unsafe option? .. taking oil from canada the same sort into united states. so they already approved that on the determination and then in 2011, secretary clinton wrote us after some concerns that there was a delay and said this pipeline should be decided by the end of 2008 --

2011 so i think the administration is moving down that course before they started hearing from the environmental community and you could see the state department was heading down its route with environmental impact statements. they said look this is not environmentally friendly. only downward as things change in the political environment within the administration not on the public side. poll after poll has shown 60 to 70% approval for the pipeline so i think it's changed at the very top of the political administration. >> do believe that canada believes that it's not a question of if but when? >> we think it will get built. the merits are there in the economics are there. canada is going to build pipeline and build real and we have to take advantage of this i think it will. >> congressmen do think it gets built? >> i think the longer this is

delayed in a second term the less likely the president will approve it. >> what about the next president? >> i think the ex-president certainly could easily take care of this issue but i go back to what i said before it i go back to my republican friends and say make a deal is something the president wants for his legacy and present this as an option that is appealing and a win-win. turning from his negative conversation into something that is a positive because there are things the president wants for his legacy zog lets make a deal. >> and daniel you would be happy with that? >> well we sort of talk a little bit about deals here and i think it's interesting because there has been a lot of talk recently about deals around keystone but let's keep in mind here that the broader issue is climate. it's easy to reduce the narrative to say here is a pipeline and keystone is

catering to the environmental community. that is a narrative that plays well but is it about an administration is wanting to create a legacy round climate and there is a community of people not just the environmental community, there are nobel laureates and scientists in the huge number of people that come in and said this pipeline represents increasing expanding industry in canada coming to the united states that we do have a say in who should should have the same he goes about to begin our products and what type of oil do we resource and this will increase that source of oil considerably and so this is really about a broader conversation about what we can do on climate and any deal around the pipeline that is around climate, if this is canada saying we promise you that in exchange for letting us

have this industry which actually causes more climate problems we will make promises for climate. that type of climate deal doesn't make any sense. >> this is us now getting beyond keystone slowly but let's have a conversation around a pipeline and climate change. we know the former mayor of new york michael bloomberg and special ambassador for climate change is suggesting look there can be a deal and keystone were there should be explored. moving forward with keystone in exchange with climate pact between canada and the united states to do better. is that how we move forward? essentially canada does more climate change and maybe gets the pipeline and turned? >> they can't legally be a quid pro quo but i do agree with the mayor and we have proposed a similar table to deal with oil and gas regulations and

including the methane flaring proposal that just came out from bpa a couple of weeks ago, the draft regulation. make sense for canada and the united states to have one table to deal with these regulations. we did it with light vehicles. we are doing it with the ships on the great lakes on both ballast and bunker oil. we are doing it with a heavy vehicles. we have worked together with the state department on a black carbon and we think there should be one table on oil and gas. we did it with ozone depleting material years ago with ryan maloney and ronald reagan. it just makes good sense but we can't have -- we are at they have higher costs in alberta on the climate initiative for the innovation fee versus california thermal so why don't we sit down with all the heavy crude for example coming in from venezuela to the

united states, heavy crude from canada, heavy crude in california. we are not afraid. we like the way we did light vehicles emission standards. we have the benefit of reduced gh ease and it's sensible to do that. >> is there something there paul? >> it's interesting to hear this talk of a grand bargain approval of keystone in return for greater environmental. we can say it up in canada. >> it's illegal. you can't say that. >> our u.s. audience may not be aware or as aware as we are in canada that the keystone project is hotly contested in canada. the official opposition in the democratic party party is dead set against keystone and the northern gateway the western facing pipeline the one that the leader likes his energy east wychwood snake pipelines through to vastly expanded export ports

in brunswick. the opposition party leader that is leading in the polls justin trudeau supports keystone but believes the reason it's not being accepted is because canada has not done enough to fight climate change. he says if he were to become prime minister and he has got a shot at it, that he would increase carbon pricing but essentially a carbon price which would reduce and that would would make a american so grateful that they would reduce keystone lickety-split. sometimes i'm skeptical whether that would work. >> we should ask daniel if that would work. i wanted to ask the ambassador because for those of us here and washington following this for several years we keep, kept hearing canadian officials saying we are working on these oil and gas regulations. and a few months later we would go back and ask them again and

they would say we are working on it and the prime minister said it would be crazy. i am not sure where this is going in canada. maybe you can fill us in. >> i forgot the exact wording, it makes sense to work together in this continent on some of these issues. and he has consistently said that. as part of that they are doing a work to bring to the table if we can get a table so we can have an approach like we did with light vehicles. it's not an either/or. it's not as a people are getting ready. >> of thing i don't understand though in the united states of canada and united states agree to the same climate targets and because the united states realize so much on coal energy and is able to shift from matt to natural gas variable to get to their targets more cheaply

than canada can. they are in fact given the presence plan on climate getting there in the projections are they will get there. canada will get halfway from what i understand and part of the reason is because of the oil sands. there aren't oil sands in the united states so what is it that we are waiting for the u.s. to do before we can do something with oilsands? >> we have gas in d.c., we have gas in pennsylvania and we have gas in ohio. we have vehicles being constructed in ontario and we have vehicles constructed in michigan. the way we handle the vehicle issue is to have one table and one set of regulations that were aligned across the border so they would be no economic advantage for not doing something but rather it would be equal in terms of the economy and better for the environment. that is what we did with ozone depleting materials. that's the way we have proposed

that we deal with it. so it would take for example and yes canada has a long heavy crude in oilsands have already have 50-dollar-ton innovation fee. we -- d.c. has a carbon tax which is already ahead of the united states. there are tougher regulations in the turner valley rules that were brought in years ago on methane flaring but we can do both. we can have an equal playing field on the economic part of this and have higher standards as we do with light vehicles to get better results. >> what you are saying is for canada to regulate emissions from oilsands you want to do that in harmony with the u.s. putting regulations on heavier types of oil in the united states? >> we have talked gas oil and methane gas. >> are there discussions going going -- ongoing?

>> we had a a table in light vehicles and we had a table on the whole issue of ozone depleting material. we have had a table working on black carbon with the state department. >> so you are saying the administration is not willing? >> try ikea. >> we can find you a table. danielle if you can respond. >> there are couple of things. i think we will simplify this a little bit. we have two countries. one the u.s. the problem is cold so we have to go after coal and this is after a number of years when the u.s. hasn't done anything and now we can say the u.s. is finally moving ahead on coal and the regulations if they are implemented will do that. the u.s. can lead under

copenhagen. in canada the reason canada is not able to meet its target and is projected to miss its target by emissions due to the combined emissions from d.c. and candidates because of the oil sands sector and that is rapidly growing. so that is why the oil and gas regulations or some other policy like a price on carbon across canada will be needed in order for canada to meet it's -- right now it's set to break its climate promised internationally. so it really doesn't make a lot of sense for canada to point to the u.s. and say hey we are not going to move ahead on oil and gas because you are. what makes sense is for canada to put together a plan just like the u.s. house and together the two countries can meet copenhagen agreement to work together to go as a pair to north america and should be going to the world stage and

sing together we are going to make -- make these international issues. >> is the president's climate plan the coal regulations are republicans going to let it happen? there's a lot of talk about blocking it in the senate. what is your view? should the president count on his plan moving forward? >> we are going to have a vigorous debate about ... in the united states senate and i'm sure the house of representatives. we will be looking closely at the new department rules and one of the things they think we are going to try to approach this on his technology talking beyond regulation. one of the things i would like to point out about the oilsands is the united states department of energy is investing in oilsands. they recently announced a 500,000-dollar loan to shell to work on a quest project to help reduce carbon dioxide in the air air. they are going to take that carbon dioxide, sequester it. it will be up to a million tons

per year so the united states is partnering with canada on carbon dioxide and that is what we need to continue to do on the technology side. that is what we will bring to the debate on the president's climate agenda. let's look at the technology and not necessarily the regulations. >> it's going to be an interesting debate here and what i do with my friends in the coal states is invite them down to saskatchewan for the carbon capture sequestration. there's a lot of interest here. on coal, subject to what happens with epa regulations, the epa's regulations will take american electrical generation from coal to 38% to 30% by 2030. if those regulations passed. if they don't it will still bump around based on the market. when gas went from $11 down to under three there was a lot of

substitution from gas into the electrical grid in the united states. it was a market-driven decision, you are right. all of you are right about how much colder is in the united states. if for example last winter is factored into the emissions and if we have another increase on the gas price without regulations will have no change on coal and a fairly difficult time in meeting targets in the united states although they have done better than canada so far since we signed the copenhagen agreement together in 1999 and 2000 or 2010 rather. i think that we do need a common table on oil and gas regulations because in the morning we compete with each other. d.c. gas could compete with gas in california and in the afternoon we want to work together on emissions. having one table like we do with light vehicle and emission

standards is the way i think mayor bloomberg proposed it and certainly canada is willing to do it. >> let's drill down on that a bit. if we could press you just a little so what is the stumbling block? >> sa said we have not got a table. i got my answer at ikea and we might have to bring paul down and put an ikea table up. >> is this why we need the president or prime minister to get along better? >> we can propose it to him and he has the right to say yes or no and it's tougher in the united states because there are a lot of states that don't want the president to deal with gas regulations and there's a lot of people should i say in the administration who are nervous getting in the middle of this fracking debate in united states with regulation. if you look at what's going on in colorado you have a democratic geologist coming up with a proposal and getting an

agreement on the development of gas in colorado and he has got environmentalists opposed to it on one side and the industry saying it's too far on the other side. it's like the bear and the arcade. he gets shot from both directions. >> so we have the headline right, canada is willing to move forward on taking greater steps to do with climate change but so far the united states doesn't want to talk. >> here in washington they did the light vehicle admission -- emission standards and they came here and said alberta wants to work with canada and work with the united states to up our game on oil and gas regulations. he was right here in washington saying that. >> i just want to put the question but i'm pretty sure i know the answer but i just want to see. we are going to miss our greenhouse emissions targets by half by 2020.

let's say we get our act together remixes that are regulations in consultation with the americans and national carbon price and canada hits its targets in 2020. will keystone then be okay? >> well, i think it really comes down to understanding the broader issues around the industry itself. we have an existing industry of 2 million barrels a day. that industry is fair. it is operating. we haven't seen groups like nrdc going up and shoving those operations down. a row concern we have is with expansions of the proposal is to tripling quintuple production. i don't really see how canada can do all of that and make climate targets. if anything we need to be ratcheting down. we have to keep two-thirds of fossil fuel resorts -- research and the ground so there is a concern that canada wants or industry or alberta wants to

pursue this massive expansion and that's not in keeping with climate change. keystone enables that expansions of their concerns about that expansion. if anything we would encourage canada to consider capping production looking at the existing production addressing some of the issues raised by aboriginal communities looking at better technology to clean up but proposals and pipelines that would enable that growth it doesn't seem to make sense if you are going to be combating climate change. >> just to follow are there any circumstances under which you would support the approval of the keystone xl priceline -- pipeline? >> not likely. >> so no. >> this is the advice i have been given and i think it was a proposal in alberta was getting some traction with some people in the environment a movement all of a sudden it went from x

dollars per ton to $100 a ton so all of a sudden, they might agree to our proposal and every environmental organization i know in washington won't agree to it under any circumstances. >> but that is why it doesn't seem to me. there's a huge conflict here. they say we promised we would like to expand or oil sands industry and in turn protect the climate. it doesn't make sense. it's incompatible. the deal that needs to be made is a deal on climate and clean energy. that is where the opportunities are. >> let's bring in the congressman. >> as we have this debate i think you put the issue on the table and that is this is really about the argument of how quickly can we get to all available fuels energy environment?

we are now begun -- beyond keystone. and by the way i would accept the deal that was climate based as well as an integration deal. i just want you to know that. >> while you are jumping in and i don't want to to break you from your thought. >> you have done it. [laughter] >> would the review of canada's record on climate? >> i see it as clearly complicated. we do have these agreements that we have entered into. it doesn't look like canada will get there. >> is canada lagging? >> i think they are struggling with it the same way we are is because of the debate about coal, fracking relative to gas and oil. unfortunately we are at a place i believe where for the foreseeable future we need fossil fuels. the question is is that gas, is it oil, is that cool and in my view you can't say no to all and

expect to have it coming so you need to figure out what is a few of the lesser evils and move in that direction. the fact of the matter is as the united states increases its production of oil and gas that may be the biggest threat to keystone in reality because there may be a few will no need. now i think that's a little bit -- because i don't think that happens for a minimum of 20 years but the idea is as this occurs and this has happened under the obama administration. we have had the greatest upsurge in oil and natural gas production in the history of the country. so to be critical of him when he is in my view balancing issues related to coal-fired plants and substituting natural gas seems

totally inconsistent and illogical. i think that this is a balancing act. it is one that requires us to take these things into account and we have the environment clearly is an issue. the economy is an issue and you somehow have to come to a balance. it's a mosaic and it's a shifting mosaic. >> can i get a sense name members of the audience feel they want to ask a question when the time comes in the next 15 minutes or so? five or six people. fair enough. danielle did you want to jump back in on that? >> i mean on the idea of where we are headed there is no doubt that we have a certain amount of fossil fuel reserves. the question is what is a mosaic look like and how are we going to prioritize that? i think we have a situation that the bush demonstration where we were making more deeper

investment investments and were not paying enough attention to renewables and energy efficiency and the obama administration we have seen this investment in this focus. canada, there is a wonderful clean energy technology industry that is growing and moving forward but a lot of that is happening at the provincial level right now and there is not a federal signal that has been sent either on a climate price or a national energy strategy that the government is willing to invest in. so that is what we want to see happen. we are pushing the obama administration every single day and we think that's the way to go and believe me we have spent a lot of time advocating that administration and canada doing the same thing. i think that will do a lot for the relationship. >> i wanted to ask paul a question. two years ago we had a panel like this and talked about keystone and one of the issues

we kept hearing was well at this pipeline is rejected this oil is going to go to china because we are building a pipeline to the west coast. can you update us on how that's going? >> that is hard. [laughter] the prime minister gave an extraordinary interview at the end of 2011 to one of the national television stations where he said i hear from people in washington that we can make this keystone project work and he said i told them that's fine but we are going in another direction now and the direction was westward towards china. he made the biggest official visit of his time as prime minister to beijing and guangzhou and they brought back panda bears and it was all very lovely but then they discovered a couple of things. first of all when you buy things in china that people expect to

buy things in canada and what they wanted to buy with canada and that some popular. including his own conservative base in canada which is leery about what is still a communist government. so the prime minister slept on the investment restrictions. he was very slow to implement a bilateral investment treaty and his great ambition to increase exports to asia has not gone away. in fact exports to third countries of all sorts we have essentially been diversifying. with china as an alternative to the united states does not work. >> just on oil he mentioned president bush. i think we had 600,000 barrels a day coming from canada to the united states. i think we are at a million barrels a day in six years with president obama subeight oil is getting to market. on clean energy we are all for

that idea, more clean energy. we propose faster more decisive decision-making on transmission lines with clean energy in them and sometimes we get certain states that support defined as renewable and sometimes some some states if it's moliterno bowl but if it's bigger it's not renewable. what is your position on renewable energy like most international organizations? >> hydrois renewable energy is my definition. that's the conversation we need to spend more time on. in the end right now there is quite a bit of hydra coming down from canada to the u.s.. i i know there is an interest in sending more. hydrois a little more complicated issue than wind and solar only because there are concerns with potentially new big dams but at their existing

dams and capacity can be wrapped up so they are opportunities there. there's issue with transmission were transmission goes but those are issues we can work through. that's the transition we need to go. and to look at where the infrastructure opportunities and where the incentives? it will likely be canada exporting clean energy economy to the u.s.. those are the conversations we have to work through. they're not easy because it's not automatic necessarily for some of these and obviously some states have said what is renewable and what's not? the clean power plan there is an opportunity there. i want us to talk about having that conversation which is really about expanding that clean energy portfolio. we will have difficult conversations over fossil fuels but they don't have to be wrapped up together. >> nrdc considers hydropower renewable. >> it's generally considered.

>> i know that sometimes we have environmental groups here saying hydro is not renewable and only wind and solar is renewable. >> we define it as really about -- >> col olea. >> this is a good place to pivot. the last 20 minutes we have in the last eight minutes we will go to questions. we all except there are irritants and we may not all except their more irritants and it's in the past although i would argue there's a consensus around that and times are tough between the two countries is not the two leaders. so what is being lost because of that? some focus has been on keystone. what is the relationship because of that? i know you have been thinking about that i'm why don't we start with you. what opportunities we might be losing in a relationship to make

perhaps a more powerful north america given the sideline but easier to its? >> one is you can probably go to any business group in canada. the canadian council of ceos has a paper this that the proposals they would like to see the two governments work on. they have prepared ahead of the summit that was planned for canada earlier in the year and that never happened so they are sitting on that and now we will have an election sending canada and there will be an election here. during an election things kind of freeze so i think we are going into an even more frozen moment. in terms of other opportunities we are not talking about one danger that i see here is this has become such a partisan issue. notwithstanding some democrats but for the most part it has become a big partisan political issue. i don't know that far beyond the

harper obama's relationship i don't know it's healthy for canada to be a partisan issue. sure you get strong allies on the hill. you get republicans behind your cause but the harder they advocating push the heart harder the other side pushes back and you are suddenly stuck between these two sides in the president gets pushed into a corner and the pressure on him is enormous at that point. one thing we are losing is being above the fray. we are now in the political fray and how do we get out of there? >> it's unfortunate how this played out and it has polarized them politicize. unfortunately the conversations we have been having in the united states senate has been about this foreign foreign corporation of this foreign action or what are we doing for this foreign country? we are unfortunately looking at

the border. we have to look more broadly on this. united states and canada have the unique opportunity to be a geopolitical player in the world and if we combine our resources and work together it will change the dynamics we are looking at in the world. or in the middle east or other areas of the world that we don't necessarily want to be. there's an opportunity for us to change the dialogue talking about what can north america due as a powerhouse around the world? the world except? at the one thing that's unfortunate. we look at canada is something that are trying to do for themselves and not what we can do together and how it will benefit the united states. look at the world how it could be viewed through the eyes of the united states and canada working together. we could be north american energy secure soon and that would change the world dynamics much much more than just energy. >> anybody who has a question

make your way to the microphones and we will get you in a couple of seconds but go ahead congressman. i think when you talk about understanding what we have the nafta country -- countries represent 20% of the world's gdp. that is a significant and important fact. we have lost the opportunity to push forward or push ahead beyond the border. it has lost some of its steam. the regulatory cooperation council may be more important than the beyond the border program because that would reduce the costs to companies on both sides of the border. get if you will standards aligned. those are things that we have lost focus on because we have become focused on this issue and it has taken attention away. it has taken dollars away and it has become a political talking point. each side uses it in the best

caucus politics to drive home their point of view but it is not constructive and it seriously taking away from our ability to drive this north american juggernaut that we have. when you think about what's going on in ukraine the ebola crisis the middle east we need to focus on how we strengthen the nafta countries so that we can be as you are suggesting economically self-sufficient and i'm not suggesting we not have trade agreements with other countries but it's a very important point. your question was what are we missing? we are missing the opportunity to improve our ability to train amongst ourselves. >> another interesting one when they get to it we deal with republicans and democrats who support us on various proposals and sometimes the majority are

republicans and sometimes the majority of who we are dealing with for example on the bridge was the democratic administration. so we have to make that up with everybody in the public interest of canada and changes. the longer hear the conversation ntpp and water policy and clean energy policy and some of the things we have to deal with in the future are very important but when when the prime minister and president get together at the old losses office they spend 80% of their time on how we keep the world safe for and how we keep our neighborhoods safer. they spend a few minutes on the pipeline and it's important that they spend most of their time about how do we keep this world safer and continue to work effectively together as allies and how do we make sure we are coordinating our efforts with isil with the pentagon, the

state department and the white house back to our government. on the border the credibility we have with the law enforcement agencies not only working together but training staff together i think five years from now will be described in positive terms. we went from an agenda after 9/11 to a plan. it's slow and it won't make the news and it won't be the biggest irritant and it won't sell magazines and it won't be tweeted -- tweeted but it's going to be slow and to liberate and regulatory reform even little things like an agricultural mishap or a situation with the help of some animal on either side of the border. we had a policy in place that would close down the border on all sides inelegant and it locally. these are real substantial differences. i happen to believe five years from now the biggest opportunity

they're going to have between our countries and the biggest challenge we are going to have is water. we have 20% of the freshwater in the great lakes alone. we have the three oceans that we share and waterfront disputes and opportunities every day going from east to west. i think that's going to be interesting. when we are on the cpac panel in five years we are going to be talking about water. >> are we going to be talking about keystone? >> we could be talking about keystone. [laughter] but it won't have water in it i guarantee. >> i guess it's obvious reasons the two sides don't bring a sense of purpose to economic and trade issues. maybe that's an obvious reason why. people's safety may be trumps it. >> we saw the horrible tragedy in canada in october and in québec just before that but that is what they get up every

morning talking about. after the fort hood murders that took place we have talked about domestic terrorist threats in our countries at every meeting we have had. that consumes most of our time. media time is mostly on the pipeline and i quite enjoy it. it's not as if that is the only issue we are dealing with. >> danielle i want to give you an opportunity as too wrapping up this part of it. what's being lost in terms of the big picture and a wider vision for the future for our two countries? in terms of the focus on some of the your temps we have had? >> obviously covering a little bit of new ground. if we are going to look at the relationship between obama and harper, obama is focused on climate. climate is going to be one of

the key issues the president wants to carry on and is not going to be just keystone. there are a whole lot of things the obama administration is pursuing an together that package is going to put us back in place where we should be as one of the world powers who should be a leader on climate energy. we have to be there and we want canada to be there with us. if we are looking at where the relationship should go look at where the president is and hopefully the featured administration will be and look for that common ground. i i think there's common ground on clean energy. in 2008 prime minister harper and the president signed this clean energy dialogue. i would like to say the clean energy dialogue focused on carbon capture and sequestration is done-somethings. the opportunity was greater than the current dialogue is pursuing. that is going to be about rolling up our sleeves and looking at it more intensively and delegating that two groups of people below those two

leaders that they don't have to worry about it being about them but the epa and canada working together for example. that has to be where we had in the future and before we end here want to make sure i acknowledge the fact that there is really important clean energy work going on in canada. there has been concerns for the federal government that truly ontario québec and d.c. are some of the best even compared with a lot of u.s. states and that is where a lot of innovations happen. not exclusively those provinces but certainly lot going on because of that i think it has gotten this conversation going in canada how important is the federal government the federal government steps up and we have that relationship across canada and with the u.s.. >> would do we can get some questions in. let's go to the microphone and you can introduce yourself and

tell us who you are. >> rob mary filled and i represent alberta. we just had her our premiere here a couple of weeks ago and the ambassador made reference to it. he wants to make the dialogue part of an keystone. if you're in the energy business you are in the energy business. alberta are recognized by the world bank is first in class and flaring production of methane gas production. first in class as far as carbon capture storage. no jurisdiction in the world like that. the only place in north america that has a price on carbon that reduces greenhouse gas emissions emissions. the oil sands of alberta announced this fall a reduction of fresh water by 50% by 2020. i don't see any of that coming from places like venezuela that brings an oil at a higher

emission than alberta or canada. i don't see any of that kind of restriction and environmental stewardship from the middle east or african countries. so here we are america's largest friend and ally feeling like we should be their enemy because your enemy gets treated much worse or much better than your allied. it doesn't make sense. this is a ridiculous position because the 80 plus going across the border. the keystone pipeline is just one integrated and we should be. so why pull one thread out when we should be working on being first in class of the continent and as an entire north american economy that would be the envy of the world and export grain

technology and best in class world to our allies instead of our enemies. >> do you want to frame that is the question? >> i would like to ask a question and get comments from the panel on exactly whether they see it the same way. >> some of them are going to end some of the mark. >> i would like to ask danielle. >> the argument has been made that the oil from keystone will replace venezuelan oil and we reject that and we don't agree with that argument. right now we know venezuelan oil is on the decline so it's not a replacement. but getting to the broader issue is what is alberta's environmental record? i used to live in alberta for five years.

i know those policies out there. right now alberta does not have a good record on environmental stewardship. there have been a number plans propose that are not being implemented. the toxic ponzo grown to the size of washington d.c.. there are a lot of legacy issues in addition to the climate issues. we are concerned about cancers and identity so all these issues are issues we are raising about where's the source of oil to the united states? where's it coming from and is a massive expansion of that oil source in keeping with the clean energy economy and environmental stewardship? the record in alberta, the answer is no. >> i would like to say from our side we trust canada more than we trust venezuela. if somebody's going to do it right candidate will do it right and there's a transparency issue

too. canada is transplanted if we want to know what's going on in canada canada's government represents well, congress represents well. we know what's going on in canada. let's do business there. let's do business with somebody who knows what's going on and what their plan is for the future. we are not holding panels like this with venezuela. we are having an open dialogue about it and that's beneficial. this is where we need to have that table. we keep talking about tables. we are not having a table in venezuela. this is the real table. >> i saw hands of earlier for questions. we have three minutes left. >> danielle 750,000 barrels a day in venezuela were the last numbers. i heard a couple of years ago was all going to disappear. the state department puts in their report it will displace venezuelan oil. if you look at 100,000 barrels from the balkans, 730 from the proposal from the oil sands

displaces venezuelan oil. it's not going down. it bumps around 800,000 barrels a year. >> the environmental protection agency does not agree with that. >> this is actually stats in the u.s. department of energy. produced last week. >> we can agree to disagree. >> those are disagreements. those aren't opinions. those are facts. >> to wrap up here we sort of skirted over a couple of things. we don't have time to delve into in great detail except given the fact that a whole lot didn't whole lot to become up i'm guessing that those are things we can deal with. maybe we should have gone another half an hour. >> when you talk about country of origin we have lost a couple of times -- though we are on our third appeal.

it seems to me the solution to that is to simply indicate on the packaging that we have beefed made coming from canada and the united states. to solve the problem it dissolves the cool issue if you will but it does give the consumer knowledge about where the product is coming from. that's a big piece i think of what our responsibilities are in the united states. when you look around at the issues we have been talking about i agree with the ambassador. >> the next panel is going to have a table. >> much of what happens at the top of the pyramid is the security issue. and it's paramount right now. i think that's a fair discussion for the prime minister and the president to be having. we have lots of other groups who are out there. he mentioned the council of ceos in canada. you you have the canadian american business council. you have other groups that could be handling these issues if in

fact some of it was pushed out. many of us believe that is where these proposal should come from because they would get the proper amount of attention. >> we continue to fight those. >> i come from a province where would be raised to manitoba and raised in minnesota and -- in iowa. i think people want to know where their food comes from in there has to be a way to deal with that reality. we would rather negotiate than retaliate. >> what do you think? >> it is healthy and will continue to be healthy between the united states and canada. >> notwithstanding the slight irritant. we have come to the end of time for our conversations i want to thank all the panels for being here. it's been enlightening

conversation absent of table of course but it's been good to have you in the audience with us. continue the dialogue and as long as everybody is talking as long as the rest of us keep talking about the issue there's always a way to work our way through it so thank you all for being here. thanks to all of you in the audience and we will see you next time. thank you. [applause] ♪ ♪

v you would see what please call one as a kid and mutt and jeff stickball set. washington was a large man. 6 feet, very robust and a terrific natural athlete and madison is a skinny little guy.

>> this gift that i write most about is his ability to form for markell partnerships with the great people of his era but it also alludes to his gift to the country of his talents and what he was able to do to help create the first self-sustaining constitutional republic. >> each years he's been around this time we talk about her studentcam documentary video competition. the goal with their annual competition is to challenge middle and high school students to think about issues that affect them and their community. the 2015th theme for studentcam this year was "the three branches and you." we asked students to tell us a story that demonstrated how policy law or action has affected them or their community. in addition to telling it through video we asked them to use c-span programming in their

video and explore alternative points of view. before we meet one of the grand prizewinners and watch a portion of the grand prize video here is a little bit more background on the competition. there were five top themes among the many entries we received this year and they were education, health, the economy equality and immigration. we received more than 2200 entries from 45 states and the district of columbia. students were able to enter as a team of up to three or individually and there were four categories in which they could enter. they were broken down by regions at the high school level. high high schools in eastern states high schools and central states and high school western states. middle schoolers competed separately. in the end 150 students were awarded totaling $100,000. now it's time to announce the grand prizewinner team of eighth-graders from lexington

kentucky winning the grand prizewinners for 2015 for their video on the minimum wage titled the artificial wage. their cable provider is time warner cable. here's a small clip from the winning piece by anna gilligan katie demos and michael lozovoy. >> sidney jones is a single mother with a 4-year-old child. she has to make tough choices every week. she has to make ends meet on the minimum wage job, $7.25 an hour. she says $15,080 a year isn't enough for hersh to get by. >> is hard because sometimes i have to decide like if my son needs underwear i will have to be late on a bill to buy him a pack of underwear or ask people to borrow money. so it is hard sometimes. >> sidney is not alone. according to the bureau of labor statistics, 3.3 million americans make minimum minimum wage envelope. that's 2.6% of all u.s. workers.

most minimum-wage workers are employed in fields like food service, retail sales are personal care such as daycare. rosemarie graham makes minimum wage as a custodian. >> we like to be able to take care of ourselves and pay our bills and pay for our housing and stuff like that and we can't do that on minimum wage. you just can't. you have all these programs like food stamps and people are like need food stamps? because you have to eat. you don't make enough to feed yourself and pay your bills, you just don't. >> the push is on to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour which would provide a little over $21,000 a year if the individual works 40 hours a week. it has been six years since the minimum wage was raised. some in congress say now is the time to raise it again.

>> things are getting better. the problem is they are only getting better for some. we know corporate profits have continued to break records while americans are working harder and getting paid less. >> some like kentucky congressman andy barnes says raising the minimum wage will cost jobs citing an nonpartisan study by the congressional budget office. >> if we mandate a higher minimum wage and those entry-level jobs than we would lose 500000 to 1 million jobs immediately. those low-income jobs. that's the last thing we want. we don't want to create more unemployment. we want higher employment. >> representative barr says more education better worker training are the keys to improving the lives of minimum-wage workers like sydney and rosemarie. not an artificial wage. >> now it's time for us to meet

one of the students we saw in the grand prize-winning team. her name is anna gilligan and she's joining us from lexington kentucky. hi anna and congratulations to your team. >> thank you so much. >> where were you when you heard the news that he won the grand prize this year? >> i was in my principals office with my team and a few teachers and i got the call in for the first time in my life i didn't have anything to say. >> that's terrific. were you surprised that he won the grand prize and did you feel when he sent to them that this was a top winner? >> my team and i when we were first making it we said oh let's do so-and-so. we just wanted to get the word out and let some people now. we had no idea. there is always somebody better out there and we didn't know that this was a possibility. >> how did you choose the topic the artificial wage which deals with the minimum-wage? >> while we were looking through the clips you have available and

we are all passionate about human rights. i was like oh let's look at this. minimum wage. hey give them our money and help them out. right there we are like yeah that is what we are going to do. he wants to help people. >> it's interesting when people watch your video and i hope they will take time to find it on our web site you have a decided point a decided point of view the three of you that you speak you in your documentary. was it your opinion when you started off the peace? >> no. our opinion change. when we started researching me that a top lawyer. if you give people more money they will be happier and they can buy more things. we started to dig a little deeper and found out the cost of putting people out of a job so we decided it's not the best for the workers in the trinity. >> how to define the people people that you interviewed those making minimum wage for

your peace? >> my father had a job connection. he found them through a job fair and we were able to coordinate those interviews through a program. they were like all right we have three people. if you you would like to interview them they're happy to tell you their story. >> were you surprised that they were so willing to share their lives with you? >> absolutely. we had one interesting gentleman who said no i don't think this is a good idea. that just shocked us. everything about it it was very interesting absolutely. >> have you worked with video before or is this your first documentary project? >> this is my first time. michael is very experienced and he definitely helped out with the technical aspect of that. >> how did you you put your three-member team together?

>> it was originally katie and by because we had been friends since fourth grade and i was like hold on how are we going to put this together? who's going to help us figure out how to make this into a news story? michael, hey how about you help out with that and he was like sure that sounds great. we worked well together and we are friends and we are on on speech team so we get along well. >> the closing question how will you celebrate your win at your school and what will the three of you do with your prize-winning money? >> starting out we didn't think this would happen so i haven't made any plans. invest in the stock market, do something worthwhile, and maybe learn a little bit. >> do you know how your school will celebrate? >> well we will watch this on tv and we are going to have an assembly and all sorts of fun stuff. >> i'm sure the other students in your school will be happy to

cheer you on. congratulations once he spent all of you into your school for your big win this year. we are very proud of you. >> thank you so much. .. in oklahoma also one our

1st ever fan favorite prize. casting votes for their favorite documentary. decided independently a public vote. during a week of voting the documentary received 119,000 votes. winning an extra $500 cash prize. congratulations. congratulations to all of the student winners and all the students who entered this year. >> the political landscape has changed with the 114th congress.

>> c-span2 providing live coverage of the senate floor proceedings in key public policy events command every weekend book tv. c-span2, created by the cable tv industry and brought to you as a public service. watch in hd like us on facebook follow us on twitter. >> now afghanistan operations commander general john campbell before the house armed services

committee. president obama is expected to decide soon on whether to adjust troop levels in afghanistan. this is two hours and 15 minutes. >> today we meet to discuss the ongoing conflict in afghanistan. we have been we have been engaged in military action in afghanistan for 14 years. there are predictions that this would be a long conflict and have been proven accurate. there is cause for cautious optimism. the united states and its allies, especially the afghan forces have made meaningful gains.

counterinsurgency is one counterinsurgency is one of the toughest types of war a democracy can fight. in both our future security in the and the future of the afghan people depend upon our success. the people of afghanistan currently have in my opinion, the best opinion the best opportunity for a stable and peaceful country they have had in over four decades. today decades. today we have built a 352,000 strong afghan national security force although building a capable security force takes time the nsf's growing inability and capability. now is a capable moment. we must not repeat the mistakes of an early withdrawal that was based on political rather than strategic withdrawal contributing to the rise of iso- posing an even bigger more deadly threat. although the operational

outlook is different than a rack, afghanistan can also become unstable should the mission be ended before the afghan forces are capable of their own security. we should not have a time -based withdrawal and i hope the president reconsiders the approach he has previously announced. today i hope to resolve to hear answers on important questions such as what objectives must be met to secure gains the key tactical and operational challenges and command is our presence and the allied presence in afghanistan adequate to meet those challenges. finally, as congress considers the president's counter teefourteen a umf request we are fortunate to

have general campbell with us. i yield to the distinguished ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman. he is the right man for the job and has a lot of experience in a number of different roles during our conflict. i think that there has been progress. i will give you all of the credit. a power-sharing arrangement within the afghan government that has laid the foundation to build a partnership unlike in iraq where we had very very strong difficulties getting any kind of bilateral security agreement that would allow us to stay.

hopefully we can hopefully we can make that relationship work to help maintain security which is ultimately the big challenge they must be able to provide for their own security and have made great strides in doing that. they have done okay. not going to sugarcoat it. it is still a tough fight but they have held their own. we must build upon that because ultimately in afghanistan and iraq and all of these countries western military forces cannot impose security on another country. there is a fine line between helping and appearing as a foreign occupying force. as we draw down we have done it about right giving and that responsibility but

going forward they will continue to be many challenges. the government has corruption problems. the taliban and are active border issues have not been resolved and we have a security interest in that region. i wish we did not but we do. the telegram al qaeda these are groups that are part of the larger movement that threatens us. we must contain and build toward self-sufficiency and the afghan people being able to stand on their own. i look forward to hearing from the general on how we are progressing on those goals and where we go from here. >> just on an administrative note all members offices were notified yesterday that for the purposes of this hearing we will go in reverse order.

for those who were here at the gavel. part of my thinking is, is we have had a number of newer members who have sat through a long time on other hearings. and and in addition, those of us who have been here a while i've had the opportunity to ask a number of questions about afghanistan. so this is a good opportunity for newer members. after we hear from general campbell we will go in reverse order. everyone who was here at the time of the gavel and then recognizing members and their order of appearance. again thank you for making time to be with us. your full written statement we will be made part of the record, and the floor is yours. >> chairman, ranking member distinguished members of the community thank you for the

opportunity to appear before you today. i am honored to lead the members of the service forces in afghanistan and i think the committee for your steadfast support due to your leadership and commitment they are the best trained and equipped force our nation has ever deployed. i deployed. i would like to pay tribute to military families. in many ways our frequent absences from home are harder on them than they are on us. i would also like to recognize over 2200 servicemen 2200 servicemen and women who have been killed in action in afghanistan and the 20,000 plus to have been wounded. we strive to bring meaning to their sacrifices. over 13 13 years have passed

since the nine/11 attacks. since 2001 the extraordinary efforts and courage of our forces ensure another terrorist attack originating from afghanistan directed toward the us on when has not occurred. six months have passed since i assumed command and much has changed since then. most of these have been positive. i would like to emphasize a few of these and to reaffirm the conditions that exist for us to achieve and enduring peace and potential strategic when for afghanistan. afghanistan completed the 1st peaceful transition of democratic government in its history, a monumental achievement representing the commitment to a democratic and open society. the difference between the

knew government and its predecessors is night and day. the president and chief executive have embraced the international community can our coalition and the afghan national security forces our our partnership is strong. we have a ratified bilateral security agreement and a nato status of forces agreement which grants us necessary authority to continue our mission. regional engagement has been made a top priority in order to addressed security and economic interest. the pakistani taliban murderous attack may prove to be there 9/11 and a game changer for the region. most senior most senior officials recognized they can no longer separate good terrorists from bad. i have i have witnessed

firsthand improvement in interactions between afghan and pakistani military's. they are now talking. the pakistan army chief of staff remarked the enemies of afghanistan are the enemies of pakistan. this is a constructive admission. we we are doing everything we can to promote there further cooperation. both countries are working toward a more productive relationship. the enemy the enemy remains in a state of flux. they failed to disrupt the elections failed to undermine the political transition and failed to prevent the afghan government from signing a long-term security agreement on the battlefield they achieved no enduring gains. the taliban senior leadership is in disarray constantly pressured suffering from dissension

and lacking popular support. they have turned to high-profile terrorist attacks. in a desperate attempt to remain relevant they are failing to win over the afghan population. they are primarily killing a fellow afghans and muslims and murdering innocent civilians and it is time for them to lay down there arms and heed the president's call to rebuild the afghan nation. isil is also a knew development. we believe it represents a rebranding of some of the marginalized taliban. we are working closely to evaluate and understand the dynamic nature of this fledgling network. the potential emergence

represents an additional opportunity to bring both afghanistan and pakistanis together to confront this common threat. we we will continue to engage leaders from both countries on ways we can cooperate to meet this challenge. we are we are driven to prevent a meaningful foothold in central asia. united states forces in afghanistan and our coalition has undergone tremendous changes. january 1 forces from only ended the combat mission operation enduring freedom and commenced its new mission. we have also ended all detainee operations. simultaneously troops from 41 nations began executing their train, advise command assist mission in order to devise capabilities. january 1 they assume full security capabilities. challenged and tested but

held their own against a determined enemy. they fought tenaciously and demonstrated increasing capabilities. today the islamic republic of afghanistan remains firmly controlled. the afghan special forces and particular have proven to be the most efficient in the entire region constantly executing unilateral direct action missions using their own intelligence and special mission wing helicopters to carry out long-range insertions and low illumination remarkable capabilities for any military. afghanistan continues to be a dangerous place. tragically we lost a coalition soldier from turkey last thursday in a suicide attack. casualty rates increased in 2014.

i think this must be viewed in light of the fact that they are operational tempo was four times greater than that of 2013. even considering they are higher casualty rates the attrition rates which account for all losses have not impacted combat readiness. recruiting has not been a problem. afghan youth continue to join the ranks and service and security forces are widely respected. the afghan national army remains the most trusted institution in the country. on balance i do not believe the insurgents represent an existential threat to the government. however much they need a great deal of help in developing systems and processes necessary to run a modern army and police force

, and they need sustained support in addressing capability gaps in aviation, intelligence sustainment command special operations. our advisors are at the security of ministries, army corps level, and police zones. if you are challenges exist but i believe the capabilities for capacities and morale will be sufficient backstopped by advisory efforts providing for afghanistan's long-term security. compelled by tragedy and cemented by mutual sacrifice the partnership between afghanistan, nato command the united states has entered a new phase. many challenges remain before us as knew afghan government continues to form which is still finding its

footing. all of these all of these changes offer us a tremendous opening and an opportunity. a strategic opportunity to develop a strategic partnership that we will stabilize afghanistan and in turn provide an offer greater security for the region and ultimately the united states homeland. there's a new spirit of cooperation something we did not have before. i believe our efforts reinforce and deepen our strategic partnership and shape conditions for favorable outcome. we can offer no greater tribute and maintaining our commitment to the long-term

stability of afghanistan and the enduring protection of our homeland. i would like to direct the members attention to the charts in the couple of photographs to your right front that we displayed providing paper copies. to look at. i. i often asked what we accomplished, achieved what is success and has it been worth it and are frequently share the statistics to underscore the tremendous progress that has taken place. it's incredible, unprecedented. the life expectancy increased. a remarkable investment a remarkable return on our investment. few countries advanced so rapidly command that success the conditions. 741 million years to my wife

years of afghanistan people based on new life expectancy we are underwriting this progress not just for the afghans, but for the american people. pictures of where we were in 2001 and where we are in 2014. the 5th fastest growing city in the country. a remarkable difference. we have undercut the terrorist appeal. the hard work and significant sacrifices has created the conditions were afghans can take responsibility for their own security and governance. the afghans welcome the opportunity to shape their destiny the still desire and need our assistance it will

never again allow terrorists to plan and launch attacks against us. well they are better equipped and trained than ever work remains to build their bureaucratic processes and systems. additionally a sustained us and nato commitment provides by the -- vital security to the country as a knew government solidifies, a tremendous psychological boost to the afghan people. this review is taking a look at our lines of effort, not

just the military. one issue is to look at how we are engaged. i express my gratitude to the committee members for your support of our mission and troops in afghanistan and am humbled and privileged to lead the women of there caliber and courage i asked that my written statement be taken for the record. i look forward to your questions and noticed the 1st two rows are filled. >> thank you, general. i appreciate the data you brought to us. some of this is surprising to me. some of the information about the attitudes of the afghan people, i people, i think, are helpful to us particularly helpful to us.

mr. smith and i will withhold our questions at the moment. i would request if we could put the posters down and less members have questions about it to not block folks you and i yield five minutes to the distinguished gentleman from new jersey, mr. macarthur. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general, i appreciate your comments and want to echo what you said about our men and women in uniform and their families and the sacrifices they have made. it is important that every opportunity to remember them i question about the comment sec. secretary carter made yesterday, and i want to get your take on it. withdrawal from afghanistan would be condition based. it seems to me that hinted

that maybe there was no firm deadline for withdrawal, and my understanding has been that there has been an articulated plan by the president to have troop drawdown by the end of 2016. my question for you is do you think that extending withdrawal past 2016 would help you better accomplish your goals on the ground? >> thank you for the question. i saw the secretaries comments. going down to a thousand and 1.5, 1500. it does not go past 16. >> not to put you in a difficult position relative

to stated goals by the president, but it is helpful for us to get your perspective as the commander on the ground. he showed tremendous progress here which we, i think, all celebrate and want to continue and see sustained after our mission is complete. what would be your level of confidence that you can achieve that by the end of 2016? >> sir, honestly, to be very candid -- and i owe you my best military advice, as i do to my chain of command -- i do not know what we can accomplish in the summer fighting season of 2015. i want to make sure that we can get to the fall timeframe focusing on train advise and assist. if we look at a downsize

that could take our house of focus advise and assist. p as commander on the ground we take a look a look at all the conditions and continue to make assessments taking into account the training sessions, friendly forces and conditions on the ground i need to understand and see what we can do with these new entities train advise assist commands that we have this this is a knew dynamic. we have not been at that level before. my initial assessment is they continue to look very well -- they continue to work very well. this is my 3rd time in afghanistan. last time as the regional commander 2010 to 2011.

the difference is night and day. the afghan security forces continue to progress. they have an operation ongoing now. i i won't go into great detail because it is ongoing but it was planned and led from the afghan perspective. this is a three core effort. i have never seen an afghan operation that complex. the integration the the police, the army, their intelligence, it is pretty remarkable. i we will feel better after we get through this fighting season but i believe the flexibility we have asked for and have put forward we

will provide a better opportunity to take advantage of things that have changed over the last six months. the embracing of the international community the relationship between pakistan changes in leadership i really do think that leadership and holding people accountable really makes a difference. >> thank you, and i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate the changing format. ..

>> i think that any commander on the ground would like to have workforces and more people, as i make the assessment today take a look at many of the things that we have drawn down i don't know, but we are in a continuous transition and we have to adapt to those transitions. and as you adapt, you lose people which provides security most of the force is as we consolidate, we have gone from 300 plus combat outpost and so that increases the risk in some

areas as you continue to transition the forces and so the number of aircraft and the number of isr platforms come all of those who into the calculus as we take a look at the risk assessments and to the risk of forest and again as i look at flexibility the president asked for flexibility and i did take into account all of those who try to mitigate this as we move forward. >> can you give us some examples? examples of things that he may discuss when he addressed the congress later this month? >> first of all, with the ceo, it is really a new dynamic and we have had to deal with president karzai and i think that the american people, all of us need to understand that every time they addressed a crowd

they think the international community and the u.s. in particular at a thank them for the support and the sacrifices of their sons and daughters. so it is a completely different atmosphere. hoping for the president is going to talk you about all of that and i think he is quite proud of that. he's proud that he is taking on his leadership role as a commander in chief and he has visited training sites in military hospitals and engages with the individuals. i have attended security, dozen i am able to talk to him about security issues at anytime. i think he spends probably 40% on security, 40% on economics on where they need to go. but i think that he will really talk about where afghanistan has come over the last 13 years and where the security forces are and where would not be without the help of the great coalition and the u.s. in particular, not only for men and women that made

sacrifices in the but also for the economic impact of u.s. provided along with many other nations. i think you may talk about how he sees this and how he's going to get after corruption and how he will continue to attack that and often this perspective dealing in terms of the regional abstract and being engaged with pakistan china saudi arabia, how he needs to do that both from an economic perspective and a security perspective. i think he is looking forward to it and i think all of you will find that he will be very engaging and his message will be one of thanks and also that he has a great vision for the future of afghanistan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. knight. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general come i would like to talk about a couple of other things. this has been a generation that could have gone into the military career in 1990 and now

be retired and have been or have seen battle for the last 24 years. here in congress we worry about things like equestrian shannon and readiness of forests and we worry about one-to-one ratio is of young men and women being over there for a year and then being back here for a year six months or something to that nature. can you give us an example of for five years ago or even 10 years ago? >> giving you a perspective on the readiness of the forces that i get from the services a little bit different perspective when i was the vice chief of the army before i went over there six months ago. all the forces that i get enough rest and particularly from the u.s. are trained at the highest level and are focused on the mission. so no issue that and i think all the services prioritize deploying forces first two

ensure that they get the necessary training because they will put their lives on the line. on the sequestration i would just tell you it was six months ago and i was able to talk to senior leadership from sequestration that would devastate the services and abilities to provide the same type of services that i did today. my son is a sergeant in the army and he has been afghanistan twice and he served in gaza he is currently the 82nd airborne and then 101st and i worry about both as a father and as a commander the ability to make sure that we continue to provide the very best training and all of the resources and things to do with that for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and those that we do ploy, sequestration would dampen that an elevated risk absolutely. >> thank you. i'm of you have a lot of committed people that believe that as well. secondly when we talk about

detainees and turning them over to security forces, what happens from there? is there some sort of a prosecution or judicial action there? or are they just detained or are they released? >> probably all of the above. with the detainees that we have had their is a long process to get assurances from either countries that they were sent to orgy afghanistan to make sure that the right insurance was put in a place that they would be tried if they have to go through that process that they would be treated humanely and that was something that we can take a look out for all of the different detainees are released from u.s. control coalition. no longer do we have this inside instead of the afghan system that continues to grow but the situation is probably the best

potential facility in all of afghanistan and continues to be the gold standard that they have. during the process based on president and moving them out of taiwan to get them out of places like kandahar and other places to make sure that they have the right security without going through the proper trials, i think that they continue to work that very hard. and that this is a gold standard and has the right prosecution efforts and it was all kind of contained in one unit. we do have a small system that will help to build that capability. >> thank you, general. i yield back. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you for joining us this morning. i was impressed by what i saw two weeks ago with the progress we have made. i i'm sure the chairman's view of the situation in iraq where i

think that all of the progress and what we have made has now been squandered by withdrawing too quickly and not providing the ongoing political and diplomatic support that we frankly knew was necessary. what the ambassador called for. some interested to hear from you what specifically were doing differently in afghanistan this time around. i will add that i have the highest respect for the president but i'm not interested in hearing what is it about this because after you invest trillions of dollars of our national treasure and thousands of lives, we should not leave the eventual success of to the whims of our partner. some interested in what you and the u.s. effort have there and what they are doing differently. >> thank you i apologize for not being there to do is fast of

the testimony as he would afford. i spent 18 or 19 months in iraq back in 2006 and 2007 during the surge inside of baghdad. and i think the fundamental difference is really the afghan security forces and their leadership and their determination. they see the media and they understand what is going on in many of the senior leadership said they will not let happen there what happened in iraq. the political instability last fall, many thought that they were divided along ethnic fractures, which is what happened inside of this area. but they did not do that they solidified in tibet as a point of tried to make sure that they didn't fracture and that they were above that and that they were a national voice and they take great pride in doing that. the training that i've seen for the most part is afghan led

training. i said let's go look at some training, it took me two medical training and marksmanship training and i saw them unannounced. >> that is fantastic news, but that is what the afghans are doing to do things differently as well. what are we doing to ensure that? the president is a great partner today but he could be gone tomorrow god willing that doesn't happen. so what should we do it so we can recover and will not end up with a situation like we had with the prime minister in iraq. >> this is at the ministry level and what we are doing with the mod and the am alive. these control the army and they're working on accountability oversight of planning program and budgeting

we are working on sustainment and strategic medications intelligence, these are all essential functions of everything that they need to continue to have as we come out of this. and i think that our continued work in those areas -- the other thing is that they are looking at ensuring that they are a professional army. they are bringing them into special leadership. >> are you seeing the state department about the level of resources needed to continue this mentorship of support on the diplomatic side? >> we have a great relationship with the folks. they are engaged in all of the other ministries and i do think that they are dedicated and

continue to work very hard. and we have passion i think everyone is working very hard and it just gives more determination to say this isn't going to happen here. >> last question just to ensure that we have maintained our commitment to the long-term stability of afghanistan as you said in your spoken testimony, what is the ongoing financial commitment of the united states to make that happen? >> we are looking very hard at how we continue to be more efficient but it is about 4.1 billion looking at the fiscal year 16, i've got that down about 3.8 billion because of some efficiencies and how we operate and we will continue to look at a very hard. but this includes all the other nations to have this as well. >> thank you general.

>> thank you mr. chairman, thank you general for your service and leadership. i have had the privilege to purchase a paid. and i joined the congressman on the trip. it was great to visit some of the troops deployed for my district. and my question is in late february that dod announced the three units to deploy in the upcoming rotation of forces in afghanistan in one of the units is the second brigade which i had the privilege of representing. which is located at fort drum. this has supported operations from 2001 and there has been a deployed unit since 9/11. so based upon my visit and our privilege of meeting with president ghani and the upcoming deployment of soldiers in my district that i represent i would like to know from your assessment of the risk to the

security situation as we draw down and how that will impact our future operations against the taliban. >> thank you for visiting. thank you for the question. i do have the kernel with me. this was done in the southern part of afghanistan back in 2010 and 2011. we are very appreciative of this support. what i would tell you is that they would come in and work this, this is our number one priority, the president has told me that that is his number one priority and i look at that everyday you we continuously monitor this at all of our combat outposts every single day, we are looking at ways in which we mitigate the threat. frankly it will continue to be a dangerous environment and there will be insurgents that want to kill our soldiers. we shouldn't make that put

aside, so every day but we cannot do is become complacent. we have told our soldiers dead they will have an opportunity to make a difference, it may only be 15 seconds to make this one comes in terms of protection, the issues that they do not get to pick what knows times are so they have to be ready all the time and i think that the services do a great job and the commission officers does a great job preparing everyone to understand the risks that well becoming and many of our soldiers have been there numerous times. it is changing and we continue to take a hard look at that. we have afghan soldiers and u.s. members and it continues to get less as we mitigate that her own training in the afghans have done a much better job on how

they do their training, so that on way down and we feel that we can't get complacent. and we worked it very hard in a pre-deployment training and once again a country that is continually reminded and those who the process to make sure that they don't become complacent. >> asking one follow-up in our discussion with president ghani we talked about the threat of isis and the potential for them to go in afghanistan in their most recent recruiting efforts. does that concern you? can you talk about what those challenges are going to be not just in the short term but the long-term. >> thank you for the question it is a potential threat. and it is a concern to him and to me. we take a look at that and we have engage with our afghan security partners in making sure that we are seeing what they see and we understand how they get. where all of the other intelligence organizations, we come together to discuss that

potential threat. telling you right now we have seen some recruiting in different parts of the country and we have in some night drops we have not seen it operationalize, we have not seen a lot of money come in are those forces gather and prosecute targets at all, but it is a potential threat for her afghanistan and pakistan. as i said it is an area where i think that they can continue to work together to go after a potential threat that is displayed, you know how her and this they will be. as well as the afghan security they said that they will not let that happen. the dynamics are different than iraq. with the sunni prosecution, the political piece this just didn't happen last several months but it has been building for years in syria and iraq and afghanistan, it's a different dynamic with the culture that you have here as well.

but we will see it and continue to monitor it and make sure that we have a strategy that can attack it in the midterm and long-term. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you, general campbell. when we went to see the general, he was so terribly appreciative of your efforts and all of the efforts of the support personnel, it is absolutely incredible. i was also happy to hear of the president's relationship with the university of nebraska omaha and the afghan studies program which has been going on there for over 30 years. so definitely glad to hear that. and i want to thank the chairman of the subcommittee for his leadership and also my two colleagues who had an immensely important opportunity for me and for our district to see what is going on.

obviously we went to jordan and iraq and afghanistan. so we had the entire picture in a way. so i think that it was asked to critical question that i've slept with, that we have many members of the armed services in iraq and afghanistan historically for reasons you have discussed, can i just ask you to comment a little bit more on the situation? if the isis situation becomes more dangerous, it's already very dangerous were more troops are necessary or whatever the eventuality might be, can you comment a little bit more on that relationship? he did talk about observing watching talking about the discussions with pakistan which

seem to be positive. but this thread in syria and iraq which is growing to a certain degree, it's the same middle east area, can you comment on that and what if it becomes more difficult for the iraqi forces to be successful in the country? >> sir i cannot comment on the iraqi forces, but again, the senior leadership has told me on several occasions that they will not let what happened in iraq happen in afghanistan, they are very determined about that and they have gone out of their way to tell that to me and that question has been raised in many different in and says. as we talk with the leadership the present bring this up because he wants people to understand that the environment continues to a while then it is a dynamic environment.

he does not want his forces to become complacent and wants to understand that what happened in the area and iraq and the network of various evolves quickly and i think he wants to make sure that his forces and intelligence services are taking a look at everything. making sure that it doesn't get a foothold inside of afghanistan and continues to spread. he can be helped with this because they have the same issues here and i think that that relationship that they have a common enemy that they can work toward together will help him. so i think they are working at this very hard he did several security updates a day and this continues to be on his mind. but in the national security council meetings that i said then, having all of this in your cabinet folks, that is a point of discussion, but i think they view it as a potential threat in ensuring that we have a strategy as we move forward and it will continue to move forward.

>> thank you, gentlemen. i yield back my time. i have a question about pakistan. so thank you. >> we thank the gentleman. sir? >> thank you, gentlemen, it's always good to you. the former deputy commander i think that we left iraq to syria. we left them on a timeline rather than a condition on the ground and it affected the sunnis, it disenfranchise them we isolated the kurds we agreed to centralize government and to be noninclusive and the result was the vacuum, what we are seeing today it was filmed by isis. my concern is that we don't repeat the same model in afghanistan. i think that that concern remains the same. what would you consider your

three priority conditions and what is the in strength to support that. lastly in my experience having a temporary detention center give us the ability to rapidly turn around sensitive site exploitation and do this in a timely manner and not having this ability at least a temporary detention center would adversely affect the ability when you find a target. if you would comment on that on whether it does adversely affect this turnaround. >> thank you for your service and thank you for the questions. if i can answer the last one and come back to the peace. it drives operations and that is what we really tried to be a

part of we continue to work very hard and we do have a very good relationship with the nds which is the intel service, so if they have this that we work the relationship to make sure that we can partner with them and what they get from the detainees, we try to make sure they get this as well because it impacts our protection and we can help to guide them. they are building a fusion cell which combines this together lessons we have learned over years and years. they are stovepipe where they are now, so you have them working off different pieces and what we are really trying to force his they are testing this in this operation today and we are seeing quite a success as they do share all of that intelligence and understanding that it makes him a better capable force as they get this intelligence and turn it quickly

to drive to the targets. i think that our relationships of working with them at the ministry levels now and at the core level is, we have had a relationship to be able to make sure that we have helped them with that intelligence and i feel comfortable. we still have a lot of work to do with that, they don't have the same type of platforms that provide us some of that we share where we can. but we have to make sure that we continue to build their capabilities. so we are working on the eight essential functions that we continue to build upon in all the ministry levels. my senior deputy chief of staff was before this assignment and he really is the senior until it either works with the mri and mod to build that capability and i feel much better than where we were and i think that that is going to help all of that in the end. on the isis piece taking look

at everyday in assessing different conditions and time is one of those conditions, the number of people on the ground from the coalition perspective and from an afghan security institution perspective is another condition so i think i could take a look at all of those. i do want to take a look at what happens after this first fighting season where the afghans are on their own, the lead at the for the last two years and this is the first time that they are really on their own and we are in this system. and they are working very hard on their own to support intelligence in those areas. so i can give you a number that i would feel comfortable with right now, i think i need to let this play out, but i do believe that the best thing we can do to hedge against afghanistan not becoming iraq, the number one priority is to continue this system build the capacity and capability in air support and operating forces which increases

the ct capability and they want to the president ghani has said many times that he is a strategic partner and wants to continue to build the afghan ct capability spirits of domino that they have that and will continue to work on that. >> do we have the ability with a high-priority target, do we have the ability to be present during those interrogations in interviews? or is a separate? >> determines time has expired. is there one answer? >> i would rather cover that when one i can give you more detailed. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you, general. it is so good to hear some good news. thank you for your report. one thing that you stated is that the terrorist appeal has been undercut in afghanistan.

that is something that we need to figure out. how do we bring that reality into other places in the region? and my question focuses on local law enforcement. i am aware that recently the prime minister ghani had changed some of the leaders of the local police forces and i was wondering what is the interaction between military and law enforcement. my husband happens to be law enforcement and i know how important it is to have a close relationship and it is those closest to a second have the greatest impact on our behaviors are you so is the military involved in working with local law enforcement and you see that as a positive development that changes recently in kabul? >> thank you for your question. in afghanistan, we talk about

the security pillars and the police and army being two different colors. when they do crosscourt nation and work together, than they are much stronger and they can't be beat. and so i attend a three for session every saturday that we call the senior security and that has the senior members of the nes and the national security adviser. so the police and the army interaction is daily every single day. the police ought operate a little bit different. they have along for some aspect and in many places they are the only security institution in the far reaches of afghanistan. and so they are a threat, the afghan local police are designed in the villages are probably the most attacked and they are the least amount of training and they don't have the name weapons