trade to our exports overseas with high standards for intellectual property, you know? .. in southeast asia and along the pacific rim is to pull the country together with these high standards. we're attempting to do the same thing simultaneously with europe. if we succeed in this, then we will have a world system of high

standard, high standard agreement, and we will have one that can put an enormous pressure on those countries which seek not to comply with international law. and one of the things we are doing is trying to convince the administration to be more supportive of their own initiative here. the administration often announces an initiative but then doesn't do anything to support its implementation. and in south asia and east asia that's very important right now. with that said, why don't we open it up to your questions? >> i'll ask along with a question to get a chance to take a bite if you wish to. let me sort of throw out a ceremonial softball to begin, and that's about what you see as the biggest foreign policy threat to the u.s. when you're selected as chairman, you said the greatest

threat facing the u.s. and our allies is iran. is that still your view, or are there other issues that have eclipsed that in terms of being the most important threat to the u.s.? >> well, you know, we were, we were on track to take steps to offset the danger from iran. one of those was the interceptor program that we had worked with the czech republic and with poland to put in place a program that if iran developed an icbm program, and if they were irrational actors, one of the worries in europe was what steps could europe take to protect itself. and that program would've protected europe. importantly it also would've protected the united states. with the decision by the president of the united states to pull that system, to not go forward with that system in order to reset the relationship

with russia, in order to meet putin's demands that we not move forward with that system, intended to defend against an iranian launch, we basically left ourselves open. so it is very, very important that we either succeed in these negotiations with iran and convince them not to move forward with their nuclear weapons program, or that we go forward, if we fail to do that, with the initiative that i and eliot engel have authored that's over in the senate today, which would truly leave the ayatollah with no choice but to compromise away his program, nuclear weapons program. our concern is his comment not long ago that the icbm program is the responsibility of the military and they need to mass-produce icbms. and obviously what he is saying, because he's the chief

decision-maker, what messages he's sending to his military about ramping up icbm production and refusing to make that part of the agreement leaves those in, who are worried about security with greatest concerns about their long-term intentions. he continues to say we are the great satan in the world, which would help if he calibrated his rhetoric a little bit. not a little satan, the great satan. and giving these attitudes that keep coming out of the ayatollah, yeah, we have security concerns. >> one more for me and then we'll go to patricia and john. let me ask you about the rescue -- refugee crisis on the border. we had rick perry here a little while ago, and he contended during that session that what was happening on the southern border was quote a failure of diplomacy by the united states

in working with honduras, el salvador and guatemala, a failure by the obama administration. is that a contingent you agree with? do you have a policy prescription of what obama should be doing about the crisis on the border? >> i suspect what the governor is referring to is the inability of mexico to block the guatemalan border, and, of course, that is an area where we could work with the government in mexico in order to help them develop, and in order to pressure them, frankly, because that is the other part of that equation, pressure them to seal that border with guatemala. and also the fact that in guatemala and in honduras and el

salvador, you have a circumstance where the political leadership there and the government is aiding and abetting this messaging, probably because it partly results in remittances to the extent that these 16, 17 year old young people, when these children get to the united states, i think the expectation is that they will find themselves in the workforce and the remittances will go back to those countries, and that's an advantage. lastly, it's a pressure valve probably also in these governments, and these are largely dysfunctional governments. to the extent that the united states weighs in with pressure, on these regimes and pushes for policies which are responsible, and also policies which do not encourage the citizens to make

this very dangerous track all the way up through mexico to the u.s. but there's other steps obviously that the administration should be taking, can be taking. one is the messaging in central america, that migration -- immigration fraud, those who commit immigration fraud will be returned. these cases that we speak to our cases of fraud. when you are talking about the original intent of the provisions under code to protect those who are trafficked for sexual abuse in the united states, the argument that that is going to blanket lee cover, you, all central american children who, over the border, that is not true. and the president needs to

explain that to audiences in central america. very forcefully. they are not covered under that provision and yet they will be returned. i think that type of messaging would go a long way to change the situation, which is compounding arithmetically. and that's an essential part of the solution. >> patricia? >> thank you. i'd like to ask you about iran. with the july 20 the deadline coming up, i just wanted to get your view of the possibility of an extension -- [inaudible] how long an extension you are comfortable with, any additional relief are just keeping -- [inaudible] and i had a question about a letter that --

[inaudible] i wasn't sure about some of the verbiage about the financial system on what would be affected. is it in effort to insist on some broader non-nuclear sections relief? not related to the nuclear playground or -- >> well, first we have 342 signatures on the house on the letter. so again it conveys the magnitude of the concerns of members of congress, members of congress need to be included in these discussions. and, of course, as you know we went a year without congress being informed. our concern is also on what the iranians claim they will not negotiate on. one that i spoke to earlier was the icbm program, and when you do the ayatollah call for a massive increase and say that

it's every military man's responsibility to be involved in this huge stockpile of long range icbms, it calls into question why is that not the agreement? why are we not speaking to the issue of their insistence that they continued to be allowed to work on an ever more rapid development of supersonic centrifuges? why would they want centrifuges that spend ever more rapidly? well obviously if the iranian intent is a detectable nuclear breakout, then that tells us something about the state of mind. but even more so, the fact that they insist on taking this off the table, the fact also that they work on miniaturization of a nuclear warhead, the site of

parchin. this is one where the iaea, international organization that monitors, wants access to that site during these negotiations. we've seen them take several steps. we've seen them remove dirt from the site would've done their nuclear testing. then we've seen them bring in new earth, then for good measure after the knock down the buildings, we've seen them asphalt the whole area. but there's still too reticent to allow the iaea into check. obviously, what the czechs would show is that they probably violated the other agreements that they had. and if they are in the process of violating agreements, how willing are they -- remember reagan's old adage, trust but verify -- how willing are they going to be? congress has these questions because we know human nature. we know the zeal for a deal. we have seen that before with

respect to the north korean situation. and having gone down that road before, we want to make sure that this agreement is verifiable. so yes, we are weighed in. so your question about how long will they draw this out? my suspicion is that they are going to try to play for time, because as they do they continue to enrich more and more. and another observation would be that their demand at the end of the day is that the inspections ceased after a period of time, let's say 10 years. and after that they are treated like any other power on the world stage. at that point obviously they could go forward without any oversight, without any real ability for us to be able to slow their rush to weaponizati weaponization. so these are all questions that

we are concerned about in congress, and this is the very reason why we passed our legislation into the senate. our suspicion was that if the senate could have taken that up we would've had the necessary leverage to get the agreement needed. because we would've had the pressure with the additional sanctions that would force an agreement that was verifiable. >> would you agree to an extension? >> would we agree to an extension? well again, the whole problem is that they are playing for time. so we would have hearings on that. i would consult with eliot engel and the other members of the committee on this subject. we would have to see the details of what we are talking about, but i suspect what i'm going to hear from the members of the committee is this is the very reason why we felt the administration, rather than just stop our legislation in the senate, should have allowed it to go into effect because then

the incentive would be not for the iranians to have an extension, but want to get a deal sooner rather than later, because of the costs on the economy. >> we will go next to john. >> thank you, dave. mr. chairman, you have spoken about streamlining and overhauling the communications network, rod casting. my question is twofold. number one, you could specify all of it on that. and second, the bush administration placed the highest priority on democracy building through the rest of the world, beginning with the president's second inaugural address, and encouraging countries to have a democratic system and have successive free elections. you've seen some success in that area. has the obama administration abandoned the cause of democracy building? and if so, is congress going to take up the slack? >> let's start with the first

question. right now the bbg is run by a part-time board of directors, and often cannot even find a quorum to do business. the concept in this legislation, part of the concept if you take radio free europe, radio free asia, et cetera, and combined into one institution. but to put it under a ceo. and to add to that, an advisory panel that would operate something like the ned, right, where input could be given on these ideals that i spoke to earlier. what is lacking in many of these societies is the foundation in an understanding of what we take for granted in this system of ours, freedom of speech, you know? the ability of people to feel secure that they can put out this idea of political

pluralism. tolerance is a virtue. and these were things that were communicated during the cold war into eastern europe, and very effectively. how do we know the difference between what would happen to societies that did not hear this message? because we have yugoslavia as an example. a decision was made in the united states never to broadcast in yugoslavia. i remember a young croatian, a croatian journalist, never than anyone here at this table, who said to me, all we had to listen to was a hate radio coming from the serbs, pay grade are coming from the crows come with a greater they came from some of the boston stations. and he said if we could have ever heard what was broadcast into czechoslovakia, why in czechoslovakia that partition occurred first they got their independence and then edit partition the country without the loss of one life. he said i listened to bach love

how law dockable he learned it was broadcast. i government any of that. all i learned -- at a time when russia is really ramping up, for those of you who are listening to the conspiratorial theories that come out of our tv stations, at a time when china is also really spinning information, wouldn't it be good if people were grounded in what we know works and in what created tolerance? now, go to john's point, before we get to elections as part of democracy, there's a deeper foundation there in human rights. and i would start with that. i would start with this idea of tolerance, the idea of religious tolerance, the idl of allowing everybody freedom of speech. and in these other more basic concepts. i would gradually build towards democratic governance, but i think the world today needs a

better, deeper appreciation just of human rights. i think it would be that there's a real thirst for. i listen to the broadcast we get into china, and i listened, because now we do in all the different dialects. i pass legislation some years ago to do this, and you can see that they are just starting to grapple with some of these, some of the foundations of which really needed to create among the public a desire for more space, for more in the way of right. and i think, i think, john, if we could do that, if the administration could be supportive in that way, i think our legislation will probably pass. pass. we're getting it is not a supporter of big we can get it through the senate, but it would be good to have the administration pay more attention to it.

and i've gotten a lot of by ports support from those in the past who have been involved in this process of trying to turn it into society. i think it's enormously important. but i think elections is just one note, as the spanish philosopher said in this whole song of democracy, and it requires a much deeper understanding and it's an evolutionary process for a lot of societies. >> howard? >> yes. thank you, congressman. speaking about the prospects for getting a nuclear deal, you mentioned a couple times they need to get -- and i wonder how do you define that? what is a successful deal? could that include new levels of enrichment? and also, you mentioned that iran may have up to 10 years,

start refusing inspections or something -- >> no, no, no. that's part of the do. see, that's our concern. going beyond the question of enrichment and at what level and, you know, we are open on this question of the deal. but remember that one of the preconditions in this interim agreement, what iran is saying is, all right, we will do this for a while, but 10 years out, or whatever the time period, and that has been agreed to yet, at that point in time the deal is off. at that point in time we are no longer, we are no longer subject to come at the point in time we are treated like the netherlands. we are treated like germany or any other country and given the current behavior of the regime, remember, we're dealing with a regime in which the executions -- for those of us that are concerned about this concept that the way in which the state treats its own citizens might

tell us something about how we might treat others, we are dealing with a rouhani government right now to which the number of public executions has increased. now, for the religious minority's, this is a huge problem because the leadership of, and those who are taught teaching these other religions or involved in political action, are being taken out and executed. and so the failure of the government currently in iran to adjust its behavior in terms of how it treats its minority population gives us pause in terms of how much seriousness they are putting into these negotiations, especially when the ayatollah keeps enunciating, you know, and rattling the saber on this issue of mass production of icbms and so forth. so in this environment, yes, we

want to see an agreement that we really feel is verifiable and not something just being done, as i said, in his zeal for a deal in order to say we are done with that problem, now we can move on. >> and. spent on open to details of the negotiations but we're open-minded but i am laying out for you our concerns and the totality of this will all be considered as this agreement comes back. >> bottom line? >> i am trying to work, you know, with my committee and with the administration in a way in which we are open in this negotiation, but at the end of the day this has to be a serious negotiation that prevents a detectable nuclear breakout by the iranian regime. >> michael? >> thank you.

i wanted to hear what you say about the supreme leader, and whether you feel that you understand him completely. his rhetoric is bellicose, and he provokes the chance of death to america. he doesn't travel. he doesn't meet with westerners, unlike an adversary like vladimir putin, and members of congress don't talk to them. and he has shown flashes of right mechanism during his tenure. he has led his country to modernize in some ways. do you feel that you understand what is in -- what is in his head and you think we are in essence kind of a form of total conflict with them, or do you think he is someone over the long term we might actually be able to work with and trust? >> i had a conversation with a high ranking official in china, a premier in china, on the subject. and as he said, we understand

why you think that at the end of the day, what america felt beijing, or what america felt moscow would be a rational actor with respect to nuclear programs. why you felt beijing would be a rational actor. why we feel washington would be a rational actor. we understand why you feel that iran might not be a rational actor. this is the question that goes to, this is a different kind of government, a different type of thought process. do i feel i understand the ayatollah? no, we do not understand him, but this is why this old adage trust but verify, we have to have a verifiable agreement. when you're dealing with someone who has used that type of rhetoric that key is used towards the united states, not just towards the united states.

remember, this is a regime that is called for eliminating israel from the map. you know, my father reminds me, when somebody talks about eliminating 6 million jews, we don't have an excuse having gone through the history of what happened in the '30s and '40s of ignoring of that individual. when somebody says something along the lines of what was put into "mein kampf", you know, about eliminating a race of people, or eliminating in this case the state of israel, and again to put this into context, in his mind israel is simply the little satan with the great satan. he has been very, very vocal about his animus toward other religions, and especially towards a society that believes in freedom of religion, like our own. and so in this context it's wise to be able to guarantee the security of the west in these

negotiations with iran. >> i would like your thoughts on the revelations of spine in germany, and are you worried about obviously -- [inaudible] the u.s. posture is hurting relations with the country? if i could future thoughts on -- >> i've met yesterday with a delegation from germany on this subject, and as you can see, with the decision to remove the station chief in germany, you can see how seriously this situation is taken in germany. by the government. one thing i would say is that it would be wise for the german elected representatives to

inquire about the activities of their own intelligence services overseas with respect to the issue. with respect in terms of perspective. [inaudible] >> with respect, well, i think i put it effectively. [inaudible] >> yes. >> president putin is kicking off a tour of latin america with a stop in cuba today. what effect on u.s. policy, i mean, he's gone before, but -- >> sure. i think with respect to president vladimir putin, i

think that putin is very focused on the past. i had a chance to meet with him when he was vice chairman of -- vice mayor of st. petersburg in the early 90s here in washington, d.c. and i think that he has a certain attitude about the united states that comes out of his feelings about the dissolution of the soviet union. and one of the realities is that i don't think that attitude is going to change much. it's been held for a long time. one other question is, what can we do to introduce other russians to information that is reliable so that the

conspiratorial theories that are put out in russian society today, and among russian speaking populations in eastern europe, in the former soviet union where this is particularly president, is broadcast. remember, this is an individual who over the last few years has not consulted all information under his control. so with respect to maybe one or two newspapers left in moscow, virtually the entire country is governed by a mutation system, radio and television, controlled by vladimir putin and his allies. and so can we recognizing that there probably won't be surprises here, he will go to cuba and he will work with those countries that he views as being confrontational with the united states. but what can we do to reach the

next generation of russians so that they understand that the challenges that russia will face in the future, especially with respect to this radical jihad. i have two friends of mine who serve in the duma and they've gotten, i've gotten to know them on trips back and forth and in talking with them, their focus is on the future, and what do they do about the virtual caliphate that is radicalizing young people, they are muslim, they are muslim and in their state, this information that's coming in on the internet, or access to the internet, as well as imams were coming in and radicalizing -- radicalizing youth, they see this as an area where the united states and russia should be coordinating our efforts in order to confront this problem. ..

>> i wanted to shift to a different part of the world and ask you about east asia. you've been very outspoken on the women issue, mr. chairman. >> right, right. >> and it's sort of something that continues to dog relations between south korea and japan,

and it's also an issue to the u.s.. given the interest in the region, i wanted to get your thoughts on what each side, what kind of actions you would like to see each side take in order to soothe relations generally and also -- [inaudible] >> well, early on before some of these latest statements came out of tokyo, i conveyed to the secretary of state and to others in the administration the importance of getting ahead of this, because it was clear that within his political party abe was moving in a direction of intense nationalism that sort of was reaching back and trying to rewrite the history of what happened during the occupation of handture ya -- manchuria,

during the korean occupation and then during the second world war and that this would probably further ignite, you know, apprehension this korea, in china and around the region and that we had a lot of common ground with abe in terms of things we could work on, but that he needed to back away from this road on not just the comfort woman issue, but also on some of these statements about that his political party is making about japanese conduct overall and the japanese imperial army during the war. i think it's very unfortunate that he's gone down this road. i've spoken to him about it, i've spoken to his cabinet members about it, and i've spoken to members of the japanese dyad in order to privately try to convince them that raising these issues is injurious in terms of japanese

interests and, frankly, creates a tremendous amount of instability in the region. our goal, clearly, is to make the region more stable. that will mean more economic growth. the united states has enormous interest. i mean, look at where the economic growth is occurring over the next daled, this is the region. -- over the next decade, this is the region. and this is very unsettling. and it's a flashpoint which we, you know, we have to handle. >> quick time check, we've got about 15 minutes left, and lots of people want to answer questions. we're going to end at ten in order to keep our deal with the chairman. christina wong, john hudson, felicia schwartz and tristan bloom. christina? >> thank you. on syria -- [inaudible]

do the moderate syrian rebels have enough time? their facing advances by isis, very rapid advances. so is there time, you know -- [inaudible] we should be doing more, and then also on afghanistan are you worried that the longer the election drags on, it will be less likely that we might get a bsa signed? >> right. well, first on this issue of syria, i give eliot engel of new york enormous credit here. three years ago i remember him explaining to the administration at that point there were no foreign fighters, there was no isis, there were no foreign fighters in syria, and his suggestion was you have the free syrian army, it's representative of, you know, not just diverse religious and ethnic groups, but, you know, it's attempting

to hold the country together. so get in and support this. and, of course, we had the french ambassador here arguing the same thing. and meeting after meeting we conveyed this. i personally spoke to the president about it once, and -- but on up, you know, throughout the administration we pushed for about three years' time to try to get support to the free syrian army. so now we're three years later, and we're talking about doing this. and in the meantime, isis, obviously, you know, the foreign fighters came in, they established this beachhead, nothing was done to dislodge it. and remember, assad himself did not attack isis. until very recently, he allowed it to be established because he could see that he could create a two-front war against the tree syrian army. he could be pounding them with the help from hezbollah and the help from the quds forces and iran and so forth. and at the same time, they would have to contend with their bitter opposition, isis.

and so, frankly, we should have taken eliot engel's advice and supported that free syrian army early on. in terms of afghanistan and the elections, it's another area where we needed to go in, force, you know, when they were pushing out the international observers in the second round, the united states should have been much more forceful. we should force an audit of the election. we should get the international community this there. we should not allow karzai to wave us off, because at the end of the day he is not interested in doing anything except prolonging this. prolonging this allows him to hang on longer. so we need a quick resolution in the election of the newly-elected president to replace karzai in afghanistan. sphwhrsh and then we can get the agreement. >> i'm going to need to move 'em -- >> both of those candidates support that agreement that you speak to. >> sorry, deb. >> i'll be real quick. back to iran.

kerry's going to vienna but lavrov is not, and there's some indication that there's some kind of a rift brewing between the united states and russia, you know, within the talks. do you know anything about that? and -- >> no, i don't. about that. about that rift, i do not. >> there have been some people in moscow who are alleging that the united states is dragging its feet, you know, in the talks, that they are the ones who are kind of stalling things. >> well, i can imagine they can believe anything in moscow because it is a conspiratorial mindset right now in terms of the way they view the united states. but i don't know that to be the case at all. >> guy? >> congressman, thank you so much for covering so much ground here. >> sure. >> can i just drag you back to something a few minutes ago? it sounded like you veered into saying you had a private

conversation with xi jinping? you were speaking kind of quietly for a second. >> no, i spoke with the premier. >> no i was explaining the view from china that they can understand why we believe that iran may not be with rational actors -- be rational actors in the sense that moscow and in the sense that beijing and in the sense that washington, d.c. are rational actors. i had laid out our concerns, and he acknowledged that he could understand those concerns, and that's what i was expressing. >> thank you for -- [inaudible] cole? >> thank you for doing this. i wanted to take you back to joarmny. tensions -- germany. tensions over surveillance not to mention sort of political -- [inaudible] have been brewing for years. do you think that the administration could have done more to diffuse this? and what can you tell us about their efforts to do so?

>> i don't know. i don't know how much the administration could have done to diffuse it. >> okay. be. -- >> i know what we're trying to do with our discussions. >> do you feel the germans are being overly sensitive? >> well, obviously, as i stated earlier, before the germans cast aspersions about this summit, -- about this subject, i think elected representatives in germany should probably inquire as to the practices of their intelligence service. i think it might put things in perspective. >> you don't think that the administration -- the germans have been asking for some sort of agreement that would, to use the president's words, show sort of respect for the german people, the same respect that are shown -- >> no, i understand, but i do not know the details of those negotiations between the white house and the chancellor, so i can't speak to --

>> what they did, can you speak to what you think they should do? >> you know, i think that given the circumstances the administration is attempting, i think, at time to deal with the german government, and i'm hopeful that they're successful in this. >> thank you. >> mr. hudson. >> thanks, chairman. one of the things you said i've never really been able to wrap my head armed, the idea that the -- around, the idea that the senate had to pass the current menendez sanctions in order to encongress the leverage we had over iran -- >> right, right. because then you'd have a veto-proof -- if they passed it, they overcame harry reid's support, you had two-thirds in the senate, you'd have more than two-thirds in the house. where do we remember sanctions like this in the past?

ronald reagan imposing sanctions on south africa, sanctions which proved very successful. what have we had? we had similar numbers. in the house, similar numbers. again, a bipartisan bill, and what happened? because of the two-thirds majority, we got sanctions on south africa. what were the consequences of that? not only the end of apartheid, but also they gave back the nuclear weapon to the international community. they handed it off over and said -- they handed it over and said, you know, we cannot survive under the types of economic sanctions. and those were the types of sanctions which was in this legislation, the sanctions which stuart levy, former undersecretary of the treasury, helped develop as a blue print of what we would need originally for north korea if we ever imposed it, what we would need on iran in order to give them no choice but to compromise. >> but doesn't that seem to suggest that the iranians don't

know that congress wants to pass sanctions even though the house has passed the sanctions, you know, 60 cosponsors for menendez, the administration is just saying we can't do it now because it might below up the deal, but we will also impose be sanctions if the deal doesn't go through. >> wait a minute. you're assuming everybody is as sophisticated as those of us around the table about the way the political process works in terms of the house and the senate. all they see is where's the political will in the united states? if it passes and it is veto-proof, it's then law. that's law. that's something they have to pay attention to. if it doesn't, then that's something they don't deal with. i think it's -- we talked a little bit about the distance that the ayatollah has. the it's the eye toll that himself that's making the decisions on this. after all, he's the fellow that picked the half dozen candidates

who he said could run, rouhani being one of them, right? so he's the final decision maker on this. how much of this does he understand? there's either those types of crippling sanctions or there are not. and because of the opposition from the administration, that legislation did not go through the senate because we were just shy of the two-thirds we needed. >> felicia. >> so on a totally different note, you were critical of giving abdulmutallab legal rights, but now that he's had three appearances in front of judges here, i'm just wondering what you're thinking about the trial -- >> okay. first of all, i was not critical of giving him legal rights. what i was critical of was giving him the full legal rights that every american citizen would have. an enemy combatant, i would argue, does not have those full legal rights including miranda rights. and in my view, mr. khattala --

having been in full i view and done a half dozen interviews with major news networks including some that are here right now at this table -- having done that, you know, in libya some from his resort or his home, seaside home, being in full view for so many months, it would have been much more practical to take him into custody, to have him go to guantanamo bay to do the thorough investigative process which may have given us the leads to more of those involved in his terrorist network in libya. and so i think we missed that opportunity. second, i think transferring him for trial to washington, d.c. rather than -- i mean, ideally you'd transfer him to guantanamo bay. secondary choice would probably be the southern district of new york where we would have the expertise to deal with this, to

have a relatively new prosecutor to this type of case and having it done in washington, d.c., i think, is to lose opportunity to get information that could help us stop additional terrorist activity. because in the past, we were able when we took people into custody and we did interrogate them, we were able to get actionable intelligence that the united states and our allies. >> tristan? >> do you think that the administration's actions regarding the crisis in iraq have been sufficient? does it concern you how much military assistance they've been accepting from russia and syria? >> have our actions been sufficient? no. our actions and our dealings with the government in iraq have very necessary. in the past it was very necessary for the united states to lean very, very heavily on the government and especially on

maliki. and if you were to point to one thing that sort of unraveled the ability of iraq as a cohesive state to resist isis, the decisions made by mr. maliki. and obviously, he has sos that sized the sunni community and kurdish community, but on top of that, his decisions to go through the military -- he just put his son, for those of you who saw that, his son is now in charge of the military in iraq. well, as you know, he's gone through the officer corps and removed the competent officers and instead put in his friends. many of those friends had no experience whatsoever. the troops had no confidence in the officer corps as a consequence of his decision to sack the senior officers. so, you know, you have an individual here who hues step down -- who must step down, who

must go. and you saw al-sistani, you saw the shia religious leader explain the necessity of him stepping down. that is absolutely true. he's got to go. and then cohesively the iranian state can be put, you know, then iran is a viable institution if you're inclusive with the different ethnic groups in the country. and religious groups in the country. it's very unfortunate that more pressure wasn't kept on him throughout the process. and he's erodeed the position of the iraqi -- eroded the position of the iraqi state as well. >> we have about two minutes left. clara? a quick one. >> israel especially because we have the july 20th deadline coming up and that would be negotiations with iran. is the situation in israel going to affect at all what the united states seeks out of the negotiationses, or how does it

all change maybe what our calculus is? >> i don't know that it directly changes our calculus, but there is one aspect of what's happening, and i saw this myself. i was in israel during the second lebanon war, and i was in hypha when the rockets were coming in. the question was who was the enabler? who allowed hezbollah to have the wherewithal to blanket that city? i was in the hospital, 600 victims in there. the answer was it was iran, and it was syria. so in this circumstance who is the enabler for hamas? where do they get those rockets? the answer again, iran. and the fact that iran would transfer to them these new, longer-range rockets that can now hit tel aviv, that can now hit, you know, jerusalem and that they're firing them off and the fact that they've got such a massive inventory which shows how much iran has put into this, you know, that does raise the

issue of how iran is a proliferater, right? and so that's the other aspect of what we worry about a little bit when we're drying to negotiate with -- trying to negotiate with iran. how do you stop this penchant for proliferation which they do with rockets and missiles and other types of ordinates? >> that's a very nice end. thank you, sir, appreciate it. >> thank you, dave. >> thanks for doing it. >> thanks for the opportunity. [inaudible conversations] >> the house and senate return for work today. the house in at three for debate on up to 20 suspension bills as well as one of the 12 federal spending bills. this one dealing with funding for the department of treasury, federal judiciary, executive

agencies and payments to the district of columbia. a current amendment to that bill would prohibit d.c. from using local funds to enforce a recently-passed law that decriminalizes the possession of small amounts of marijuana. the senate's in at two eastern for general speech ises. no legislative items on their agenda for today. later this week senator reid announced that the senate plans to vote on legislation to pond to the supreme court -- to respond to the supreme court's lobby lobby ruling that the government cannot require employers with religious objections to provide free contraceptive coverage. watch live coverage here on c-span2 and the house on c-span. and this evening the house veterans affairs committee holds a hearing examining the veterans benefit administration's process for evaluating disability, transition to civilian life and other veterans' benefit claims. this is one in a series of hearings investigating veterans' health care after reports that

v.a. officials lied about wait times for officials -- for veterans to receive medical care. we invite you to weigh in on our facebook page or on twitter using the hashtag c-span chat. and this past weekend the nation's governors held their national meeting in nashville. this panel focuses on the role of education and economic development. >> education and work force committee will come to order. i want to thank you for joining us. i'm steve bashir, governor of the commonwealth of kentucky, and i chair the education and work force committee. i'm honored today to be joined by my vice chair, golf -- governor brian sandoval of nevada. first, a bit of housekeeping. the proceedings of the committee meeting are open to the press and all meeting attendees, and as a consideration, please put your cell phones on silence. the briefing books for this meeting were sent to governors in advance and also be found in the blue binder in front of all

of you. they include the agenda, the background information, the updates on state and federal actions under this committee's jurisdiction and materials from our speechers. to my right is steven parker, legislative director of the education and work force committee. if you have any questions, you need any assistance in this area, see steven. today we're honored to be joined by u.s. senator lamar alexander, country music television's lucia folk and students and staff from the acad hawaiis of nashville. academies of nashville. before we proceed to our agenda, governor sandoval and i want to provide an update on the ambitious be agenda that we set for this committee in the 140 days between the winter meeting and and our session today. first on the wia set aside, we aimed to restore the 15% work

force investment act or wia set aside. we used that momentum of the recent partial increase of the set aside to lobby for the full restoration. in june nga released a report illustrating how states are using work ia set aside funding to resive and expand -- revive and expand critical state work force initiatives. due to all of our hard efforts, governors were able to secure a major victory on the set aside. we're pleased to report that a bipartisan wia reauthorization bill passed the senate two weeks ago, and on wednesday of this week that same bill passed the house and is awaiting the president's signature. for the first time in more than 15 years, it appears that the most significant federal work force law will be updated. updated to give governors more flexibility to meet the training needs of their state's work

force. after months of negotiations, senate alexander and a bipartisan group of senate and house leaders crafted a bill that includes reaffirmation of the governors' 15% set aside, preserves governors' authority over state work force boards and includes the nga common measures proposal which consolidates more than 100 outdated indicators into four core measures. this is an important bill for governors. governors are mentioned more than 160 times throughout the legislation. and nga has been working with congress on reauthorization for a decade. senator alexander, we applaud your leadership to give governors more tools to promote our job creation and spur economic be growth and get our people back to work, and let's give the senator a round of applause. [applause]

now on career and technical education, with congress expected to consider reauthorization of the perkins career and education act, the committee developed principles on cte that aimed to preserve state-led, state-designated career and technical education innovation while insuring governors play a more central role in perkins. now, at this point i want to turn the floor over to vice chair, governor brian sandoval, to share some additional committee accomplishments. brian? >> thank you, governor, and thank you for your leadership on this committee. it's an honor to serve with you and my fellow governors on this very important committee. first, i want to talk about early childhood education. in march the committee began developing principles to insure a strong state role as congress considers early education proposals. our principles propose that governors take the lead role in any state/federal partnership and that any state/federal

program recognize the current significant state investment in early education. next, the vice president's work force review. as we just heard in the opening session, the vice president has been conducting a comprehensive review of federal work force programs. in april the nga submitted a memorandum to the vice president with eight recommendations to reduce red tape and provide states with more tools to meet the needs of their state economies. we are continuing to work with the white house to develop a strategy for implementation of the recommendations. and finally, cacg. the committee took steps to fix the college access challenge grant program to bolster state-led efforts to insure college access and affordability. governor beshear, again,s it is a pleasure to work with you this year. it's clear that the committee's progress that we should continue to work together, i think there have been a great amount of successes, and i think this is a

true example of bipartisanship being very meaningful for the people of america and of our states. thank you, sir. >> thanks, governor. today senator alexander will discuss recent congressional action on education and work force and how governors can work with congress on these issues. after his presentation, we'll open a floor for a discussion between governors and senator. then we'll have lucia folk from the country music television discussing their partnership with nashville schools and how career and technical education is proving to be a source of workers' high-skilled jobs in central tennessee. and finally, we'll see presentations from students showing off recent cte projects. thousand i'd like to call -- now i'd like to call upon our host, governor haslam, to welcome our first guest. >> well, thank you all, and we're glad you're at this session. i can think of very few people who it's more appropriate to address this committee than

senator alexander. to begin with, a former nga chair, and the last time that nga was here 30 years ago, then-governor alexander hosted the meeting, and he's obviously gone on to a few other things, but it helps to know a little bit of what -- of where he came from. [laughter] his mother was a teacher, his father was an elementary school principal. he, obviously, became governor, but after that he was the secretary of education for the united states. he was a university of tennessee college president. so he has seen education and its issues from a variety of standpoints besides just being the ranking member of the senate health, education, labor and pension committee which primarily deals weeing issues in washington. -- with education issues in washington. but most importantly to us is this: you all should be jealous to tennessee for a lot of reasons, in my opinion -- will [laughter] but one of those is we have a u.s. senator who used to be a

governor. governor chaffee served with governor lamar in the senate, and governor bran standard served -- branstad as well. but it is an incredible advantage for tennessee to have somebody in washington who used to be a governor. and we talk all the time about getting washington to understand issues from our viewpoint. senator alexander literally does that. and he has stood up on the floor of the senate on more than one occasion and said your vote on this would be different if you were sitting in a state capitol having to implement this. and so because of that, we're very grateful. it's my honor to introduce our former governor, thousand our senator and my friend -- now our senator and my friend, lamar alexander. [laughter] [applause] >> thank you. well, this is a treat for me, and i'll keep this mind what our fishing friend, bill dance says. a fish gets this trouble only

when he opens his mouth -- [laughter] so i'll try to be brief, and i know i can learn a lot more from the governors than they can from he. you can see why we're so happy in tennessee to have bill haslam as governor. i mean, he's tackled some really terrific issues, issues i never could have imagined dealing with. and he's gotten 'em done. and everybody still likes him. i mean, it's a tremendous -- [laughter] he's a tremendous leader. he's right.nq,e4lñ i -- terry and i were both here in 1984, and terry's been back since. he's visited us this east tennessee, and he came down. the everly brothers grew up in iowa, as i remember, and then they moved to knoxville. they got mad at each other, and they finally got reunited at the reiman about 15 years ago, and i invited terry to come down, and we saw that reunion. and, of course, i served with link, scott's a friend, there are others whom i know.

if you'd been here in 1984, minnie pearl would have welcomed you. and some of you won't remember minnie pearl, but -- >> [inaudible] >> she was my neighbor. she lived next door. people ran for governor in order to live next door to hawaiianny pearl. she had -- minnie pearl. she had that hat on, and it had the price tag on it. she would have said i was riding in an elevator minding my own business, and this tourist from kentucky gets on, and he looks me up and down and says, has anybody ever told you, you look a lot like minnie pearl? she said, i said, yes, sir, they have. and he looked me up and down again and said, i'll bet it makes you mad, don't it? [laughter] that was such a good story, i told it all over iowa when i was up -- [laughter] scott, you might, too, the ones of you who might be touring around. >> [inaudible] >> yeah, well, that's what i meant. [laughter] you probably heard it this utah.

you're exactly right. let me, let me see if i can -- i wanted to make four points, and let me see how quickly i can make them. when i, when i think about my job as united states senator given my background, i think about how can i give bill haslam more tools to be a better governor. because i know if i give him those tools, he'll do something with 'em. and i think of the federal government in the internet age as a place where we ought to invest in things that empower states and people to do things for themselves. kind of in the way apple created ipad without telling you what the app is. you can create the app, and a lot of people can use it. so here are four tools that we worked on, three in a bipartisan way, one's not partisan -- one is partisan in washington, but i don't think it is so much among governors. so let he mention the four. one is marketplace fairness.

which is the issue, for me, of states' rights. does the state have a right to decide for itself whether it wants to collect taxes that are already owed. that may come up in the next couple of weeks in the united states senate, and i would say especially to the republican governors here this is a good time to call your republican senator and say let us make our own decisions about our own tax base. that's our business. that's not your business. i actually had a so-called conservative from washington tell me they didn't trust states to make those decisions. i said, wait a minute, i don't know anybody in tennessee that trusts washington to make a tax decision. [laughter] so that's what that's about. that's thurm one. and that's an -- that's number one. and that's an important tool for you to have a sufficient tax space to make your own decisions to avoid raising income and property taxes. that's your wiz. that's not our business. that's number one. the second is the work force investment act. that's another bipartisan accomplishment. we got that done.

it looks like you can get things done even in this united states senate. our committee's gotten a lot done. we've passed 20 bills, 18, link, were passed by the senate, 14 signed into law. that's almost as much as the whole rest of the united states senate did, and we have a very divided committee. all the liberal democrats are over here with tom harkin, we've got rand paul and a lot of republicans and me over here on the right, 12-10. still, we can agree on a lot of things. we did on this. i remember when governor bretson, our former democratic governor, came up and talked to me. he said when i came in and i looked at the money that came from the work force investment act into our 13 local boards and 75 one-stop centers through 44 programs, he said i just threw my hands up, and i told the commissioner do the best you can. and i'll bet a lot of you have had that same experience. it's a lot of money. it's $10 billion. for governor haslam, it's $147

million on his number one issue which is how does he connect job skills with the jobs he's recruiting in here? so we tried to headache it easier for him -- to make it easier for him and all of you to use that hundred. we eliminated 15 programs, eliminated mandates on the size of the board compositions, restored the provisions so you can take 15% of the money and use it for your own revisions, that's $400 million. local boards can transfer 100% of the two biggest funds between the two funds, took six state plans, took them into one. you've got more control over the local boards. i would have gone further really towards state and local control, but we got a long way there. so that's a second tool. in a bipartisan way, we've been able to get it done. here's a third tool. this is -- [laughter] 20 million american families fill this out every year.

this is what you fill out to get a federal grant or a loan to go to college. it takes three or four hours, and you fill it out every year, and somebody audits it, and then you probably made a mistake, so they don't send the money for the first semester until the second semester. in tennessee i would guess we have about 400,000 tennesseans, families who fill this out. you hold this up in any group, i was at an editorial board meeting the other day, and the business manager and the other person in the meeting had all filled this out for their own kids. everybody who fills out the application for governor haslam's promise program, he's promised you can go to community college free, they're all going to have to fill that out. everybody that gets a hope scholarship based on merit in tennessee, they all have to fill that out. and the testimony we've had is that all you need to know in order to know 90% of what you need to know to give this money out is the answer to two questions. one is what's the size of your family and what was your income

last year. so senator bennett of colorado, a democratic senator who was a school superintendent in denver, and i have proposed legislation that would turn this into this. that would save billions of hours -- [applause] and we'd also, bill, this'll make a real difference this your program because about half the students have a pell grant, but more of them are eligible. they're probably very intimidated by this and don't want to do it. and so we're going to take some of the money we save with our simplification and have year-round pell grants, pell grants so you can move at your own pace. there'll just be one loan, one grant, and you'll be able to apply in your junior year of high school rather than your with senior year. right now -- and this is all just happened by very well intention withed people who have reauthorized the higher education act eight times said

here's a good idea, here's a good idea, let's put it on the form, and you've got 20 million people filling it out every year. we hope to do that next year. now, this next one is partisan, and i'll do it quickly. it has to do with elementary and secondary education. and the national governors' association has a lot to do wit. finish with it. it's what should the role of washington be in determining standards, curriculum, performance standards, accountability systems and teacher evaluation in kentucky, in nevada and tennessee? what should the role be? in 1984 when you last met here, it was a year after a nation at risk. that's when secretary of education bell said that if a foreign power had done given can us the mediocre schools we've had, we would consider it an act of war.

so all the governors got busy trying to change the schools in every one of our states. bill clinton was in arkansas, dick reilly was in south carolina, bob graham in florida, we were all doing basically the same thing. so in 1985-'86 at the nga meeting, i was the chairman and bill clinton was the vice chairman, for the first time since the beginning of the nga, we focused the entire meeting on a single summit; education. time for results was what we agreed to do, and for five years the nga worked on that agenda. then president bush had a national summit. terry was the chairman of nga that year. voluntary national standards and voluntary national tests. and then i was education secretary a couple years later, and i remember writing president bush this opinion about -- now, i'm not being partisan, i'm just telling you the way it is -- the democratic education bill. i said i recommend you veto it because it creates at least the beginning of a national school board that could make data day school decisions -- day-to-day

school decisions on textbooks, classroom materials a federal recipe dictating how to operate a local school board does not make schools better. that was 1992. then moving forward rapidly in '94 states had another summit. '96, achieve began. you had governors of both parties. we need national standards, let's work together to create them. then in 2002 no child left behind. still states had the ball even though that was a lot of federally-required reporting. and then 43 states agreed to, you know, worked on common standards, 34 worked on two sets of tests, so rhode island can pick one, kentucky can pick another, or you could pick something else if you wanted. 44 states did common accountability standards. but here became the problem, the combination of race to the top and waivers for no child left behind have created, in my opinion, in effect a national

school board. the u.s. department of education has got you over a barrel. if the you need relief from no child left behind, which all of you do -- it's not workable today -- you have to ask permission and then they require you to do a lot of things. they require you to have certain standards. they require you to have certain performance targets. they require you a certain way of dealing with low performing schools, and they require you to do teacher evaluation a certain way. here's the teacher evaluation requirements up here. now, i'm through. i'm going to stop talking here, but here's my point. i went through this teacher evaluation stuff in 19 83, '4, '5 and '6. tennessee was the first state for paying teachers well. we got 10,000 teachers to go up a career ladder and be master teachers. if we'd had the federal government second guessing us

all the way up, we would have never gotten anything done. we don't need that advice. they don't know how to do it nil better than we co, and really they don't know how to do it at all. we're all pioneering a little bit when we try to find a fair way to reward outstanding teachers, give them 10 and 11-month contracts, pay 'em more for being good. so this is a difference in washington. it's a partisan difference, but i don't think it's in the states. i don't think the democratic and republican governors would have the same difference of opinion democratic and republican senators have. you may want to talk to your senators between now and the end of the year. we need to fix no child left behind. we need to get rid of the waivers. but we don't need to do it in a way that creates more of a national school board, and we have two very distinct points of view right thousand in washington. so -- right now in washington. so on marketplace fairness, we're bipartisan. on this we're bipartisan.

on changing the work force act, we got that done in a bipartisan way. this we need some help on. i believe looking over the last 30 years governors ought to be in charge. we should fix no child left behind when we do, and when we do, we don't need a national school board to replace governors, state school boards, local school boards and classroom teachers. so those are my tools. >> senator, thanks very much. we're going to throw the floor open for questions, and i'm going to to take the privilege as chair of asking the first one. once again, thank you for pushing through the full restoration of that 15% set aside. and as you mentioned, it was done in a bipartisan fashion. >> right. >> could you give us your insights on the second step which is paying for it in terms of appropriations? can you, is -- are we going to

be able to actually fund that 15% in the near futuresome. >> yes, i think you will. it's $9.5 billion. it's a big number, and it's in the current appropriations bills. now, we're hung up, and i won't get into the details about that procedurally in the senate about appropriations. but that's the number that we're working with. and if for some reason we didn't get the appropriations process done properly, there would be a continuing resolution, and it would be at that number. so once this authorizing law signed by the president, that'll change the rules of the game, and you'll be able to spend the hundred that's available according to the new rules which give you a lot more flexibility. >> great. brian, do you have a question? >> yes, i do, thank you. and, senator, thank you for your presentation. and i don't know if you had the opportunity to listen to the vice president, but he talked about career and college readiness.

and there has been a big emphasis, as you pointed out today to, with regard to college. but perhaps the career part or get withs left behind. what can congress do to help the states to raise the awareness and visibility of the importance of career readiness in our schools? >> well, you're doing to see a great example of it in a few minutes. here in the nashville schools. and that's where it has to come from. see, i don't think -- what we need to be thinking not as governors in washington, but we need to be thinking of senators who are spending federal dollars in a way that empowers you to figure that out. and it figures out the national school district to figure it out. so what i've introduced, for example, is a piece of legislation that would permit you to take 80over -- 80 of the federal programs that have federal education dollars right now and create a $2100

scholarship for every low income child in your state. that'd probably be with about a fifth of them. ask that's a lot of money, and that $2100 would follow that child to school the child attends. we're not going the tell you that you have to put in a school choice plan or do this, do that. that's your business. but the money will follow the child to the low income school the child attends, and then the school can follow your innovation and your leadership in figuring out how to solve that problem. that's what i mean by giving you a tool. it's, we sit through this all the time in our -- here's a good idea. let's make everybody do it. do you know there are 100,000 public schools in 14,000 school districts? we have governors, we have school boards. you don't get smarter flying an hour to washington. so that's what we should do. we should let you figure it out and give you the tools. >> governor herbert?

>> well, thank you. senator, it's great to have you here. i do recall when you were in utah running for president, and you were very well received. and part of your appeal was your proficiency on the piano. [laughter] and as i'm here in tennessee and see the great talent here in nashville, i see where you fit in so good, so we need to hear your piano playing, and we want to have bill sing. [laughter] that'll make us feel right at home. >> actually, the most music call state -- musical states are utah and iowa really because people learn to sing in their churches and in their communities in both states. >> well, we appreciate your being here today and talking about really an important issue that's affecting us all. let me just say that we had a little discussion a little earlier today about this very thing, and congress hasn't reauthorized, you know, the

es -- elementary and secondary education act, esea for seven years. >> right. >> part of the challenge we have is states are frustrate with the the no child left behind, and have kind of by default been embracing this waiver that you've talked about. >> right. >> i guess there is a question; one, can the president even grant a waiver constitutionally? are we going around the law and saying, well, congress is not doing what they should be doing to fix the problem, so i'll just grant you a waiver out of the law, that's one issue. the second issue is why don't we just block grant the money? i agree with you, everybody has great ideas, and we next thing you though we christmas tree ornament, you know, all these bills, and it gets unwieldy. and we have different demographics utah than you have in tennessee and around the country, and so we ought to have our own program. and why can we not get back to what we've done at least previously? it's been a ways back where the federal government says we're

going to help you, we're going to gather money, push it out there to equalize, particularly helps those that are maybe rural or oar areas of our country so everybody has an opportunity to have a good education? just give us the money without any strings. when you talk about the federalization of the national program, the money with the strings that nationalizes the program. >> yeah. that would require an election and maybe two. to do. i agree with you. but that's the difference of opinion we have in washington. i mean, take the work force grant. the house passed the job skills act which moved a long way further toward what you just described with the $10 billion of work force money. but when it came to the senate which has a different political composition, there was a lot more, there were a lot more washington rules. our compromise moved it a lot closer to the house. so the difference on the elementary and secondary education act, you've got a bill

that was passed by the committee that i'm the ranking republican on. senator harkin is the chairman. 1150 tamings, 150 more -- pages, 150 more rules and regulations. 12 senators voted for it all of one party and then 10 senators voted for the one i that ared which is 200 pages which moves all those decisions back to states and local governments. so it's a political difference of opinion about -- and it's, it's not always -- some republicans get carried away, and they also want mandates from washington. i've seen plenty of examples of that. but fundamentally, democrats feel a responsibility to have more rules and regulations with the hundred they send back, and republicans agree with what you just said. >> but i think, again, i think maybe there is a difference between us governors and the partisanship you see in washington, d.c. for maybe a variety of reasons. but i think most governors would just as soon say, look, let us

spend the money the way we see fit -- >> oh, i know. >> democrat and republican alike. hey, listen to us. smart people in our respective states with our own unique demographics, we don't need a one-size-fits-all solution. give us the money. maybe we can't put it into public safety, into building roads, it's got to be put in education, so i can see some general parameters, but let us work out details in our own -- >> i completely agree. >> governor nixon? >> senator, secretary, governor alexander -- [laughter] piano player -- [laughter] just looking at four right now, paying teachers more for teaching well, appropriate create creatisms or however you're going to phrase that one. dig just a little deeper about where those fissure lines are because i think you'll find us very interested in a couple things.

first of all, attracting the best and capable people to take public education as a career. i think you could argue since 1984 til now one of the faults that has occurred in this country has been this kind of shift away. when i was chair of this committee a few years ago, we wrought in advisers from countries that had much higher scores than us in math and science and kind of went through with them, one of those reasons was the quality of teacher, and one of the reasons is they paid them more, and it was held in higher esteem in the public view as a career. i know you talked about the no child left behind in the sense of the waivers and what not. define the fissures a little deeper, if you would, because i think you're going to find us as golfs -- as governors very willing to get much more involved in that area, and we clearly want to get as much product it out of you are schools as possible. we're all looking for positive agendas on public education. define that fissure just a

little bit more and how you, you know, what you see the hang-ups are as far as getting some movement in that area at the state level. >> well, the most difficult thing to do is to relate student achievement to teacher performance in a fair way. that's not ease is city to do. and it -- easy to do. and it, obviously, should be done. [laughter] everyone knows that. that's common sense. but it's not easy to do. so the question is, should try to say, well, it's not there anymore, but the seven things that you need to do in order to achieve that, or should they try to -- there they are -- or should we try the -- [inaudible] all right. or should we make it easier for you to use federal dollars to figure it out yourselves? i the we ought to do the latter. i thought we did a pretty good

job 30 years ago. i think governor haslam has done a better job. one thing we could do is take the title ii money. it's really for helping teachers, teacher personnel development and say you can use that money however you want to develop your own systems of teacher evaluation and principal evaluation and performance. that's quite a bit of money. and right now it really goes in to reducing class size in most states. but you could use it if you chose to for that purpose. but i'm just very reluctant for washington to try to tell you how to do that when nobody really knows how to do that. i just think it's much more likely to come out of wisconsin or iowa or temperature -- or tennessee or missouri than it is out of the department of education. and the problem is, let's just really be blunt about it. you've got this big pushback right now on there's the perception, which is a fact, that washington is, in effect,

requiring states to adopt certain standards, certain performance levels and certain teacher evaluation systems, and people in tennessee don't like that. almost all the problems you hear about common core are related to the perception that washington's making you do it. if the thought was if i don't lake the act dem -- like the academic standards i can go to governor haslam or governor walker and they can fix it, then i think most of us would relax there. and then on the other side the teachers' unions get very upset about the evaluation if it's coming down from anywhere really. but it's better thought out on a precinct-by-precinct, school district by -- >> and i would only argue that i agree with you but that the way to get through this is by carrots, not sticks. i think the dialogue around this about either underperforming schools or teachers that respect doing a good job, it's a -- that

aren't doing a good job, it's a much easier dialogue if we're aiming higher and putting targets to move 'em up. i think it shifts the frame of the discussion. so we're looking for ways in which just exactly what you said, pay teachers more for teaching well. i was interested in your phraseology there because that way you've got carrots, positive places -- >> yeah. actually, our first program was voluntary. you didn't have to do it. so we had 10,000 teachers who did it. so they -- but you're right. the idea, no child left behind got to be like catching people doing things wrong. >> right. >> instead of catching things doing things right. >> plus the math problem, you fail. you don't succeed at it. it runs out of time. >> governor chafee. >> just following up on jay's point. on that fourth of your legislation, the partisan one, is this an actual bill? does the bill repeal no child left behind? >> link, it -- they're competing

bills in the health committee, and we had a good discussion about it. and i support moving both wills to the floor and let's have a debate ask put it together with the house. democrats have a bill, it's about 1150 pages wrong. this is my view of it, it has a lot of new regulations and new programs and new mandates -- >> how about your bill? >> it's 200 pages long, and it moves all the responsibility for measuring whether teachers and schools are succeeding or failing back to states. it does keep the reporting requirements where you disaggregate whether in des moines or milwaukee the african-american kids, etc., how are they doing because i think we need to know that. but what you do about that is your business. so that's a big difference of opinion. there's a -- >> support from teachers' unions for that? is there any support -- >> the teachers' unions, you'll have to ask them, but they like our bill in one respect better because it opportunity mandate

teacher evaluation. it allows it. it allows you to use title ii money for that purpose, but it doesn't do this. so, i heene, arne duncan -- i mean, arne duncan is a very good man. he cares about schools and he's, i think, you know, governor george w. bush tried to be too much of a governor of united states when it came to no child left behind. these are things you should do as governor or school superintendent but not from washington. but we have, the answer is, yes, we have bills, and the house has a bill that's a lot like the senate republican bill. >> okay. and to follow up, i have the same feeling that before washington hands things down to the states and to local communities, they should fulfill what they promised back in the '70s -- >> we do have to leave this session now. you can find all the segs of the nga online that c-span covered. taking you live to capitol hill, the senate back in today and after the weekend. no legislative items on the

agenda today. later this week we could see some action from senator reid announcing plans for legislation to respond to the recent supreme court hobby lobby ruling that the government cannot require private employers with religious objections to provide contraceptive coverage. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray.