you, of after jeff asks his questions, we'll give you the first shot at that, i know you have to leave. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thanks to this panel for being here today. mr. chairman, i join everybody in remembering the families, many from my state, who were so tragically impacted by the events of 9/11. we all remember where we were that day, certainly in new jersey, watching in this go on. i've prepared some remarks that i'd ask you to make part of the record rather than reading them here today. thank you. the events we're talking about today were the bombing at the boston marathon. and at the time, and i've raised

the this issue before when we had commissioner davis here and others to talk about those events, and i was serving as attorney general at the time, and i remember in realtime being in my office and learning that there were contacts, potential contacts to what was going on there in my state. and i remember and our state police and everybody just did an unbelievable job and turned that around in a way that makes everybody proud. it really does. and i understand we want to work hard so that we don't have the event actually occur. so i have the same question and, congresswoman harman, i'd invite you to answer first because i know you have a time constraint. do you think we currently have the appropriate climate among the people that are responsible for having, developing and sharing the information necessary so that that information is flowing appropriately to get to secretary ridge's point, we're not overly siloed?

be it from a cyber perspective, a terrorism perfect spective, whatever these perspectives are, it's all about making sure the information is getting where it needs to get. and i'd ask eve -- each of you to talk to us about your thoughts on the way climate is shared among the people responsible for sharing it. >> well, thank you, senator. i would give us, as i just said, an f more reorganizing congress. i think it is really sad that congress has a 19th century structure to deal with 21st century evolving threats against our country. but on information sharing, i would give us a b. and that's not an a, and i'm looking at tom ridge -- >> did you say b or d? >> b, b. it's not an a. but the challenge was to break down silos, and to create opportunities for people to actually know each other which

is one of the ways you build trust and enable information sharing. yes, there were mistakes in the boston marathon case. the tide list didn't get to the right folks, and the fbi didn't follow up, and a little of and a little of that. however, once the event occurred, boston, the surrounding pd cans, the state of massachusetts and all of our federal enforcement, law enforcement agencies and homeland came together in almost a seamless way. and using video including people's handheld phones, we were able to piece together -- they were able to piece together the identity of the folks and to close in on them quickly. so that's why i say it's a b. after action we were an a, before action we were probably a c. but this is improving. i just want to mention something that we haven't talked about, but it's something i know a lot about based on my role on the

advisory committee to the dni and some of these other intelligence places that i stay connected to. and that is the dark side of information sharing is it enables a snowden or others to the get too much information and to use it for nefarious purposes. so our goal has to be to build the trust, to build the horizontal arrangements, but then also to put in safeguards so that people with bad motives inside our system or outside our system can't abuse with it. and i don't think we've mentioned that, and i do think it's part of the challenge going forward. >> thank you. secretary ridge? >> well, i would, i had the great pleasure of working with congressman harman back then. i think she's grading on a higher curve than i would by giving everybody a b. i want to address -- i'm not going to give a grade, but i want to address something i found and i still find troubling. and it goes to the perception

that dhs hasn't done its job. i remember doing some tv after detroit bomber, and dhs was criticized for letting the individual on the plane. and i think secretary napolitano has taken some heat, and i had to remind everybody that dhs does not gather information. they rely on the alphabet agencies to provide it. and if the state department didn't give the information to dhs and customs and border protection and give them reason not to put the person on the plane, then dhs should not be held accountable, but it seems from time to time they are. i think back to fort hood, there's been public revelation that the fbi in two different venues were aware that hasan was e-mailing the radical cleric in yemen, and dhs takes a little hit on that. why didn't they know more? well, i mean, frankly, that wasn't in dhs' spot. somebody's got to ask a couple of the other agencies why they didn't do more. and your question with regard to boston, i don't think that the

fbi's on a speed dial arrangement with the kremlin. and i'd like to know personally how often the kremlin picks up the phone and says we think you've got a couple terrorists in your mix. so i don't know how thorough the examination of that revelation was within the fbi. i'm not faulting the fbi, i just don't know whether or not the federal government generally -- including the fbi -- took russia, russian intelligence communication as seriously as it should have. will may have been other agencies that should have been involved. i think the response, as congresswoman harman said, to that incident was phenomenal. dhs didn't get the credit. e mean, there were grants that went out, training program that went out, all that was done under dhs. but that's triage after the incident. and that's why information sharing so critically important. and just to take this a little step further, let's assume that you break down the silos, and

there's more and better information sharing conceptually. i think somebody's got to take a look at classification. the easiest way more an agency, i don't care what the agency is, to deny access to -- and i'm concerned about state and locals and private sector -- is to say it's top secret. well, nobody wants to touch et. so i think somebody's got to take a look at classification. i've seen a lot of things that were classified top secret that i know you could have shared with folks that wouldn't do harm to sources and methods. so i think classification is very important, particularly if we're serious about information sharing down to the state, locals and private sector. and finally, i think attorney generals need to have more information about what's going on in their state. you can't secure the country from inside the beltway, and at some point in time the alphabet agencies have to entrust high-level law enforcement members in all 50 states and territories with information about what's going on in their

respective states. i venture a guess that you have no idea as all the investigations didn't when you were attorney general into potential terrorism activity many your state. i think it's a huge mistake. people say, well, somebody may reveal that information that was shared. well, then there'll be consequences. but i just think we need to expand the network with fellow americans who have responsibilities for safety and security in this country. we've got the start trusting them. you can't just keep all that information in here, so that's my response to that inquiry, and i do think we need to take a look at classification because it's overly classified which is reason not to share, and safety and security's the ultimate concern, you have to trust fellow americans outside this city to help keep the country safe and secure. >> thank you, secretary. >> congresswoman harman, as you leave, thank you very much. godspeed. >> mr. chairman be, i know i'm out of time. we were -- we had the

opportunity to be briefed, and every attorney general's jurisdiction is a little bit different. mine included a lot of those things, and i think it's -- but i think to get to your point, others have made these relationships, the first time you're talking can't be after an event, right? and the talking before and having some trust and having soon somebody is invaluable once the event starts so that there's no hesitation. because that stuff has to get, that information has to get to the decision makers and to the rescuers and to whomever else is involved. so i appreciate your thoughts. mr. chairman, i'm over my time, and i don't want to hold up senator baldwin, but at some point i'd love to hear from the other panelists too. >> senator baldwin, are you okay if the other panelists respond to his question? let's just do that. we have a good flow. thanks. >> thank you. >> rather than repeat some of points which i think are very valid that jane and the secretary have made, let me take

a little different spin on this. when you look at counterterrorism and the great expansion of transnational organized crime and illicit trafficking, we know there are growing linkages there. whether you're a terrorist or you're a criminal, you have to do a couple of things that are visible. you have to talk, you have to move, and you have to spend money. and every agency operates basically on a case doctrine and how you manage it, and in that case there's usually confidential informants, and there are sources and methods. that usually is the root of classification that secretary ridge referred to because they're trying to protect that. the problem is that our law enforcement structure in this country has evolved over the last century against business lines of bad guys; drugs, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, counterfeiting, intellectual property. all managed by a law enforcement agency that manages as a case. the fact of the matter is, we're dealing with networks, illicit networks that generate cash however they need to, to

perpetuate their regime. and what a you need to do is attack the network with a network. and i think the greatest case for information sharing and the greatest case for more and better integration not only in the department of homeland security, but domestically and internationally is to move to a way to look at these challenges as network channelings and how do we move -- channelings and how do we move across dealing with their business lines which means you're only taking down one franchise. you're not dealing with the root of the problem which is how the network managing itself, threat financing, how the money moves and how they communicate. that is the number one cause for action for information sharing, in my view. >> three thoughts on this. one that i offer only tentatively because i don't know all the details, but i do remember that when the older tsarnaev brother came back from russia, he entered the united states. we had the chance to interrogate him, we had the chance to look at his electronics as he crossed

the border. we didn't to do it. we didn't do it. my impression is we didn't do it because at that point the fbi had closed its case. and one of the questions i wonder about is whether, the hs and cbp have deferred too much to the fbi. we have a responsibility to protect the united states, and the fact that the fbi closed its case is not necessarily a reason not to ask questions of somebody who has gotten the kinds of intelligence reports that tsarnaev earned. second, one of the things -- >> let me correct the facts on that. your statement is in error. >> all right. >> the information was sent to the joint terrorism task force in boston, but it was not relayed to customs and border patrol at kennedy. >> ah, okay. so then there clearly were failures of information sharing that cost us something and

something significant. second, we learned after boston how valuable cameras can be. that's -- they're not valuable in stopping crime, they're valuable in catching the people who carry them out. that's also true, we learned that in the two bombings in london. and yet for a variety of reasons, including privacy campaigns, a lot of cameras have not yet been with installed in city certains. we don't actually need them hooked up. we don't actually need to be watching them, but we need to be recording so that if something bad happens, we can go back and figure out what events led up to that. we should be encouraging the installation of those cameras. and if people have privacy worries, we should just have them continually rewrite -- write over their hard drives as opposed to send the data anywhere. and third, on the information

sharing point i thought that jean harman was exactly right. information sharing creates risks, it creates the risks of snowdens and mannings, but snowdens and man beings look a lot like -- mannings look a lot like chinese hackers who have also compromised computers on the networks. and the same tools that help us to provide better cybersecurity will also provide better audits of who's on the network, what they're doing and will protect privacy as well, because we'll be able to tell who's accessed information improperly. and so one of the things that in this committee could do, that dhs could do is to make it a little clearer to the state and local entities that get this, that get grants that they can use that money for cybersecurity audit technology that will allow them to meet all of those requirements. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> you bet.

thank you. senator baldwin, thank you for your patience here today. you can take as much time as you want. [laughter] >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman, ranking member, for holding this hearing. and i want to thank all of our panelists including congresswoman harman in absentia for your service to our country. and i appreciate each of you sharing your analysis and appraisal of where we've come in this last ten years and where we still have to go. i want to focus my questions in on the larger issue of cybersecurity and the incredible increase in cyber attacks that we're experiencing. and i'd like if you could, i'll start with you, mr. baker, to sort of talk about any distinctions that we should appropriately make with regard to economic cyber attacks versus the threat of cyber terrorism

where the goal might be to, you know, take out part of power grid, for example. and i'd like to have you focus in. you ended your testimony a little bit with the private sector being in a position where they have more intel on their potential competitors, but i think you were talking about economic cyber attacks in this that arena. so -- in that arena. so the question i have is what can we do better with existing authorities? and then the second question that i would like to hear from all of you about is, you know, i don't know how long the journey will be until congress actually passes legislation on this topic to supplement the executive order and to respond to many of the issues that have raised, bu- that have been raised, but there's been lots of comment about -- and, secretary ridge,

you talked about don't make this prescriptive, don't make this regulatory. .. >> in which all of the attacks are aimed at stealing

information. and we've seen enormous amounts of that, aimed at practically everybody who might be of interest to any foreign government with any capabilities in this area, and probably everybody on this panel and certainly everybody on this committee has been attacked in an effort to gather that information. so that's a serious pandemic problem right now. sabotage, or cyberwar, cyber terrorism, designed to break systems so that they don't serve us is a very serious possibility. i'm not so sure about terrorism. i don't think it's been very healthy for al qaeda leaders to use the internet in the past, but state aided terrorism, if we actually did attack syria, i think we would have to worry that iran or hezbollah or some organization assisted by them would engage in cyber attacks on the united states designed to

cause failures in financial or industrial control systems, and those could be very serious. all of those attacks tend to use of the same basic techniques. you break into a standard commercial network and then you try to hop to the industrial control network that you can break and caused serious damage. and so, stopping the espionage attacks, making it much more expensive to break into systems to steal secrets is probably our first and highest priority. under existing authority, we do have authorities to investigate the schmick companies know a lot about who is a network. i present a lot of them, and experts that they hire will say oh, yeah, this is a this unit of the people's liberation army, or some other criminal gang. we know by the things they are doing, the code they're leaving

behind can do it is. and we will tell you what their tactics are going to be for the next 24 hours or 40 hours. we can tell you what you -- what they are trying to steal and why. so they know about just looking at activity on their network, something that may not be available to law enforcement. what they can do is go to the command and control servers that are being used to steal the information, or to the headquarters computers. for that you often need law enforcement authority. law enforcement doesn't have all of the background information. we need to find a way to use existing law enforcement authorities, and existing resources and information that individual companies have to actually track those back home, and then begin looking for recently created penalties that can be applied. again from using existing authorities, we can deny for any good reason. the president and congress can impose financial sanctions on

individuals have committed this kind of crime. we've got lots of authorities we have not yet used. >> i think the progress that has been made with executive order was signed by the president regarding cybersecurity and infrastructure protection has taken a major step forward. i think as was mentioned earlier in this to using proprietary data, issues of liability build the hesitancy and the private sector to want to fully get onboard with that. i think the conversation has been started in the last two weeks with the release of the draft, voluntary framework by nist to advance that discussion further. there are some critics who said that's too general and not detailed enough to be effective. my position would be go to a to point through version and have a conversation and moving forward and involving the private sector and that is really what's needed. but if you look at this problem, this is a classic case of

macroeconomics and what's the inherent governmental role, what you the private sector be doing? and i think there's a consistency in the country what those roles are. whether the market will secure clear or whether the government will provide that. i think they got away, share the information is currently outclassed by when the government and get that out of the people who needed. on the other handneeded. on the other hand, when they're attacked, give that information so it can be used when they're concerned about regulatory oversight, potential civil and criminal penalties associated with it. i will just say this, there are a lot of people out there trying to work this problem. i've had the opportunity to work with an organization in pittsburgh called the national cyber forensics and training alliance. is a 501(c)(3) organization with development at the local folks at carnegie mellon, local fbi office. they have got it developed a way to create what i call a metaphorical switzerland, collocated in the same place,

capable of just walk across the hall and exchange information to understand the protocols building trust and so forth. we have to figure out a way for both of those parties to come into an area where they are free of risk organizational risk, to provide information and exchange it. if we can't do that it is a matter what the role of the government is, what the role of private sector is. it's not going to work. of all the conversations i've had regarding this very complex problem, the national cyberforensic training alliance has come closer to try and figure out exactly how that works. i was just the committee might want to reach out and talk to them. >> senator, i think -- [inaudible] >> i believe quite a bit of progress has been it since the establishment of the department with regard to addressing cybersecurity, although i think we all have to honestly admit, in 2003 wind enabling legislation was created, there

was no one i think that was as concerned about, some may have been, the emerging threat of cyber incursions as we all are today. is accelerated to its pretty remarkable if you think we could marginalize the internet in 92 or 93, and now it's the backbone of absolutely everything we do. and so the sensitivity and concern with regard to distinction between what's an economic event and what's actually a more defensive directed our offense directed security incursion is a legitimate one. we know who the actors are. you have nationstates, terrorists, hackers employed by nation states and terrorist. you have organized crime. there are multiple challenges indian with this. even if we can attribute, if we can actually attribute who the attacker was and made the determination the consequences, what do we do about it? what do we do about it?

i mean, and i think that speaks to the kind of collaboration that focuses on information sharing in a true public-private partnership with the private sector rather than compliance. because with due respect to my profession, as an attorney i don't see compliance lawyers as being the best means of assuring that we have enhanced our security in this country. because regulations will be a check block and it will check in cd with the federal government wanted to do, and, frankly, the technology available today offenses and defenses as we speak is changing and it will be different tomorrow in the years ahead. so i think the best insurance right now is to take, frankly, the embrace of i think it is pat gallagher running nist within

testified press on this committee previously about look, let's continue down this path and setting voluntary standards that both the federal government and the private sector agreed upon and let's see how well they do about taking those standards and advising the kind of defensive infrastructure that they need before we start thinking about regulations. because i'm afraid we will never be -- i'm going to say this. congress for five years ago appropriately gave the dhs chemical facility, antiterrorism standards and regs. i think we are three or four years later there's a lot of people working really hard on it. but that delegation of authority doesn't mean it was executed in the appropriate way. and i'm simply saying for the time being i think we ought to let this, i think president obama set it up with his executive order to think we ought to let that come to fruition before we even think about standards can for think

about regulations. i might add, thre three '04 cril sectors that i think you alluded to, you financial services, energy, transportation. i must say from my experience these sectors has been and will continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars some time on their own, sometimes in cooperation, in collaboration with homeland security. but we've evolved a long way. i remember we created a computer emergency response in carnegie mellon because this was an emerging problem back in 2001 and 2002. now it's a fact of life. we will be dealing with this for evermore. forevermore. and i don't think we will ever have regulatory compliance teams able to keep up with the and -- the dynamic and private. my recommendation, even though i think the question is very important one, i think we need to let the nist standards play out and really push t the former collaboration between the public and private sector. my company deals with some significant private sector

companies that deal with cyber issue, and one of them walked into one of the agencies and said, we've been hacked into and the agency said, we know. they said, well, we are a tax paying group of folks, did you ever think might be helpful if we sat down and worked together on it? i think again focusing on collaboration and sharing rather than compliance is the best approach for the time being. >> do you want some more time? all right. we made good use of that. start a second round. i want to preface -- limited, unit pat gallagher. he did testify before our committee earlier this year. and from nist, and he said, every now and then shows this great wisdom, and his testimony before us, i'll paraphrase, he said, we will know we are on the right track when good

cybersecurity policy and good business policy are one. that's what he said. that's pretty good, pretty good advice. we've gotten a lot of pretty good advice here today as well. we also -- let me preface my next statement by saying, here we are at the anniversary of 9/11. here we are, maybe days before the u.s. could launch limited cruise missile in syria. here we are, knowing that cyber front attack 24/7. and we have an in secretary pomata could and we have an acting deputy secretary of homeland security. and that just cries out for administration and for us to do our jobs to make sure we have in place the kind of confirmed leadership that we need capable, confirmed leadership. okay, that having been said, let

me turn to a topic i just mention come it's on our minds come and that is the potential for military action, limited military action in syria, and less the country really pushes and dismantles of their capability great more chemical weapons. the prospect of our using military force is a sure smell, it weighs on us all. certainly the president who came and visited our caucasus yesterday, both democratic and republican. i want to ask as we prepared to make whatever decisions we need to make in the days ahead in conjunction with the president, i think it's important for us to get the answer to a few more questions. i would like to ask this season panel of national security experts for some of your thoughts. if the president does choose to

take a limited military action against the assad regime, what impact do you think that might have on homeland security? what should dhs be doing to prepare for some potential consequences that would flow from u.s. action, even limited basis, against syria? please. and mr. baker, if you would like to lead off, that would be great. >> we absolutely need to prepare here, by taking on syria we are also taking on hezbollah and iran, the backers of that regime. and if they choose to try to make the united states regret the sanctions it imposed is, they have very substantial capabilities.

hezbollah has its own cruise missile's, and so a terrorist organization with that kind of capability certainly can develop and use cyberattacks, or can send people to the united states to carry out attacks. so we would have to go on a pretty substantial basis. they would be biting off a lot. they are already on alert against israel and fighting in see themselves, so they may decide this is not prudent to attack, what hope is not a strategy for us. we need to be worried about defensive capabilities. and for the first time, we face the risks that will have a cyber attack aimed at giving us to quit engaging in military action. iran is widely blamed for a series of attacks on our financial institution -- institutions that have been busily punch bowl exercise in which the attackers announce how

long the attack will last and what day it will happen. and, obviously, they could do more and cause more damage. and again, iran, having blamed us for stuxnet come is going to be less constrained about using that kind of weapon against the united states on behalf of an ally like syria. so we will have to up our game, both physically and virtually. >> thank you. admiral allen. >> let me start with the caveat. it's been several years since i sat in the tank but i'm not up to speed on operational briefing so i will talk in generalities, would want to speak for anybody or make any comments that would not be appropriate in this situation but in regard to cyber threats were there to any untoward act and it could be generated by the time one of the problems is we're trying to involve these structures and we talked about extensively here

today, it's tough to talk about how you would do it when the answer is let's talk like you need to do it and you haven't done it yet. but let me focus on something called advanced persistent threat which is something is international. it relates to a stewart is talking about. there are footprints that are left regarding behaviors that go on after that are indications something is going to occur. one of the reasons the changes that need to be made in the cybersecurity posture this country have made and continue to be looked at an executive order and the nist standards and everything else is that we need to move to continuous monitoring and after that we need to move to continually be able to look at the precursor of the context being set for an attack and we do know what those are. no longer has do with basic analyzing social need is people talk about this. so in regards to the any threat situation, and this was specifically, i think there ought to be a fine-tuning of our

sensors out there related to what's being talked about in social media and what types of activities are taking place. you know, back after 9/11 we used to talk about chatter. well, we have a much better capability now, we have a mismatch in computation and bandwidth management in this country. we don't utilize enough into this publisher i think in this case will be looking at advanced persistent threat because if they're going to do anything immediately, they've already had to put the mechanisms in place to do it. >> thank you. governor. >> i appreciate the question, and i must be based on our relationship, we've had conversations, i'm going to resist the opportunity to tell you how i think we got into this mess and i think what ought to get out of it and answer your question exactly. it reminds me of the national security council coming over to what was then a small core staff

between -- the intervening six weeks before we opened the door on march 1, 2003, the first day of the department of homeland security. a couple mayors of the national sector staff came over and said very confidential at the time, we will probably going to our right did we know you don't have a department, but maybe you should think about the potential blowback in this country and what can we do about it to minimize the effect. so one, i think your question is very appropriate and play the what if. and then figure out how we respond to the if occurs. i think we've learned a lot since liberty shield. i think frankly the state and locals are far better prepared to we know defcon, even the much-maligned and occasionally referred to color-coded warning system which i will carry for me -- it with me for the rest of my life. we know now there are certain level of securities and are

embedded in federal government and even within some of state and locals and the either such a, number one. number two, i think the most likely push back would be in the cyber realm. and to that end, again, it's a great place for me to suggest that this is precisely where the federal government should be centering -- sharing the precursors it may know or the addresses it is seen as it relates to the digital incursions that we've been hit with from the syrian army, perhaps has will and the like. this is a classic example where we probably in this instance are more familiar with the electronic incursions directed at us from russia, syria, et cetera, at precisely the time that information should be shared with not just and locals but with the private sector. so long-term i think we are far better prepared to respond to an

attack as if you think the word seven years, we are far more resilient today than we were 12 years ago. but this is an excellent opportunity for the federal government to share some of the information. i'm sure they have that the private sector would like to check, check that information against what they see occurring on the grid with state assistance, financial institutions and transportation, et cetera, to see perhaps if they're missing something and could be better prepared because an electronic attack, digital attack if we go into syria. >> thank you all for those very, very thoughtful responses. governor ridge mentioned he will take him to his grave, for the leadership he provided with respect to the color coding. i'm not so sure if there's some way to work it into your tombstone, the narrative of her lifetime. my wife said reason why he's been so much time on postal

reform? dr. coburn and i along with her staff spent and inordinate amount of time trying to agree, and agreement, bipartisan legislation. she was giving me about something about postal reform on my tombstone and i thought aboutit, maybe we'll be appropriate would be these words, return to sender. >> again, it's a classic example, something that congress will have to deal with i believe. well, we know that russia and china cyberattacks as part of their public war fighting strategy. we know this is a condition of not only military and diplomatic business activity, international activity for the rest of the world, but again, it's a place we need the private sector and the public sector to sit down and really cooperate and determine if there is an attack and what are the consequences and who's responsible for returning it to sender? all this has to be worked out, and again, i think this calls

for collaboration, cooperation, communication and it doesn't require for a regulatory scheme where you check the compliance box but he feels they are safe after that. >> thanks so much. dr. coburn. >> i think governor ridge agrees with this but i would love to have the other panelists thoughts. we spend billions on grants every year. is it your opinion that those grants ought to be risk-based rather than parochial-based? >> absolutely. >> admiral? >> senator coburn, following the attacks of 9/11 i was in the atlantic area as i said earlier. i was concerned about the posture of our ports on the east coast. and i put a team together that developed port security risk assessment model, now is called maritime security risk assessment model by which we look at and we look at index

trading off or all your protecting in the port a son risk and consequence. i remember having a conversation with secretary chertoff about implementing that at the secretary level across the department to inform the grant programs, and early on we had a pretty significant impact in doing that because there was a lot of logic to attach to we did. until secretary chertoff ran into the buzz saw called new york city. we are all still stinging from that adventure a couple years ago. i unequivocally agree with you got to be risk-based but it ought to be conditions-based companies on the adherents of local communities to stand like the national incident management system, it ought to become a mighty link to out there making decisions on land use and reducing risk but i think there's every argument in the world to do that in a constrained budget environment. >> one quick comment for me. again, i want to go back to the real position of congress that it conjures up a couple conversations i had when we are trying to move it to risk-based that i couldn't agree with you

more than my colleague avedon going out the door on to be risk-based but i think the transit of all the agencies is probably more susceptible political meddling and interference an impact than any others. an example, once got into the second year of the urban security initiatives, action images, we had fbi talk about an intel community really assess based on the prior use intelligence gathering and try to come up with a risk assessment model, vis-à-vis the cities that were potential impact of them just giving the volume and traffic. long story short, from one year to the next it took several cities off because on a risk-based analysis of the preceding year, they were no longer on the priority list. congress, those who represented those communities, it was not deafening but it was very loud. not that we listen to it. the fact of the matter is that it out to be risk-based and i

think you're onto something very important. >> one of the things the president proposed that i agree with, i was kind of a loner on this committee, combining all these grains together are you really have an efficient, effective grant program where you said metrics, transparency, follow up and if they are not following what the grant was for, you jerk the money. so that we are to save money by consolidating the grant programs and then we have more money to actually go with the greater risk is. and then follow it up to make sure there's compliance with what the grant was for. they got pretty good cold shoulder here in congress on that, and i got a cold shoulder when our committee marked up when we're still doing things based on parochial rather than risk-based. that's in the law. rather than risk-based we are doing it on the basis of parochial basis. any recommendations on how we can accomplish that?

i don't know whether you agree with the president's recommendation of consolidating these grants and then using them on a risk-based process, any recommendations, one, on how we do that? number two, whether or not we should do it? >> one, i didn't come without a specifically the recommendation, it's very consistent with my thinking as to come after 10 years of maturity and 10 years of growth, sometimes i think growth hasn't become more efficient and effective but it seems to me homeland security is all about risk management and resiliency, and the dollar is out the door and it is based on some kind of admittedly, some kind of assessment. and it would be well to bring that philosophy everything they do as well is the approach in terms of approach being dollars with these grant programs. you might want to allow for,

going to speak computer interest in my friend and colleague, thad allen, i'm not sure if quite enough in regard to maritime risks, poured risks. so you may want to divide whatever that aggregates some might be into two or three verticals whereby you identify the greatest risks, one of which could be the maritime industry, and move on from there. but i know there's a duplication of programs and oversight and i don't think -- to be risk management at this point. >> early on through the port security grant program as well. i would like to attack the larger issue you raised. i was prone to support requests are granted i swear i saw that it was not only recommend can -- recognition of risk but regional approaches. we saw some areas and one of them is houston where they create a regional entity by which they consulted all the

requirements for a grant program. i think whenever you can do that, that kind of behavior ought to be encouraged. whatever you put in place, this would be a lousy metaphor but it still what i can come up with, from the seat of my pansy, it's almost going to have to have an ironclad wall of that that like a brac program. covered in faux, that's what we decided it takes you or not. >> i like that spent i don't know how you structure tha the n law, but you almost have to have a away, secretary our study and the decisions are made that it's a revocable, up or down and it can't be picked apart. the issues, i saw secretary chertoff get wire brushed up year, ran into the political muscle after was trying to diminish the funny but it's not to say new york doesn't have problems but that was a very, very difficult time for us in the department. >> i think admiral allen raises

the point that before think about in terms of how much of your personal credibility and time you invest in that, because even after you have built a pretty good risk system for grants, politics will not disappear, and that risk system, whatever it is, is going to get distorted by the kind of politics that secretary chertoff encountered, and others have. and so you may at the end of the day end up with less mechanical system but not one in which the politics have been eliminated. and at that point it's possibly you ask yourself how much did i really achieve by introducing this risk concept. i believe in it, but in practice i'm not sure that it works as well as one imagines.

>> thank you. my comment on that is you need the backbone of the person running the agency and take the heat but do what's right for the country. when we have a better cat pumpkin vessel in and then you say what those dollars have done to protect us on cybersecurity, advance our intelligence, what else could we have done. so we are not using any top benefit announce. what we are doing is parochial dividing up the pot and we're at a point where personal this country can afford to do that and we don't have the pleasure of doing that. so i think the next homeland security director, secretary, that will be one of the qualifications i'm looking for, are you ready to take on the fight for what's best for the country, not what's best for the politicians. thank you. >> i think it would make the next secretary, future

secretary, it would be nice to have the institution that applies so much pressure, changing their jurisdiction, so that you can apply pressure institution like it because they are institution migh by the keyo reducing that to a reasonable, necessary oversight, collaborative process, a lot of pressure if the decision, legislative decisions that the secretary's obliged to follow is reduced by the substantially and, therefore, held accountable the senators carper and coburn. >> mr. chairman, could i make one quick comment? >> sure. >> there's a lot of different grants others. i saw senator coburn on television make a very strong statement after the tornado in moore, oklahoma. this gets back to your earlier statement by jane harman, and the passage of the emergency supplemental following hurricane say there were some very artful

and to the stafford act that got inserted into the bill that created more leeway and flex builder of the local governments to do with things like debris removal, where there was an economic incentive for them to do what was best for them, but also preserve those funds and allow in for another use. so i think there may be some utility and look at what we were able to do and i realize that was really an unusual way to amend the stafford act but i think there may be some insight there to begin on how you could empower local communities with flexibilities such as an economic incentive for them to do what's right and built off that. i congratulate everybody on that piece of legislation, by the w way. >> i think is back in march, dr. coburn and i held a hearing in this room to examine the progress that's been made in some the challenges that still remain within the management of the department of homeland security.

i'm sure that all of you are aware of the latest high risk report from gao, the department made considerable progress in integrating its components. moving toward, having audible financials and we hope unqualified audit i soon -- soon. but the overall measure of the department remains on the high-risk list. i've been really impressed by the efforts of the department leadership to address these management issues. with the changing of the guard, the impending changing of the guard at the top of the department, they're still a bunch of questions about how the department can sustain and build upon the work of secretary napolitano. and also deputy secretary jane holl lute. what do you do are the most urgent steps the deparle should take to develop strong management institutions and

practices? that's questionable and. one of the most urgent steps the department should take to further develop those practices? and, are there any legislative steps that come to mind that those of us who serve on this committee, and our colleagues, ought to take to strengthen the tools and institutions that the secretary needs to manage the department? and last quick question, i think you were there when we cut the ribbon on the new coast guard headquarters at saint elizabeth's. were you there? >> i was not. i was on travel by day. >> that was a special day. i wish you could have joined us. but how does the consolidation at saint elizabeth's plight into management improvements? those three questions that you can all take a swipe. three strikes, three pitches. just make sure your --

>> fastball, send you. i'm not familiar with the report, not the contents of the report with regard to management. i've often said that the department of homeland security from the get go head to responsibilities and had to deal with simultaneously. one, build a safety and security platform that could do with risk and the safety. the other was the business line integration. it is a business. that is budget that is double. couple hundred thousand employees, and one of the ways, one of the regrets, you could do anything about is if you're going to merge 20 plus agencies with multiple missions multiple treatment requirements and budget requirements, et cetera commencomment private sector, wt least about a year year or so by the time you got on the federal estate radio toward approvals because homeland security was and still is about mergers, acquisitions, the vestiges and

startups. and the management around those things for the past 10 years apparently according to the gao hasn't dramatically improved. i frankly don't have an answer. i think we've had some really good people there trying to get those things done. but absent buy-in from some of the management changes and restructuring that we might recommend her, and that is buy-in by the congress of the united states per difficult to make reforms. but it is not just endemic to homeland security. i just truly believe that there are still silos within the agency that will require that have to be merged and it can only be done with legislative oversight and direction. i like the notion of consolidating. i hope you find the money to build out saint elizabeth's, because as secretary, when we would have periodic meetings with the leaders of basically

five or six really muscular agencies, they talk about 20 departments abuse but basically the were five of six and provided most of the employees, and the rest were from just bits and pieces from the of the units of government. and to try to pull your leadership together a couple of times a week taking them from their offices and bringing them over and sitting down for two or three hours a couple times a week was not a good use of their time or ours. we had opportunities t opportunp the kind of data they working relationship that i think that congress wanted when they put these agencies together but it's a tremendous opportunity for a script pieces of security and it's been devastated tactically with customs and border protection working with the coast guard, working with transit. the collaboration is important but i think you get better management if you're the chief leaders at the entity interacting on a day-to-day basis rather than peace be but i also think you get more better management and efficiency if the restructuring has been

recommended by some of us from the outside and the department of homeland security has put into law. >> thank you. admiral allen? >> mr. chairman, this is an area i've got a great passions about so don't feel about cutting me off. let me get a couple of these issues. one of the things that happen with the department was created was we aggregated the authorities and the jurisdictions from the legacy departments but one of the things that's been in cities for over 10 years and i know some talking to staff and the appropriations committees is that we took the appropriations structure from the legacy departments, treasure, justice and so forth, and just move them to a single committee. there is no comparability in the department right now between components of what is the personal costs, operating costs and the capital costs. because of that you can't compare an trade off between components and where you want to make investments. i have said in so doing spoke to him before the house in my view you've got to get down to blocking and tackling if you're

going to take on the management issues. the birthday should be to standardize and appropriations structure and how the budget is presented to the park entrance of the justification so there is comparability that congress cannot make the decisions and less is more transparency and comparability across the department. at least a financial management and to build a better insight and how you're spending your money. they've got a qualified opinion on the audit this last year. is a major breakthrough. the coast guard qualified opinion, first military service to ever do that. that should be taken as the floor, the minimum expectation. it needs -- in his to move forward. i.t. systems, financial systems. there's going to be next to a shared services and maybe a better way to do this. i think all that's got to come on the table. we've got to look at what time to integrate this enterprise and make it run like if you're running a corporation. regarding savings of got to sit on my hands.

i wasn't the commandant woman made the decision to move. and all i said was, i will support this. i'm behind it. i just don't want to go there without the secretary. and i'll leave it at that. there are issues with the federal building buns, how this whole progress has been fun. issues with the department, the district of columbia planning entities your but the overriding imperative, a central operations influence the sector can operate and make decisions as secretary ridge said is a primary need for this department. it is in my written testimony. i won't belabor the fact you. and national operations and, unify department operation of situational awareness, absolutely imperative moving forward. >> all right, thank you. mr. baker? >> i certainly agree with admiral allen on -- based in washington that where you stand

depends on where you sit. and did you think that if dhs sits together, they're likely to stand together much better than they do today. and so to the extent that we can get everybody in one place, we are much better off. i, too, am a little reluctant to make suggestions for changing the details of management department i've left a few years ago. i think that there are probably some opportunities with respect to the quadrennial homeland security review. to turn that from an exercise in which we look at some very interesting and difficult issues into something that turns our budget into a multiyear, thoughtful priority driven exercise rather than something which we say how much do we have and what can cut? and to the extent that authorizing legislation can move

in the direction of actually influencing budget decisions, i think it would be an enormously effective way of dealing with the looming crisis we have with respect to appropriations for everybody, and making sure that the cuts are much smarter than they otherwise would be. >> thank you. before we wrap up, let me telegraph my final pitch. and that is sometimes when we have a hearing like this, i'd like to invite our witnesses to just give a brief closing statements, just a couple thoughts if you want to pull together, just underline a few things and leave those for us. i would welcome, we would welcome that. i would just yield to dr. coburn for last comments. mr. baker, did you want to give us a closing thought or two before we wrap it up? >> yeah. nothing has made me prouder or

caused me more frustration than my served out the department of homeland security. i am deeply fond of the institution, and i believe that it's making a major contribution to the security of all americans. it has changed our approach to the border in ways that nothing else could have, and that is paid dividends and almost every terrorist incident that has been planned or launched against us since 9/11. him we need the department but we need to be better and we need to be more organized, more consolidated, more coordinated. that's the biggest challenge that the department faces. we've gotten by with three great leaders, but we can count on personality driven unification

forever. we need to institutionalize it. it's a good challenge, especially with the oversight authority that exist but it's a challenge that you have, and i driven on this panel in your effort to accomplish. >> thank you. admiral allen. >> mr. chairman, in regard to some of the mission areas we talked about, cybersecurity, comprehensive immigration reform and so forth to a lot of that will necessary involve the congress to do that. i sit on the advisory board of the comptroller general so i am aware of the risk is. gene dodaro and i've talked about this before. i believe when it comes to the interiinternal management of the department of homeland security, there are adequate authorities in the secretary, administrative space to operate. i think there needs to be a series of discussion about conditions of employment and and has an agenda related to activities and social integration in the department for the next leadership team moving in. those ought to be clear and

distinct and ought to be enforceable in the budget. and they ought to be laid out with metrics attached as senator coburn will probably want to i do not believe in legislation is needed to take of the management improvements that the department could intimate community. >> governor ridge? >> [inaudible] >> back on those days when there was considerable debate innocent as to whether not we could need it, department of homeland security, and i remember my friends on my side of the outset we're creating a brand-new bureaucracy of 180,000 people. i hopefully reminded and andy believe me, new jobs, just going to consolidate units of government that distorted admissions related to protecting our borders. and gaining knowledge about the people and the guts to come across our borders. long needed in the 21st

century world when the interdependency of information sharing for law enforcement purposes and interdependency of countries with regard to security is a part of our daily lives and how we're going to live. we are interdependent. i think congress did the wise thing. i do think they did bring together the right agencies. i think the department has evolved and matured, and i'm reminded sean o'keefe phone call to me after it was announced as being the next president's nominee to be the secretary of the department of homeland security said,, yeah, a couple decades ago we saw there was a smaller aggregation responsibility of created nasa. and he said, decades later i still see the vestiges of culture in silos in this indeed and in this organization. so i don't think we should be surprised that we have as much progress as we all think we need. were not as efficient as we need to be. we are not as risk based as we

need to be. i do think anything is wrong with the management structure but i do think it needs to be efforts to oversee the oversight of that structure to hold both the congress and the department far more accountable for the outcomes we want. at the end of the day i think you've touched on some very important issues and i'm proud to spend sometime with these panels. it is about information sharing, about risk managed approach. i would hope you can resolve these issues. i realize that again, ironically enough, the issues that i just race are not necessarily all within the exclusive purview of this committee, which speaks to one of the challenges i think that congress has. but at the end of the day, i think i'm proud of been the first secretary. i would like to see some of it accelerate. i'm just not convinced because it's gotten bigger or better. i don't investigate nothing to do with a well-meaning intention of the people who go to work

there every single day to make you and i safer and more secure. it just hasn't the collaboration and oversight whether congressman i think it's essential. the end of the day for mission is the same at the department of homeland security. keep the country safe and secure, do it in a way that is consistent with the constitution and the rule of law. and big challenge associated with that is in 2003, but with the snowden revelations and the vast impact of the digital world, cyberworld, that challenge to maintain the privacy of individuals and protection of these rights under the constitution becomes more complicated for this committee and for the congress of the united states, and i look forward to future invitations to share my point of use with all of you are committed to making a stronger and better department. i thank you very much. >> it is we who thank you. we thank you for this day. we thank you for your preparation for this

conversation. and for your continued service to our country. i have a closing statement i will submit for the record and i will just say this. i think some remarkable progress has been made in the 10 years. thank you for that initial leadership since this department was launched, and for admiral allen and for mr. baker, for your great leadership as well. this is as much progress may have been made, there's good more to do. it's not a climb to rest on our laurels. i like to say that everything i do i know i can do better. and clearly this is true in terms of protecting our homeland. so we leave here knowing that on this very special day, we've learned a lot of lessons, and i think we are taken appropriate steps to secure, better secure our nation.

but obviously there's a whole lot more that we can do. dr. coburn take me a really good idea earlier this year, and that is that we should do a top to bottom review of the department. and to try to figure how we go about reauthorizing the department. he said this is an appropriate time to start that process. and wha what you done today is laying a force, really a banquet of knowledge, great ideas. enormously helpful to us in this process. so we thank you for all that. it's great to see. want to thank our staff for putting sing together to all of them a great job and we are grateful to each of you. without having been said, there in record will remain open for 15 days until i think september 26 at 5 p.m. for the submission of statements, and questions can any questions for the record. with that, again, our thanks and our thoughts and prayers for those whose lives we remember

today. god bless. thanks. we are adjourned. [inaudible conversations] >> today to the american action forum examines the 2008 financial crisis five years late. former congressman barney frank along with vice chairman of the financial crisis inquiry commission bill thomas, and commissioner douglas holtz-eakin are among the panelists. that's life at noon eastern on spam. judges are like umpires. umpires don't make the rules. they apply them. the role of an umpire and the judge is critical. to make sure everybody plays by the rules but it is a limited role. nobody ever went to the ballgame to see the umpire. >> that came across as a statement about constitutional jurisprudence.

that all the judges did was sit there and see whether it was in the strike zone are outside the strike zone. and that suggested the job of the justice was relatively mechanical. at least that's what the metaphor came across as. >> when justice kagan was questioned, she said, well, yes, i mean, you don't want justices to be the focus. you want the law to be the focus. but when the justices make a decision, the law is not always as clear as a ball coming right down to the center of the strike sound, and there's always some, or very frequently some degree of judgment that's involved in determining whether a statute is constitutional or not. >> mark tushnet on the roberts court sunday night at nine on

afterwards. later this month from the nation's capital, look for booktv's live coverage of the national book festival. watch fold a coverage on both saturday the 21st and sunday the 22nd. also this month, booktv's online book club is reading mark leibovich is this town. get involved on facebook and twitter. all part of the tv this weekend c-span2. >> the u.s. congress of mayors commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bombing of the 16th street baptist church in birmingham, alabama. with a discussion of civil rights and economic justice. panelist include the mayors of sacramento, philadelphia and new orleans. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> at this point about just want to thank all the mayors and my colleagues were in office, were in the audience who flew in from around the country to be part of this historic occasion. as most of you know, mayors

arnold different than what happens in washington that there's a lot of bickering and a lot of partisanship, but mayors are about bipartisanship. we're about results. we're about nonpartisanship. we are about getting things done and creating jobs. and we look at ourselves as leaders and there have been books written about today as are listed metropolitan areas and the impact that mayors are having around the country. so we are not going to wait for washington to solve all of our problems but we want to lead by example, bottom up and we believe that's a strength and u.s. conference of mayors. so i this point in time i would like to introduce our panelists. and then i'll ask each panelist to open up with a three minute opening statement. i will ask the first christian and then we'll open up questions to the audience. mayors, i know you have a lot to say some going to have you say a lot in a short period of time so we can get to as many analysts as possible.

our first panel is going to be on reaching economic justice, 50 years ago after birmingham civil rights movement and the march on washington for jobs for freedom, every, while much progress has been made, most of the demands for economic justice have yet to be realized. african-americans are three times as likely to live in poverty and twice as likely to be unemployed as their white counterparts. the minimum wage is still not a living wage. protests around the country include sacramento are making this point very clear. bike inflation adjustment standards, the minimum wage is actually lower today than it was in 1963. our education system marked by the persistent achievement gap is failing to provide students with the tools they need to transcend their social position. the data on racial disparities in income, wealth and social

mobility cannot be any clearer. consistent over the past 30 years, white families on average earn about $2 to every 1 dollar that black and hispanic families earn. in 2008, white families were about four times as wealthy as nonwhite families. this is in the 21st century. since the recession, white families are now about six times as wealthy. and black children are twice as likely to remain stuck at the bottom income quartile as white children of families with the same income level. in a recent interview, president obama reflected, upward mobility, i quote, was part and parcel to who we are as americans, and that's what's been eroding over the past 20 or 30 years, well before the financial crisis. if we don't do anything, then the growth will be slower than

it should be. unemployment will not go down as fast as it should. income inequality will continue to rise. this will not be a future that we can accept, end quote. no, it is not a future that we accept. so at this point i would like to introduce our panel is that i would like to start with mayor michael nutter. he's our past president. he is in his second term as president. i guess you can be a prison in philadelphia. >> no. [laughter] spent mayor of philadelphia as when it is the fifth largest city. he's worked tirelessly for economic education environmental justice. mayor nutter is again the past president of this great organization. we thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> i also want to introduce mayor paul sock one, a veteran and the mayor of madison, wisconsin. he was first elected mayor in 1973 at the young age of 27.

he has not aged much since then. he has served until 1979, tried to go find other work, brought him out of retirement, then he was met again from 1989 to 1997 and then he is back again for mayor again in madison. thank you so much for joining us. mayor strickland joins us with a wealth of experience in both public and private sectors. she was sworn in as mayor of tacoma in january 2010, and has targeted smart growth strategies and doing and passionate doing amazing things in her city. thanks for flying in. probably the furthest today. and last but not least, batting cleanup is mayor landrieu or two was elected mayor in new orleans on february 2010 with a mandate us into getting elected by 65% of the votes. the next day, he got good

fortune, the saints went on to win the super bowl. >> they will win it again. >> doctor head coach back. my friend natalie is doing great things around the super bowl and in the sports world, but the remarkable recovery that new orleans has expressed under his leadership post katrina has been amazing. so at this point in time out like each of our panelists the kind of open up on a state everglades to economic justice, and again, i'm asking each of you to take three minutes or so and when you go longer-term so many on this was a 15 seconds to close up and wrap up here, your final thoughts. it is pointed out like mayor nutter, are pass president, to share a little bit about the wisdom in terms of how we can leverage our body around the pursuit of economic justice. mayor nutter spent mayor johnson, thank you. all of our panelists, reverend price and everyone in the

audience, i actually want to pick up in an area where mayor johnson was just a few minutes ago. that's to talk about the issue of poverty. certainly when we think about where we are right now, this incredible 16th street baptist church, that two weeks ago, the 50th anniversary of march in washington for jobs and freedom, and two weeks later we are here. that march, that effort continues to this day. and we still seek jobs and freedom here in the united states of america. so dr. king's the green lives on in the work continues. who would have thought -- dr. king's dream lives on in the work into the. i'm not sure anyone 50 years ago would have thought that an african-american would be elected president of the united states of america. and that gives you a sense of the continuum of where we've been and how far we've come but we certainly know that we have a ways to go.

so i want to talk about the issues of poverty across the united states of america, and then more specifically in the city of philadelphia. fortunately, we have a very high poverty rate in philadelphia, the highest of the top 10 cities in the country. poverty has a tangible cost the lives and opportunity. less money spent in the economy, let's economic opportunity for individuals who suffer a him this was a poverty, adults and serving children as well as dealing with issues of literacy, education and upward mobility. we have put out a plan info difficult shared prosperity for building. we look at all the very sources of funding that come from the state and federal government. we realize we're spending about $700 million from different agencies inside those and everyone believing that they're doing their work, doing it well but not coordinating with other agencies. we have all of that funding

under one umbrella, create and you anti-poverty office community empowerment and opportunity ceo. and better manage the resources that we have. set certain goals and guidelines on how we address the issue of poverty in philadelphia. while at the same time focus on the true 21st century civil rights issue which is the issue of education and educational access. 50 years ago, folks were of course fighting for access to a lunch counter. they're fighting for access to a job, fighting for access to be able to live where ever they want our love will never they want or marry whomever they want. today we are fighting for economic access and to the internet and to a great education and to funding education properly, all across the united states of america but certainly current fight in philadelphia and in pennsylvania. education will let folks out of poverty, give them access to the resources of our country and the

world. and so our fight in philadelphia is to make sure that the 500,000 or so people who are not reading at a proper level today did the access to resources that they need. we've used federal resources to create something we call key spot. 77 computing centers all across the city of philadelphia using federal funds to create jobs but more importantly they create economic access for young people and those who are young at heart. so the issue of poverty and how it affects cities and our economy but more importantly our people is i believe an issue that we need to focus on. if you're going to talk about economic justice, we have to talk about how those issues are tied together and that really is the work and the march that still needs to take place 50 years later. thank you. >> thank you, mayor nutter. to get a chance to come back to the things he talked about. at this point i would love to

afford the kind of give his remarks as well. >> thank you, mayor johnson. as i share a couple thoughts with you, i think it is important to focus on what mayor nutter just repeated over and over again, which was the word access. if we're going to to achieve justice and equality, there must be the access. when those young men and women sat at the lunchroom counter, they were talking about simply access to hamburger or a soda. they were talking about access to a job, the managing and owning that lunchroom. when they sat in, and rosa parks road the bus, she wasn't talking about just the bus ride. she was talking about driving the bus, working for the company that manufactured the bus, managing the bus company, owning the bus company.

and when those young men and women entered those glasses, they weren't talking about just being there as students. they were talking about being there as teachers, as superintendents, as chancellors, as presidents of universities. and that's been the failure of the past 50 years. while we've opened some of those doors, we have not developed the access to the systems that will create true economic justice. as we've looked at our successes and failures over the years, i believe that there are five areas for which we need collaboration and for which we need a joint effort at both the local and the national level. they are first of all the learning process, whether it is education or is job training. secondly, it is transportation. if you can't access the job, if

you can't get there from here, the job does no good. there has to be quality childcare. one parent by themselves, to parents who are both working, certainly cannot provide the childcare inside the home and at the job at the same time. we know the importance of quality childcare. there must be health care. we can't have children in this day and age repeating what i saw in my own classroom, which is sitting at the front because they can't see the board. they can't see what's written on the walls. and lastly, there has to be housing. without housing, without a fundamental place to go, there is no opportunity for a family to be coherent and to come

again, get access to these systems. along with access we need trust. that's the great challenge for our nation and, in fact, for the world. it's been a very difficult road that we've gone through over the last 50 years. there's been tremendous success, but just as there's been tremendous success, there has been tremendous disappointment. and our job, not in the next 50 years, but immediately, is to deal with those disappointments and eradicate them. >> thanks, mayor. at this time i would love for mayor strickland to give her initial thoughts on economic justice. >> it's an honor to be here today, especially in this historic church. every person who takes the oath of office for me to agree to uphold the constitution. in the preamble of the

constitution says this, so i think it's important to remember our history. we the people of the united states, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity, to ordain and establish this constitution, the united states of america. at our breakfast earlier this morning, our friend from france talk to the america's history. and it's an interesting one. there's a legacy of slavery that it still felt today. but there's actually an indian expulsion act. we expelled chinese people. we interned japanese-americans. we had to fight for civil rights for african-americans in many people. we had to fight for the right for women to vote. and even today, we are having great debate about immigration reform and what that means.

but this country has an interesting history when it comes to justice in general, but especially economic justice. at the local level as mayors we have opportunities to work directly to do somethings. we can't control the decision that every business makes, but we can set policies to encourage economic development and also have rules in place with contracting to ensure that people who get contracts with government are a true reflection of the community they serve. we also have opportunities to stand up for policies that do affect economic justice. young women who have children who are not married are more likely to end up in poverty, and so are their children. when you take away a woman's right to choose, you may confine her to a life of poverty with her children or unborn children. and editing went to talk about here is what exactly is the definition of economic justice. in 1964, when we had the civil rights movement, it was about jobs and about freedom. you can have a job and not be

free. you can have freedom and how job, and still be in chains. so it's important for us to look at the things that help people become empowered. there's a big debate happening right now in my own city about paid sick leave. you see, the labor movement moving forward now trying to recruit members who don't belong to unions so they understand that his union membership goes down, every year, the middle-class suffers in america. we have to make sure that there's a middle class that is strong and is vibrant. when i talk to my friends in the business community i say this. if you want your business to succeed, you have to have buying power. will do better when we all do better. we've made great gains as the country is for civil rights, but there's a lot of work to do. mayor johnson said earlier, the unemployment rate is disproportionately higher for people of color. the incarceration rate is disproportionately higher. we look at the education

achievement gap, disproportionality begins when the. we know good and well but we still have a hangover from the institution of slavery and other decisions we've made. but as mayors we work in a bipartisan manner. we work together because we are about getting things done. so thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today. >> thanks, mayor strickland. mayor linda, give us your remarks. >> thank you. reverend rice, thank you so much for having us at the 16th annual baptist church but it really is awe-inspiring to be sitting here at this place where history changed for a lot of different reasons. and i am mindful of the comments of all the mayors up here. mayor nutter spoke about poverty, spoke about health care. he spoke about education. mayor soglin talk about child care and other issues. one of the comments have been

that the institutions that have given aid and comfort and support that human beings can actually curl up and enjoy the fruits of life are deteriorating into unitein the united states . i say that because in the shadow of two weeks ago when president obama stood on the steps of the lincoln memorial, on the shoulders of dr. king, in the shadow of abraham lincoln, who was there on the shoulders of frederick douglas and harriet beecher stowe. we have to acknowledge that we have come a long way in this nation. it is quite amazing, and you can see the cadre of mayors, elected officials, scientists, doctors, lawyers, athletes that are physical manifestation of how far we have come. and we have to take a moment though to recognize that we

still have a very, very long way to go. and i think the first thing that has to be said forcefully is that people in america think we are beyond the issues of race, they are wrong. .. and had the freedom to struggle for better education, to struggle for a better job. but the catastrophic life on the streets of america every day is

challenging neighborhoods and families individual ability just to get to the next day. that's one of the things, in my opinion, we have lost our pass on. john lewis said not long ago we didn't get beat on the way to selma so that people could kill each other. and there is too much of that going on in america. it's an issue we have to address. as we speak about the united states moral responsibility abroad, which we have, we don't always speak of our moral responsibility at home to make sure each individual has the access to the essentials freedom, which is to walk the streets safely without fear of being able to go home and see your momma. as we think about adimae columns and 50 years later the taking of their life, we may forget london samuels and new orleans who was

shot last week. or we may forget arabian gails who was shot the next day or jeremy, who was two in his mother's arms when he was shot. all of the victims before the stroke of midnight tonight. and when you speak to that issue and ask why it's happening it takes you to the of your issues, education, dropout, poverty, beebee is having babies. a difficult issues we have to consider to be the unfinished work, the unfinished work in this nation and as you say as we strive to form that more perfect union we have to admit we have a long way to go. but we will not get there if we do not find the issue and talk about it and that is what mayors do. we ra do tank, not a think tank. to talk about specific ways to get us to that aspirational please call the more perfect

union. >> thanks, mayor landrieu. >> this week is so historical. i'm going to ask you a slightly different question first. if you were there in d.c. a week or so ago on the steps of the lincoln memorial when president obama, an african-american president, made his remarks. prior to that you had president carter, president clinton, you had john lewis, andy young, all of these legends think -- what e you thinking as you sat there and watched it take place? >> it was a term that mayor landrieu mentioned. it was awe inspiring. it was the realization for

myself trying to think back to the year i was like 6-years-old. 6-year-olds are not thinking -- most are not thinking about growing up and being mayor one day, that it can happen, and it is a reminder of what is public service all about? what are we supposed to be doing? how do we utilize the gift that we have been given, the tools that we have, the inspiration that has been provided and the example? mayor landrieu talks about congressman john lewis saw' comments. folks sat at lunch counters not just to get a meal or rode on a bus not just to get from point a to b. this was about dignity and respect.

that iconic sign that we would see all the time i am a man. there should have been some that said i am a woman but it's about human dignity. for me it is a reminder of what this work is really about. i always appreciate, but i never really satisfied. as long as we have the homicide rate -- evin of its coming down in the united states of america as we see coming and mayor strickland talked about the incarceration rate, the illiteracy rate, the unemployment rate. every possible indicator that you can measure in many instances on the good side african-americans and other people of color at the bottom. on the bad side, at the top. and especially black men. so for me it was, you know, the awesomeness of the moment and the reminder that when we get back home there is still more work to be done. how do we address these issues and as the nation i will close

with this. what is our national poverty reduction plan? what is our national anti-crime strategy? what are we doing as a nation to raise literacy rates and significantly lower the unemployment rate? how much money we save but more importantly how many lives would be saved or improved if we were able to put those resources together and coordinate the way we try to do in our cities but we cannot solve all of it by ourselves as mayors of the great cities of the united states of america. and this is where state and the national government really have to be partners with us. >> thanks for that, mayor nutter. in this church there were four little girls and young lady and there's often a story people don't remember that there were survivors else well so not only

do the four little girls and their spirits live on the there was a young lady named sarah collins rudolph who could have been a fifth of what is still living in the birmingham area. what is your perspective as a woman as it relates to these four little girls whose dream has been snuffed out, but their memories and spirit lives on? how has that motivated you for what you do? >> there is nothing more devastating than imagining children dying. only where their survivors that could have been victims themselves, there are parents have raised these young girls. so when i think about them as victims, it is sad. it's profound. but also, it inspires us. now we know that those bombs were put here by the kkk and a period in america that wasn't our shining hour. we have to let their memory lives on for something good. we are sitting here in the church today and that's very important.

but it also reminds us of what could have been possible for those young girls had they lived. well with their lives be like today. i don't have the answer to that question. but it's really about understanding that no life is more precious than the life of the child. there is nothing more devastating than a parent having to lose their child. all the work that we do mass mayors and your work on education and the education reform, we have to understand every successful generation must do better. it's our responsibility as leaders to make sure they do that. that is my memory for those girls. >> mayor am i but love to ask you one question historically as well. um, this movement for civil rights is not just about african-americans or those left on the sidelines. and we diaz mayors understand the importance of bringing different sectors of people together. so, from your perspective not just african-americans, what did

you believe everybody else's responsibility was and has been and should be as it relates to the civil rights movement as we stand here today, 50 years from what transpired at birmingham clacks >> it seems to me that it is not good enough to say on p.m. a person of good will. that we have to learn that there is a high your standard. i commend those companies that buy the advertisements for the banquets and a buy a table at the annual dinner. but we have to ask a more profound question. when we walked through the halls of your company and we look into the offices, do we see a work force that is not reflective of the larger community?

not reflected in regards to race and gender and religion, to the diverse ethnic communities within your city. i like gannett, and maybe it is a crass but i liken it to this. if every morning you were to wake up in your city and there were to be millions of dollars of gold in the city streets. would you not be foolish to let it lay there? would you be better off picking it up and utilizing that economic resources? well, when we look at our cities today with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of men and women, and i not just saying young. i am saying of all ages who are not participating in the work force, are we not losing those

millions of dollars of resources to our economy that they would contribute? it's not good enough to say i am a person of good will. we need action, we need decisions, and that is the only way that we are going to reach this next level. because right now there's a significant number of americans who think that we are out of the recession. the stock market is hitting new records for much of white middle class america. the worst days are behind us. but we have got cities in this country where african-americans, latinos, asians, they are still at 25, 30% unemployment. and that is unacceptable. and i don't know what else can be said. thank you. >> last question and then we will jump more specific on what the mayors are doing. mayor landrieu, we talk about

the march, the 16th street bombing. we know what took place on bloody sunday. certainly the edmund bridge, montgomery, mobile, selma. you have a unique perspective because you're father also played such a historical role as it relates to civil rights. and you win in new orleans have interacted with people of different persuasions. what is your kind of sentiment as you reflect back on where we are from the race standpoint and from a historical standpoint in celebrating the march on washington? >> you know, i went back and i looked at some old papers. i was just born and in my mother's arms when my father, who was one of 105 legislators was one of two that voted against the segregation package of jimmy davis to the and

basically lived my entire life in this space and a wonderful city where the sec alcee was formed many years ago. but unfortunately across the street where 24 years later a little boy named james was shot by another guy named josette. so i have two thoughts about it. number one, the civil rights movement was clearly at that time making sure that african americans had justice and equality, but they really just was not about african-americans. it was about whether the united states of america was going to live up to its aspirations and its potential and the larger message is that where some americans go, all of us go. and where some of us go all of us don't know. we are a nation, indivisible. and that word is really written for a purpose.

what it means is that we are inextricably bound with each other. so in a major city with the need is majority, minority or not, if 30% of the people in that city don't have access, to decrease one's ability for availability of health care or whatever, that does not allow them to be productive, giving citizens then they are not and the entire body of the community suffers. as paul said i think was dutifully stated. would you really block by a spot of gold on the street and not to get up and how wasteful is it to have something that is so valuable and walked past it. i want to make a distinction here to be aware is our national come he didn't say federal, he said national. those are different things. it isn't about the mayor going to the federal government saying solve our problem for us. but it's about those of us that had the great pleasure of serving people in the city

saying where is our national purpose and our commitment to make sure that we as a nation are strong? and this is not just a domestic issue. it is a national security issue. you have people like richard hauss to the national security adviser for many presidents interested abroad, who has postulated that. we really cannot be strong abroad if we are not strong at home, and it is a worthy question to ask at this particular point in time as we contemplate along with the president but is quick to be on the international front with the united states of america has done what is necessary to be strong at home. because the strength of the country is built on the foundation of the value and strength of each citizen. so in the city of new orleans if 47% of the young african-american men between 16 to 32 are not employed or they have dropped out of school are

they were not in a constructive place the question then gets to be how important is that to the country and i would postulate to you that it's very strong. and i would finally say this. as elected officials we don't hear the word poverty very much in the debate. we have to grow a middle class. the middle class is the basis of the country but not for somebody to get to the middle class if they are there the have to be someplace else and that some place else is poverty and there has to be a specific way to come up with a plan to say what are the specific steps, what is the path to prosperity, is it a better relationship between the federal assets and the state assets and city assets as the mayor gmp and is part of it and as the mayor scott said corporations begin to understand and put their money where their mouth is to make sure that their employees rank. is it a better relationship between primary and secondary

education, job training? the answer is all of the above but it has to be purposeful and it has to be thoughtful and a custody moving to a specific target the nation sets for itself because that is what we think is in the best interest of the country. >> now that we are warmed up and on fire and ready to go, i'm going to have you build on a little bit of what mayor landrieu talked about in your opening remarks you talk about poverty and i had heard you make the connection of poverty and violence and opportunities for those that are disproportionately incarcerated and then when they come out. talk a little about what you are doing in your city because you have a unique perspective and i think philadelphia has what i like to think is a national example of what the cities should be doing. >> i said a number of times

certainly in philadelphia and in some other places to pick up on where mayor landrieu was that i consider education should be considered part of the national defence of the united states of america, that the military and our might is incredible that we will win the battle for freedom and justice based on a well-educated population that smart folks figure out a way to take care of themselves and with every respect to the military they are not having the sales to get the tools and equipment they need to get the job to do what we asked them to and get with the need. mayor landrieu has talked about and of course we flew in and we love the tsa, a wonderful organization to make sure everybody is safe i want to know where is the tsa for walking around our neighborhood.

yesterday we recognized the 12th anniversary of the most terrific attack on the united states of america since pro harbor. we have attacked the issue of international terrorism and the security of the united states at an unprecedented level, created a new agency out of cloth at a cabinet position, funded 60,000 people worked there and 8 billion-dollar budget because we want to be safe flying around the united states of america and i applaud that and i do feel secure. we flew yesterday. that same level of commitment and focus on the education of our young people and helping those that have made a mistake we are here in this historic church and so if there is not an opportunity for a second chance or to ask forgiveness here at this church, what kind of americans are we? i do not know a person that has

needed a second chance at some point in time. so if you have very few skills, didn't graduate from high school, haven't worked at a full-time job, done something wrong pay your debt to society and come help with the same bad friends, lack of skills, lack of education, lack of job opportunities and no one will give you a job. no matter how many doors you not gone. why would we expect a different outcome for that person? the number one in the kitchen for what someone will return to prison or not is if they get a job in the first three months of their release. so we spend a lot of time focused on i don't use the term "x offender" we do not call someone that has had a alcohol problem and ex alcoholic. we call with recovery. they are returning citizens that have paid their debt to society. we have a job for returning citizens to philadelphia. if 3200 people signed up, 2500

folks showed the. >> 2500 people showed up for the job fair? >> for a job fair all for folks that had a previous criminal record. we had 100 employers there. they knew the population that they would be addressing. they were enthusiastic. folks want to work and take care of themselves. they recognize there is dignity and work. they don't want to be on the street corners. but if we don't provide the alternative, that's where they will be kidding if you don't have to take the test to stand on a street corner but there are no benefits that go with that. and so, poverty, crime, education, literacy. they are all tied together. that is the way that we will move our cities forward. but more important it's about human capital. it's about investing in people. through the conference we fight these battles at the national level. i do not understand -- and i will be partisan for a moment.

i do not understand why the house republicans would cut the budget by 50%. i do not understand why we don't have across the united states of america universal head start. we know for a fact it is a documented fact you don't have to study this one any more. the kids who participated in the head start program and get off to a good start in preschool and grades one through three. if you are not reading at grade level by the third or fourth grade you will struggle through middle school and you are most likely to drop out of high school. and the overwhelming majority of the folks we arrest for crime are high school dropouts. you don't have to the social scientist with a whole bunch of letters behind your name to make that connection. anybody could figure that one out. [applause] so those are some of the things. and we have an office to provide services to people that have previous criminal records and we are trying to get them back into

civil society. you will reduce your public safety cost when folks who were in prison are now working and paying taxes. i spent 30% of my budget before i picked up the first bag of trash. 30% on public safety. police, prisons, probation parole and the district attorney. think of how much money i could save and put in the after-school programs and job training programs and work force development and parks and recreation and swimming pools and all kind of other activities i didn't have folks running around, can't take care of themselves. there is no excuse even in poverty for beating somebody up, stabbing somebody. i don't know why people commit those kind of crimes. i have to make conditions such that they are not -- that is not what folks are doing. the perlo proliferation of illegal guns on the streets of the united states of america is a national tragedy and crime against humanity in this country. [applause]

>> i warned you that we were getting warmed up to date we have some young people of the audience. let me apologize for the enthusiasm. these are philadelphia fans. they are not doing so well this year. [laughter] mayor nutter, i would like to ask a quick follow-up on what you just said. how are you incentivizing business is? you have a program that i believe you are doing -- >> tax credits, yeah. >> that is important for people on the audience and people watching to understand that we are not waiting for washington to solve all of our problems. >> very quickly. so a couple years ago, working with some of my former colleagues in the city council, we have a tax credit available to businesses that hire someone with a previous criminal record. we will give you a 10,000-dollar

tax credit against your business tax obligation to the city criminal record and you can maintain that. obviously you have to keep the person working. again, try to provide incentives. think of how powerful the would be if i could couple that with a tax credit against state taxes and federal taxes. you literally pay the person salary and more. if we were providing this kind of incentives. and we should be doing other things and we are trying to find other creative ideas. but that is a population that needs to be addressed. and if the folks are just wondering about trying to figure out what to do with themselves eventually they will get into more trouble. >> mayor starts when i read in my remarks president obama talked about in terms of social mobility. in your community it, what are some of the biggest challenges the underserved community is

facing as it relates to trying to achieve upward social mobility because if that doesn't happen, economic justice will not take place. >> the recession that we are experiencing has been a lot longer and deeper than we expected and the reason i bring this up is that the average age of a person that works in a fast-food restaurant is 29-years-old. so when you look at those jobs being taken by adults who should be in different parts of the economic ladder, it means young your people have fewer options to work to the president obama challenge to the mayors to come up with a program and i will talk about one that we are doing because there is a bit of a twist. every major that is sitting up here has a summer jobs program. we started last year in and we did it in a small measure because they wanted to test it out. we took the use of violence prevention dollars and we told the employers you don't have to pay for this, the city will pay the salary of this young person.

so we had 54 young people applying and these were used that were identified as counselors and principles as possible the at risk. but here's the twist. fees for students to work credit deficient so they were two or three credits away from graduation. we recruited these students and gave them more course development training. we had everything from financial literacy to how to dress for success. and also told them about mentorship and the importance of having someone at the end of your work experience who could vouch for you to read these students, 50 of them graduated on time. they were paid $10 an hour throughout the summer and they now have a professional reference they actually end up getting full-time jobs in these programs. so what we are trying to do is make sure that there are opportunities for the young people who are being shut out of the economic ladder and also try to find ways to encourage job promotion and education. one of the things i often talk about is how we sometimes forget that there is a whole industry of building trade treaty and two

year college degrees going into the trade those are good ways to get a good paying jobs. we often talk about the four year universities and professional white collar jobs as the only. we are trying to promote to year colleges, the business trade coming electricians, carpenters, you name it. but also deal with the young people and try to get them work experience of that in the future they are in fact employable. >> thanks for that, mayor. you talk a bit in your opening remarks about access. and you talked about five zearing as: learning, opportunities, transportation, child care, health care and housing. i would love for you to touch at least a little bit on access to health care because when you think about this legacy of the president and how hard he has fought the basic right education is so important because there

are benefits to the affordability to access or almost a prerequisite to be doubled to have in place if we are going to be meaningfully employed. if you wouldn't mind talking briefly on that. >> let's look forward and then i want to step backward for a moment. but with the new affordability health care act, we are expecting some great things if we get enrollment and if we get participation. and some of our state's -- and unfortunately, one of my men wisconsin -- we basically got an absence of commitment. we have fewer people working through our state creating access to the new health care system than there are in the entire city of dalia tuck triet plant has almost times as many people working on it as our state has committed. i make this point because for a

health care system to work, if not only must be affordable, but their must be access and because of the intimacy involved in health care between the patient and the health care provider, they're has to be trust. now about 15 years ago, we set up a program in matthiessen with a health care clinic, south madison community health center was its original name. it was later read title by the community board. over a period of a decade, we started to see black infant mortality dropped. drop from the national levels down to the point where they were matching the levels for white babies. the question is what happened to

it and we really don't know because after a period of time it started drifting again. fortunately not back to the high levels that it was that. but one of the theory is that we have is that we created a climate which was not the patient coming hat in hand to the health care providers. it was a system of community participation and the believed by the patient volume respected and i am treated with dignity. this is all part of health care. if we are going to make the new health care system work, we must respect the fact it is not just about cost. but it is about human dignity. that is part of the goals that we have in this nation in regards to our failures in

health care and fill years in education and failure in employment. that is the mountain we have to climb. >> thanks for that. mayor landrieu, and you articulate this so well, we are not going to be able to talk so much about public safety. you gave one of the greatest speeches that i have heard, bar none. but what i think you also got at this post-katrina. i heard you say that cities cannot wait always on help from washington to the tiny living example of new orleans. but you also challenged us as mayors and you can't wait for a hurricane to fix some of your problems. talk a little bit to us about post-katrina and the economic opportunities that you're getting at the most resilient in a. >> kevin, thanks for that. this is such a comic question to the you were once a basketball

player, right? >> i still am. [laughter] >> why does everyone wait until the last minute to play the best ball? what is that drill in football? the city asks do they need a catastrophe to act. one of the things i spend a lot of time thinking about is what gives us as a nation? sandy hook moved us, columbine, the 50th anniversary has moved us to the hurricanes will move you. we wait in this country until something bad happens to respond to rate. so the whole notion of resilience is important and it revolves around public safety. how do you prepare yourself for what you know me becoming what you anticipate and put yourself in the position of no matter what is you are capable of responding so that your life is not a threat. you see this happening in the northeast.

you actually saw it in chicago as a result of some of the violence of neighborhoods that are strong. there's a common theme where there are strong individuals, strong families, strong churches and communities, people who know each member of the participate with each other, dignity and trust. whether it is a violent crime or hurricane or tornado this is what it looks like so the people in new orleans as a consequence of a lot of stuff, not just katrina -- people don't realize we have a heavy reliance on the tourism industry because of all the major sporting events. after september 11th, the economy of new orleans went to nothing. and after three years of just struggling to get back, katrina hit. then rita, then ike, the gustov

then the bp oil's bill and we are at war and looking abroad. so it was a difficult time. but what is happening is because the survival instinct is really strong, the people of new orleans and an amazing way said, you know, not only know but hell no and we are going to get back up and keep walking because this is what we have. the thing they did that is really -- and then i continue to be amazed they decided and this is something every community is to think about it because your instinct when something bad happens is just to put it back like it was because you want to give back all you knew it to be to get it gave us an opportunity to look at ourselves and to see some soul-searching and to come to an uncomfortable truth that is terrible as katrina and rita. they didn't cause all of our problems. they made what we had a worse. and they made what was beautiful and much more visible and they gave an opportunity to take stock and think about

reorienting ourselves. that in fact is what is happening in new orleans. as the mayor talked about health care instead of us getting health care in one central place that was called charity hospital, especially for the poor, we now have the key primary health clinics. we are working on using the resources that the federal government gave us not only to rebuild the city, i use that for opportunities for jobs and to reconnect because we can't read on washington for everything. as the mayor said, we do something like colin khanna leverage. we bring it to be together and say show me when you've got and i will show you what i have to the we can put it together and do a better job of partnering because maybe we want as effective, as coordinating resources. as mayor nutter talked about a way of getting the federal government, the state government to coordinate all the resources and become the silo to make the government leni, fast coming effective and we are forced to do that, too. but having said all that, no matter how fast we run in the city, no matter how much we do, mayor nutter tuitele there is

going to be a resource gap because the united states of america hasn't chosen as a country at this point in our history to focus our attention on building human capital. and the human capital and the investment in human capital -- that means investing in individuals, right, is the thing that is going to make america strong. as a consequence, it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody that there is weakness in the neighborhoods and in the ability to respond as quickly as we both like to. the call for the national purpose on this issue in partnership with the federal government largest weighting of them is important to us something i think mayors really understand because we are on the ground trying to make it happen in the gaps or really clearer to us than they are to other people. >> thank you so much for that, mayor. we have about 15 minutes left at this particular time. we would like to open up of members of the audience would like to ask a question, we have mics on both sides. we would ask you to come up to

the mics and address the question. i see young people that are part of a group that has -- i getting color blind so i don't know if it is a red or an orange jacket. whenever organizations -- what ever the orange coat and jacket with the tyee one of you at least needs to come and ask a question. whatever group you represent we need to ask a question. is the reverend still here? would you mind coming up? i want to ask a question. and then you can then answer my question. we appreciate you so much opening at the beautiful cathedral. i know you preach on sundays about your ministry going beyond the walls of the church. my question for you or you may want to even direct it to anyone up here is what are you telling the congregation today that is important that they need to know

and remember about economic justice in terms of how far we have come and how far we have yet to come? >> basically we have a message here on jesus christ come in and we also talk about how we could be empowered through the vehicle with education as a mayor nutter talked about that we don't need more studies of education. and our head start programs and our prepaid programs are working so this is a church that is really about educating our young people and educating people of the community. we have various programs that we partner with in the city of birmingham to help diaz mayor nutter talked about returning citizens to come back into the society. we have a program with the family that labeled them and we teach them principles on fatherhood so that they can be doubled to take care of their children because most deadbeat

dads in order to give them skills to work in the work force but will help them and their families and also those in the drug court, those that are first-time offenders come to the court here in the church and compete that course they will receive probations going into prison, but one of the things that we talk about here in 16th street is that we must continue to educate ourselves and invest in the community around us. [applause] >> tell us what organization you are part of with your orange jacket commodore name, your school and then pose your question. >> i hear from auburn university represented the boys and girls and we also have members from the organization here today. >> hold on.

where charles berkeley went? >> yes, sir. [laughter] >> there is a lot of pressure on you. i hope you are going to be a better example than my friend charles who is in the process. of trying to get there. go ahead. [laughter] >> we appreciate you all being here today. this is a wonderful evin. i just want to touch on education that you all mentioned as well as strong community in the country today. things like some people had the opportunity to have a great educational we threw out. however, and other communities we know that that is not the case. i want you to speak on how can we make sure that those resources are going to the schools and the communities that true we need those education resources. >> any others feel free. >> we are going to throw a struggle in philadelphia so probably more detail than you

need. many mayors across america are not directly in charge of their school systems. but i have appointees to the state created agency because pennsylvania took over the schools. but unfortunately it has been cutting the funding for the past couple of years. i took the position. i may not be in charge of the school system, but these are my kids. i take care of their parents trash and i have something to say about the quality of education that they get. so the fight in at least philadelphia and really for pennsylvania is that pennsylvania is one of only three states in america that doesn't use a student weighted formula to distribute funding all across the 500 school districts in the commonwealth. so it's about equity, the quality of education shouldn't be a function of what is it could your parents decided to move to in pennsylvania and in the constitution says the state is responsible to create and efficient form of educational across the commonwealth of

pennsylvania. so the issues of equity and their impact on the urban school district sabin oral school districts and suburban school districts and some can raise their taxes much higher and some have really given without to be where is the state and federal resources for the community's? i think that this is an equity discussion and that there should be a baseline level of educational opportunity at every school and the local community wants to add on top of that, that's fine. but there should be certain things than just standard. art and music from my perspective or at least as important as english and math. the have to be part of a standard curriculum. [applause] >> each mayor believes that education is a top priority in our country to get in fact we would all say that it's a civil

rights issue of our time and if we are not willing to pay the price and do some of the things that the folks in birmingham have done for 50 years, but we are not going to get there. there are far too many of our children that are being left on the sidelines. and you are perfect examples pitting it i made a little fun of charles barkley year earlier. but when he used to play he talked about i am not a loyal model. what he was actually saying is not that athletes shouldn't be all models but we shouldn't be the only role models. the role models are the people like yourself the contract on a daily basis. and we as elected officials need to do our part to engage as many people as possible to participate in this struggle to create an environment where all children have access to the high quality education. so, my last question for you once you graduate, but city are you going to live in because somebody is in trouble. what city are you going to live in? >> backend elliott of georgia. >> i'm going to tell the mayor that he has some of the

following. [applause] yasser. >> first of all i just want to remind everyone that god is good. all the time. naturally visiting i am one of the kids kevin johnson should know about very well we are doing an event that the jackson high school. i can to the church to do my daily prayer and i was blessed to be able to walk in and i just wanted to say thank you to the people of alabama and birmingham for being the birthplace for the people in the civil rights. we have so much to learn for what started here. i live in new york and i work with the youth and i have my own

job nation. the question is what should we be able to do for the youth to continue to follow that right path? >> does anyone want to address this? >> i think there are two things we can do and i think part of this is an answer to the young man who was here previously when we talk about how we can educate your children one of the best things we can do is to help their parents be people that are productive members of the society. while we talk about education, there is so much that goes on outside of the school building that has an impact on education so what are we doing to ensure people have decent jobs that are not living in poverty and have access to health care and dental care? as far as how we can influence you fifth you look at the list of statistics over how kids do well in schools, some of the variables are outside of the classroom. and any child that has a positive relationship with an

adult is going to do better. that adel doesn't have to be someone they are related to. so anyone that is in the audience that talks about what we can do to help our students aside from the kids that may be in your family, are you volunteering and mentoring and are you having those hard conversations and telling them things that they may not want to your? what i often say to people this house are you choosing your friends? because sometimes you need to let go of some folks. are you making good decisions? because we can blame the system all we want but we have to take responsibility and we cannot keep repeating the mistakes and expect a different outcome so it is about being present and saying i am an adult and i care about what is good for you and i want to be there for you. that is the most important thing that we can do. >> thank you. [applause] we have two final questions. we have a question from the gentleman on the left and then we would be honored if the mayor

was asking questions. >> good morning. - frederick to refine the founder of immelt reach -- founder of al outreach. the first person we reach out to is the church. what are the politicians doing to reach out to the church and get out side of the church to reach people because it is here by a school teacher or parent but a preacher. come outside of the walls of the church and get involved in the community because we have a church on every corner of bundy pastor on every corner. >> i'm going to have mayor landrieu enter as that. all of the mayors want to address this but you're point is very well received by all of us. we know that we are not going to get anything done and that is why i am so thankful.

you have to have your ministry on the walls of the church. that's exactly what you're talking about. in sacramento we have the clergy helping us with our issue and the clergy helping us with our homeless issue and whatever educational issues. and you our best examples alabama around the country and i would love for mayor landrieu to address this. >> first of all i believe that we have since 1980 in this country on the issue of violence low expectations to education, higher poverty rates, low birthweight babies, high infant mortality created a culture of behavior from a person of responsibility perspective that has to change. and government even on its best day as a democrat i believe the governor can be an active agent for change cannot replace a personal responsibility, strong

families and communities to make what they are supposed to do. and of course in that space stands like a beacon to pass on to the minister or the community of faith. so the church is important and the civil rights movement was buttressed another chief based community. the first thing they say is i don't want to talk about it because we are going to get into the blame game and some here is how i have decided to process that problem for me. i just want to admit that there are a lot of mistakes made by a lot of people over a lot of time and we can't figure out. we can't spend a whole lot of time then i would say it like this. we are not all to blame. but the fact is that let's get on about figuring out what each of us has to do. i'm not going to speak to anything i can do it and certainly true that there's more than the church can do. and we can't do it without them. one of the things we try to do

in new orleans and the mayor has tried to do this every time there is a major initiative we have to call the preachers together and work with them or they will call you. on saturday we are going to bury an 11-year-old comedienne who was called in the crossfire sleeping on her sofa when there was a drive-by shooting and the bullet went through the front door and hit her in the head. and the 20 passes from that neighborhood that is called mengin town in new orleans and have come together to recommit themselves to do exactly what the gentleman said to get outside of the walls of the church because sunday service is important, really important and so is wednesday night. right? but at the end of the day you have to get out into the neighborhood. one of the things that happened in the churches is the same thing that happened to playgrounds. as neighborhoods have shifted, playgrounds have become more regionals of the kids that are the playground aren't necessarily from that neighborhood and folks going to

the church. when i was a boy i walked down the street and that was a church and my neighborhood but now it's more despair and so it's not as easy. there is a pastor in baton rouge working with us right now creating a formula for the training programs working with them to talk about how you can actually not just by starting a new program but work with your congregation to get into the near-poor redware your church is in partnership with the community and the neighborhoods to help do that. but again, this is like my grandmother used to say, elbow grease. you have to work it, you can just talk it. it requires somebody to show up and be there because as the mayor said and this is almost too simple and obvious that children need to be cared for. the need to be nurtured and molded into human beings that are productive and the only person that can do that is an

adult to test the parent and cogent minister and the somebody else, and then to work. and unless you do that there is a good chance that charnel isn't going to get molded the way you want them to and will find some place to hurt you and then we will be dealing with the other issues. so the church is and the essential component because as the mayor said that trust factor and who can communicate to the individual was critical and the ministers are an essential part not only of the moral authority but boots on the ground. >> i want to close on the face peace and have a mayor asking final question >> one of the things i want to see in sacramento on a positive note we have a homeless challenge in our community. what we are doing is getting 12 members that were the leadership in the community that then got another 80 plus. so we have all the different

denominations in sacramento say we are going to solve this problem together. but the faith community said we are going to lead the way. so the program is in homelessness and what they did is they chose one some day it was in march and every synagogue and a jewish community and the muslim community and everybody else they talked to their congregations and asked for them to get one day's worth of their rent or mortgage toward solving our homeless problem. we raised $400,000 on one sunday in sacramento that $400,000 leveraged 1.6 million of federal dollars so this is an example but we have in our community where it's been leading the way and will continue to do so. thanks for that question. you get the final question.

i think all of the distinguished panel for your very extraordinary remarks and inspiring remarks. more importantly, thank you for bringing poverty front and center because many officials have difficulty even training of the word poverty. we don't talk about poverty. in that regard i offer a couple quick fox. a wonderful brilliant woman told me many years ago and i will never forget this. jobs are not created in a vacuum. jobs are the byproduct of the community's commitment to solve a problem. if poverty then is a major problem that we are confronted with, let's look at poverty as a multi dimensional problem. in education dimension to the training dimension, economic and environmental dimension, the housing dimension, the justice,

gender dimension, a racial dimension and age dimension. if we address the dimensions that are and in trouble part of poverty we will begin to solve the problem. example, if housing is one of the dimensions of poverty we developed a cogent housing policy. someone has to build, modernize and maintain housing. so you solve the housing problem and strike a blow to words poverty and generate employment. so all i am saying is let's begin to see the problem solving strategy as a job creation strategy and let's keep poverty on the front burner and address it as a multi dimensional issue because the problem of the 60's contrary to many people's thoughts is a brilliant idea. the reason they killed it is because it was too brilliant of an idea.

thank you. [applause] >> that was or speaker of the fifth panelist put in the audience. at this time i would like to thank neyer nutter, landrieu and strickland. [applause] we are going to turn it over nelson of the next group of panelists would come up we will get under way with our second panel promoting politics. [inaudible conversations] >> thank you very much, mayor johnson. i have to tell a quick story where he actually lived when he was a basketball player for the cavaliers. i take credit for this a little bit because i said kevin johnson watched tv when he was in akron he said when i grow by one to be

just like him. i did that he surpassed me. let's give him a hand for the job he did in that session. we appreciate your leadership. i look forward to you as the leader of the conference to continue the tradition many of us have had to join with tom cochran to take on the nation and actually the world's problems and try to be about solving those and getting something done. i want to thank reverend price and mayor belle from his leadership and tom cochran and the staff that have made this possible. i have to tell you i feel a an honor standing here before you today but i was asked to moderate this panel and it clearly was an emotional thing for me because 50 years ago i was growing up in what i considered to be a typical american neighborhood. i don't think we talked about diversity. it was a typical white neighborhood, a blue-collar.

my father was a rubber worker in akron ohio but at 14-years-old i must say and i'm going to say the way my grandmother would have said we can't figure out what you folks down here were fussing about because none of us had that life experience. unfortunately, for me, i had a number of experiences including playing football and doing other things to cross paths with a number of people who didn't grow up in my neighborhood, didn't have the same experiences that i had. and by sharing those, i learned and i grew in many ways it is the reason that i mean here today. and i think all of those people along the way. i am going to try to make less sports analogies than kevin johnson just did. but i will tell you one. if you are a quarterback and you look across the line and there is a tough looking guy playing for somebody dressed in an orange jersey, you don't really care of the color of the skin or where he goes to church.

they better block that guy e. and we learn to accept people and by exports, the military, a number of things people do are really the ones and many of our lives that have taught us lessons about judging people for what they do and their character and how they perform, rather than the color of their skin or where they worship or who they love. ..

and discrimination which we at times in our communities reflect a lack of tolerance or understanding for those who are different. mayors, it is our role to go beyond the borders of our city hall, the walls of our city hall, or the borders of our control, legally controlled items or institutional organizations, the departments, to reach out, to help build tolerance in our cities. several of the points which we pledged to carry out in our 10-point plan are aimed at just doing that and i'm going to bring to go through them. first of all, to use the bully pulpit to provide leadership on issues of concern to engage in the difficult conversations that may be needed and speak out against hate crimes and all discrimination, discriminatory acts, whenever they occur. worked with the school systems in our communities promote education about differences. the importance of tolerance and

behavior that respects differences among people. facilitate the integration of immigrants and other new residence in our community come encouraging community activities would celebrate diversity and educate city residents from differendifferent cultures thata city's population but, unfortunately, i'm going to miss the international festival held in downtown akron this weekend because i'm here in this special event. but mayors can encourage people to come together. all of these actions, and others, all help us build tolerance and understanding in our communities. i believe personally that each mayor here could probably fill a whole hour with all of the things they are doing in their own communities. we have really only a limited time some going to introduce three mayors who someone wrote, three more distinguished i guess that means more distinguished than me, and thoughtful mayors about what they believe needs to

be done to make our communities more tolerant, integrate more justice in our society. not only in our cities but in our nation. i want to mention the jacksonville mayor alvin brown from a been on the agenda come had planned to be here with us to purchase the in this session but events are keeping them in jacksonville this morning. mayors understand how things change quickly in our lives. it's my pleasure to introduce come and going to introduce all three of them and they will make the comments come and then the important part as we saw in the last panel was to interact with people who want to ask russian. i encourage you, but first, mayor brady -- mayor brede, and greg fischer who is the mayor of louisville, kentucky, and chris cabaldon, mayor of west sacramento. so mayor brede, which you like to start? >> thank you very much.

i'm glad you emphasized -- often it's assumed its new york. we are named after that rochester and we're all meant after the one in england. but it's a real honor for me to be here, especially at this place. i grew up in austin, minnesota, which is home of spam, hormel company, where we had one black family in town, and we knew nothing really about racial tolerance at that point. it was not an issue. i move to rochester, minnesota, which is 40 miles away, just home of the mayo clinic. and in the '50s and '60s they had a local semipro baseball team in the southern minnesota league that had two black players at that time. it was kind of a novelty. one was sam jones to a pitched a no-hitter in the southern minnesota league, and then later pitched a no-hitter for the

chicago cubs and he was the first black player to pitch a no-hitter in the major leagues. so not posting at all, and all of that like mayor plusquellic said, i had minimum experience to minorities and i feel blessed as a citizen i believe i but hopefully more than tolerant, as both the manager and be administered at mayo clinic, worked there for 43 years, and now as mayor of rochester. in fact, i wish we all could be more tolerant, civil, and big settings of all, and understanding. a challenge and rochester is that we have residence that was rochester was like it was 50 years ago. few minorities, and specifically few blacks. rochester today is about, a city of about 110,000 people, and it's growing by 24% just between

202010. so 85,000 up to about 107,000. in that time, our black african population has grown, and our latino and hispanic population both have grown to about 115%, from about 6500 to 7000 persons, respectfully and that. 21% of our population now is what we call minority. based on census numbers. and from the theme back from the national league of cities we have this particular sign that says welcome, we are building and an inclusive community. obviously, much bigger than this. there at the roads coming into rochester. with a major ibm facility at mayo clinic, and mayo with a 35,000 employees, the continued growth, i.e., jobs, requires us to be welcoming to all people. and i think we are.

we have it initiative which is called destination medical center that is pledging three-point $5 billion in develop and over the next 20 years. and another $2 billion in private development, with an estimated 35 to 40,000 jobs from that. mail has also built an added a rosa parks billion which is been something very new in the city. our city is actively and aggressively recruiting minorities, and our fire and police departments are trying very hard working very hard at it, to build a department that more closely resembles the population that they serve. i worked very closely with our school superintendent, and as was mentioned earlier, many of us do not have direct responsibility. id meet regularly with the

superintendent. especially as it relates to our minority students. and together we are working very innovative ways to propose -- to close the achievement gap our superintendent has worked very closely with the black students and has had success in that. we are going to be piloting a program with early childhood education for latino students and their families. and we're having one and one meetings with the very sculptural community, many of them don't tell comfortable coming to a full school board, that they will meet with the superintendent's cabinet members. and also, we're having a positive impact, obviously, which we all know the data, to reintroduce the arts into the schools for all students. the superintendent has a program that was started last year. we want you back is the name of it, and it was initiated by him

and supported by the public with over 100 people going out on a saturday morning about a month after school had started, and we haven't done it this year, visiting homes were students have not read enrolled at the school. -- we enrolled at the school. a fair number are students of latino students of color. the result of that where most of the students then we enrolled and the neat part about it was to see both the students and the family. in many cases the mom with tears in their eyes and say, i didn't think anybody cared. so it didn't matter that the student wasn't in school. that's really done a great job to help with that come in that particular program. also support, we have a program for our immigrants that we assist them with free legal and language support in applying for their citizenship. that's been working really well.

as a mayor, i'm very publicly supporting and attending the many traditional celebrations we have, cinco de mayo, st. patrick's day, oktoberfest, chinese new year, all of those. we are going to be celebrating the true mexican independence day on september 16. we celebrate juneteenth which commemorates the end of slavery, and, of course, through civil rights march and in minnesota that's a cold day in january when we are marching to can also working with our native americans in the various powwows and the burial grounds that are within our city. i want our city to celebrate diversity in its broadest sense. i supported a domestic partner registry which was not popular with a lot of people. it turns out now that it's not really necessary because the state of minnesota past the

same-sex marriage this past year. and i also was very outspoken about defeating the voter id idea, and that was defeated as a state. i have attended also be either festival for the muslims right after ramadan. this i found that was just extremely important to that whole community, and we have a couple thousand that come to that event in early morning. the previous -- it really makes a big difference. i should also mention that national night out which is so great across the country is a big event that we set records every year and getting out with the various neighborhoods that i get to you about a dozen of them that particular night. i'm at each of these mayors do things that support their communities, and much has been done with come as we've all been

saying, much needs to be done. these efforts are not always popular with those which we're still a population of 50 south and. but is important, not on for the economic reasons, workers, for the dnc now, the 35 to 40,000, but more importantly as we build this inclusive community for all, i underscore all people. that only the smart thing to do, but it is the right thing to do. so thank you and god bless to each and every one of you. >> mayor fischer. >> i'm greg fischer, mayor of legal. i want to thank all the great people in birmingham for hosting us. i think our country laws going to be a work in progress when it comes to race relations, when it comes to our ability to reach our collective potential, as we build tolerance with each other. in the long view, there's no doubt that progress has been

made when you start from abraham lincoln to go to martin luther king, and then to president obama. so what you have to love about our cities and our country is an undeniable desire to always do better. to always improve, to address our imperfections, weakness, orientation, and we put it out on the street, indie media, and we talk about it every day in a way that few other countries do. i'm a business guy and an entrepreneur that just happens to be mayor. and i can tell you that any company that pulls together a diverse group of people that has inclusive policies, the taps the viewpoint and collective energy from a broad range of people is going to beat every day a company of people that just looks like themselves. this is true obviously for our cities and our country as well. our panel is on building

tolerance. i was rebuilding tolerance is serve a noble pursuit, but it is not adequate. the in goal has to be embracing our differences. celebrate our differences of people. not merely just to tolerate our differences. i want to also say that tolerance does not mean political correctness. where we tolerate everything, and in so doing we stand for nothing. there certainly is pressure on people to do that. tolerance means in all people in week seven oh people their ability to contribute regardless of their gender, regardless of their race, regardless of their orientation, around universal truths. like the golden rule. integrity, accountability. and tolerance means were able to

judge people in the words of dr. king, solely on the content of their character. so where are we going in the country? in the words of thomas merton, thomas burton was a monk who lived at the abbey by the hometown of louisville, as he observed people are hustling a bus in downtown, for the moment which is now fourth and muhammad ali comes with a certain serendipity of that that you havhada monk on the street is nw named for a famous humanitarian, muslim, boxer, from the views of a catholic trappist. he said as he looked over at all the people, these are all the different people of louisville, he said the sun shines on all of our faces. eliminating the beauty of the human spirit and, in fact, we are all connected.

and it's obvious that we're all connected. we share the same birth. we share the same error. from a governmental standpoint, we're all the same family. we pay taxes into the same body. as i tell people whether you like it or not, we are all connected and we have to figure out how to get along. and celebrate each other. in louisville, we intentionally, every day, celebrate our differences through many actions. one might be our renowned festival of faith, where we bring people together from around the world to discuss all of our different faith traditions. they all share the same principles, but we recognize we have many faith traditions but, in fact, we have a common hard and we celebrate a common hard. through our give-and-take we could service, over 115,000 people volunteered with friends and strangers helping each other

in a spirit of compassion. compassion raising this out. label has been named the international model city for compassion. so progress is being made. you see more and more people have friends with different skin color. and we know that when you meet somebody can when you go into their homes, you understand at first we are members of the human race. that's the important issue. all of the differences pale in comparison to that. and every day throughout our country as well, because in louisville about every six weeks we naturalized about 100 people to become an american citizens, people from cuba, india, somalia. and as i look in their faces, and their eyes, a tremendous emotional experience, i see very ideals our country stands for. this is a country that embraces differences, i country that is growing everyday in naturalizing citizens and embracing differences as well. so yes, we are challenges, but

progress is being made. more work remains to be done. >> and you. >> -- thank you. we are named after sacramento. both mayor johnson and i were not alive at the time of the bombing at this church, or the hatching of the civil rights movement. and yet in a lot of ways neither of us would be today if it were not for that movement and for that day in september 1963. for me i probably wouldn't have been born. my parents wouldn't have been allowed to be married in most states in this country, absent the movement here in birmingham and the rest of the south. around marriage equality of its own time. my father being the son of immigrants from the philippines who were farmworkers, who every day had to go drink at the

fountains and stockton, california, were a sign said no filipinos allowed, but never could have married a white woman from michigan who became my mom. then when i went to school and the freedom riders came back from alabama, so pride themselves in california, and then turned the lens and the mirror back on her own community and relies how deeply segregated los angeles was. and i was part of the very first desegregation school every created in los angeles. the first magnet school in all of california take because my parents wanted me to understand where and why i was here. and why integration mattered and why rights mattered in our community. it was that moment of coming off the bus, my voluntary desegregation school in los angeles with all the cameras and all the reporters and all the activists and all the protesters when us just in seventh grade that all the led me to get my voice and become a mayor in my own community.

so does it matter both being alive and being somebody who speaks out today, it was the movement here that forged me as a person and make possible what has happened. that's true for a larger committee. mayor johnson mentioned earlier, the u.s. conference of mayors in 2009 was building on our long legacy of activism and leadership around civil rights. adopted a sweeping proposal for full equality and justice for gay and lesbian americans, including marriage equality, but on every scope. work that couldn't have been conceived up prior to the civil rights movement because we didn't have a language for civil rights. we didn't have the world. we didn't have the infrastructure. not just the path but the row and all the sewers, shorelines and the cable lines were altered by the civil rights movement. so when it came time come when the door opened for the possibility of equality for gay and lesbian americans coming something that of finding all the laws wasted race, color or

creed and adding in a protection for me. couldn't have been done without the civil rights movement in the first place. that'll infrastructure created the possibility that the quality could be achieved, and achieved within my own lifetime, begun and one with my own lifetime. sometimes we think this is some sort of linear process and i worry about this with a lot of young activists today who think it's a natural line of progress from hate being replaced by tolerance and then being replaced by rights and justice. it's all inevitable. and that activism is just for putting up a facebook status update, change your profile picture for a day, voting for one person to be president, then going back to your life and expecting at all to change. that we don't understand what really must happen, what's always had happened for rights and justice to occur. that we expect just a court will make it happen someday because that's what we read about. the civil rights movement,

here's a couple commission pictures in birmingham of one day, then a court decision, boom, right. all of the struggle, all of the death, all of the injustice that preceded and followed the bombing at this church are not told them or they are told in a little box with a picture. our understanding of what is involved in securing rights for everyone in this country that have benefited from the civil rights movement is something that is critical that we explained and that we explore more so that we don't simply have this consumer idea around what civil rights are bound, that we just bought it with a vote or with an ad or facebook status update or a tweet. but that we buy with investors will, by challenging one another and tackling them one at a time. it drives me crazy when you talk about you can't have justice and loves you sal poverty. you can have justice unless you saw preschool. you cannot justice unless you solve -- is you can pick you can have more justice and when we say you cannot have judgment until you solve every other

problem, which eventually get to mental health, education everything else, is using his you can't have it justice. that cannot be acceptable in this country. we have to be good enough to tackle all of those at the same time. they all matter and what i think i learned from studying and learning and exploring birmingham was how nonlinear this always. and how people arguing and fighting in a chaos of the struggle. not some consulting from coming in with all the activists of birmingham and saying okay, what's our strategic plan? who's going to do what and how is that going to play it? its people arguing and battling and turf battles all the time looking for an exploiting the opportunity that was in front of him at that moment. that is the nature of how struggles that really matter work. we know this in cities because the civil rights movement is not about, it's not meant about the national struggle. it is about what occurs in the cities. the fight was about toilets, parks, zoning, police.

those are municipal issues why was it about those things? they are markers for justice and respect but they are the things that regular people experience and regular people can influence. i can write my congressman but what really matters in the day in my ability to influence my committee. that's why those matter so much. it is every progressive, court decision had as its parent some action in the city. some leadership by people in cities in order to make it occur. that has to be everything going forward. for me, the court decisions around marriage equality happened because of a mayor and city of san francisco saying i'm not stand for this anymore. and activist in cities around the country pushing as well. so cities have to be and always have been the locus, the center, the driving force for progressive change around civil rights. it's why, i hope we evolved.

it's about us not tolerating a law enforcement and justice system that is institutionally racist comment about not tolerate schools that institution are not giving us justice around tall drink the kinds of expulsions from school everyday that are contributing and causing the challenges in our criminal justice system and our complicity around truancy rules and enforcement. our zoning policies that continue two, by practice, result in desegregation, stopping the kind of collisions that makes these exciting, that makes things created, increase economic growth in our cities. tolerance, yes, but kids who never get to high school are don't get through high school, kids get caught in the criminal justice system, african-american was get caught in the system in their 12. they don't have to worry about ever getting tolerated. because the rest of my community never sees them. they are nameless, faceless. they went straight from womb

commissions like womb to street to do. and no point did tolerance matter. which is why tolerance is a significant part of the equation that it is everything. today may not even be the most important thing. it is making sure that we give those kids the luxury of having to deal with the intolerance. because they have made into our workplaces. into our universities come into civil society where they could be annoyed by people who don't get it. by ignorant people who are not within. that's in some ways our most fundamental challenge is their right to be in tolerated for just a little while. applaudmac so let me just close by saying, the civil rights movement for gays and lesbians in this country got a turbo boost from the civil rights movement and what drives me nuts that is the new civil rights movement or that is the civil rights movement of our generation. sure it's part of it, but the

civil rights movement of 1963, the civil rights movement that was accelerated by what happened here at this church is the civil rights movement of today. it is the civil rights movement of the 21st century and is the civil rights movement of our generation. the tent is bigger, the causes broader, the scope of people who must be delivered justice is greater, but that movement and its purposes and its call to action into our hearts and souls in america remains the agenda and the movement for today. applaudmac. [applause] i talked about my growth and thinking that things were going in the direction that they should. not too long ago, problems in the last decade or so when i'm named, appointed the first like

police chief after having appointed the first black fire chief, i realized about a year later the two friends of mine stopped talking to me. and it is really something that was amazing to me to think about this intolerance, thinking about people who i've grown up with to actually think in the 21st century that i done something wrong by appointing those two individuals, both of them did it the job for the citizens of akron, and judging them on their performance. i think we look at what cities can do, what leaders can do, what mayors can do and one of the things that happened in akron was recognition by our newspaper, the knight foundation. the knights chain of newspapers was founded by john s. knight in akron and they funded a program called coming together. it was literally working to bring diverse groups like all white suburban churches coming together with a dominant black churches.

and that example across the board bringing together middle school kids from, yes, third ring suburbs, into the city of akron to visit with middle schools that were predominantly black, created this sense of understanding that is vitally important. and president clinton recognized as when he came to akron in 1997 with his first town hall meeting. talking about race relations in this country. so we move along this process to say what more can we do, no matter wha what our progress and what we done successfully? but what is it that we can do, mayors, local elected officials, to influence more of the national discourse, national discussion, to get people to be more tolerant or understanding of different views? any ideas on what we should do or can do to bring the national recognition?

>> i'm going to call on illegal because you are the biggest city. sometimes washington only listens to biggest cities. >> i don't know who they listen to. there's this disconnect between washington and our city. speaking fo for most mayors we'e just kind of taking care of business on our own. this work has to be intentional. or people tend to go to churches, they party with a party with. so the role of a mayor has to be how are we going to bring our city together, how are we going to celebrate who we are collectively and not individually? i know it sounds so elementary, but in our cities and all the cic around the country this is still very much a work in progress. so when you take a simple act, for instance, one of our driving values as a city is the valley of compassion. how can we be even and even more compassionate city? we bring death to life through service work. we have a big week of service called every day, mayors give it

a week o of service. can you give it a couple hours? everybody can help somebody. so i said let's set a world record for compassion. i didn't know what the world record is. but as maybe you can say things like this. so we have 115,000 people come out, friends helping friends, strangers helping strangers. and then i proclaim that we set a world record for compassion to as mayor you can proclaim things and people believe that. now cities all over the world are saying how did you said this world record for compassion? what did your city do? and i say, i will help you beat us as world champion because that's what compassionate people do. up my point is, i these during this week of service, you look over and there's somebody from a different part of town that looks different from you, that before you might just pass by and you never saw them. but now you see them as a man with a family, with kids that

have the same challenges as your kids, and all of a sudden we relate to each other as human beings. i don't know if we call that building tolerance or embracing our differences, but what i do know is it builds the strength of your city. and cities require strength, just like states and countries. because we will always be tested. might be on the economic battlefield. it might be social justice. but when we have that strength and collective knowledge of who we are in the hearts and souls of humans, we can rise above any challenge. selective service, where you might think i'm just going to hope for a couple of hours, really it's much bigger than a civic contact and a strong statement of citizenship that we require this country to keep the kind of strength that the united states says everybody on not just the text there, i'm also a citizen. that means i contribute to the collective good that's bigger than me and i do that with my time and my talent and my

treasure. >> well, we all know it's very difficult to work with washington, d.c. but one example i have where it's really worked well for us, and this is just one with this particular senator, senator amy klobuchar that we have, who, regardless of what your political views, she is doing an outstanding job. but the catholic sisters in rochester we took on the whole issue of human trafficking with young girls, mainly young girls, at a hole seminar on it that i participated in. and i did say to the sisters, i said, remember, this is a lutheran kid talking to the sisters, too. so that was always interesting for me. i said, let me talk to our senator, and senator klobuchar when she first came into office, she told her staff person that's in rochester, whenever rochester

wants something or the mayo clinic want something, you better be there and let me know. so we have a good relationship with one senator anyway. but i told her staff person and she needed a talk to her, and she's been back with me, and she's introducing some legislation to really facilitate and help with that whole problem. and so there are sometimes those rays of hope that come from relationships that you do have. in the bigger picture at times, it becomes very frustrating as to what you can do with both state and the federal, but there is that one good story that i have, that relationship with her, and its other things as well. if she ends up winning each time she is run with about 75%, so guess she is doing the right thing for the whole state. but again, there is that one thing and you can't forget that one. >> also part of the challenge at

the national level, they don't get city to even the most americans live in cities, almost all of our gross national products come from cities, they don't get it. or they assume we'll just take it and they can go off and play games and argue. so with issues like the human development block grant was mentioned earlier, the resources that are critical for creating integrated neighborhoods or upgrading neighborhoods or creating equality among the neighborhoods. that's not seen as a priority for so many federal policymakers, and so drawing that line is critical but also helping them understand economic implications of those decisions is a key action. but i agree, and the other is to get out of the way. with all of the mandates and the sewer system cost and everything else, that sucks the resources out of our system and basically

the federal, looks to cities as though we are rich because we are large, but we are large because we represent a lot of middle-class and poor folks. they don't have a lot of money but a lot of them happen to live together and the federal government says we want to clean up the water. you could do, pay for it. my constituents don't have that much money. thinking about how federal policy institutionalizes a discriminatory policies and finest mechanisms by heating cities harder than other parts of the country i think it's a big part of it but it just can't be about that. we have a lot of tools and think most of them that are at our disposal. i was were looking at what and bull connor did with the powers of city government to enforce segregation and evil in his committee. i thought and by using the same powers as strongly, as effectively, as determined late on the opposite side of the equation? he conceded a law. he just had police and fire and libra's and schools. i have those things plus sewer

and water and a lot of other stuff at my disposal. they all have implications. so important implications about what are you going to build it is going to get all the steps and who's going to get the new bus line versus the new light rail line? we're going to go the first children for schools? every single one of them has an impact on what your city looks like and how it interacts with people connect with one another. because what kind of had to do going up when i was 18 was to say to my parents, guess what, i've got something to tell you, it's going to uncomfortable. i'm filipina. they kind of knew that. no moment happened with people next door didn't know that. that was always part of their experience. when i had to tell them, guess what, i'm gay. we love you anyway. i was suddenly instantly integrated into their lives. inextricably. and whether it was for gays and lesbians or for women, we are already integrated. there's no avoiding us. so when you watch debates and

legislatures or congress and people stand up and say it's your son, it's your daughter. now you can change by because you just discovered that. we don't have that experience when it comes to raise. part of the point of the cvsg create those experiences, to create the unintended, unanticipated collisions in a good way between people. whether it's in the workplace or in the park or the library or in the dense housing development to where ever it is our job as mayors is in part to create, not integration in the classic legally, although that's part of it, but to create the opportunity for people to bring each other into their lives. that is so essential towards the changing of hearts and minds and souls and openly some of these policies. >> we have heard a couple of other words used. i used the word understanding as part of a meaning of tolerance. you just mentioned experiences with other individuals with things in your life. mayor brede, you mentioned great relationships.

i would be remiss if i didn't mention this, i'm joined with longtime serving councilperson who served as council president, somerville. i would describe it that we had a relationship that went beyond tolerance. most mayors just sort of tolerance the council members. he was one my best friends and now works as planned direct and it's done a great job. when we look at some these issues one of the things i think to understand is it is difficult, more difficult i would argue to change the minds of people who have a whole life experience and have this hate built in than it is our youth. someone once said that you were not born with prejudice. you learn those from wrong expenses, wrong education. what we did was create a youth leadership program called peacemakers, and advice on people, high school age, to come in and learn more about their community and how they can

serve. when we get people engaged to learn more about how government works and accepting of their role as citizens, mayor fischer said we understand how we have a role to play in a democracy. so my question is, and i'm going to make one of the statement, and i don't know what it's like in other cities exactly, but i know in akron, asters, priests, rabbis are really outside the walls of the church actively working, whether it's food pantries, whether it's serving meals to poor people, whether it's running for school board. there is a great deal that pastors have done to be a leader in this issue as well as many others, but mayors, who else needs to be at the table? we call it stakeholders. who else needs to be on our committees and nation? what else can we do to reach out to other segments just beyond saying this is kind of a feel-good kind of issue here. it's not economic development. it's a feel-good tolerance so we

will call on the preachers. who else needs to be at the table to help get this job done to move us along this progression that you're all talking about, making progress, making improvements? >> leadership often, some very surprising places. so the question is, is your city, in our individual minds open to that? when we see somebody that might look extraordinarily different from us and to don't look at him and say, he looks strange, versus that person has an extraordinary amount to offer. and how you celebrate people like that what you find is there's a whole nother group of people that look like them and think like them that now feel like they are accepted and the have a voice. many people in cities feel like their voice does not matter. and that they have no hope. they feel socially isolated. and that leads to trouble, usually. our job as mayors is to break down that social isolation so that means at the table you have

people that are frequently going to challenge you in unconventional ways. when you're younger you might see that as threatening. when you're older and more wiser, hopefully you see that as a cause to celebrate. because inevitably it leads to something good that broadens the perspective. and the goal and the city, i was in the country is to be up to look at all these challenges through this broad perspective. as mayors went to deal with the bell curve of life. it's not like a comfy we say i don't want that supply. we take everybody. with everybody comes a lot of challenges. with that also comes a lot of opportunity. young people indicated that are our teenagers, the good news is when we take a look at statistics, i brought a reuters poll with me this as many americans have no friends of

another race. about 40% of white americans and about 25% of nonwhite americans are surrounded exclusively by people that look like them. when you go under the age of 30, it changes, to your point, mayor. about one-third of americans under the age of 30 have a partner or spouse or in a relationship with someone of a different race, compared to one-tenth of americans over all. so when i take a look at my kids and this generation were talking about, this is when you can see the pendulum of change happening. not happening fast enough but it is taking place. >> the obvious beside the preachers, we have groups together that the schools involved working with superintendents. the chamber of commerce, businesses and in our case where two major employers with mayo

and ibm, but the expense i have come we also have very formal neighborhood associations in our city. we have over i think 46 of them. if you get those groups altogether, they represent multicultural neighbors in their own neighborhood association. but back when i was working at mayo, sometimes worked, find the most disagreeable person or the one that was really didn't want to do what you want to have done, any system that we are putting in. we met with that person, and ultimately pointed out all the pluses and minuses of that. and she understood it, and when she became the spokesperson for that new system, everybody except it then because if you could convince her, you knew you had it made. if we had just tried to get with those that were already believers, if you will, i don't think you would have work. but with her it did work, and so

sometimes you have to work with the ones that are the most disagreeable to get something that all can agree upon. >> you are fortunate because some of those folks you can't get to no matter how much logic an education -- >> that's true. >> i'm going to go ahead and opened up for questions. make sure you get to answer the first question. any questions went out there from the audience? i would love to have, as a former moderator did can ask the and peoples of the first question, if that's all right. and if not, we will go to you. yes, sir. >> i would be remiss if i didn't mention to you guys, you talk about tolerance. i moved here seven years ago from washington, d.c., and i came here because as a young young boy growing up in d.c., i watched dr. king's drive down

16th street headed to the march on washington. i didn't understand what was. i was a little kid, but when we talk about tolerance, and we have to start with dr. king's letter from the birmingham jail. if you read it, if you study it, he talked about people taking positions of tolerance, but not moving it beyond that. i see your struggle. i don't know if i really understand it, but i will just tolerated. we will tolerate it, and dr. king spoke about that. and i think today, in this church, we need to say on this

panel, i would like to hear, especially from you, chris, i love your energy. i love your energy. i think, i want to hear somebody tell what's going to be beyond tolerance, like dr. king did with this letter from the birmingham jail. what's the action behind the words? >> it's a critical point then and it still is now. the quote i had from bayard rustin who spoke out from birmingham to stonewall 20 years ago was our job is not to get those people who dislike us to love us. our aim was to try to be the kind of america legislatively, morally and psychologically, such that even though some people continue to hate us, they could not openly manifest that a. that has been our agenda. it has to still be in many ways but it's not, that is not enough any longer either. the open manifestation of the hate is most not allowed under

the law. and even in places like california, it's not allowed in daily discourse. it doesn't have to be. we are living on top of a set of laws and institutions and economic structures that were created when hate was manifested in all of them. so distant we say now we're going to start over but we are leaving the entire infrastructure underneath that the same, when our laws about something where priority's about how we delivered transportation. just the basic things like that were all derived from that very day. the great investment in american cities and our infrastructure, technological change, it changes in industry all occurred under a period of both institutional and overt racism and this commission and hate. we have to look at all those pieces. they don't come to us in the way they did from bull connor as i hate blacks, or i hate it or hate women. it's just not so easy anymore.

and that even the sort of 1980s, 1990s approach where we would get policy stuff at the city of folks would say i noticed in your document it doesn't say diversity. summer discover my kazakh word you can search for a word but it doesn't say diversity and we're here protesting and stakeholders but they should say diversity somewhere in the. that's fine but what does it say about the outcome? what about the results? what about actual thing that we're talking about. beside just mentioned the word so that we feel better about how tolerant we are? and so part of the challenge today is to be a lot more sophisticated around those other policies so that whether its it passes or community organizations or students or others can look at a zoning ordinance that doesn't say race anywhere in it, and start to analyze, what do the key things mean? when they say we don't want more than 12 units per acre, what does that really say lex what is that intended to individual to step up. when you say we don't want our

rail line going anywhere that doesn't have this proportion of corporate offices on. what does that really mean? and when we talk about how to address crime in terms of improving effectiveness of law enforcement and identifying problems before they happen. how? we have to do that, yes, but it's very important in or to protect folks, but how we do that matters a great deal. so being able to deconstruct all the other policies that are happening at every level of government, especially in commuters and cities in ways that uncover, that on earth the very hidden, not intentionally unnecessary, it didn't just because of the history of where race and poverty and all sorts of these other issues come into play is really a challenge for every stakeholder. so it's no longer who comes to the table, but what is the lens they're bringing and what other tools they're bringing in order to be effective at uncovering these issues. >> so the tactics, the laws are very important. i think the benefit that we alll

can have as leaders in opportunity, especially as ms. is to create the conditions for the conversation. to be leaders and secular ethics. when i became mayor to enact years ago in my inaugural address i spoke about a city of lifelong learning. a city of health, physical health and mental health, environmental health. and i spoke about and even more compassionate city. my political adviser said cannot talk about about compassion. it will make you sound week and political leaders are supposed to be strong. i said, i think it requires more strength to talk about compassion than it does to be angry or skeptical. cynical, a critic from the couch. and what i found is that compassion is the one thing that i could get everybody to agree on. it doesn't matter republican to independent, democrat, tea party, black, white, yellow.

everybody nods their head when i talk about compassion and the need for a city to be essential for compassion because that's what creates the context for social innovation which leads to technical innovation which leads to jobs. so while it's important that we put all of these frameworks in place, and i see young people in particular always looking for the answer, that one thing, my one thing is to say be compassionate. that's what makes people happy. that's what's going to make you happy. we see that all over the world. what's the one thing we can do that connects with you as a human being? if everybody does that, all these other problems go away. so sometimes we get compensated and all caught up in particular details but we can come back to that one thing in the city, every day. be compassionate. we will be a tremendous country when we're in that place spent let me address that. i think it's like everything that mayors face.

its complex set of circumstances and we're doing police and fire and mention him and still trying to figure out to fix it. sometimes we are superintendent of the schools. so there's a lot of different parts to that, and i would argue that the population just like students don't all learn at the same rate. so building tolerance is the minimum that we need to work on for some people while we are building beyond tolerance, which is what your question is, with other folks. you've got to bring all alone. that's the way i look at the answer to question. your question. mayors have to address that in multi-different ways. we have the gay games coming to akron and cleveland. but there were two national incidences of hate crimes right in cleveland. it's demoralizing in many ways while we're out touting some of the things we've done and a year from now, the international gay games, thousands of people will become fair, so there's different levels all the tamil people are working trying to make their pitch to its more

valuable and enjoyable. there are other folks doing things that we have to bring everyone along i think and the level of learning, level of education on issues is different, and it depends on what your circumstances. but i think of to address all of them. i appreciate the question. young lady, i think -- we have time for two more. go ahead. >> the next step after tolerance issue. i am a native of birmingham, alabama. in 2006 i founded the unity club at my alma mater homewood high school, and i'm working on expanding that to a much larger organization. my question is for you mayors, what suggestions do you have for strategies or incentives to get corporate america and government officials to come together and work together on initiatives that already exist in so may different areas of cities, even when it may not be beneficial?

so what strategies do you suggest for people who actually are actively trying to unify their cities and organizations to get support from government and corporate america? >> i'm going to ask the mayors to answer a bullet point. >> have been great mentor ships for these young people that don't look like who the corporate structure is. have them coach them. have been developed them through their system so they can appreciate the challenges that we have in all of our cities. >> any other bullet points? >> the same. we have different groups that are organized around the youth and get them involved. i know just one event that's really made a difference, call it youth onto her at the capital. we have over 100 years of all nationalities, cultures, races that go up there and meet with the governor. i would always go along with it,

pay for, the buses and all that. those kinds of things get the students engaged in government to know what that's about, invite them to our council meetings, et cetera. they will find out that maybe it's not something they really want to do, but it's great. >> i would skip that statement most i'm single right to the action. for corporate data, political the others, in most places to get this done. they get the need and the wind. they understand why is beneficial for them as a company. but oftentimes we don't assume that it was and we've got to educate them on 100 years of the struggle. by the time we're done the meeting is over, and so getting right to come here are the four things i want from your company, or does your company could do that would help diversify the start of community in our area, we've got a bunch of coders coming together to do work and this look like our community and there are four things we think your company can do whether

providing mentorship or an internship or deploying coders to do whatever it might take him you've got to declare that at the beginning as opposed to telling the story. get right to the point about what it is that you think will bring those resources to make change happen. >> the best social program is jobs. so we can create jobs, good things happen. >> i also would add i think in today's world, especially in corporate america, they always talk about measurable's. and as much as you can build back then, the problem as i learned, much of the good things of life you can't really measure. not in the kinds of measuremen measurements, so there are some things if you can't, it helps to get them to explain why it is. for instance, leaving people out of the economic base of a community. that makes sense but if they are making, it makes sense to talk about as the previous panel did, what you can do when you have everybody buying products.

everybody being productive members of the economy. that measurable is important but it isn't always there but that's aas much as you can to build tht into your discussion, i think it helps with corporate america. >> this gentleman was here. hold on. i'm sorry, but go ahead. he spent standing here. >> i'm here with the auburn university represent. tolerance brings many thoughts to my mind. how can public officials inspired hearts of the people of our nation to have empathy for one another, a level above just tolerance? and how can we have understanding for our fellow man? >> i'm going to turn it over to the panel but let me tell you something, and i do not consider myself in any way in this level of speakers, but what you need to do is sit in listen to the next speaker because joe biden will make you cry about issues that sometimes you can't measure, about bringing people

together. by downtowns are important place of space, so if you can, listen. and if in this country, the times that we've moved of the most, it has been some phenomenal human being reaching us inside to say the things that drive us to do more. and i would suggest to you, joe riley is one of those individuals. that's my answer, if you can top that, you tell me, but go ahead. >> louisville, big cities -- i'm going to go to a little city. mayor cabaldon. >> we have to model it and that the colonist but it is really a call around sort of what we value in america and what we think of as leadership. ..

and show that and in some places be courageous but also show how basically human that is and how courageous it is in order to really understand the diversity of experience is all around us every day whether it is race or a variety of others because of the ecosystems that we are helping to inspire or the collection of all of those