our nation because to the degree and extent that young people or people who want retraining or people who want to get a culinary degree or become a master carpenter or become an architect or doctor start to evaluate higher education and decide it is not a good value anymore, that doesn't just impact their individual family or their individual community, but it impacts our national economic strategy. college is no longer affordable. for many, many people and that is despite the fact we are spending more in raw dollars and in inflation-adjusted dollars than ever before. senator murphy talked about the innovation portion of this legislation. we also have an accountability portion of this legislation. here's the basic premise. as an institution of higher education, if you're a for-profit, if you're a not-for-profit or even if you're a public institution, it's not

the federal government's job to determine what your mission may be. and certain if you're a private for-profit, we're not here to dictate your organization's mission. but a for-profit institution has no special right to federal funding. and if you're going to receive billions of dollars in federal subsidies, we think it's reasonable as we endeavor to reauthorize the higher education act that we tie some reasonable public policy strings to those dollars. and all we are saying is that we want institutions of higher learning, and especially their leadership, to wake up every morning and think not first about profits, not think first about how they're going to market to find more customers, but think about access and affordability. and what we're saying is that different institutions may have different missions. a community college has a different mission from a training institute and a

four-year institution has a different mission than a graduate institution. and that's all fine. and that's why we've established in this legislation an independent commission compromised of experts to determine what matrix of incentives and possible penalties would be appropriate for each institution. but here's the bottom line. we are spending more and getting less, and we are spending $150 billion. this system is not working, and we're pleased to have the support of several of our colleagues. we're going to be enlisting the support of many others, and i'm looking forward to continuing the conversation with the senator from connecticut. mr. murphy: thank you, senator schatz. here's another statistic to think about. it wasn't so long ago where we ranked first in the nation with respect to 25-year olds to 35-year olds with college degrees. and that was not only a source of immense pride for this country, but really the genesis of our economic greatness that we turned out more

college-educated young people than any other country in the world. in a very short period of time we have slipped from first to not second or third or fourth but to 12th. we are now 12th in the world with respect to the number of 25- to 35-year olds with college degrees. part of the reason for that is a lot of other countries have caught up to the united states. but the crisis in this country is no longer just a crisis of access. that was the buzzword for a long time, that we need to increase access to college. we now have a crisis of completion in which millions of students are starting school and not finishing it for a variety of reasons, but largely because of the astronomical cost. today the majority of students are not graduating in six years, and so the issue about

affordability is not just about attracting more kids into the doors of college, because i'll tell you, as i'm sure you do, senator schatz, i talk to a lot of kids who graduate high school and don't apply to school in my state because they are scared off by the cost and they don't believe they're going to be able to put together the family resources to pay for it. but we also are losing a generation of workers because it's taking young people now six, seven, eight years to complete a degree. and often many of them are never completing that degree while still taking on loan after loan after loan and getting stuck in the worst possible situation, whereby they have thousands of dollars in debt and no certificate to bring in to the workforce. and so our effort here is an effort to address costs because we care about access, but it's also an effort to address costs because we care about completion. and that's one of the big problems that we have in our system today. mr. schatz: i think you're

exactly right about that one. let me give you some data. in 2011 only 38% of undergraduate students in a four-year institution graduated on time. when you think about the cost of college, you think about the per-year cost. but if it's taking six or seven years, then the per-year cost is not as important as how realistic it is for you to finish on time. and this isn't -- just to be clear, those data could be skewed by the fact that there are part-time students and all the rest of it. that's not what we're talking about here. it is simply hard to finish on time. but there is hope on the horizon. the university of hawaii has undertaken a program called 15 to finish. the basic idea is that students especially in their freshman year need to know they need those 15 credits. they need help from their counselors so by the time they are in their sophomore year they are well on their way to completing their major of choice in that four-year period of time. the challenge now is given legislators have cut funding to

institutions of higher learning and as a result of fewer counselors and fewer people to assist in the student services office, oftentimes you don't get real counseling with respect to what you need until it's too hraeufplt and then you find -- until it's too hraeufplt then you find you're on a five- or six-year plan. your family may not have made the financial arrangements that put you in a position to be on a five-year plan. from a revenue standpoint if your mission as an institution, for profit or not for profit, is just to fill those seats and generate those dollars, that doesn't matter to you. but the challenge we have right now is that the institutions have -- the publicly cap and traded ones have -- the publicly traded ones have pressure to generate profits. even the public institutions, the universities of hawaii and the universities of connecticut have had their funding reduced by the legislatures.

their c.f.o.'s are trying to figure out new revenue streams. as long as they can keep enrollment up, that enables them to go back to their ledges slayer tour and say -- legislature and say we're in the black. we're not asking you to be in the black. we understand the need to be fiscally responsible. we understand the need to generate tuition revenue. here's the thing, the point of higher education is for students to be able to move up that economic ladder. and to the extent that not only is it not accomplishing that goal but it is actually doing the opposite for some of our students. they end up with a mountain of debt and either no degree or a degree they find doesn't make them employable in the marketplace. that is a national shame and that's why we have to address this. the good news is that we believe we are spending a sufficient amount of money on the federal level so that we can effectuate these changes just by saying if you want to receive federal dollars for your institution of

higher learning, then we are asking you to focus on access and affordability. i want to give you one last piece of data because it actually shocked me, even as much as i've been working on this issue. the for-profit institutions compromise about 12% of the students. and 30% of the federal dollars. 12% of the students and 30% of the federal dollars. and so while there are institutions that are for profit that are doing great work, and there are not for profits and public institutions that have to do a lot better, let's call it like it is. one of the major challenges here is we have to wrap our arms around undue profits and publicly traded companies that are generating profits and spending federal dollars on marketing to students and not providing very much in the way of value. mr. murphy: let's be clear about what we're talking about here. we believe we're talking about a

pretty light hand of accountability in the sense that we are really going after the true outliers. you talk about the work happening at the university of hawaii or university of connecticut. we don't imagine that any flagship university is going to run afoul of these accountability standards. i frankly don't believe many public universities at all are going to run afoul of these standards. we're talking about the hand full of outliars that have abysmal retention rates, graduation rates, default rates or tuition increase rates. and we're also talking about we think a pretty nuanced process by which to try to bring those schools around before they would lose eligibility for funding. our bill says that if you're not meeting these standards, you have pretty long period of time in which you'd be on probation with no practical effects in which you could set upon an action plan to improve your

afford ability or outcomes. if you weren't hitting those benchmarks you would lose some federal aid. that is plenty of time for a university to correct. but if a school that is starting out with a 6% graduation rate can't improve that over five years, why on earth would we continue to send $1 billion to that school when it could be used for students who are attending schools that care a lot more about quality education? mr. schatz: i think you're exactly right. we have the senator from indiana talking about debt and deficits and making sure that we spend every federal dollar intelligently. right now we're simply not spending this money in the most efficient and efficacious way possible. and that's what this legislation is about. it actually -- senator murphy and i talked about how it might have been a little bit more

politically satisfying in the short run to put hard caps on college tuition and precipitous goals that would have been very easy for us to articulate. but the fact is given that you have different institutions with different missions and you have great work being done at a community college level, at the certificate level and at the higher -- and at the four-year and at the graduate level, that we wanted to account for the different missions and we wanted to make sure that we didn't create the kind of incentive program that, for instance, would prevent an institution from wanting to take a kid in who is from a lower-income area and maybe statistically speaking more likely to default on his or her loan. we really want as a matter of policy to focus on access. it's access. it's atpoblt. it's the -- affordability, consistency with the mission. here we are spending $150 billion more than we ever have on this national priority, and

our results are worse than ever. so the status quo cannot stand and i'm really looking forward to working with my colleague on this important issue. mr. murphy: as we wrap up our time on the floor here, when my great-grandfather came to this country, he knew without a college education he could get a job pretty easily that would be able to put food on the table, have decent health care for his family, even provide him with a little bit of a pension that would take care of him. his son, my grandfather, followed him into that same profession working for a ball bearing factory in new britain, connecticut. while those jobs still exist, they're getting rarer and rarer. for the next generation to succeed, we know they need access to a college degree. they are not getting that access to completion because we have been woefully inadequate in using the tools at our disposal at the federal level to try to put pressure on colleges to deliver on both affordability and outcomes. and we hope the introduction of

the college affordability and innovation act will allow us to open up a new front in the debate on higher education to promote the idea of reducing the sticker price of college. i thank my colleague for joining me, and i yield the floor. mr. whitehouse: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes, perhaps as many as 17 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you so much. i come to the floor today for the 57th consecutive week that the senate has been in session to urge my colleagues to wake up to what carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and

oceans. i have described congress as surrounded by a barricade of lies. today i'll be more specific. there isn't just lying going on about climate change. there's a whole carefully built apparatus of lies. this apparatus is big and artfully constructed. phony baloney organizations designed to look and sound like they're real, messages honed by public relations experts to sound like they're truthful. payroll scientists whom polluters can trot out when they need them. and the whole thing, big and complicated enough that when you see its parts, you could be fooled into thinking that it's

not all the same beast. but it is. just like the mythological hydra. many heads, same beast. so this speech is going to be about that beast. a recent research article published by dr. robert brule, a professor of sociology and environmental science at drexel university, describes the beast. he joins a tradition of scholarship in this area, including work by naomi arescis, aaron mcwright and reilly dunlap, each of whom has studied the forces behind climate denial. and david rosner and jared mark owe witnesses, who -- markowicz who explored campaigns to deceive americans about the dangers of those products.

the intricate interconnected propaganda web and funding network of this climate denial beast encompasses over 100 organizations. including industry trade associations, conservative think tanks and plain old phony front groups for polluter interests. it has even co-opted media outlets, a phenomenon i chronicled in an earlier speech about "the wall street journal" editorial page becoming a tool of polluter propaganda. so let's take a look at this climate denial beast and how polluter money and dark money flow through its veins. this chart from dr. brule's report shows the complex interconnection of the beast's

major players. the green diamonds are the big funders, the coke affiliated foundations, the scafe affiliated foundations, the american petroleum institute and so on. and the blue circles are the who's who of climate denial groups. the heartland institute. they are the group that compared folks concerned about climate change to the unabomber, just to give you a sense of what sort of people they are. the american enterprise institute right here. the hoover institution, the heritage foundation, the cato institute, the mercada center, just to name a few. the purpose of this network, to quote the report is, and i will quote, a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and

distort the public's understanding of climate. to misdirect and distort. the coordinated tactics of this network, the report shows, and i will quote again, span a wide range of activities including political lobbying, contributions to political candidates and a large number of communication and media efforts that aim at undermining climate science. that is the beast. and big money flows through it. more than half a billion dollars. the direction he will university -- the drexel university report chronicles that from 2003-2010, 140 foundations made grants totaling $558 million to 91 organizations that actively oppose climate

action. it looks like a big beast to build just to propagate climate denial. but if you look at carbon emissions from fossil fuels, which in 2011 e.p.a. estimated to be over 5.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. so take 5.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide and then multiply that by the social cost of carbon, the economic and health costs that the polluters cause and inflict on the rest of society, which o.m.b. recently said -- set at $37 per metric ton of co2. 5.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted, $37 per

metric ton of co2 in social cost of carbon. just one year's emissions will cost roughly $200 billion -- with a b, one year's. so the stakes are pretty high for the polluters if they were to pay for the harm that they're causing. half a billion dollars through the beast over seven years to get away with $200 billion of harm every year? it's a bargain. and more than that, a lot of this machinery was already built. the beast did not spring up at once full grown. it grew over time in industry-fueled campaigns to obscure the dangers of cigarette smoke, of acid rain, of ozone

depletion. who knows? there are probably parts of it that go back to fighting the benefit of requiring seat belts and air bags in cars. looking back on the effects of these industry-funded campaigns of denial, we see that real people were hurt. but the denial machinery stalled action and made the wrongdoers money. it worked. so now the climate denial machine, the beast, is calling plays from the same play book and even using many of the same front organizations. so who is behind this beast? unfortunately, for proponents of transparency, a large portion of the funding is not traceable. much of the money fueling the beast is laundered through

organizations which exist to conceal donor identity. some of the organizations examined by dr. brule get over 90% of their money from hidden sources. indeed, more than a third of these organizations get over 90% of their money from hidden sources. the biggest identity laundering shop is donors trust and donors capital fund. indeed, it is by far the biggest source of funding in this web. these twin entities reported giving a combined $78 million to climate deaner denier -- denier groups between 2003 and 2010, and they refuse to identify their funders. according to the drexel report, the donors trust, donors capital

fund operation does double duty. it is the -- quote -- central component and -- quote -- predominant funder of the denier apparatus, and at the same time it is the -- quote -- black box that conceals the identity of contributors. interestingly, anonymous funding flowing into the beast through donors trust and donors capital fund has grown in tandem with disclosed funding from fossil fuel polluters declining. anonymous dollars up, disclosed dollars down. as we see here, donors trust and donors capital donations to the beast went from 3% of all foundation funding in 2003 to more than 23% in 2010. at the same time, for example,

the koch brothers affiliated foundations declined from 9% of all foundation funding in 2006 down to 2% by 2010. and the same is true for other polluter-backed foundations. the exxonmobil foundation, for instance, wound down its disclosed funding of organizations in the climate denier network and basically zeroed out by 2007. it makes perfect sense. why would the koch brothers and exxon come under fire for obviously funding climate denial, when donors trust and capital creates a mechanism for polluters to secretly fund the beast. plus the phony baloney front organizations within the beast,

they can pretend they are not funded by polluter money. everybody wins in this identity laundering charade, except the public, of course, whom this elaborate construction is designed to fool. the product of this apparatus is a complex ruse to delegitimatize the science of carbon emissions foisted on the american people with all the financing and fantasy of a hollywood blockbuster production. here is dr. brule describing what you see when you look behind the actors who appear in the media spotlight. i will quote -- "the roots of climate change denial go deeper, just as in a theatrical show, there are stars in the spotlight, in the drama of climate change denial, these are often prominent contrarian

scientists or conservative politicians. however, they are only the most visible and transparent parts of a larger production. supporting this effort are directors, scriptwriters and most certainly a series of producers in the form of conservative foundations. frankly, madam president, this apparatus is a disgrace. when the inevitable happens and the impact of climate change really starts to hit home, people will want to know, americans will want to know, people around the world will want to know why, why we didn't take proper steps in time. it's not as if there is not enough scientific evidence out there for us to act. why not? this denial operation, the beast, will then go down as one of our great american scandals.

like watergate or teapot dome. a deliberate, complex scheme of lies and propaganda that caused real harm to the american people and to our country. also that a small group of people could make more money a little longer. and the fact that one of our great political parties is in on the scheme will be to its lasting shame. there is an old hymn that says turn back o man for swear thy foolish ways. it is time for our denier colleagues to turn back and foreswear their foolish ways. if they don't, there will be a day of reckoning and a harsh price to pay.

every day, more and more americans realize the truth, and they increasingly want this congress to wake up. they know climate change is real. as the president said in his state of the union address, the debate is settled. climate change is a fact. sir winston churchill once said this -- owing to past neglect in the face of the plainest warnings, we have now entered upon a period of danger. the era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience, of delays is coming to its close. in its place, we are entering a period of consequences.

we cannot avoid this period. we are in it now. end quote. well, we are now in a period of consequences. we have got to break the back of the beast and break the barricade of brandishments and lies that beast has built around congress. this campaign of denial, this beast is as poisonous to our democracy as carbon pollution is to our atmosphere and oceans. with money and lobbyists and threats, it has infiltrated itself in an unseemly way into influence over our government. for the sake of our democracy, for the sake of our future, for the sake of our honor, it is time to wake up.

i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: madam president, i would just like to take a few minutes to talk about our nation's international trade policy. specifically i wish to discuss efforts to renew trade promotion authority or what we call t.p.a. the most recent authorization of t.p.a. expired nearly seven years ago. since that time republicans have by and large expressed support for renewing it. in august, 2010 the u.s. trade representative, ron kirk, testified that the obama administration needed t.p.a. to conclude ongoing trade negotiations. however, after that time little was done to move the ball forward on renewing t.p.a. so in september, 2011, minority leader mcconnell and i offered an amendment on the senate floor to renew trade promotion authority for obama.

unfortunately, despite strong support from the republican caucus, a number of democratic senators actively opposed our efforts and it received virtually no democrat support. as a result, our efforts failed. in march, 2013, then acting ustr moran it's again expressed the administration's support for renewing t.p.a. and pledged to work with congress to get it done. in june, 2013, ustr -- united states trade representative -- michael frelman during testimony before the u.s. senate finance committee formally requested on behalf of obama that -- president obama that congress renew t.p.a. through most of 2013 i worked with chairman baucus and chairman camp of the house ways and means to craft a bipartisan bill to renew t.p.a. that could

pass through both houses and the senate. we introduced introduced the bill in january. last week in the state of the union address president obama asked congress to pass t.p.a. legislation so his administration could complete negotiations on two very ambitious and important trade agreements. while i thought president obama could have spoken more forcefully on this matter, his call for t.p.a. renewal was clear and unambiguous. yet so far call appears to be going unheeded since -- should i say among democrats in the senate. why is t.p.a. so important? trade promotion authority. i think some additional context is necessary here. the administration is currently in the midst of negotiations on the trans-pacific partnership or t.p.p., an asia pacific trade agreement between the united states and 12 other countries including some of the largest

economies such as japan, canada and mexico. the asian pacific region represents more than 40% of the world's trade. and as a group, t.p.p. countries represent the largest goods and services export market for our country, the united states of america. on the other side of the world the u.s. is negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with the 28 countries of the european union. this is called t tip. the united states and the e.u. generated over half of the world's economic output. total goods trade alone, however, -- between the u.s. and e.u. amounts to over $1 trillion a year. investment flows represent another $300 billion on top of that a year. together these two trade agreements have the potential to greatly expand access for u.s. products in the foreign markets

around the world. most importantly, they would help to grow our economy and create jobs here at home. these two separate trade agreements and negotiations represent what is the most ambitious trade agenda in our nation's history. while everyone knows that i'm a pretty outspoken critic of the obama administration i believe the administration deserves credit on this front but if these negotiations are going to succeed, congress must approve t.p.a. because of the unique structure of our government, our country needs t.p.a. our trading partners will not put their best deal on the table unless they know that the united states can deliver on what we promise. t.p.a. empowers our trade negotiators to conclude gleaments and provides -- agreements and provides a path for passage in congress. that's why every president since

f.d.r. has sought trade promotion authority. no economically significant trade agreement has ever been negotiated by any administration and approved by congress without it. put simply, if congress does not renew t.p.a., the t.p.p. negotiations and the ttip negotiations with the european union will almost certainly fail. that is why it is so disconcerting to me to see how some of my colleagues across the aisle have responded to the president's call for t.p.a. renewal. t.p.a. is one of the few issues where both parties can and should be able to work together to achieve a common goal. i know that i along with my republican colleagues stand ready and willing to work with the administration to approve t.p.a. as soon as possible. i think i have a representation of working across the aisle and bringing people together. this is one i'd like to bring people together on and shint have to argue about it, but i

do. i believe the bipartisan bill chairman baucus and i recently introduced to renew t.p.a. would receive strong bipartisan support in the senate if it were allowed to come up for a vote. indeed i am confident that the vast majority of my colleagues would join me in supporting the bill. both democrats and republicans. the problem is, republicans are not in the majority in the senate. it is the democrats that control the agenda. and, unfortunately, the president's call to renew t.p.a. does not appear to be a priority for some of the democrats. certainly the leadership of the democrats. the question is, will senate democrats work with the president on this issue. i don't know the answer to that question but i have to say that things don't look very good to me. instead of robust support for the president and his trade agenda, the response we've seen from some democrats has ranged from awkward silence on t.p.a.

to outright hostility. needless to say, i'm extremely disappointed by this. madam president, the issue here is fairly simple. if we want to grow our economy through trade-trade, the congress must approve t.p.a. and do so soon. the president can play a unique and key role here by forcefully advocating for t.p.a. renewal, he can help turn some of the skeptics in his party around. recently the financial times published a powerful editorial which outlined the need for t.p.a. and the role the president must play for t.p.a. to succeed. accordingly the editorial -- quote -- "20 years ago, president bill clinton pulled out all the stops to push through approval of the controversial north atlanta free trade agreement agreement with mexico and canada. he was able to squeak through a narrow victory by deft lobbying

and made a strong case to the american public. mr. obama is lagging behind his predecessor on both case counts. the case for ttip and t.p.p. are both strong. the time for mr. obama to move the arguments has arrived. he has every incentive to succeed. failure to secure t.p.a. would be a grievous blow to his presidency"-- unquote. now, i understand there are some powerful political forces that lead some of my friends on the other side of the aisle to oppose international trade. however, let's be clear. if we fail to approve t.p.a., we will be doing our nation and our economy a great disservice. international trade is good thing for our country. it is one of the few tools congress has to grow our economy that does not add to the federal deficit. madam president, as i mentioned, senator baucus and i along with chairman camp have

negotiated and introduced a bipartisan, bicameral t.p.a. bill. it is in my opinion the only t.p.a. bill that stands a chance of getting passed in both the senate and the house of representatives. my colleagues on on the other side of the aisle have a choice. they can either work with the republicans to pass our bill and empower our country to complete these important trade agreements, or they can throw up more roadblocks and dast more uncertainty on the president's trade agenda. as i stated, republicans stand ready to work with president obama on these issues and to help these trade negotiations to succeed. for the sake of our country and our economy, i sincerely hope my democratic colleagues and friends here in the senate are willing to do the same. madam president, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. roberts: madam president, today i come to the floor to discuss the recent report by the

congressional budget office, the c.b.o., which contains updated estimates of the insurance coverage provisions of the affordable health care act also known as obamacare. it was just on sunday the president told bill owe lislely, fox news in front of all america, super bowl sunday, that his health care bill is working. today, the congressional budget office has changed that tune. we learn from the report that obamacare will now cost us $2 trillion. $2 trillion. you may recall president obama told the country his bill would cost less than $1 trillion. we also learned that we are expected to lose -- we're

expected to lose 2.5 million full-time jobs over the next ten years. and finally the c.b.o. says exchange subsidies under the a.c.a. will reduce incentives to work. let me go over that again. president obama told the country his bill would cost less than $1 trillion. now c.b.o. says it will be $2 trillion. we're expected to lose 2.5 million full-time jobs over the next ten years. and finally, c.b.o. says exchange subsidies under the a.c.a. will reduce incentives to work. if this is working, what is broken -- what does "broken" mean to this president? as i am reading the report and accompanying reaction, the most recent updates sound hauntingly familiar. in fact, i believe this is something i and my colleagues spoke about every day during the debate on health care reform.

we questioned at that time whether the c.b.o. estimates accurately reflected the impact of obamacare on the american people which leads to why i am here on the floor as of this evening. this is about accountability, folks. during the debate we questioned whether the scoring done by the c.b.o. was fraught with gimmicks or an unrealistic belief that medicare would achieve significant savings in the future. i have serious concerns with the accuracy of the scoring done on obamacare and its portrayal of the impact of this legislation versus the stated benefits for the american people. we cannot keep doing this. there are people's lives at stake. people's lives that we're dealing with here. c.b.o. projections during the health care reform debate seemed

to significantly underestimate the negative impact of obamacare. and because of those projections supports were -- supporters were able to jam it through, one vote, everybody knows about that vote, and now the american people have to pick up the tab on the c.b.o.'s errors. today, i am calling for hearings in the finance committee upon which i sit to demand c.b.o. come before the committee and explain to congress and the american people why and how its scores which led to the passage of obamacare did not tell the whole story. this is about accountability for past actions and we must ask the question. the difficult question. an fortunate question. was this political? were the books cooked? c.b.o. needs to take the responsibility for the differences between their projections and the most recent

updates just released as of this morning. we must have accurate estimates on the costs and benefits of the legislation so we can do our jobs. this shouldn't be about politics or gaming the system. this is about people's lives. and it's our responsibility to get that right. let the hearings begin. let the c.b.o. provide answers. c.b.o. must answer this congress and america. i yield back, madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. roberts: it appears to me after careful inspection that a quorum call is not present. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

a senator: madam president, i ask to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. a senator: i ask that the sneat proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. boozman: i ask unanimous consent that at a i -- mr. donnelly: i ask unanimous consent that hat a time to be determined by the majority leader with the concurrence of the republican leerkd the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: calendar number 629, that there be 0*e6 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form, that upon the use or

yielding back of tiernlg the sna the proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nomination, the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, that no further motions be in order, that any related statements be printed in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. donnelly: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 344, submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 3 44, congratulating the penn state university wims volleyball team for winning the 2013 national collegiate athletic association women's volleyball championship. the presiding officer: there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. donnelly: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table,

with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. donnelly: i understand that' 1996 introduced earlier today by senator hagan is at the desk and i ask for its first reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the first time. the clerk: s. 1996, a bill to protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting and for other purposes. mr. donnelly: i now ask for its second reading and object to my own request. the presiding officer: having been heard, the bill will be read for a second time on the next legislative day. mr. donnelly: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on thursday, february 6, 2014, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, th the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and i think time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day.

that following any leader remarks, the senate resume consideration of s. 1845, the unemployment insurance extension act with the time until 11:00 a.m. equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, and that the filing deadline for first-degree amendments to s. 18 45b 9:45 a.m. and the filing deadline for second-degree amendments to the reed amendment number 2714 and s. 1845 be 10:45 a.m. on thursday. finally, that the cloture vote on the reed amendment be at 11:00 a.m. on thursday. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. donnelly: the senate will not be in session tomorrow to accommodate issues conferences for each caucus. there will be up to two roll call votes at 11:00 a.m. on thursday. we also expect to consider the nomination of senator baucus to become ambassador to china. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask

that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until

>> i have a lot more questions for members. you want to get general flynn to the defense intelligence agency report that was issued recently and made available to the committee which i think is the first agency to complete its review of the stolen information by an nsa contract. in your professional opinion do you believe these leaks cost american lives on the battlefield either now or in the future? >> i do. >> to the compromise make it harder to counter the threat from ieds used against our forces in afghanistan? >> i believe that we will face problems with the ied threat because of these leaks whether in afghanistan or some future battlefield. >> so that is a fairly immediate

threat level to our soldiers, marines and our military forces in the field in a combat zone today? >> chairman in my judgment it does. >> has the safety of u.s. government personnel throughout the world implemented risk by these leaks? in other words have you had to alter any assignments as a result of this compromise material? >> let me just say really for the purposes of our task force study, we assume that snowden, everything that he touched we assumed that he took, stole and so we assumed a worst-case and how we are reviewing all of the defense department's actions, events, exercises around the world so to sort of cut to the chase to your question i believe that we will have to make

adjustments in the future based on those assumptions that were made. >> and what particular military services have been impacted by the stolen material? >> all of our services. army, navy air force and marine corps. >> so there will be changes necessary to mitigate the theft of this material in order to maintain security of operationoperation s in the safety of united states military personnel? is that correct? >> i believe there will have to be. >> these leaks give our adversaries insights about how we track down and with their military vulnerabilities are and how they might look at what might he vulnerabilities to the united states military? >> i mean yes they do. what i don't want to do chairman is i don't want to get too far in front of where the investigation is going on this issue and also. >> i'm just talking about the material that was stolen. i don't want to, rob away with

confusion and affirmed the series are looking at them and many on the committee believe they are, that it gives the enemy or an adversary a better word today ,-com,-com ma it gives them operational strategic advantage when it comes to military service operations around the world. >> yes, it could. >> that was part of the hearing held today by the house intelligence committee. you can see the entire hearing tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span2's. >> the new c-span.org web site makes it easier for you to find

and watch all of c-span's extensive coverage of official washington. look for it on our homepage in a space called federal focus. each day you will find comprehensive coverage of house and senate debates, congressional committee hearings, events with the president and members of his cabinet, press briefings from the white house, capitol hill, the state department and the pentagon plus selected supreme court oral arguments and appearances by the justices. watch live or on your own schedule. federal focus on c-span.org, making it easy to keep tabs on what's happening in congress, the white house and the courts. >> president obama announced $750 million in corporate contributions to expand broadband technology in america's classrooms. he spoke about this today in maryland for about 20 minutes. [applause]

>> thank you so much. can everybody please give nelson a big round of applause for the outstanding job that he did. [applause] so nelson just told me backstage he plans to, plans on being a navy s.e.a.l. so i was really nice to him now so he doesn't mess with me later. [laughter] we are very proud of him and proud of all the students who are here today. i want to thank rentable richardson. [applause] for the great job that he is doing. and i want to thank all of the wonderful teachers who are here at buck lodge middle school. [applause] i brought along some people who very much care about the future of these young people. we have america's secretarsecretar y of education arne duncan in the house. [applause] we have got the fcc chairman tom wheeler and two of his fellow

commissioners who are here doing great work. [applause] congressman steny hoyer is in the house. [applause] county executive rusher baker is here. [applause] and we have got some business leaders who have made some very big commitments today because they know that your education is the very best investment that all of us can make in america. now last week in my state of the union address i spent some time talking about opportunity for everybody, which is at the heart of this country, the idea that no matter who you are and no matter what you look like if you have a chair feel free to sit down. that wasn't actually my line. [laughter]

but at the core of america, the essence of it, what makes us exceptional is this idea, no matter what you look like, where you come from or what your last name is, if you are willing to work hard, if you are willing to live up to your responsibilities you can make it here in america. but each generation has to work hard to make sure that dream of opportunity stays alive for the next generation and the opportunity agenda that i laid out last week will help us do that. its focus on four areas. number one, more new jobs. number two training folks with the skills to fill those jobs. number three taking sure our economy awards hard work with decent wages and economic security. and number four the piece i'm here to talk about today, guaranteeing every child access to a world-class education. every child. not just some, but everybody.

[applause] now i am only standing here today because my education gave me a chance. i am not so different than a lot of these young people. i was raised by a single mom with the help of my grandma and my grandpa. we didn't have a lot of money and for a her while my mother was working and going to school at the same time as she was raising a couple of kids. and there were times where times were tight. but with the a family who loves me and with some hard work on my part, although it wasn't always consistent, as my mother and my grandparents would point out, and then ultimately with the help of scholarships and student loans i was able to go to college. i was able to go to law school. and entire worlds of opportunity opened up to me that might not

otherwise have been available. so the country invested in me. my parents invested in me and my grandparents invested in me but my country invested in me. and i want america to now invest in you because in the faces of these students, these are future doctors, lawyers and engineers, scientists, business leaders. we don't know what kinds of products, services, good work that any of these students may do. but i am betting on them and all of us have to bet on them. so five years ago we set out to change the odds on all of our kids. our race to the top challenge has helped to raise expectations and performance in states all across the country.

our high school graduation rate is the highest that it has been in more than 30 years. [applause] that is an achievement. the dropout rate, and latino students has been cut in half since 2000. [applause] a really big deal. we reformed our student loan programs so that more young people are able to afford to go to college and now we have got more young people earning a college degree than ever before. teachers and principals across the country are working hard to prepare students like you with the skills you need for a new economy, not just the basics of reading and writing and arithmetic but skills like science and technology, engineering, critical thinking, creativity, asking what do you think about that idea and how would you do things differently?

now we still have more work to do to reach more kids and reach them faster. and some of the ideas that i have presented will require congress to act. but while congress decides what it's going to do, i said at the state of the union and i want to repeat it here today, i will ask all my own wherever i have a opportunity to expand more opportunity for young people wherever i have a chance to make a difference in their lives, i am going to act. [applause] i am going to act. [applause] so in this year of action, we are going to work with states and communities to help them make high-quality pre-k available to more young children. we know it's a good investment. [applause] we want to keep working to partner high schools with colleges and employers to offer real-world education experiences that can lead directly to jobs

and careers. and we want to do more to make sure no middle class kid is priced out of the college education and obviously no poor kid is priced out of the college education. that has got to be a priority for us. [applause] but today we are here to announce some big strides that we are making to put the world and outer space at every child's fingertips, whether they live in a big city or a quiet suburb orin rural america. last year i launched something called connected, a new initiative to close the technology gap in our schools and connect 99% of american students to highs speed broadband internet within five years. this is something we can do without waiting for congress. we do need some help though. so we picked up the phone and we started asking some outstanding business leaders to help bring

our schools and libraries into the 21st century. today thanks to the leadership of some of these companies, we have got some big announcements to make. but first i want you to know why it matters that we make sure technology is available to every child. technology is not the entire answer by the way when it comes to education excellence. we have got to make sure we have got outstanding teachers. [applause] we have got to make sure that parents are doing what they need to do. we need young people to make the effort and have to hi hi -- have high expectations for themselves. [applause] but technology can help. it's a tool. it's just one more tool so today the average school has about the same internet bandwidth that the average american home but it serves 200 times as many people. think about it. so you have got the same

bandwidth but it's a school. it's not your house. only around 30% of our students have true high-speed internet in the classroom and countries like south korea has 100%. we should give that competitive advantage over to other countries. we want to make sure our young people have the same advantages that some child in south korea has right now. in a country where we expect free wi-fi with our coffee we should definitely demand it in our schools. [applause] here at buck lodge you are showing how we can use technology to teach our young people in innovative ways and by the way the principal told me that part of how this got started was some of the stimulus dollars that we put in place almost five years ago now. but every student here has

access to their own ipad and you don't just write papers or take tests. they are animating movies. they are designing blogs and collaborating on multimedia projects. in the world of an eighth-graden learn more and take in more and then you know more about the world. and new technologies are helping teachers so in mr. jeter's science students take lessons on the tablets he can check the answers in real time and figure out who needs extra help. and in ms. kalina's language arts class students learn vocabulary notches with flash cards but with on line video. and mrs. stover's math class, i was just over with ms. stover. students bring their tablets home to watch lectures about concepts like rational numbers and ratios and use classroom

time applying this concept to the real world. so technology allows teachers here to spend more time being creative and less time teaching to the test, giving continual feed that, being able to get a point where young person is having trouble because they are able to see their work right away in a pretty efficient way. and i will say, i was just in a classroom where there was a lesson plan that was organized around the curiosity rover on mars and the young people there were doing some amazing stuff, making their own ibooks with video and multimedia. as i was walking out i was telling steny hoyer i remember using glue sticks and scissors to cut stuff out. it didn't look very good.

these guys were making books that you could publish. but it makes learning exciting and makes it interesting. if you are studying science and you are actually seeing scientists that dealt a curiosity rover talk about what they were doing and how they did it in being able to see the rover on the martian landscape. it makes vivid and real math and science in a way that is more interesting to students, which means that they are more likely to be engaged and can potentially do better. this is how it should be for every student in every teacher at every school and library in the country. [applause] that is how it should be for everybody, not just some. [applause] today almost eight months after we launched connected, we can announce some very big commitments that are going to go

a long way towards realizing that vision for where every child has the access to the technology that they can use to help them learn. so, under tom wheeler's leadership the fcc is announcing a down payment of $2 billion to connect more than 18,000 schools and 20 million students to highs. >> broad and over the next two years. [applause] 15,000 schools, 20 million students. [applause] it won't require a single piece of legislation from congress. it won't add a single dime to the deficit. and even better, some of america's vegas tech companies have decided to join this effort with commitments worth more than three-quarters of a billion dollars. so let me just give you some

examples. apple will donate $100 million worth of ipads, macbooks and other products to schools across the country. [applause] that's an enormous commitment. sprint will provide free wireless service for up to 80,000 low-income high school students over the next four years so their education isn't confined to the classroom. applausecapplausec oh at&t will donate over $100 billion worth of wireless service to middle school students so they can continue to do homework when they get home. [applause] autodesk will make its 3-d design software available for free to every high school in the country. [applause] microsoft will offer products like windows to students and teachers at a deep discount and

provide 12 million free copies of office to our schools. [applause] o'rielly media and safari books on fine will donate more than $100 million for the that e-books and help students learn technology skills like coding and web design. [applause] and finally because no technology will ever be as important as a great teacher for eisen will expand the program to help train educators to use all these new tools in all 50 states. [applause] so i want to thank all the business leaders who are here today for stepping up. why don't you stand up. let's give them a big round of applause. we are very proud of them. thank you. [applause] now, this is an extraordiextraordi nary commitment by these business

leaders but you know they are business leaders so they are not just doing it out of the goodness of their heart. they want the country to do well but they also understand they want educated customers. they want customers who are able to get good jobs who are going to be using these tools in the future. they want that next young architect coming out of here to be familiar with using that ipad so that they are designing buildings and using their products. they know that the entire economy will be lifted if more of our young people are doing better. so they are doing good, but it will also help them succeed from a bottom-line perspective by this kind of participation. they are united in their support of young people like you even though sometimes they compete against each other. as all of us have a stake in

your education and in your future. that is why we have to build on this progress together. later this year i'm going to ask congress to do its part and give teachers using cutting-edge technologies the training they deserve. [applause] because it's important. [applause] as i said before, technology is not a silver bullet. it's only as good as the teachers who are there using it as one more tool to help inspire and teach and work through problems. and although i've noticed that these days when i visit schools most teachers are much younger than i am. i'm getting on in years obviously which means that i'm not always as familiar with ipad and technology as they need to be. we want every teacher in every school to understand from soup to nuts how you can potentially use this technology and that oftentimes requires a training

component that make sure the the technology is not just sitting there and that is actually used and incorporated in the best way possible. so i'm going to ask every business leader across america to join us in this effort. ask yourself what you can do to help us connect our students to the 21st century. ask yourselves what you can do to support our teachers and our parents and give every young person every shot at success. we can't make this happen and just imagine what it will mean for our country. imagine what it could mean for girl growing up on a farm to the able to take ap biology or ap physics even if her school is too small to offer it because she has the access to technology that allows her to take those classes on line. imagine what it means for a boy with an illness that can find him sometimes to home where he can join this class mates for every lesson with face time or skype. imagine what it means for educators to spend less time

grading tests and papers and more time helping young people learn. imagine businesses hiring here because they know for a fact that the young people here are going to be equipped with the skills that are better than anybody else on earth. that is the future we are building. that is what these companies are investing in. and if america pulls together now and if we do our part to make sure every young person can go as far as their passion and hard work will take them whether it's to mars or the bottom of the ocean for two anywhere on this planet where you have got internet connection, if we commit ourselves to restoring opportunity for everybody than we can keep the american dream alive for generations to come. that is our main project. that is our main opposition. that is why he ran for president. that is what i'm going to be

working on for the next three years. thank you for all the work you are doing here at the subten -- outstanding school. god bless you and god bless america. thank you. [applause] ♪ [applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

>> the decision on key covert activities has had serious negative consequences to the national security of the united states. when it comes to america's approach to national security it is only one thing that is certain and that is their allies have no clue what our policy is from one day to the next. we could turn from the munich security conference. we had roughly 10 bilateral meetings in a bipartisan delegation. to the individual they expressed frustration over the lack of clarity in u.s. policy when it comes to engagements in rough parts of the world. as a matter of fact one

particular very senior official highlighted the confusion when he stated on serious policy matters very recently received direction from the pentagon that was different from the same direction he got from the state department, that was different from the direction he got from the white house. you can imagine the frustration of our allies in a very troubled time. talking about the problem, reviewing the problem and assigning a task force to think about the problem is causing serious problems. our embassy area's see it as a weakness. we look to see how the world has evolved in response to these last five years. america's strength and stature in the world has diminished. that is not one member's opinion. that's the opinion of our international partners who we meet with frequently. terrorists are emboldened and grabbing land around the world. our adversaries like russia and china capitalize on our indecision and absence from the world stage at their own

strategic advantage. where policymakers embrace security policies based on what sounds good in a speech those left to untangle the mess and the gentlemen you see the sitting before us today and a very courageous men and women who work for those agencies. i thank all of you for the work that you do not only the good work you're you are doing now but for the years defending the country, for making the arc mins for standing up for what is right in one of the most challenging times i argue in our national securities history, our countries country's history. i also fear this lack of leadership has created growing risk aversion with inner intelligence agencies as al qaeda has morphed and spread throughout yemen syria and africa. we have piled on here in washington d.c. even more bureaucracy on our intelligence agency. today individuals that would have been previously removed from the battlefield by counterterrorism operations for

attacking or plotting to attack against u.s. interests remain free because of self-imposed red tape. while we are busy pondering more transparency or intelligence professionals are why is because the totally incoherent policy guidance. so let me be the first to say publicly that presidents may 2013 policy changes to the u.s. targeted strikes are an utter and complete failure and they leave americans lives at risk. those changes while sounding nice in a speech are today right now endangering the lives of americans at home and our military overseas in a way that is frustrating to our allies and frustrating to those of us who engage in the oversight of our classified activities. as to afghanistan last year at the same hearing i asked whether we have the conviction to submit our gains and achieve a lasting victory or would we just walk away? a year leave -- later we see focus on winning

the war before victory has been won yet we have party learned what happens after haste the event in iraq giving terrorist groups ungoverned space to plan train and conduct terrorist activities against the west and indeed our homeland. such operational freedom results in the loss of hard-fought gains our policy should be dictated by what best protect america and not what is politically expedient. america's adversaries are not slowing down. now is not the time to disengage from the world. the trip of classified information designed to undermine u.s. interests will continue but we must move past false accusation and feigned outrage. we need leadership and clear thinking in a very difficult time. we must get back to business in protecting america and we must give our intelligence services the clarity and certainty in the

tools to be successful in that effort. that is why we look to you the heads of our intelligence agencies to find innovative ways to make sure that you have ability to stop potential -- and policymakers to make the right decision in difficult places in the world. that certainly is no small task.

>> i'm here to talk about an incident and salsa. and i will point out who is going to ask the questions as well. >> thank you danny. good afternoon and thanks for having us this afternoon. i met with john greenert the chief of naval operations and i have with me the director for navy nuclear propulsion admiral john richardson. we are here to discuss allegations of cheating on a written qualification exam that one of our nuclear training commands. we learned about this yesterday evening. we were alerted of the incident and it took place in charleston south carolina at her navy nuclear propulsion command there. the propulsion exam was allegedly shared among senior enlisted operators. admiral john richardson will

speak more about the details of the incident and where we are so far. to say that i'm disappointed would be an understatement. whenever i hear about integrity issues it is disruptive to our unit's success and definitely contrary to all of our core values, our navy core values and it affects the very basis of our ethos. the foundation of our conduct throughout the navy is integrity we expect more from our sailors especially our senior sailors in our training and operations and we will operate with hundreds of thousands of professional sailors who are operating with honor and integrity throughout our fleet today. we set high expectations within our navy particularly this program, the navy nuclear propulsion program. it has five decades of distinguished service and it is all founded on integrity. our sailors are held to a standard, a very high standard and this will not change.

so i assure you if these allegations are substantiated we will hold the appropriate sailors, hold the appropriate people accountable varied we will remain vigilant throughout the program as we have been as i said for at five decades. we will learn from this and we will do a case study. john over to you and then we will take questions. >> as the sea and those that i'm admiral richardson the director of naval reactors. as such i have the responsibility for the navy's nuclear propulsion couple -- propulsion probe program and i take full response ability for this incident. this is mine to investigate and correct. i was made aware of the situation yesterday on february february 3 from the nuclear power training unit in charleston south carolina who recognize that this was wrong and reported it to the command. the navy nuclear propulsion program aggressively focuses on managing problems whether in

matériel operational or personal problems with the intent of finding and correcting problems while they are still relatively small. so in addition to self-examinations each element of the program is examined by outside inspectors and we aggressively respond to any problems if they find as well. on rare occasions and integrity incident occurs that includes collision between senior people. for instance for your reference the last comparablcomparabl e incident of this nature took place in 2010 on board a submarine. integrity is a foundational element of our program and when confronted with problems we respond aggressively and forcefully. although the investigation is just beginning i would like to try to provide some details for your information. this incident took place in our school. we have a one year training

program that includes six months of classroom training theoretical training in six months of hands-on training. we do this in charleston into converted submarines and we use as training reactors to certify operators to report to the fleet so this is propulsion reactors not related to nuclear weapons. this incident involves member of the school staff who are required to qualify, to operate and instruct students on the training. we operate using 11 person watch teams so there is an 11 person team on watch to operate the reactor. this incident as the cno said involves the compromise, the alleged compromise of the written exam to qualify just one of those 11 watch stations, one of the 11 person team. to qualify for that position in addition to the rig nick sam that we are discussing an and investigating, one must also pass an oral academic board

given by a three-person panel and must pass and evaluate a practical exam showing satisfactory performance. what we know so far these elements of the qualification program appeared to be valid. once qualified their individual watch performances further evaluated by internal inspectors. evaluation by my field representatives on-site and three separate continued training program. we have seen no major concerns from those other assessments today. finally once the staff member completes his tour at the schoolhouse and returns to the fleet that process begins anew and they are required to requalify using the same process on the ship to which they report this ship, this command is also subject to the internal and external inspections and oversight that i've just described. it is this philosophy of defense that allows me to assure you

that are naval operators are operating safely. this is a serious incident and is the cno said integrity is the foundation of our business. the training command and ncis have done a full investigation that will be led by a nuclear qualified submarine and -- admiral. additional efforts to ensure, will be to ensure that we properly bound the problem. to date we are getting good cooperation with the investigation. the training reactors were shut down for routine maintenance when we learned of this incident the training command has ensure that all personnel implicated in the so far have and removed from this site. their access has been revoked. all current personnel on watch are those who have no element of implication. as a precautionary measure these personnel are being retested to validate their knowledge. additionally the signed extra

supervision to operating teams. i will not reauthorize operation of the reactors until i'm personally satisfied that probe a corrective actions have been taken an additional conservative measures have been implemented. additionally i have a five person cadre of personnel from my headquarters that have flown down to the site led by a senior navy captain to assess the command climate in other areas and to ensure that the investigation is getting started properly. the goal of ensuring that we do not have a broader problem at this command. in closing i would like to restate that i'm fully responsible for this matter. i'm aggressively moving to address the situation. while i can provide much more information at this time due to the ongoing investigation, i will keep u.s. fully informed as possible. we intend to be as transparent as possible as we work our way through this.

thank you and i will answer any questions that i can't subject to the understanding that there is an active investigation going on. >> for both of you i was just wondering one if you could maybe clarify a couple more details. did this involve e-mailing questions or answers to the staff and did it also involved a violation of classified material for access to classified material and then secondly as you know the air force has had its own cheating issues also within their force and their comments have been that they worry it is systemic and that this is a broad morale problem that involves people who were cheating because they felt the need to get 100% because it affected their promotions. i'm wondering if you could

address whether those are also among some of your concerns. >> with respect to the exams themselves in the nature of what we are talking about, most of that will be fully developed in the investigation but it's fair to say that these exams and the operation of the plans do involve classified information that will be an active part of the investigation to fully understand that. with respect to the morale and the necessity to pass these exams in order to advance its not really a dimension of our program. we do not have that kind of 90% and above type of dynamic in our program. our exam program is different than the one you mentioned for the air force so we don't really see that being a dynamic here. but again, as i said my team is on board to make sure. we we are taking nothing for

granted right now. >> we grew up in the same program the navy nuclear propulsion program in the foundation within it is examination and re-examination, oral and written as well as demonstration proficiency so what i'm saying is it is in the ethos of the well and it is in the process that folks are used to getting examined and qualified. therefore i don't perceive as general richardson said that there is an element that you have to get the highest grade because we are constantly evaluating and self assessing ourselves within the program. >> if you mentioned this excuse me but how many sailors have been decertified and could you tell us, you said one sailor have been encouraged to join and it sounded like a sort of group of people who were cheating and came forward. it does not come to light

because of the review was ordered by -- in relation to the air force? >> it did not. we were looking very hard ourselves as we always do so the theme that emerges here is that there is a climate of introspection looking for problems and solving them so we don't constantly assess ourselves. this did not calm forward as a consequence of that ongoing thing. this was a sailor who has been fully trained from the moment he enters boot camp that integrity is the foundation of our navy's operations and including the naval nuclear propulsion program. he recognized when he was asked to join that is not consistent with those values in the command. [inaudible] >> really we are still bounding out problems so i'm hesitant to give you a number right now because i don't have the final number that we conservatively estimate that this is probably less than 1% of the naval

nuclear propulsion force. >> we have 16,000 sailors in the program. >> in charleston? >> in charleston, it's a few hundred. >> are we talking about a dozen or so? is it roughly 20? >> that is the ballpark figure but again i hesitate to commit to that because we are still, we are only 24 hours into this. >> i wanted to ask about this incident and the repercussions of it and the potential budget decisions and if there might be a a need to fund some more of these internal and external investigations? >> well i don't think it will affect budgetary decisions.

as admiral richardson explained we are constantly evaluating ourselves especially but then this program. we in fact have our navy ig, john has asked that team to take a look at our nuclear propulsion examining and training process. that examination hasn't been going on how long? >> about four months. >> about four months of finding things like this occasionally as was mentioned that happened four years ago on a vessel so i don't want to trivialize it. this is very serious but these are the things we are vigilant for and we need to learn from and understand the case study and train. i don't see it now as being something that will have a budgetary ramification but if there is any need to fund additional evaluations and we will figure that out, we will fund that. this is very important. >> what will be the consequences for those that are found to be guilty that are involved in this? >> i think that as a

case-by-case evaluation. we generally are forceful about holding people accountable and so as the investigation continues we can determine the level of culpability in the level of misconduct and we will value a plate -- evaluate that on a case-by-case basis. >> would you be kicked out of the navy or what is the upper and? >> certainly removed from the program and if our history is that if you are caught in an integrity violation you are removed from program and generally out of the navy. >> i would like to return to the point that you talked about earlier in your sense of why now? rightly or wrongly the taxpayer sees a contentions cheating across the military so what is happening now? it's been going on for a long time. have you caught it or is it just

inexplicable? why admiral is this happening now? >> tom if i knew that answer i would be doing all kinds of things within the navy but one thing is for sure we need to and we will remain vigilant. we will continue to drive home to our people the importance of integrity and the fact that it is the foundation of all that we do in the u.s. navy. we have to believe everything that somebody says to one another. again it is the foundation. and certainly in this program. so we will be very introspective on this. as i said before we will make this very much a case study like we did with previous issues that occurred in this program and in others but certainly in this program. it is founded again on self inspection and good assessment. >> admiral to follow-ups in a point of clarification. do you think that the sailor who came forward to report this did

so in part because of the it's attention over the air force issue knowing from that he had a duty to report what he knew and two is there any way to describe this test in any more detail about whether or maintaining a reactor or running a reactor or what exactly obvious that without getting into classified material that is what it is tes? >> with respect to what the taft's this particular is on reactor operation so it tests the theoretical level of knowledge to be able to qualify for that watch station and the position on the watch team. that is what this exam serves in conjunction with the oral board, in conjunction with the evaluated on watch assessment. so sort of three layers of the valuation there. with respect to what motivated

this we have a steady drumbeat and the navy in particular and the navy propulsion program that stresses the importance of integrity not only is the foundational value so it's hard for me to say now what specifically but at the foundation he understands the importance of the value of integrity. >> air forces has their own issues in conducting their own reviews with cheating. has the navy been doing its own review of its program because of what's been going on in the air force? i know the secretary of defense had a meeting at the pentagon to talk about the prior program. what at the navy been doing as a result of that? >> the answer to that is yes. the navy has done a review while i will call it the nuclear enterprise. a nuclear weapon enterprise involves two services obviously

the navy and air force. we have our elements with all the supporting entities. we have been directed to primary look at the personal element of that. the qualification that organize train and equip that those two handle or employ ordered field operations of nuclear weapons, the certification there and of course the personnel reliability program. so that is the progress. what we do already craig is every two years we have a three-star flag officer review if you will the program coordinated with our director of strategic systems program. that strategic systems program is responsible for all operations the handling of her nuclear weapons so that has been going on on. there's a drumbeat of that as admiral richardson said in his program. we have a similar drumbeat. we are going to take the results of our most recent which is

months old. we are going to take the results of the/insure report. remember that from a few years ago? we are going to take the results of atmel donald's room port if you remember that a few years ago and look at that in review that. did we do with that said and how are we doing on that and then we will do an internal assessment. what has been looked at before, how is that going? is it still affected then where are we now? all of that is underway and we will do the report in what is now 45 days we are assigned a few weeks ago. see i want to get a sense about the timing and the person who came forward. with that person indicating it was a new problem or a fresh incident or did the evidence suggests that this might be going back a while? this cheating might be more systemic of a pattern and also you are hesitant to put a finger on the number in is that because you believe it will get much

higher? >> that is indicative of the fact that we are just getting started so any number that i give you i don't know where that's going to go. we are just getting started so i'm reluctant to give you a number because it could change. we just don't know so i don't want to put something out there that may be accurate but we may find more. like i said we are in the very early stages of this. and what was your other question? >> is this a single problem? >> we know when he was confronted we learned about this yesterday. >> this individual came forward. >> he came forward on his own accord and this happened within the last 24 hours so we wanted to get to you very early on to let you know about this. >> is this a pattern and has it been going on for a long time or is it just a one-off incident?

>> for point of clarification to be clear this test is one of the a series of tests if you must perform before you are qualified? >> exactly. >> got it question was, was this test to qualify her to requalify someone? in other other words or they are to qualify to operate a reactor or is this for a new person is never done at taking the test to see if they qualified? >> because the folks we are talking about are on the staff, they have already completed their initial qualifications as students through the same program. they have then gone out and requalify it again on the carrier or submarine that they were assigned and now they're coming back and there is an additional requalification process back at those training reactors. this will be about the third time that they will have been through this qualification sequence. over the top of all of that

there is a continuous training program that in addition to the qualification is a program of lectures and clinics and education with exams and validation along with that so it fits into the pretty thorough network of education, qualification and validation. >> i have a question. do the senior enlisted folks who are the year's were giving the answers are offering to give answers to trainees? >> no, our understanding to date is they were giving its staff to staff so this is something that the staff could qualify the position to operate the training reactor. you have to qualify to operate that and additionally you are training students but we see no evidence of compromises towards the students at this point. >> is there an offer for

exchange in these answers? >> no. >> piggybacking off of critics question, does this incident then trigger potentially a broader investigation and not just of this incident that you are describing but a broader wake-up call investigation of the navy's nuclear force? do you see what i'm saying? >> we will certainly in this process of bounding the problem we will take everything that we learned from this incident and we will apply that to the broader force. that is just our nature. we use these as, these problems as opportunities to check across the force so that is part -- that is par for our course. we will do that. >> eight think i should add as i have described to craig we are doing the 60-day look at our

nuclear enterprise. we share across enterprises. again the foundation and the principles are all fair. our people served on nuclear power -- so those elements have it be shared. there is a lot involved there and starcrossed if you will. >> will do the any operational impact that those involved with the cheating possibly suspending to suspend or restrict 120 into larry's? people are pulling extra shifts. do you foresee any type of similar operation in? >> i could possibly foresee an impact on charleston. we will see if that is broader. see what kind of impact would that be? >> the same sort of thing so those folks that are implicated will be removed from most responsibilities and other folks will have to possibly pick up

those duties. additionaadditiona lly there will be a certification process before i allow any kind of operation in those plans as well. >> admiral richardson do you see anything comparable involving submarine crew. why is it comparable? you are talking about something that happened in a training atmosphere and the other is telling about something that happened on it -- >> elements that concern me are not so much where it happens but the nature of the incident which is loath memphis ended this case we have one violation of integrity, one of our core principles. two, you have some kind of collusion amongst particularly senior people so on those rare occasions where we find those two things is of particular concern to us. that is why i draw parallels between those two incidents.

>> can i go back to your under 1% reference? does that mean that is how many individuals you are looking at. it is fuzzy math and it comes up to 1% of personnel. >> that is my initial bounding of the problem and so pending further investigation that is kind of where i see it right now. >> in terms of what? >> personnel that will be implicated. 16,000 personnel in the plant. 1% of 16,000 i think is 160 but in terms of a ballpark figure, is well less than that so when i say 16 it is going to be closer. it's again it's hard to say i'm just very reluctant to try to

declare number at this time because as i said --. >> you don't want to give a number between 16 and 160 but you certify people -- >> in terms of the number decertified part of this entire program so i'm reluctant to get a sense for where we stand right now in an ongoing investigation. >> how many teams are there? >> there at are five different shifts that operate. so there are five of those teams that operate in shift work and essentially do 24/7 training on a shift basis. [inaudible] >> we will look across the entire program so we will start there. that is where our concern is most acute now but i will make sure we take a look at the entire program to make sure that we found this.

>> admiral's thank you and if there are any follow-up questions just e-mail me. thank you very much. thank you. ..