we've tested it. we volunteer to work with the post office to prove it. .. to draw you into the debate whether or not a secure delivery location for your parcels would be a benefit to your company or not. ms. norden, we took two on your side of the aisle first. if you don't mind we'll go recognize chairman issa then come back to you. mr. chairman? >> thank you. this is an interesting -- and i won't use out of body as mr. clay did. but interesting turn of events when mr. lynch calls me a lutite and says there's an inevident blt we're going to do what switzerland has done. now, mr. williams, i was madder than hell at your proposal. i think the idea that you're trying to be the chief innovation officer and promoting

banking within the ig's fic i'm shocked inspector general would go from waste, fraud, and abuse and inefficiency to promoting a specific agenda and i'm disappointed. notwithstanding that, post office has every right to propose innovative activity including postal money orders and other items, some of which are historic within postal systems here and around the world. however, i would hope in the future that you would be much more of an advocate conclude like when people like mr. lance find everything that reduces costs and allows the post office to break even and be more efficient for its customers which, as stated earlier, are the shippers. mr. lynch is not here. he proudly said i talk about after he left. mitchell lynch will never be my partner in anything that reforms the post office and makes a more efficient because that will reduce labor. i'm sorry to say but i think

it's a lost cause. mr. clay and others are not. let's go through the numbers quickly. anyone can when but mr. williams, your a little bit on the hotspot here. the fact is it's in the shippers best interest because it avoids another 3 cents per letter price increase and similar cost across the board, doesn't it? >> i'm on tour of the 3 cents but disputed looking about $2 billion versus what the exigent price increase did. even if it only saved 2 cents or 1 cent, isn't it true that, in fact, a reduction in cost that allows you not to increase in price is more likely to avoid a reduction in volume because the shipper ultimately, although sensitive to often you deliver, is most sensitive to price, isn't that true? >> that's a very good proposition. we just need to find out what happens in reality but i certainly follow the train of

thought. >> that's why the president has proposed that. mr. lynch spent a lot of time editing plan on having -- it looks like it will be. he spent a lot of time bashing steel containers. from a factual standpoint isn't it true that 91 million homes do not receive in the door delivery while 37.8, plus or minus, million to do? that's the curb slashed cluster including apartment, condo owners all of america, rural delivery and so one, 91 million plus or minus do not get it to the door while only 37.8 do? >> yes, i agree that's the rat ratio. actually i -- >> so it's amazing for the ratio of more than two out of every three who are already part of the savings of not having to walk all the way to the door simply less labor, and that's

been proven and calculate both by the post office in cbo, that labor savings for less than one-third of americans is billions of dollars, and ultimately question for you. those billions of dollars per year scored, just our modest 15 million, less than half of those being converted, sort -- scored no $20 in savings cost of the post office. let's go to the numbers. your customer is the shipper. you all a group that. -- you all agree to do. that. the shipper gets a bye both in secure storage and in avoiding cost increases, don't they? >> correct. >> where is the negative side, assuming that it's a reasonable distance to go back in fact these are secure storage and that individuals under the americans disabilities act and the like will always be able to still get to door delivery which

is already in law. if i'm out in rural america but i'm shut in, i can, in fact, with no cost combat the post office delivered to my door today, isn't that true? >> it is true. we very strongly -- we did a study as well on this topic and we saw the amount of savings was enormous. depending on what you pick an extreme model or one that was very moderate, those huge amount of savings. your proposal as i understand it is on the moderate side speed we toned it down a lot so we get sick more than half of all americans who now get to the door, if they don't believe it's feasible, would not see change in the first 10 years. we believe that communities will overtime rushed to have secure storage. not necessary cluster boxes of a dozen o or more. often there will be two or four in the cluster is practically at your front door. but, in fact, the ones we should yesterday during our hearing we

chose one that are gained in a large because we want to be fair in neighborhoods where it's hard to place a box you will tend to have larger boxes. in suburban neighborhoods it's pretty easy to do two or four just as the curb between your neighbors. >> both places where the model is difficult to fit and then for people with special needs, we saw there was a way and a model consideration, that's important to do. yes, we think it could be a real game changer. it could save an enormous amount of money. we also want to note that those 37 million that you pointed out are not designed for people with special needs or special requirements or in places that are difficult to deliver. it's a historic accident, and we like the fact that this has a

comprehensive plan for the placement of those and the facilitation of people with special needs, and in neighborhoods where a model can't work in the classic -- >> could i have your dog which ashton intelligence for about two women's? thank you, mr. chairman. -- your indulgence. mr. cochrane, i think for your in, the fact is that the post office, in my opinion, is uniquely positioned to provide a postal digital delivery system as an additional feature for a fee to the shipper. in other words, there are people who may not, you may not know where they live but if i can be half as much for a digital delivery only system and then the digital deliver can choose to have a paper copy delivered and i only paid if that paper copy is delivered, for example, that's a feature that's a variation of mr. davis.

technologically from your experience that is completely doable? >> yes, it is. we have a test right now in northern virginia where we saw all of our -- we can take pictures. you can get in e-mail each day telling you with an image of the actual pieces that we saw that will arrive in your mailbox that day. that doesn't get into opening envelopes and opening -- but it's a first step towards getting people digital image of what's going to come into their box. the risk side is what was discussed earlier. your catalog mayors that to get into the mailbox and if you're disrupting that, use the term, it does threaten a very extensive revenue stream for us. >> but for example, if these are hypotheticals, you've looked at a lot of deficiencies, if a shipper says look, i'm going to give you x amount of these

things, if the person declines i'm going to be half as much but if the person except a, i'm happy to pay the full boat. it could be a win-win but i could deliver you two-thirds as many people of printed material. it would be visible and usable by somebody digitally, perhaps the price, if delivered, let's say i want the coupon or whatever, i pay the full price but actually to your customer shipper, you are expanding his option. you could have a no delete option that it must be delivered and they would pay full price. those options are not available today and i get to chile are not in northern virginia, by local to me when the district is in the district, but i would love to know digitally everything that is supposed to be sent to me so that no to expected. if it doesn't, and it's an invoice or something, i would be prepared to say, i got a lost piece of mail. huge advantages to that. i happened to be a to the door delivery here in the district,

and often get my next-door neighbors meal. i don't know what causes it but it happened but regularly. so i take the mill and a walk over and i put in my neighbors shoot. the reality is my neighbor doesn't know that she's missing her mail and till it shows up and i'm going as you know for weeks at a time. because i don't actually live here. so they lose three, four weeks sometimes of mail. if they had a digital picture they would know they didn't get it. all of these and more are what this hearing is about. mr. chairman, i want you to continue pushing for this innovation to our broad proposal has additional innovation dollars but i'd like to close quickly with one thing. i was in business for more than two decades exclusively and then i've been in business very modestly by comparison the last 14 years. bbut the one thing i know about business is that top line and bottom line are not uniquely

different. that you can increase topline but if it doesn't flow to the bottom line is of no value. you could make cuts and navigate to a profit. that it's a combination of the two. the post office has asked when the volume billions of dollars of excess inefficiency that we all know can be cut. innovation, and to think in the case of your product and others come innovation depends on the efficient delivery. the more efficient it is the more promising they will be for innovative products, including, it amazes me that brown trucks go to any rural or suburban areas. i think they go there because they can't quite get as good a deal as they will be able to get from the post office if these innovations happen. so ms. norton, i appreciate the extra time. there's nothing more important to me than to try to have all of you be part of it. mr. davis, i appreciate your

showing the way. my hope is that even if it don't take it from you that they will, in fact, cede see that the diren you give as having value of some derivative product. thank you, mr. chairman spirit we will not recognize the gentlelady from the district of columbia. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i welcome this hearing on innovation and the postal service and i particularly welcome private businesses and worked with the postal service. i've often wondered the identity, the potential identity crisis we keep the postal service in. little bit private or maybe mostly private, change to the federal government, where as the essence of being a private business where the government doesn't give you anything. go out and fail for yourself, or rise as the case may be.

those of the downsizing of the postal service has been done by cats. i much prefer, as the chairman just indicated, innovation to be the road to the future of the postal service. i don't believe there's any way out of of that. so i've been interested, every time i see on television and innovative tool that the postal service is using, i say, wow. because i had become used to that as a kid growing up. and yet i do see those. and i'd like to ask about some of those. the new products in particular, since some of you have been involved with those products, one of the success stories has been the every door direct mail. i was interested that it apparently has helped the post

office generate more than a billion dollars. mr. cochrane, is that not correct? >> that's correct. >> then apparently this product has been a great success for the business community. i'd like to know how the postal service understood that this was a product that wouldn't catch on with the business community, why it's caught on and what their doing to enhance a product that has had this success. mr. cochrane, are you the person who could best answer that? >> i am and thank you for the opportunity to but a product that we are certainly very pleased with. is an innovative product that was created to really leverage technology in some way. though it's a hardcopy piece of mail, what we've done is

facilitate the ability for a customer to go to our website and literally pick a neighborhood. and if you're a dry cleaner or a restaurant, you can actually pick the neighborhood and the routes that you want to see a piece of mail delivered to slay don't have to deliver it to an entire zip code. you can pick the neighborhood that you know your customers live in. it's got nothing that allows you to click on the routes public of the streets and highlight the streets you want the mail to be treated. there's a commercial version and the version that you can walk right into post office and pay right there at the point of service terminal. drop me off and we will delivered in the next day or two. >> i take a job a competitive advantage over your competitors with this particular service because of your own infrastructure. do you have any competition with the service? >> with mail going into the mailbox, no. there's maybe more sophisticated mailing, direct mail in particular that takes place and i think that was some initial concerns of our business

partners, that edd him would force people to buy down from a more traditional mail piece and our findings exactly than others but it's green and on bread for somebody begins with a very simple edd m. a product and they morph themselves into more sophisticated mailers and the stars in the valley of mail to get a great agency, start working with commercial printer and expand where sending mail to. so truly like a first step in a very easy way that actually in many cases that's up to mailers move into a much broader mail stream. >> do they track also with the same mail based on what they learn by going online? >> i think that's the issue is they can pick where they want it to go. so it's a saturation that nearly when they pick on a carrier route, 500 delivered in that route will receive. >> so it can save businesses money.

money. >> absolutely. sometimes you get a mail piece and it's from a dry cleaner three times over. you might drive by five cleaners to get to the person that you give me a piece. this becomes a lot more targeted. neighborhood mail is almost a good way of describing it. it really gets focus on the individual trying to reach. >> the post office has had her success collaborating with others. mr. everett, logistics development is a process with the postal service, correct? you testified before a game. i regret i did not hear the testimony as to your collaboration. >> we've worked with extensive with the postal service. >> did they reach out to you? >> i wasn't with the newgistics when initial meetings were held but my thing is we had an idea, reached out to them, and it was aligned with some of the product ideas that they had as well. >> mr. weise berg, -- mr. weisberg, your company has successfully clever with the postal service?

>> yes, we have. we reached out to the postal service initially. >> mr. cochrane, defined that you were pursued by businesses like mr. weisberg spend it is very flattering i think it's a recognition of the presence we have, that were at 153 million doors today. i was part of the early conversations with newgistics and they did reach out to us and say that we want to do something with returns. they shifted their business model with us and we'll think of something in the same vein. we went to a pilot, created a product over at the regulator, a temporary product and then went for a regular full-time product as partial return service. which at the time, this was 10 years ago, was really when e-commerce was certain take off. one of the real barriers was ease of return. the studies and market research which withou was that was the tg that was holding people back. it was in everyone's best interest, the postal service, the retailers to help facilitate

a more easy return. we were proud to partner with them and i think it's a great success story. >> could i just ask -- i came into describing difficulties with the postal service. isn't the case that you went to ups instead? >> we spent over two years really believing the post office was th the best solution. but we stood with the post office is the best solution. at a certain point as being a fairly self-funded business with limited amount of runway you kind of put your wood behind the arrows that you believe in. after reaching with the post office we've reached ou out to s but they said great, we love the package. will give you a great rate for it. in terms of contractual arrangement what they're talking about a dollar from origin to destination. second a service at worst. >> mr. cochrane, did you have a

response to? >> i'd like to wait in the. thank you for the opportunity. the fact is that we have different automation of over 10,000 piece10,000 pieces of aun internetwork, very complex network as a sit in my opening comments. we do delineate and differentiate letters from that tight mail, catalogs, magazines in particular, and parcels. it's important they go into the distinct streams that they're supposed to so it's not creating problems on our machines. though the package, the boxes are inside a noble doesn't necessary make them a flat. it's a parcel and that the reason why they were turned it down to a flat rate because of the rigidity of the pieces and the need for these pieces to stay in the appropriate mail stream, which is a partial mail stream. we would welcome customers shipping those packages that's been designed but i think it's an innovative design and the whole concept secures the bottle that is tempers as i think a nice value set for

pharmaceutical companies. we deliver well over hundreds of millions of pharmacy items on an annual basis, but the issue is, it's a partial. at the end of its got to be mailed as a parcel. >> may i speak? >> is mrs. norton stein. >> -- norton's time. >> at our own expense, and my background is material handling and automation. our founding partners can out of electric on. the entire genesis around impact was rent initially their frustration was doing drugs by mail. they one day said, why don't we do it square? at the time they got in industrial automation at columbia records, human with a record of the month club, cassettes. they were handling those 25 years ago at 300 pieces per minute, yet they couldn't automate around bile through the mail. we had a long-term personal and

professional relationship with the folks at siemens. when we started this process, they came up with this major. the first thing we did because all of us come from industrial automation background. we know what non-and available means. we machine of all means. we know all the headaches. i don't 100 issue vision centers in my life. the first thing we did was prove this would run through flat. we ran this through flat. we have video we submitted with our applicatiapplicati on showing this running through the siemens sorters in fort worth before it ever submitted our package. we provided this with our submittal. it passes every mechanical test of a machine to bull flat. it bends this way. it bends this access. it follows every mechanical test in -- insource at 300 pieces per minute. we've offered to change the mail

piece at our expense. we want, we want to partner with the post office. hello, we have all been. you can make money. please work with us. i don't know what to do. >> thank you very much. all right, we've gotten to everybody. i have a few more questions so we will do a quick second round of questions. we'll get mrs. norton some more time after if she wanted. mr. williams, in some of the innovations you talked about you mentioned virtual p.o. box. can you tell no a virtual p.o. box is? i mean, at first blush it sounds at what mr. davis was offering. >> well, perhaps they are related to one another. let me explain what it is. today, the postal service is limited in the number of post office boxes it can offer to our users. it's a small box in rigid, and

so it's also limited in the number of things you can fit in there. the idea that we examined for the virtual p.o. box would allow people to -- we can talk about classes of customers, but it allows a customer to open a box that has no dimensions. it would be, it could be delivered to any address in the united states that people apply for. there are a lot of foreign customers that would love to buy u.s. goods but they can't because they don't have a u.s. address. the virtual p.o. box would allow it to go there, and that post office could combine it with other things going to that country. and send it at a discounted rate. we think that would be good for commerce. it would also provide for small businesses and small innovators the ability to almost operate their business out of that a virtual p.o. box. it would be temporarily stopped

-- stored the items and could be sent out as directed by the business. business. >> you also talked about print at the destination mail in response to some earlier questions. didn't we try that with mail grams? didn't fedex try it with a fax type of service of? >> i think this is not something we the strongly advocated. we have more followed it, it's path. it remains the life. it strikes me as a good idea and there are takers for it. but this is also something i mentioned earlier in the meeting, picking the moment in which demand exists in this environment is very difficult. and i would say that it hasn't come in a strong compelling way to hybrid mail yet spewing all right. at a want to go to mr. weisberg for a second but y'all are kind of a success story in working with the post office.

was ups supportive when y'all started out and came with the product? >> when we initially started it took a process of years of speaking with the postal service bias and other companies that wanted to do pc postage to convince the postal service to approve it and allow it to exist. there were people within the postal service t who were encouraging and there were others who are more discouraged. >> to give any suggestions for how we could change the process of getting innovative products like stamps.com to be adopted by the post office? >> we do think that it would make sense to add some protections to companies that come with new innovations to the postal service, to make sure that the postal service doesn't unfairly compete and launch its own products compared to what those companies do. and we do very much support the concept of using public-private

partnerships and having a private industry players be able to come up with the best solutions that work well. >> the postal service is now competing with you with their click to ship product. that's got to be a little bit awkward in that they are your regulator and your competitor. >> it is a very difficult position to be in when you invest a lot of time and effort in an industry, into launching products. you are regulated by the postal service. you have to provide the postal service detailed information about how your products work, and then they launch a directly competitive product. that is difficult. >> all right. let me get here to the other, a couple more questions to go. with respect to outbox, mr. davis, one of the things that a service like outbox has

the potential to offer is targeted at. i'm an avid and that user, and i'll go shop for some rest shares online. all of a sudden just about every site i visit has an ad for drescher's on it. this is highly targeted advertising is valued by advertisers. with a service like outbox actually have more value to advertisers than, you know, a random catalog that your best hope is something on the cover strikes somebody's interest in the few seconds between the mailbox and the recycle bin? >> absolutely. as i said earlier, intent spending, intent on grant that there is the holy grail of all

advertising. so you can imagine a digital at peace that is free to present. so it's free to show that on a digital device to an end user. then they can decide you want to engage with that or not. we did some very interesting tests with kind bar, with starbucks via packets. small sample size products where we would present digitally and offer, would you like to try this new flavor of kind bar? and some of our text with as much as 50% engagement which is astounding for any digital advertising peace. people would say yes, send this piece to me, i want to engage kind bar and i want to try this new product. we would deliver to the front door the next day. to give you and i don't how much that's worth to a cpg, the average about $20 per symbol product given to a new user of their product.

so there's an enormous amount of money currently being spent on sampling products, but right now they are untargeted. you see someone out in front of a store, grocery store, maybe on the side of the road, here is a very powerful targeting tool. >> that advertising would be revenue to outbox and not the postal service. >> i guess the issue becomes, is there a model for something like this were a third party does it, or is it something that you develop the technology and then sell it to the postal service and they do it? is the kind of the feeling you in your negotiations? >> right to write. it's hard on back such a complicated web of interest in politics and business models and mandates. at the end of the day there can be winners and winners. it does not have the winners and losers. it was our hope is the postal service could not create this on their own or too slow to do

that, then an outside third party company could develop it, spend a private dollars to develop it, and then could either white label it or be a third party contractor. >> thank you very much. they have called our votes to we have lived of time before you delete it ms. norton has some more questions. >> just briefly. i'm interested in what keeps the postal service from developing new and innovative products as a matter of course. we spun them off of course as a private business, and then, of course, have not always allow them to act as a private business. are there any issues or impediments that stand in the way of the post office doing the usual work of seeking innovations, particularly given its unique infrastructure? mr. cochrane or mr. williams, both of you. >> if i could real quickly, i

think the challenge is, part of it is the current law that we operate under. it is restrictive. >> speak a bit about that law. what about that law? >> well, as an example, it says that the products the we are allowed to enter proposal products and it's kind of a bit of a doctor and things we can do. if we get approached by somebody with an innovative idea, some of these things are against the law, as i talked to my opening comments. some of things we're working on some of them don't fit our model and some are not legal in the current sense. as an example we are very restrictive privacy rules and we have a lot of data on what goes into the american household with things like diabetes, and for good reason there's privacy -- imb's. but unlike a lot of other private sector countries were not allowed to data mine the information. and that is a restriction on our ability to market. >> that's a restriction that wouldn't be as controversial i think here as the restriction,

the chairman seem to buy into this restriction to postal products when he admonished us, mr. williams, for daring to suggest that nonbanking products might be suitable for the postal service. i disagree with the chairman on that. it seems to me we have information that, if you look historically for, say, the first 60 years of the 20th century, the postal service action had a banking service. used mostly by immigrants. it was for savings accounts. there were limits on the amount of the savings accounts. there are postal facilities where the are no banks. in fact, banks have pulled out of many neighborhoods does they do much more digital than the

postal service does. i don't know, i don't see what's wrong with the nonbanking service. this is what it meant when it opened my last question with saying a little bit private. it's a like a little bit pregnant. you just can't do it in a market economy. so let me invite mr. cochrane and mr. williams to elaborate on some non-postal services that you think are not, that you think that the postal service could enter and thrive and truly compete with the private sector. >> well, dave, do you want to go? >> well, actually with regard to the financial services, you're correct that the postal service was in the banking business for a large number of years. worldwide, the average, many

world post provide financial services. it provides about 14.5% of their income, which helps him to continue to provide universal access and reduces the overhead for the post offices that are out there. we are currently, we currently to provide financial services with money orders and other kinds of informal services we do in remote areas for the customers. this idea was to update a money order into the digital age. we don't think it's good for citizens or for e-commerce to be cut off from one another. you can use money orders to engage in e-commerce. as a result as many as 68 million adults are cut off from commerce and commerce is cut off from them. so it did look at what would happen if the u.s. postal service did as it used to do and as many other nations do today. >> i would just say, not on the

financial sector, but in the postal service really is in a period of significant change in our business model. i think that's well documented. as male declines in particular, we've shifted to do more and more parcel delivery. but in a course of innovation where to take a look at ourselves and our network. we have a ubiquitous retail network. how do we use that in many ways to help us generate topline revenue? the last mile we talked about a lot today but there are more things we can deliver. if you think about the fact that we have 217,000 people out there today driving the streets of the united states, working hard and delivering product, for mailers and shippers. then there's a robust network of processing centers and transportation that i think can be further leveraged and then maybe the future is the one we talked a lot about today, digital space. there will be places where the postal service needs to step a foot forward and have a strong

footprint in the digital space. in my pre-information i sent him, we talked a little bit about what we're doing with the government with sec xo indicate. there's a lot of opportunity the postal service to continue to leverage the brand, the trust, security and this world-class network that we have and that's where our innovation is focus, to use that infrastructure to generate revenue and key providing great service to the american people spent i do think it probably is important to add that this law, the law may be too restrictive and might be good that you're looking at it, the 2006 law. but that law wasn't put in there to be mean-spirited or to hurt anyone. it was put in there to make sure that the postal service doesn't drive a small businessman or an innovator out of business. the challenge today is enormous. it is from horizon to horizon.

the postal service doesn't need to go in where it's going to harm private enterprise. on the other hand, it does need to come to -- >> could i just say, turn to i was to agree when it comes to small business but i do not agree that the postal service shouldn't harm competitors in the same business or any life business. i think that's the whole point of competition in a market economy. spin this topic is for a future hearing of the subcommittee as to where we can go and find the right balance, allowing the postal service to increase revenue without using some of their advantages, i guess would be the right word, as a government into the to harm the private sector to it will be a great hearing. we may do that in the future. i would like to thank our witnesses for being here. we were able to cover a very complex topic in a timely manner

but i think we all have food for thought as to how we can move forward. and with modernizing and bringing new technologies to the postal service that are good for america. thank you all very much for your time, and we are adjourned. [inaudible conversations] >> with the senate in recess this week and we will bring you highlights from booktv in prime time.

>> over on c-span tonight former senator chris dodd and former congressman barney frank discuss the 2010 finance reform law that bears their names at an event marking the 150th anniversary of the national banking system. former banking chairman chris dodd talks with his committee's investigations into the mortgage market ahead of the 2008 crisis. >> well, i can tell you i became chairman of the banking committee, the senate is not a meritocracy. out to outlive it help your friends get defeated to help you move up in the fiction that i sat on the senate banking committee for 30 years and went paul sarbanes decided to retire in january of 2007 i became the chairman of the committee. i've been on the committee for a long time. i begin issues of thanks. the first within the first week of february of 2007.

on the subprime lending. hank paulson can attest that they want to come and test only about china. he did want to talk about the subprime issues i said come talk about china. i knew my colleagues would not spent a lot of time on china. as he got into the subject matter of the mortgage, growing problems with mortgages, we held 90 hearings, i did come in 2007 on the subject matter over the next 12 months. some of the first witnesses were people who actually typed with what they thought this would result in terms of foreclosures in the country. the first witness talked about having a million foreclosures, highly ridiculed the next day or two as being hyperbolic political talk but nothing like that could possibly happen because we learned for a half to five in foreclosures occurred over the coming years. despite all of that activity it was just a refusal to acknowledge the growing problem in the residential mortgage market. and, of course, on st. patrick's

day weekend, 2008 you have bear stearns. many thought this was a one off problem. ebitda was a systemic issue. a ludicrous proposition you think back about it. people talk about wasn't a wonderful it was september of oh wait everyone rallied and saved the country. where were they? there was a lot of information out there about what was occurring. and yet people unwilling to acknowledge this and offer ideas. i believe again that had bee the been an intervention earlier on we would have had a crisis. never the magnitude we saw. never the $12 trillion we lost. never the 26 million jobs lost. never the fore and aft homes that were for close. not to mention what happened to some of the finest financial institutions in the country failing, consolidation that occurred in commercial they come investment bank, thrift, insurance and the like. it was a disaster but in my view it didn't ever have to come to

that have people been willing to acknowledge the growing problem that was clear the evidence, and job programs that run regulated being paid instantaneously for selling homes at adjustable-rate mortgage is when the banks knew damn well they never could -- never could afford it. and yet they were selling that mortgage in eight to 10 weeks in the securitization market. there was no liability whatsoever. all of that was occurring and unwilling to step up in my cube but it could've been truncated earlier on have people been willing to acknowledge the magnitude of the problem that was going in front of them. >> watch the entire discussion with former chairman earning frank and chris dodd tonight at eight eastern over on c-span. >> one of the stories that resonated with me was the moment

when dithering about whether or not they need to inject seawater into unit one. and it's a matter of -- the clock is ticking and they are just about down to the wire, and the plant superintendent who in the end would have to make the final call knows they are tested. they need to get water in there very quickly. meanwhile, everybody wants a say. the officials and japanese government officials are all just kind of hemming and hawing. the managers gets an order from one of the supervisors that the government hasn't signed off on this yet. he's got told off. he's already started. and so he basically calls one of his staff people over and says okay, i'm going to give an order but ignored.

and so he very loudly proclaims but in tokyo can hear, halt the seawater injection. when, in fact, they didn't. to me that was a human element in that story, in which in japan where ignoring the rules and kind of acting on their own is not rewarded. it was a moment where a guy new that if he didn't act, things ago even worse than ever going. spend more about the tsunami and resulting meltdown at the fukushima nuclear power plant saturday night at 10 eastern on "after words," part of the booktv this weekend on c-span2. >> former army vice chief of staff peter chiarelli and others talk about post-traumatic stress, access to health insurance and jobs for post-9/11 veterans as they become civilians. this was part of a forum at the

george w. bush institute in dallas looking at ways to support u.s. soldiers returning from war. it is one hour. >> we want to talk in this panel about some of the obstacles our veterans face comes from the obstacles serving the wounded face and the opportunities to empower those veterans it i want to start with the general peter chiarelli who i will say i have known since very early in the iraq war. we went through a lot together. we have visited the wounded together, and pete chiarelli since retiring is by his chief of staff of the army where he was deeply involved in issues of post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injuries are actually thing no one cares more than

pete chiarelli about the future of our wounded veterans come and is now with one mind, where they and he dedicates his time to continue to help those same veterans. general, i want you to talk about those obstacles and the health and wellness of our veterans as they go forward into civilian life. >> well, martha, this discussion is a double edged sword because we can do in fact slap a label as anyone who's deploy for any period of time as has either post-traumatic stress o or tbi d that h they be further from the truth. according to the president's report, 265,000 soldiers, sailors and marines and coast guardsmen have come back from these conflicts with traumatic brain injured. there are 3.4 million americans every single year that suffer some kind of head trauma.

you saw the numbers of 2.5 million. at 20% that adds up in probably 500,000 folks. if you take those numbers as being gospel, with post-traumatic stress, 8% of the population a% of our population is expected to post-traumatic stress sometimes in the life. it's just not caused by combat. most of the work that's been done to understand post-traumatic stress quite frankly has been done on folks, ladies, who have been sexually assaulted. 74% of women who are sexually assaulted develop post-traumatic stress. that's why i'm so happy that president bush dropped -- i can imagine telling a woman who's been such a assaulted it's because she has reaction to our relationship after that, that she has a disorder. [applause] >> but as we talk about this, and quite frank i started

talking about it because i didn't know what they were. i spent two tours in iraq and afghanistan. i came back. adopted but a slight infamy the show that 30 some% of our most serious blunder with a single disqualified injury had post-traumatic stress or post-traumatic stress. i did know what they were. i knew that i had some combat stress folks to get up and seek platoon to combat bad days but i knew what my football coach tommy about concussions, shake it off and get back and again. i begin this process of trying to learn about it. i found that even the professionals don't know that much about it. the only way we, in fact, diagnosed these two things are with tests, 20 questions for post-traumatic stress, and a cognitive has called glasgow coma, if you bumped your head. so i think it's always important to put in context yes the numbers are great, yes, they affect servicemembers, but the large majority of service members coming back from iraq and afghanistan don't have

post-traumatic stress and don't have traumatic brain injury. that doesn't mean we don't need to highlight it and talk about it because that's a good people and to get the help they need. >> and for them to talk about it as well. kenneth fisher is the chairman and ceo of the fisher house foundation, i think everyone in this room knows what the fisher house foundation does for our veterans, especially during the government shutdown when you were just amazing with the families and supporting those families for those who lost loved ones. i want you, ken fischer, to talk about how important it is for the support of those family from the work that you do and the support that the families get to veterans in terms of success when they transition. >> we kind of get the veteran or the servicemen or women and the family when their lives have been flipped upside down.

too often a call comes in, the family has to mobilize very quickly, you've got to get from point a to point b. because that's what's done. that's what needs to be done to can you imagine being in the hospital and not having a family there? so at fisher house we kind of facilitate getting to the bedside of a loved one through a mood of our programs and services that we provide. the families there -- bears burdens and are subject to sacrifices that the average american has no concept of. we come average americans, don't have any clue as to what happens to these families, especially at this time. when you think about what's going on in their lives, the world does not come to a grinding halt. bills still have to be paid. mortgages have to be paid. children have to be raised. schools. there's multiple trips back and

forth that families have to make. the whole soldier, you've heard that term, that includes the family. so the family was a very vital role in rehab in of the soldier of the servicemen or women. and even of the veteran. so fisher house plays a role there. we've seen the families. we've seen the impact of the family has so we give him very early on, and it's always very gratifying to know we played a role when the veteran comes out ultimately and does enter the private sector and does get employment, the ones that don't, we try and play a role there. we try and provide mentoring where ever it's possible i make myself available as much as i can to do that. but then, remember that there are other issues. the veteran does have

post-traumatic stress. the family suffers as well. so what we need to do when we talk about education, we need to also educate the families. we need to make them aware of the signs, of the early signs of post-traumatic stress so we don't get into substance abuse, so we don't get into domestic violence, and the other issues that have become very, very much a part of the picture. >> thanks. also with us is wayne robinson. you are a post 9/11 veteran yourself, retired command sergeant major. more importantly for you right now, director of the student veterans of america. talk about your work, and particularly educating returning vets. the g.i. bill is amazing. some of those benefits are amazing, and people aren't always taking advantage of that. >> thanks, martha, thanks for the opportunity to speak about

the amazing young people that as the president and ceo of student veterans of america that i get to represent. and so to start with a little bit of background on student veterans of america, or sva, sva started six years ago on 20 campuses. because when students that's where transitioning they saw that the college environment or higher and was not prepared for student vets. we were older, much more mature. we have different worldviews inches coming out of high school than, say, the traditional student. and so these veterans met in chicago and we started on 20 campuses six years ago and today we are on more than 1000 campuses, represent those 1000 chapters with more than 400,000 students that's being served by our policy, our advocacy and the

work we do in delivering programs. and so some of the issues that are faced by student that is number one, being able to transition. when i transitioned in 2011 i actually had, i had 18. i was very fortunate to be helped by general pace. i actually had a personal sit down opportunity. but what i realized was that the majority of individuals will not have that. we are about 25 years old. we are transitioning. they don't have that transitional point. so the arguments between where do i study, what do i study, and the arrival action on a campus. and so what we have done heretofore is to be able to represent them wants they get to a campus and in and through

their education. but the issue is a huge gap that exists between those who transition of those who make it to a campus. out toggle that more -- >> what president bush was saying earlier, too, about how to transition somebody out of my last job was in a humvee or tracking down terrorists, how do you transition that to the workplace? also joining us is john thiel, head of merrill lynch bank analyst. i know we talked earlier about the private sector, but what challenges are you seeing and what are you doing in terms of veterans, hiring veterans, doing whatever you can to get a veterans working? >> sure, thank you. we heard with the challenges are. there's a lack of preparedness. we know about the stigma. there's ongoing commitment to the guard, to the reserve. we designed every benefit of a some people who don't always look like returning veterans,

and you've got to we end up trying to make veterans that our structure. what we're trying to do as an organization is recognize that doesn't work, like wayne has come and been our structure to the way they think and act. it requires let's take hiring for example. requires a different approach. one example might be internships. so if you're going to try to get an internship at a firm like narrow ledge or bank of america, it's very competitive. the way we go after the most talented folks, the veterans is we created a different internship track that will be held off that will allow them access and exposure to see what life is like. they get sort of a no risk free look at what a career might look like. the on boarding process is different as we bring our veterans and, about how they want, how they will transition into the workforce and would recognize symbols challenges. we don't have all the answers by the way. this is sort of our attempt to

do. we have unique training for those folks as well but i think most importantly, the answers all lie within our people. we have 6000 veterans that work for bank of america merrill lynch. they form the advisors grew. they are the answers. that peer-to-peer interaction and learnings are probably the best approach that we have to continuing to evolve the process and how we can make sure that we have this be a successful transition. but one thing that wasn't talked about bu what i think is importt is we're doing this because this is a business opportunity for us as was doing the right thing. merrill lynch has had a 45 you history of hiring veterans. it's very successfully. they transition very well into our role as advice for clients with maturity, the perspective, the leadership that they have. so i look at this as an enormous opportunity. i think the challenge and made we talk about at some point is how we gather up all the

resources to make it more seamless? i met for people over the last 24 hours that are going to help me do this a lot more effectively than the ones sitting right next to me. >> that's the point i want to make. you got all these people up here. you've got all these great ideas, i connecting those dots and making it work. how do you do that? it seems to me just in a conversation and experience that this all start while they're still in the military. they don't really get that transitional help, or they get two days of transition help and maybe nothing more, bu that some people fall through the cracks. so each of you just talk about your ideas if you will about how you connect the dots to what you are all concerned about. you want to start, john? >> i'll say two things. one, while they're in the military they're in the military we of the snow to support advisors group. we're full-time staff assigned to working with the military, working with the military organizations to identify that

talent that is coming out of their service. .. >> what i will say is as we look at the issue and we talk about the greatest generation and we can talk about the 500,000 scientists and engineers that

came out of that generation. 14 nobel laureates, three president, supreme court justices. but if you kill that, they were guys friends masan america. and so, when i look at that tape sure and i look at the picture of the event, i see the connection being his jury. so we are actually redoing our i.t. infrastructure. so what we want to do is be interested in reaching out to that assenting john and i to that last night, interested and connect being to be able to connect them directly campus because at the end of the day, the individuals need to be able to directly access to that of florida's day, at purdue university, to be able to have the robust dynamic conversation. so in about four months we will have the infrastructure in place

and we will wear out the commerce nation. they will field to reach out directly and then the bt will put a name to your nation. >> we been hearing about the process of privacy. imagine if the vendor veteran is funded. they still now have to overcome there was, which they do with magnificent grace and dignity and ice yet every day. but they have additional challenges inserted their families. so in my mind, while they are doing every habit why they are still receiving treatment to get them that way, mentor them. let them know what is available. make them aware of what they need to do because they do have additional challenges now.

it's not just walking out of the military and into the private sector. for these men women, the additional challenges are many. so get them to say there is still this benefit gap as we are all aware that during the transitional does from dod to the va. that is the time i'd like to see begin. let them know what is available. let them know what will be good of them. give them idea as to how they can brand themselves, how to put a resume together. use that time while they are proving themselves towards making them competitive, giving them an equal leveling the playing field if you love with a particular service. >> using some very specific things on the transition not only of the billion life, but just for ken fisher is talking about, transition from dod to va not that simple.

>> no, it is not. those are some of the things we need to fix. you don't know that the transition to va is going to be difficult because you've never been in va before. we picture of formularies that the name between dod and va. but the kid has posttraumatic stress that to do with it and he finally gets on the right dosage with the right track and transfers into the eighth of them in the pa has a different drug formulary nhl that young man or woman is very, we cannot prescribe a drug. we don't have that drug and talk because they're formulary is different. he is a much more expansive formulary peer to va this very, very sad. it has nothing to do with they say one drug is another. it's those at the drugs they have to provide. so we have disconnects like that. we have disconnects like the place that arnold and ken fisher

has no outfall to read. walter reid national medical center at bethesda to be politically correct. and they do an amazing job at the national center of excellence to study dramatic rain injury and putting together a treatment plan for a young man or woman. n.a.b. thereafter for weeks at a treatment plan that much of it being experimental or really cutting-edge things go back to a place like west point or they rely lying a tri-care network. the network basically says i'm sorry, we will cover 50% of that which is an achievement plan. think of that. we send them to a dod facility. they get a treatment plan. they move to the insurance provided a dod when doctors aren't available to cover them

and they are calling sorry. 50% of what you are being prescribed we cannot provide. so, there are some here which bureaucratic issues here if we are really going to provide care. we really need to do an end-to-end assessment. not a va, but a total assessment from the time you enter the army until the time to understand how to to ensure that in future organization are together and are totally focused on the servicemember, man or woman throughout their career. >> imagine if you will if they live in a rural area and they have this prescription then they go to their va because the plan is to get them home as quickly as possible to aid in the recovery. but imagine if they go back to their va rural area and make it

your response to words the pharmaceutical treatment. what happens then? a kind of finish. we kind of lose track of them. >> i didn't need another success it when i was nice. i have no idea that this problem existed. most veterans when they are faced with that because of the pain they went through and getting the right antidepressant at the rate osage for the pain medication at the rate sleep medication to handle the symptoms they have from dramatic rate and sure your posttraumatic stress, sign a civilian provider can i get them to write the script and pay for it out-of-pocket. that's. that's what they do because they don't want to go through that again. >> i want to touch on what president bush is talking about at the beginning. and its media coverage. and i certainly have done this

myself. we covered the homecomings and the heroes, but we also cover what you are talking about. recovery challenges to recovery things that make all of the people watching these people are victims. they don't want to be the dems. i'm going to rid myself because i do think i understand these issues quite a bit. but how do you commit the country, how do you draw that line general chiarelli, do you want people to be aware of pts. you want people to be aware of the challenges coming at you don't want to paint people as the guns. do we want to raise awareness that don't want to paint them. >> you start in forums like this i hope any of the people who hear this thing here will take it out and tell it to their can teach your face. but i'd are not the best answer for that question because it is really difficult question.

i really appreciate the first panel because it takes somebody from the top two for us veterans employment. when you get to the middleman a chair, the h.r. person his face with two files and one person has deployed six times in another person hasn't deployed. if you don't have a push from the top, i can't help but think that h.r. person is going to float on the other to the person hasn't deployed because they read a story about some veteran pat some problem with his or her brain and they are afraid. they are afraid to name the folder. it does in my opinion take pressure from top to get down and say now, we are going to do things differently. >> john, how detects your employers about? artist merrill lynch do away with the stereotypes? >> first of all, we know communicating with a lot of people is very hard. not everybody will hear what i

say. one of the things specifically we've identified as a program called the conscious bias, which we all carry with us, that sounds like this really desperate in this category that we all walk around with tidbits, and he states that we file away. and so come you've got to be aware of it. so we are taking our leadership team through this. this would be in the category of it. but i think it's education. are present pushed it for me helps me because he taught about diabetes. my aunts suffered from it. she went to a lot of diabetic, the rent of any system i worked with had severe childhood diabetes. one day she went into a coma and i recognized it. i think about that as they work issue. she has no credible leadership organization, but why is it any different? the statistics you share about

head injury and posttraumatic stress isn't unique to combat. it's unique to life. that education process is one that would go at it. >> when we talk about a bridge from military to civilian life, i know end up talking to my military friends and i am often been coming to you having a civilian friend? so what response ability, and i will ask it this way, does the military have to sort it rich that gap as well? to help you reintegrate, to help you say i am part of this, i had an incredible experience that none of you may be able to understand. i also need to take responsibility for that. >> i could actually become not for quite a while. when you look at the estimate, when you say we are going to take america's best and in daughter's and put them through a process and make them the

absolute best warriors where they can deploy anywhere around the world, be self-sufficient, hit the ground, only be able to answer one of them and figure out the other nine once they hit the ground, that it's pretty amazing seeing as how they came in at 18 or 22 as an officer. so after the huge investment to turn them in to this amazing warrior that is able to soothe word the country, site anywhere around the world and when. and then look at the last minute when the time for them to come out good so you compare the two investment then obviously there is a lot more we can do. so how do we, as kant spoke earlier, how do we plan the 22-year-old that we just told nothing but possible to him or her that we can do all of the

same. if i could also address the previous question about conversation. what we want to be able to do is change the conversation for the better in an higher education. we want to do that quantitatively and we want to be business itself should their purchase and ask what is the roi for hiring? so when we are working -- >> return on investment? >> i got it. the mac what is the return on a? when we look at syracuse university to partner with military federal research and to from purdue universe he and we went to move quantitatively that a few higher a fact, this your return. so they look similar to world war ii and we know for every 1 dollar that is invested in a sub

five, $7 was returned. so that was the conversation we want to bring to business to reshape how vets are viewed. >> anecdotally i can tell you with a higher success rate with veterans and not veterans in our development program. so we can talk about it ater. but we have some data. >> cannot fully want to get out. the mac the data of unemployment is higher. general chiarelli, can you address that? feedback i think dod is doing its best because the cost of money with people, the free service in unemployed and they have to pick up the unemployment benefits for one year. that is in a hundred million others though i had and i think it's come down a little bit. but they are working very, very hard on the train should assist in planning, when i was half to prepare better. i'm pleased when i hear it the

type database is being turned over to employees, that is huge. i sure could make that happen or i couldn't find a great player to make that happen where i was. those are out eight steps forward. we need to go further. i had a discussion with a friend of mine before. why don't we require everyone to do a link

the posttraumatic stress doing things we don't want them to do. >> how much improvement you think there has been in terms of removing the state of? because it is certainly still there. >> it is still there and i don't think -- i think you have to stand there forever. but this is a society, society's problem. you don't like talking about suicide you become injured on military suicide every year. at 160, 170 soldiers before you satisfies commit suicide every single year. 38,000 americans commit suicide every year. we were focused on that 162 not 170 in my case army soldiers. we have to be focused on the large numbers. we had to be focused in the 3.4 million people that have had trauma. we had to be focused on $78 billion in direct medical costs that traumatic had trauma

caused this country every single year in getting rid of it. we've got to increase the research budget to researchers who will share their data. we've got to increase that budget because i know with all the great ceos in here that if you had billion dollars problem and you're only spending $82 million a year to get that problem, you would not be a ceo for a long period >> i think you're right to safe and sane. >> yeah, as general chiarelli that, there has to be a dirty sum are. we've made this issue. we brought it out to the forefront that there is a stigma. now it's up to the veteran. as such his servicemen to get the help that if they are. i think it is time we started working on focusing on what words instead of what doesn't work. i am so tired of hearing about everything that's wrong. we know what is wrong.

but let's start looking at what is right. let's see what works in this country. let's see what works as it relates to veteran, best says and bring that to light. through this whole thing is the military family. with sequestration in the checkout, it is a segment of a terry society to look at it hardest. this is where we have philanthropists, where we as foundation need to do a better job of hitting the issues, eliminating redundant tea, honoring the donated dollar, fulfilling the mission that we have to fulfill because i think it began with everything that's going on them without the cuts cuts, without the issues come and be a stigma, be appointed to my ba jobs come in if the

private sector that is going to make the difference, and it's going to eliminate the cats come and it's going to lead the way forward. it is up to us to do a better job coming to spend more money on our programs and non-promotion, salaries and so forth. we can do it. we just need to be more vigilant. >> if i could tag along to what ken was just speaking on p. of what we are doing in the issue we think is very prevalent in the area or arena is that if you were to ask anyone in this audience around at this audience whether the graduation rate at a particular university across the country each year. so between 2009 and 2013, there is $34 billion invested to the g.i. bill. and so, if you ask the

graduation rate, no one can tell you at this graduation rates are. in fact, no one can tell you for the last seven years with the graduation rates are. so there is a data access. so we had spa are determined to partner with the best, the brightest organizations to supporting student that and bringing them out of the shadows, or e-mail out from just a portion of nontraditional event. so we partnered -- we are funded by this step forward. a couple of foundation and what we are doing is we are actually computing the graduation rate from 2002 back 2010 as students vets. we are quick to release that are the first to 70 years on march of this year. and then afterwards, we are going to compute the persistent

rate and we are going to demystify student vets. we'll tell you how ulster vets are doing. those of us on the panel under ms, but this is what we get out to the american public so we can get away from the poor vet portion of the conversation and the handout and put us in to the proper business and as an investment in the country. >> with the research we are doing here, correct. i want to open this a to the idea that we are going to wait for the microphones. right there, sir. again, if you can figure name and affiliation and if you want to track your question to a particular person. >> i may just do it. that is flat or troublemaker. i run the savior society for the

blind. i'm here representing the national association of wine veterans for my national chaplain and i like to refine the focus a little bit. we've heard about posttraumatic stress and dramatic rate injury. can't talk a little bit about wounded warriors who carry there was with them. and employers turned it off in the wheelchair. with one leg with one arm. a blind guy doesn't get to show up. or if he does come it is quickly dismissed. black people can do almost anything a sighted person can with the proper training and equipment. i've written in a car driven by the blind guy. the car did not drive itself. so i guess mike challenge is what are we doing for the blind vets. that is the small segment, the combat injuries that affect the eyes have skyrocketed. dod has created a whole separate department to deal with this and

as john said, companies have got to find ways to incorporate this. >> john, do have to this question? >> i will take it as a challenge because i can't address that is specifically as you want. i promise you that it's a bias we will address it because i agree with you. >> i don't think you get anybody to disagree with you. correct? so hopefully he'll do that. others in the room will do that. thank you very much. thank you for bringing that up. right behind you. and then we'll go to you. >> afternoon. my name is kevin preston, director of initiatives of the walt disney co. to me. i'm a civil soldier wearing a suit. the one thing i want to comment

to be discussed today as we are very big numbers and numbers aren't thousands and hundreds of thousands. but the veteran employment is one veteran at a time. i offer to this room with this brilliant crowd in here and each person a says one veteran towards completing college. one veteran towards finding employment on the 30400 veterans towards a better life. i'm sorry it's not a question. it is a statement, the panel comic thank you first time. >> thank you. thank you very much. anybody want to say anything? >> we agree. all of us agree. it is one at a time. to that point, it is really getting to know batteries. it is knowing who is out there, who can offer their services in the know many, many veterans who are so extreme hairy who can do so many things that just a little push them times. one right here.

>> thank you. my name is the keynote poker and i'm chair of the veteran coalition of the texas. read nonprofit organization comprised of 70 plus organizations at all meet represent for nonprofit organizations to the federal government. he talked about what are you doing. we are working together. we come together every month to talk about the issues of our veterans of the service organizations that support our veterans. you mentioned a couple things and we talked about research on the economy and increasing funding for reese hurt. the gap in and prescription aftercare credit doctor. all of that was that to our countries for better. tri-care is one of the most, terry, at a coverage is that it's around. i have providers to collect on a regular is a baby can no longer be in your network because you

don't pay anything. we can no longer your veterans because you pay less than medicare pays. that is absolutely embarrassed him. what are we doing before we talk about in crease in the fund name for research? we talk about prescriptions and we don't have doctors who will see them. how can they even get prescriptions? how can we talk about research? what are we doing to say we need to provide better malaga cove care, better vision, better all-around health care for veterans. >> let me take that question. you're going to get this one. and your pastoral -- there you go. >> one of the issues with tri-care is the payment rate and what we're trying to do is tablature that is having an act. i'm sitting on a commission now looking at this whole thing and i know dod paid a $10 million last year in and direct medical

costs on the trade turnover. the only did $8 billion worth of caring by our facilities. so you know, two thirds of our care is going onto the network. there are a whole bunch of things happening in health care today, which are making it difficult and a $16 million bellis and the rear half of the cat. i promise you that. i don't really see a movement of a two-day strike your pavement. i really don't. i think there's some things that could be done to help it. number one, normally five-year contracts. the services are going to be set for five years. that's why you have problems at the top of. daneyko -- national intrepid center of excellence. >> i'm just reminding. >> martha, come on. i am the acronym police are you

>> that's one of the reasons the problem i mentioned earlier. plena set for five years, locked in concrete for five years and you have to wait until the next contracting phase five years later to include a lake cognitive behavioral therapy for people with posttraumatic stress. and it's covered across the board. i understand your issues, that they are issues i can tell you the commission i'm sitting on his looking at all of those issues. the max area. >> hello, my name is able to hamilton. executive director of the dallas foundation. i just want to touch on mr. fischer's point about best is. what is working. so the commission you're working on, general, to find this practice is to fix these problems is where we need to spend our time and energy and effort. one of the organizations is hoping private organization, and

address a shortfall of $60 billion in the budget. there are an enormous number of people deciding in the country would be happy to dedicate their time and effort to volunteer to do operational x once process improvement projects, is better for the va if we could cannot do, for tri-care. the ability for the people in this room to fall in tear, to give, to support committee could not only their treasurer come at a and talent is on their challenges. >> volunteering at not always easy. it is not always easy for companies to take volunteers. >> or for the government. >> or for the government. all these people would love to help africa. if we could find access and be brought together. when i heard the department of defense was giving date on how to act this veterans and help them prior to their leaving, i

was stunned. he did a project for 3000 dealers. the cut in half. the single biggest problem was how to we get to that. how do we help them. how do we teach them? these issues are on privacy a big loss. the issues of pay rear from the private vector and here to help. >> with by ken fisher talk about that if you can. about volunteering first of all. about people wanting to help. >> i think volunteers are very relevant, especially -- the lifeblood of our program is those who want to hurt in any way that they can. they don't always have treasury. they have service is. it is these kinds of foundations. i didn't really know if there is a question in a. so forgive me if i'm not answering when not hitting your issue, but i when it comes to

volunteering in the relationship to tri-care, i wasn't sure about the correlation. but what i would to say there are many ways that we can all make a difference. i know there is a lot of anger about tri-care, about potentially raising fees and so forth. i know there is a lot of anger. let me rephrase that because quality of care it has been administered to those wounded at the 95%, 96% is hard to argue with the quality of care they are giving. so again, focusing on best practices, focusing on what is working, find something that is worth your time and effort to volunteer. there are many organizations out there typically need you. it is not treasury. so i apologize because i don't know what your question was.

you know, when i hear the word volunteer, i apply it to what we do in the amazing volunteers that we have. [inaudible] >> actually, let's say, do you have a question? >> because you are considered a private organization and that is the thing that frustrates us all. throughout my entire time for four years, general pace had similar experiences at a private organizations would come with one's soul and 10 and that is to help wounded warriors. he was very, very hard because of the ethics regulations for us to in fact be the ms favoring one private organ of haitian comic even though it is solely directed at helping individuals over another private organization. >> unique and fun ways.

>> he can tell you how difficult it was to get the process in place he has. parties in the world is to get the government anything. >> that was my point. it is harder to volunteer than you think. >> by the way, the more we do, though less falls on the government. so what we do, we have to do well. >> gentlemen, i just want you to each wrap up if you can some final thoughts on how we take what was announced today in this initiative and the research carried out and what they want to happen and how do you make that happen. >> well, i learned a lot today. one, there is research and it came from the people who are trying to serve. so that has tons of credibility with me. i learned a long time ago that none of us are as smart as all of us. so i challenge us all to take the challenges we have and do

something about it. see your point can be one person at a time. i am walking away from here's dana at much more informed and we have better data. more facts to actually fix the problem and we will do that as americanization. >> i would just say if we look at what can we do with those sitting around, help us to fund the research number one and then to reach out to sba chapters in your local community, asked to serve as mentors. a number of times they may be tested initially. because they are busy with family. the one to break down that barrier, the first thing you realize this they don't know the question to ask you, so you should come in with resources, with just say i am here to help, to support.

what is it that you need? on a local level, that will certainly help the student vet to empower. >> 1% of this nation was the right hand and took an oath to defend this nation. i think we as americans also need to raise their right hand and take an oath to take care of the military family, to take care of those who have given so much to this nation, whether it's a mental injury or physical injury. remember the military family. do what you can to help deployer worded. do what you can to employ the blind. do you can to employ those in wheelchairs and so forth. remember what sacrifices have been made on a half of this nation. >> i would like to build on president bush's last week. if ever you called it, martha?

>> buried the lead, yeah. >> wheat and with these issues. whether it's depression, poster mattock stressor termite brain injury that someone is suffering we create an environment and that's what names. creative name iron and in aerospace for a smaller group of people that tells people that it's perfectly all right to go and get treatment for these problems. that is absolutely critical. i do not, we will go a long way in helping a great group of people out there that really made to get somehow. i am sometimes criticized for wanting to drop 50. people say -- i touch all kinds of people in treatment and they say they had no problem at all.

i said that's the wrong group of people to talk to. he tucked the soldiers who come to me, who say listen, 19 or so they don't want to be told i have a disorder because i had to pick a my friend in pieces on the side of the road and put them and put him in a body bag so i could bring him home. i want to be told i have a disorder because of that. and i think ending the stigma and getting folks in to get the help we can give them over time and improving not hope is what i hope we can all do. >> and not only improving not help, but also educating the country to know that there is treatment for that and they can be great contributors to society and the workplace. so we thank you very much, gentlemen, for those thoughts. we live it up to you to connect those dots and help others as well. thank you.

[applause]

>> you did something unpopular but staved off disaster. as the dissent danish politician pia economist. economists can write articles and analyses in which they evoke the counterfactual. they can talk about why this is a good thing because they can talk about the counterfactual, what would've happened. politicians are not allowed to use the counterfactual. any elected official gets up there and said sanders and you are upset, but i saved it from getting a lot worse. i actually had a slogan, which was printed out about which i was dissuaded from use in in 2010. if it thinks would've worse without you. [laughter] but the problem was we got all the negative political from the

t.a.r.p. and very little public. >> when you write, you don't rate -- you can't write in a cackling at way. for example, you can't sit down to write about somebody. in fact, you should think about that issue at all when you sit down. what you should do when you sit down to write is to write what you find interesting and to follow your curiosity. so when i was writing tipping point, for instance, i can honestly say that i never for a moment try to imagine how well the book was so.

i wanted to write something cool. i was interested in this. i wanted to write some of my friends would read, that my mother would like. >> ahead of the federal transit administration told the senate subcommittee last week that the u.s. transit system faces and $86 billion backlog in repairs. senators also heard from local officials representing pennsylvania, massachusetts and dallas. the highway trust fund would finance highway bridge in transit projects that if any this summer. the hearing is an hour and fit a minute. >> -- let me thank our witnesses for being here today to discuss the viability is one of the most important challenges in our federal transportation program.

investing in our transportation infrastructure in supporting 10 billion passenger trips every year is essential to our mobility, or economic development, air quality, overall quality of life, our ability to create jobs and their global competitors. benefits that are clear, the fact is we are not investing enough. in 2009, a federal transit administration for court found that the seven largest rail systems, including new jersey transit and the systems represented by two of our witnesses today, they had a $50 billion backlog in projects. $50 billion just to make sure that the systems were in reasonably good condition. not state-of-the-art. frankly to me, that is simply unacceptable. investing in our transit systems

is not a luxury. it is a necessity. it is a win-win when it creates good family wage jobs and makes their infrastructure safer, more efficient, more reliable and keeps us competitive. recently my home state of new jersey received an alarming wake-up call. president of amtrak announced that within 20 years, one or both of the tunnels onto the hudson river between new jersey and new york will need to be shut down. shutting down the hunt and tunnel system thinkable and not in testing and keeping them open it's unconscionable. these tunnels are over 100 years old and to make matters worse, they were flooded with corrosive salt water during hurricane cindy. within 20 years these tunnels will be closed unless we can commit ourselves to investing in keeping them open. according to amtrak is one of the tunnels were to close it would have to reduce trade traffic from 24 trains an hour

to six trains per hour. that is for amtrak trains, to new jersey transit trains per hour. those of you not familiar with the commute from new jersey to manhattan, let me tell you to transit trains an hour is simply not going to cut it. so we go from having the our project needlessly canceled, which would have built a new hudson tunnel and allowed for 48 trained per hour to the future of closed tunnels and six trains an hour in the heart of the northeast corridor. that is simply an affable. using the hudson tunnels is not some in our region can work around. there's no detour, no extra with a capacity for the transit rail commuters to fall back on. we saw it during standee when our transit system. we saw after 9/11 when people travel to new jersey from manhattan. without a fully functional, multimodal transportation system, the nation in new jersey is in the start gridlock.

losing one or both of the tunnels would mean nothing less than the complete group in the region and within a terrible signal around the world about american competitiveness in the global economy. simply because we aren't willing to make the necessary investments in our transit system. the hudson river tunnels are the starkest example of failure to invest, but every city and town has its own examples. with a large rail or small bus systems transit repair needs about $86 billion, projected by the deity to grow to 142 billion or 2030 if we don't begin to investigate. at the end of the day, we all understand investing in our infrastructure is not a cheap proposition or politically easy in the current atmosphere. but the cost of inaction is much, much higher. i look forward to the perspective of witnesses today in working with colleagues both

on this committee and as a member of the finance committee to address these challenges. what introduce the first witness of our first panel, mr. dorval carter for the federal transit administration. in addition to a circuit fta, mr. carter served in senior positions at the chicago transit authority. his system with significant repair needs. i look forward to your testimony, which comes with the great depth and breadth of knowledge and perspective of the issue. but they say, mr. carter, your full statement will be included in the record that objection. i asked that we try to summarize five minutes or so so we can get into a dialogue. with that, the floor is yours. >> thank you, chairman menendez and thank you for inviting me here today to discuss our serious deficit in transportation or structure.

and so is the highlight of the eponymous administration plan to bring around the systems facilities that support them into a state of disrepair as part of the pro-america act. as you stated in your opening remarks, this is a critical time for transit. transit ridership is at its highest bubble generation and the trend is likely to continue as u.s. population is expected to increase to approximately 400 elegant by 2050. pickering proportionately older and more urban. the caution i bring today is the foundation we don't want to meet that demand is already fracturing. let's be clear, transit remains one of the safest ways to travel, but our aging infrastructure. hidden cost that we cannot and should not ignore. our 2013 knishes conditions of performance report finds the backlog of transit maintenance and replacement stands at 86 billion. a 10% increase since 2010. we will need 2.5 billion more every year from all sources,

just to maintain the status quo. today it the state of local governments are bearing the burden, taking on more than half the cost of annual spending to preserve and grow the nation's transit systems. the biggest challenges our rail system, which account for 63% of the seat of government backlog but most of the two to assets at risk stations, trestles, power substations and more. deficiencies have a direct impact on writers. they undermine resilient he had transit system centric resources better spent untimely replacement expansion here that is why the state of repair is fundamental to everything we do at fta. by providing my testimony here today, you'll be getting a two-for-one opportunity because not only do i speak for the administration, but i also speak from the perspective of someone is hurt on the ground at the transit agency to keep transit systems in a state of good repair. as you indicated, mr. chairman,

spent half my career at the chicago transit authority which operates one of the oldest rail systems in the country. part of the responsibility was managing the capital operating budget for the procurement operations and warehousing activities of the agency. from the experience i can tell you the older a system gets, the more challenging the task becomes. for instance, where do you find parts for 100-year-old equipment? no one makes them anymore. you can't get them off the shelf. your options are to cannibalize existing assets were to make the parts yourself. cta during my tenure had done both. for when hurricanes danny had damaged a path that operates between new jersey and new york, chicago is one of the few places they could turn to for replacement parts. let me suggest that we cannot keep transit system safe and reliable with the craigslist approach. instead, we need to make the right investments to get ahead of the problem and keep us there so we are not always a step he

hynde. that striking a responsible balance between investing in new instruction in preserving and modernizing systems and infrastructure. one of the best tools we have to prioritize investment is the transit asset management tool. we're grateful for making it an environment as part of 21. with that of metrics and performance space planning, we can get a more accurate picture of true need enabling local decision-makers to allocate limited resources market is a systemwide. we use transit asset management at cta and it was a valuable tool. it helped us prioritize them capital maintenance for the public funding. moreover, it provided a roadmap so federal state and local funding partners knew that we had a concrete plan to use our resources efficiently and wisely. with your help, we are working to bring those benefits to the transit agency nationwide. the latest edition of performance report make the case for sustained investment with

the pro-america act answers. the administration before the plan that builds on the investment made [booing] 21, d.o.t. programs and the american recovery reinvestment act to mr. infrastructure backlog. grow america act is the right plan to keep safe reliable enough for future generations. with that i can quit my testimony will be happy to answer any questions that you may have. i >> just showed, you didn't use her five minutes. when you start off with one of the critical questions before the congress is the fundamental of the transportation reauthorization. and so, federal funding remained flat in the coming years. do you believe we can make any progress towards eliminating the $86 billion back? >> no, sir. i do not. our performance indicated that we need at least an additional 2.5 billion a year from all

sources, just to maintain the existing that clog. in order to make any sort of a dent in the backlog, you are going to need somewhere around the neighborhood of $8.5 billion over a four-year period to make that happen. sooner to basically address the problem, we have to make significant additional investments in our transit infrastructure and the president proposed was one of the ways in which we believe we do that. >> flat funding doesn't only not meet the backlog challenge i would assume that will accumulate. >> that is correct. >> now, in your testimony speak to the excellent work stsn for years trying to bring attention to the state of good repair backlog and discuss the importance of the creation of the formula-based state of good repair program under map 21. i agree with your assessment of the importance of this program. but i know some have concerns

about the funding increase given to the state of good repair. can you speak to the need for having a strong federal state of good repair? >> absolutely. if you look at the overall percentages for the contributions the federal government makes to the issue of the state of good repair, we only provide about 40% contribution. remaining 60% comes from our state and local governmental partners. it is critical for all of us, both federal, state and local to provide a level of funding that is reliable and sustainable over an extended period of time to address the backlog. the stopping and starting makes it difficult for transit agencies but they can maul to properly plan for an address their capital back what need. >> are there certain types of nodes are transit systems driving the current backlog? >> rail systems make up 60% of the backlog. that is primarily due to the

heavy cost of infrastructure. if you can imagine replacing power substations and rebuilding train stations and accident nature is a significant cost. but i would want to diminish the impact the issue has on smaller systems as well. as you can imagine to a small operator to the person you may have two or three buses, if one of those is 20 years old and they maintain the bus is difficult, resulting in a reliable service, the impact of the operators just a significant as the impact of a crumbling infrastructure with the two new york mta or cta. >> now, you and your testimony given unsettling anecdote, which i know firsthand or may visit with port authority officials with the path in hoboken new jersey with him in data and they were showing at the circuit breakers sold that are no longer

manufacture and you mentioned they had to resort to shipping in ports from chicago. is that an exception? how pervasive is that challenge? >> well, i'm sure the other gm's who will speak to the sewer detail detailed i am, but from my experience at cta, the older transit systems like chicago, philadelphia, boston and others are dealing with the harsh reality their infrastructure is extremely old, that replacing parts are difficult to find and it is only by luck that we are able to identify scenarios like the one that occurred with path, where there was another system able to provide those parts on a temporary basis while path went to the process of having to remanufacture the parts themselves. >> your testimony mesmer people are choosing to live in urban areas for the cars are less necessary. less reliant on cars than previous generations.

it seems to me those alluded to are transit ridership among other elements. could these increasing demands and transit systems result in the sgr bat while growing at a faster rate than the $2.5 billion increase per year than you currently project it? is there any modeling going on for these changes in calculating backlog? >> or condition report is based on some modeling that we utilize to forecast what we believe the reasonable growth in transit will be over a period of time. i think it is safe to say if demand increases, the backlog is going to become more and more of a problem. our model suggests that. i think as we continue to address this problem, we are going to have to do with the reality of both challenge at providing active low funding to maintain existing systems while dealing with the expansion is required to produce systems even more. >> finally, asset management and

i think we'll hear more about this from some of our next panel it is one of the key changes authorized by this committee and map 21 was the creation of the transit asset managed to require that. what work is being done with transit agencies represented different sizes and models to determine best practices that create a standard that works for different types of systems? >> we are currently in a rulemaking process that basically is intended to get significant impact in the industry is how we should support our management program. we also are in the process of developing technical assistance for agencies to allow them to be in a better position to implement these requirements as well as developing additional tools that we will be able to utilize and the federal government will provide that will allow them to do the analysis necessary for the transit asset management plan.

.. one-third of the facilities used by local transit agencies to house the operation, staff, and service their vehicles are a margin of the pair. are these facilities a threat to their health and welfare of our transit groups