is dead on on immigration, something we clearly need, and also allows the pipeline to go forward. >> when you talk about the safety issues related to the pipeline, we have many pipelines moving north and south and east and west. there's very little risk, in my view, or increased risk in building another pipe line. ..

to the cade the american public and educate american legislators about what is going on in their state relative to canadian business. that really has to be done in the legislative offices. not necessarily in d.c. but maybe in the district offices where people who work for canadian companies or have relationships with canadian companies are talking to those legislators. >> danielle, let's give you a chance to weigh back in here. congressman suggesting that it is less and less likely the president approves the pipeline. what is your view here what you're hearing about, trying to push it through congress, on the legislative side? or whether this project ends up

being shut down by the president? >> well, i mean i would agree with the congressman about the likelihood on keystone, perhaps being rejected. and the reason for that is, not political. i think that there as been a strong case made against the pipeline on a number of issues. that includes the climate impacts. what we've learned what americans have learned is that tar sands oil sands, when it spills it sinks in water and, it actually isn't, doesn't act like conventional oil. because of that as americans come to learn more and more about this heavy oil which is number one source of oil to the united states foreign oil to the united states, that it is not in keeping with type of energy where we want to go. has risks to water. has risks to the climate. and i disagree with the ambassador on the rail issue. there has been an argument made

which we don't accept that it is either going to be rail or it is going to be pipelines. we know industry is pursuing both. we know the u.s. oil industry is moving oil by rails for a lot of it from north dakota bakken crude but there was a projection made there would be 200,000 barrels a day of tar sands moved by rail if keystone didn't move ahead. guess what? only 40,000-barrels are moving. what does that say to you. it is not pipeline versus rail. pipelines are cheaper. that is what pipeline companies, what the industry wants. rail will be used for bakken crude. it will be used for certain types of destinations but not a destination alternative to keystone. we don't want the public to be misled it will be either or. so the pipeline fights are pushing things off and to, rail.

>> paul, did you want to jump in. >> at risk of not being particularly helpful, i want to expect as ton meshment it has taken this long. the president said he expects decision weeks, months certainly before the end of his presidency. i remember the first mandate, when he punted decision after 2012 election, i ran into a colleague of congressman, scott greenwood, the den mother of the u.s. canada relationship don't you worry paul, the pipeline will get passed presidential election behind us of 2012. if it is mitt romney he will approve keystone on first day as president. if it is barack obama this is barack obama, he will approve a few weeks later this is to the environmental wing of his constituency, folks like danielle. scotty wasn't wrong. the entire weight of washington conventional wisdom was the same. this would be settled in the first part of 2013.

it is now getting towards the middle part of 2015 everyone still has their fingers crossed. that indication extent this one decision around which the ambassador's right, so much else is happen being hing but it ambassador is right, this one decision has caused the relationship to fester. >> not our finest hour but there is no question about it. and i strongly believe it is in, not only canada's best interests on the cost side, to get it in a pipeline, but it is also, with the greatest respect to danielle oil by rail going up tenfold and continues to go up. you mentioned water. well, you know the whole issue of having a pipeline is much safer. i, i agree with the scientists and the state department. they, they provided their you know there was a battle between oil and environmental industry

in washington and i believe the state department wisely made assessed in a certain way a year ago in january. and i think at that point the project should have gone ahead. i wouldn't want to be a decisionmaker. and i have been, where you had environmentalists and labor fighting each other or energy versus environment. although i think that that is a false choice a lot of times. have it report that says, it 8 people will die if this project is no, sir proceeded with. 28. i never heard of anybody talk about safety in the environmental industry. i never heard people comment epa doesn't comment at all about safety issues, when they issued their letter a couple of days ago. i think if i, if i were making a decision and i got a report about comparison on safety and got a political argument between

labor and environmentalists i'm going with safety all the time, all the time that would be my decision. >> ambassador, let me ask you, if the president rejects this, will canada essentially take the administration to court under nafta rules? >> well they can't decide until the decision. the delay is not a decision. so i'm not going to speak for somebody above my pay grade as some of my friends would say. >> well, as the ambassador in washington, would the advice be to the government if this gets rejected, take them to court? >> my advice would be to continue to working to get it passed. we have the senate, 63 votes. four short. got the house about 13 short when you look at change. let's keep at it because, again, how do you make a decision when you've got a report that says this is the unsafe option? because i could tell you, if something happens and all those people, that got this report, secretary of state the

president, all the president's staff, if something happens god, i hope it doesn't happen like it happened in canada, but i can tell you the media will be, and public will go back and hold people accountable for having a red flag and ignoring it. this is the biggest red flag i've seen on any report that the president has to deal with. and i wouldn't ignore it if i was him. that is just a personal unbiased diplomatic view. [laughter]. >> go ahead, ryan. >> i don't think actually the administration realized how big of a deal this would be initially. the administration the obama administration approved the alberta clipper taking oil sands from canada, same source, into the united states. so they already approved that on the national interests determination. then in 2011, secretary clinton wrote us after hearing some concerns that there was a delay secretary clinton said, this pipeline should be decided by the end of 2011. so i think the administration is moving down that course before they started hearing from the

environmental community. you could see the state department, already heading down its route with the environmental impact statements. they came back clean. they said, look, this is environmentally friendly. i think only down the road has things changed in the political environment within the administration. not on the public side. poll after poll has showed 60 to 70% approval for the pipeline. so i think really changed at the top in the political realm of the administration. >> ultimately do you believe what canada believes, it is not a question of if or when it will get built? >> we think it will get built. merits are there. economics are there. canada will build pipeline, build rail. we have to take advantage of it. i think it will. >> congressman owens, do you think it will get built? >> i think longer this is delayed in the second term the less likely the president will approve it. >> what about the next president? >> i think the next president could certainly easily take care of this issue. but i would go back to what i said before.

i punt back to my republican friends, say, make a deal on something the president wants for his legacy and present this as an option that is appealing and a win-win. turn it from this negative conversation into something that is a positive. of course there are things that the president wants for his legacy so let's make a deal. >> danielle you would be happy with that? >> we talked a little bit about deals here. i think it is interesting because there has been a lot of talk recently about deals around keystone. let's keep in mind here that the broader issue is climate. it is easy to reduce the narrative here to say here is a pipeline. environmentalists. keystone caters to the environmental community. that is a narrative plays well with the public and media. but it is not the narrative. the narrative is about an administration wanting to create a legacy around climate. there is community of people

not just the environmental community, nobel laureates, scientists, a huge number of came in and said this pipeline represents increasing expanding industry in canada. that product is coming to the united states. we do have a say we should have a say in the u.s. where do we get our product where do we get our oil. what type of oil do we source. this will increase that source of oil considerably and it will be, this is an export pipeline. so this is really about a broader conversation about what we can do around climate. any deal, around a pipeline that is around climate this is, sort of 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 beyond keystone.

let have a conversation around a pipeline and climate change. and, we know the former mayor of new york michael bloomberg u.n., special ambassador for cities and climate changeses is suggesting look, there can be a deal on keystone, or this should be explored. moving forward with keystone in exchange for a climate pact between canada and united states to do better. is that how we move forward from this? canada essentially canada does more on climate change and maybe gets the pipeline in return? >> well there 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. including the methane flaring proposal came out from the epa a couple weeks ago the draft regulation. it makes sense for canada and the united states to have one table to deal with these regulations.

we did it with light vehicles. we're doing it with ships on the great lakes on both ball last and -- bag last and bunker oil. we're doing it with heavy vehicles. we're doing it with the state department on black carbon. we think there should be one table on oil and gas. we did it with ozone depleting material years ago with brian maroney and ronald reagan. it makes good sense. you can't have one -- we already have higher costs in alberta on the climate initiative for the innovation fever sus california thermal. why don't we sit down with all the heavy crude, for example. heavy crude coming in from venezuela, to the united states. heavy crude from canada. heavy crude in california. we're not afraid. we like the way we did light vehicles emission standards. we have benefit of reduced

thgs. it is sensible to do that. >> is there something here, paul? >> interesting to hear of a talk of sort of a grand bargain approval of keystone in virtue of environmental -- >> we can't say that. >> it is illegal but can say it up in canada. >> you can say it even though it is illegal? >> rarely has that stopped. u.s. audience may not be aware as we are in canned today keystone project is hotly contested in canada. the political opposition in the democratic party is dead-set against keystone, west end facing. energy east which would snake pipelines through to vastly expanded export ports in quebec and new brunswick. the opposition party leader in the polls, justin trudeau, says he supports keystone but believes that the reason it is not being accepted because

canada has not done enough to flight 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, put essentially a national carbon price, which would reduce emissions that would make the americans so grateful they would accept keystone lickety-split. sometimes i'm skeptical about whether that would work. >> should ask danielle if that would work. i wanted to ask the ambassador, for those of us here in washington following this several years, we keep hearing, kept hearing canadian officials say we're working on oil and gas regulations. we're working on it. a few months later we would go back and ask them again. we're working on it. then we heard the prime minister say it would be crazy. i'm not sure where this is going in canada. maybe you can fill us in. >> i think the quote i saw had a sentence in front of it,

saying we would, want to work, i forget exact wording. makes sense to work together in this continent on some of these issues. and he is consistently said that year-end interviews and others. and part of that they're also doing a lot of work, to bring a table, if we could get a table so we could have an approach like we did with light vehicles. it is not either/or. not as if people are not getting ready. >> thing i don't understand, both canada and united states agreed to the same climate targets. because the united states relies so much on coal energy and is able to shift from that to natural gas they're able to get to their targets more cheaply than canada can. and they are in fact given the president's plan on climate getting there the projections are they will get there. canada will get halfway from what i understand and part of the reason is that because of

the oil sands. and there aren't oil sands in the united states. what is it we're waiting for the u.s. to do before we can do something on the oil sands? >> we have gas in bc. we have gas in in pennsylvania. 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 have one table and one set of regulations aligned across the border so there 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. and that is what we did in ozone depleting materials with the montreal protocol. that is the way that we proposed we deal with it. it would take, for example, yes, canada has a lot more heavy crude and oil sands already at $15 a ton innovation fee bc already has so-called carbon tax

which is already ahead of the united states. there is tougher regulations for example 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. >> so what you're saying is for to canada to regulate oil sand you want to do harm any with the u.s., putting heavy regulation on oil in the united states? >> we have gas, oil methane gas, methane flaring. >> are there active discussions? >> no. we don't have a table. we had one on light vehicles of the we had a table on issue of ozone depleting material. we've had a table working on black carbon with the state

department. we're willing. >> okay. >> so you're saying the administration is not willing? is this -- >> tougher in the nights to get a table. british company they do quite well here. >> we can find you a table. danielle respond to what you heard here? >> i mean just a couple things there. i think what, we have to try to simplify this a little bit. we've got two countries. one has, the u.s., is the problem is coal. so we have to go after coal. and the obama administration this is after a number of years where the u.s. hasn't done anything. now we can say proudly that the u.s. is finally moving ahead on coal and power regulations if implemented will do that the u.s. can meet its international climate target under copenhagen. in canada the reason canada is not able to meet its target and scheduled to miss target from combined emissions bc and

atlantic canada is the oil sector and that is rapidly growing. 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 its climate promise. canada is set to break its climate promise internationally. so it really doesn't make a lot of sense for canada to point to the u.s. say hey, we'll not move ahead on oil and gas because you aren't. it doesn't make sense. what makes sense for canada to put together a plan, just like the u.s. has. together the two countries can meet copenhagen agreements. then work together to go, as a pair to, north i mean north america, should be going to the world stage, saying together we're going to meet these international agreements. >> can i ask a question mr. bernstein?athathathathgíib

it will be up to a million tons per year. so the united states is pardoner inning with canada on carbon dioxide. that is what we need to do on technology side. that is what we'll bring to the debate on the president's climate agenda. let's look at technology and not

necessarily the regulations. >> on coal, it is, will be a interesting debate here. what i do with my friends in the coal states invite them to saskatchewan, for new carbon capture. there is a lot of interest here. on coal subject to what happens with the epa regulation, the epa regulations, just so everybody knows, will take american electrical generation from coal from 38% to 30% by 2030, if those regulations pass. if they don't it will still bump around based on the market. so when gas went from $11 down to under three, there was a lot of substitution of gas into the electrical grid into the united states. it was a market driven decision. you're right all of you are are right how much coal there is in the united states. if for example, the last winter, is factored into the emissions,

and if we have another increase in the gas price, without regulations, we're going to have no change on coal. fairly difficult time in meeting targets here in the united states. although they have done better than canada so far since we signed the copenhagen agreement together in 1999 in 2010 rather. i think we do need a common table on oil and gas regulations because, in the morning we compete with each other. bc gas could compete with gas in california. and in the afternoon, we want to work together on emissions. so having one table like we do with light vehicle emissions standards is still a way that i think mayor bloomberg proposed it. certainly canada is willing to do it. >> let's drill down a bit on that. if we press you just a little. so what is the stumbling block? >> we had a table on light as i

say, we haven't got a table. i got my answer, we might have to bring paul wells down to put an ikea table to put up. >> there are always parts left over. >> i can't figure that out either. >> we need the president and prime minister to get along better? >> we proposed it to him. he has the right to say yes or no. it is tougher in the united states because there are a lot of states that don't want the president to deal with gas regulations. there is a lot of people i should say in the administration nervous getting in the middle of this fracking debate in the united states with this regulation. look what is going on in colorado, you have a democratic geologist, the governor, coming up with proposal getting an agreement on the development of gas in colorado, and he has got environmentalists opposed to it on one side and industry saying it is too far on other side. like the bear in the arcade,

getting shot in both directions, notwithstanding gun laws in colorado. >> we have headline, canada is willing to move forward on taking greater steps to deal with climate change. so far the united states doesn't want to talk? is that -- >> jim prentice, even other day here in washington -- >> are you saying -- >> did light vehicle emissions standards, environmental minister came here and said, alberta wants to work with canada and the united states to up our game on oil and gas regulation. he was here in washington saying at that. >> if i may, i want to put the question, i think i know the answer but i want to see. we'll miss our greenhouse emission targets by half in 2020. say we get our act together through better regulations better consultation with the americans and national carbon price. canada hits carbon emissions targets in 2020. will keystone be okay? >> he will well, i think it real

comes down to understanding broader issues around the industry itself. so, i mean we have an existing industry of two million barrels a day right now. that industry is there. it is operating. groups like nrdc is not trying to shut that down. the real concern we have is expansion to quinn tum pell production. i don't really see how canada can do all of that and meet climate targets. if anything we need to be ratcheting down. we need 2/3 of fossil reserves in the ground. so there is a concern that, that canada wants or industry alberta wants to pursue massive expansion. that is not keeping with climate change. keystone enables that expansion. there are concerns about expansion. if anything we would consider canada capping production. look at existing production.

addressing some issues raised by aborginal communities. better technology to clean up ponds but proposals like pipelines that would actually enable that growth, it doesn't seem to make sense if you're going to be combating climate change. doesn't make sense. >> just to follow are there any circumstances under which you would support the approval of the keystone xl pipeline? >> not likely. >> so no? okay. >> no matter what we did? this is the advice i've given. you know i think there was a proposal in alberta was getting some traction with some people in the environmental movement. all of sudden went from, i won't mention any organization, went all of sudden from x dollars per ton to $100 per ton, all of us, might agree to our proposal but we would have to support it. and, every environmental organization i know in washington won't agree to it

under any circumstances. wouldn't that be correct? >> that is why it -- huge conflict here. it is saying, we promise, we would like to expand our oil sands industry. in return we'll protect climate. doesn't make sense. the deal we need to look at, deal on climate and clean energy. that is where opportunities are. >> let's bring in congressman owen. >> yeah. as we have this debate, i think you put the issue on the table. that is, really about the argument of how quickly can we get to an old renewable fuels energy environment. >> we're now beyond keystone? >> we're now beyond keystone. and by the way, i would accept the deal that was climate based, as well as immigration deal. i just want you to know.

>> while you're jumping in there. i don't want to break you from your thought. >> you have done it. >> what is your view of canada's record on climate? >> well, i see its clearly comely indicated. we have treaties we entered into. doesn't look like canada will get there. >> is canada a laggard in regard to climate change? >> they're struggling with it as we are as we go through the same debate about coal, fracking, relative to gas and oil. unfortunately we're in a place i believe, for foreseeable future we need fossil fuels. the question is it gas, is it oil, is it coal? in in my view you can't say no to all and expect to have an economy. so i need to figure out what is, if you will, 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, if you will no need. now i think that's a little bit of a pipe-dream. because i don't think that happens for minimally 20 years. the idea is, as this occurs, and this is happened under the obama administration. we've had the greatest upsurge in oil and natural gas production in the history of the country. so, you know, to be critical of him when he is in my view balancing issues related to coal-fired plants and substituting natural gas, seems wholly inconsistent and illogical. i think that there 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 is a mosaic. it is a shifting mosaic. >> okay. can i get a sense, just, jump how many members of the audience feel like they want to ask a question when the time comes in the next 15 minutes or so? one, two, three four, five, six people. fair enough. okay. danielle, did you want to jump back in on that? >> well, i mean on the idea of where we had it, there is no doubt, that we have a certain amount of fossil fuel reserves that we rely on. the question is, what does that mosaic look like? how will we prioritize that? we had situation with the bush administration making more and more deeper investments and not paying enough attention to cleaner energy and renewables and energy efficiency. with the obama administration we have seen this investment and this focus. canada, there is a wonderful

clean energy technology industry that is growing. it is moving forward. but a lot of that is happening at the provincial level right now. there is not a federal signal that has been sent, either on a climate price or a national energy strategy that the federal government is really willing to invest in. so that is really what we want to see happen. we are, pushing the obama administration pushing every single day and we think that is the way to go. believe me we spend a lot of time advocating with that administration. then canada doing same thing. 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. one of issues we kept hearing was, well, if this pipeline is rejected this oil will go to china because we're building a pipeline to the west coast. can you sort of update us on how that is going for those of us who live down here?

>> that is hard. the prime minister gave an extraordinary interview at the end of 2011 to one of our national television networks where he said, you know i hear from people in washington that we can make this keystone project work. he said i tell them, that's fine but we're going in another direction now. the direction was right ward, westward towards china. and he made the biggest official visit of his time as prime minister to beijing and conging. they brought back panda bears and all very lovely. then they discovered a couple of things. first of all if we buy things in china, the chinese expect to buy things in canada and what they really wanted to buy is alberta. that is unpopular including with the prime minister's own conservative base in canada which is very leery doing business with what is still a communist government. so the prime minister slapped on

new investment restrictions. he was very slow to implement a bilateral investment treaty. and, his great ambition to, increase exports to asia, it is not gone away. in fact, exports to third countries, of all sorts have been inching up. we've been essentially diversifying resource experts. china as alternative to the united states doesn't work. >> very quickly. >> just on oil. you mentioned president bush. i think we had 600,000 barrels a day in his eight years come from canada to the united states. i think we're at a million barrels a day with six years with president obama. so the oil is getting to market. our argument is how it is getting there. on clean energy we're all for that idea too. more clean energy. we proposed faster more decisive decision making on transmission lines with clean energy in them. and, sometimes we get certain

states that support hydrobeing defined as renewable. sometimes some states, if it is small it is renewable. but if it's a little bigger it is not renewable. what is the, your position on hydrobeing defined as renewable energy, like most international organization? >> hydro is renewable energy by definition. that is part of the conversation we need to be spending more time on. in the end right now there is quite a bit of hydro coming down from canada to the u.s. >> yes. >> i know there is interest in sending more. hydro is little more of a complicated issue than wind and solar. only because of concerns with potentially new big dams. if there is existing dams, if existing capacity to be ramped up. so there are opportunities there. there is issues with transmission, where transmission goes. there are issues we can work through that. that is the transition we need to go. we need to look where are the infrastructure opportunities. what are the trade

opportunities. what are incentives. likely canada exporting that clean energy economy to the u.s. there may be some from the u.s. back to canada. p mostly from canada to the u.s. that is those are conversation west have to work through. they're not easy because it is not automatic necessarily for some of these. obviously some states already said what is renewable what's not. clean power plant, the one we were talking about power plants. there is opportunity there. i want us to talk about that conversation with is expanding clean energy portfolio. we'll have difficult conversations over fossil fuels. they don't have to be wrapped up together. >> nrdc considers hydropower renewable? >> it is generally considered -- >> i know that but sometimes we have environmental groups here call, saying hydro is not renewable. only wind and solar is renewable. >> we -- >> hallelujah. >> we agree. >> praise the lord. >> that is a good place to

pivot. >> we have a table. >> last 20 minutes we have, five minutes or eight minutes or so we'll go to questions. we'll spend a little time. talking what we called in the primer piece kind of a vision thing. so we all accept there are some irritants. we may not all accept there are more irritants than we've seen in the past although, i would argue there seems to be consensus around that that times are tough between the two countries if not the two leaders at the top. so what's being lost because of that? so many focus is on keystone. what has been punted to the side of the conversation, the relationship, because of that? you have been thinking about this why don't we start with you, what opportunities we might be losing in the relationship to perhaps a more powerful north america, given being sidelined by these irritants? >> you can go to any business group in canada, i know canadian

council of ceos, has a paper this thick of two proposals they would like the governments to work on. they prepared ahead of summit planned for canada early in the year. but that never happened. they're sitting on that. there is election in canada and soon election here and during campaign time things kind of freeze. i think we're going into even more frozen moment but in terms of other opportunities we're not talking about i think, one danger that i see here is, this is the become such a partisan issue. notwithstanding some democrats such as congressman owens but for most part it has become a big partisan political issue and i don't know, far beyond the harper-obama relationship, i don't know that it is healthy for canada to be a partisan issue because then, sure you get strong allies on the hill. you get republicans you know,

on behind your cause. harder they advocate and push harder other side pushes back. you're suddenly stuck between these two sides. then the president, for example gets pushed into a corner and he is pressure on him is enormous at that point. one thing we're losing is, that sort of being above the fray. we're now in the political fray. how do we get out of there and get back to these conversations? >> it is unfortunate how this played out. now it has become polarized and politicized. unfortunately, the conversations that we've been having in the united states senate has been about foreign corporation or this foreign action or what are we doing for this foreign country. we're unfortunately looking at the border and putting ourselves within that. we have to look more broadly on this. the united states and canada has really unique opportunity to be go owe political you player in the world. if we combine our resources if we work together, it will change

the dynamics that we're looking at in the world. we're, in the middle east. we're in other areas in the world we don't necessarily want to be. we want to change the dialogue what can north america do asa powerhouse around the world. that is the one thing unfortunate about this we look at canada as something they're trying to do for themselves and not looking how we can do it together and how it will benefit from the united states. look how the world can be viewed through the eyes of the united states and canada working together? we could be north american energy secure, soon. that would change the world dynamics much much more than just energy. it would be how we play around the world. >> can ask anybody who want as question, this would be time to make your way to the microphones. we'll get to you in a couple seconds. go ahead, congressman. >> i think when you talk about understanding what we have the nafta countries represent 25% of

the world's gdp. that is a very significant and important fact. we have lost the opportunity to push forward or push ahead with beyond the border. it has lost some of its steam. the regulatory cooperation council may actually be more important than the beyond border program, because that would reduce the cost 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 is taking attention away. it has taken dollars away. it is has become a political talking point. and, each side uses it, in the best of caucus politics to drive home their point of view. but it is not constructive. and seriously taking away from our ability to drive this north american juggernaut that we

have. when you think about what is going on in the ukraine, the ebola crisis the middle east we need to focus on how we strengthen the nafta countries so that we can be is as you're suggesting economically self-sufficient. i'm not suggesting that we don't have trade agreements with other countries but that is a very important point. your question was, what are we missing? we're missing the opportunity to trade amongst ourselves. >> ambassador? >> tpp will be another interesting one when we get to it but, you know we deal with republicans and democrats that support us on various proposals and sometimes the majority of them are republicans and sometimes the majority of who we're dealing with, for example on the bridge was actually the democratic administration and so we have to mix it up with everybody in the public interests of canada.

it changes. but you know, the longer i hear the conversation, you know, tpp and water policy and clean energy policy and some other things we'll have to deal with in the future are very important but when the prime minister and president get together in the oval office, they spend about 80% of the time on how we keep the world safer, and how we keep our neighborhood safer. these, they don't they spend a few minutes on the pipeline but, and it is important but they spend most of their time about how do we keep this world safer and how do we continue to work effectively together as allies. how we make sure, the general is here tonight how we make sure we coordinate our efforts at isil with the pentagon, the state department and the white house? back, to you know, our government in ottawa. on the border we, we're trying the credibility we have with the law enforcement agencies not

only working together but training each other's staff together, i think five years from now will be described in very positive terms because we went from an agenda after 9/11, to a plan. now it is slow. it won't lead the news and won't be the biggest irritant and won't sell magazines or twittered or tweeted but it really will be but it is slow and attribute. on regulatory reform, even little things like agricultural mishap or, you know a situation with the health of some animal on either side of the border, we used to have a policy in place where we closed down the whole border on both sides. now we contain it locally. those are real substantive differences. i happen to believe five years now the biggest opportunity we'll have between our two countries, will be water. we have 20% of the fresh water in the great lakes alone. we have three oceans we share. we have waterfront disputes and

opportunities every day going from east to west. i think that will be interesting, when we're on the cpac panel in five years we'll be talking about water. >> not talking about keystone? >> we could be talking about keystone. it will be keystone iii though. sorry, danielle. but it won't have water, guaranty you. >> i guess for obvious reasons the two sides don't seem to bring a sense of purpose to economic and trade issues as they do to security issues. maybe that is obvious reason why. people's safety is maybe trumps trade. >> you saw it with horrible tragedy in canada october 20 second in quebec just before that. -- october 22nd. that is what they get up every morning to talk about. after the fort hood murders that took place we talked about domestic terror threats in both our countries at every meeting we've had. actually that consumes most of our time.

the media time is mostly on the pipeline, i quite enjoy it, i quite enjoy it. not as if we're only issue we're dealing with. >> danielle, you touched on some of it over the evening but a chance as we get close to wrapping up this part of rt, what is being lost in terms of the big picture and a wider vision for future of north america, our two country not excluding mexico here but in terms of the focus on some of the irritants we've had for the last six or eight years? >> well, obviously do a little repeating but cover a little old ground. if we're looking relationship between obama and harper obama is focusing on the environment. this is one of the key legacies this president wants to carry on. it will not just be keystone. there are a whole lot of things the obama administration is pursuing. together that package will put us back in place where we should

be as one of the world powers, should be leader on climate and clean energy. we have to be there. we want canada to be with us. if we're looking where that relationship should go, look where the president is. look hopefully where a future administration will be and look for common ground. i think there is common ground on clean energy. 2008, prime minister harper and president signed this clean energy dialogue. i would like to say that clean energy dialogue which is focused on technology. ccs, carbon capture and sequestration, has done some things. the opportunity is much greater than the current dialogue is currently pursuing that will be rolling up our sleeves, looking at it more intensively. delegating to groups of people below the two leaders so they don't worry about them, but the, you know the epa and environment of canada working together for example. so that really has to be where we head in the future. before i, end here. i want to make sure i acknowledge the fact that there

is some really important clean energy work going on in canada with the provinces. there are concerns with the federal government, but truly ontario, quebec and bc they are absolutely, some of the best even when compared with a lot of u.s. states. that is really where a lot of that clean energy innovation is happening, not exclusively in those provinces but certainly a lot going on there. because of that, that is really, i think it is, really gotten this conversation going in canada how important is the feds federal government steps up to have the relationship across canada with the u.s. >> see if we get questions in here. you mentioned provinces. rob, you can introduce yourself and tell us who you are. important to the audience here. >> i'm rob maryfield. i represent alberta. in the united states we had our premier here a couple weeks ago. i think the ambassador made reference to it and he reilly

wants to take the dialogue a lot broader than keystone. he says if you're in the energy business you're in the environment business. in alberta, for those that don't know we're recognized by world bank as first in class in flaring reduction and methane gas reduction. first in class as far as carbon capture and storage. we put $300 per man, woman and child in alberta capture an storage. no jurisdiction in the world like that. only place in north america with price on carbon goes into technology and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. oil sands of alberta announced reduction of fresh water by 50% by 2022. i don't see anything like places like venezuela brings in oil at higher hgh emission than alberta or canada. i don't see environmental stewardship for any middle east or african countries that we

bring oil in. so here we are america's largest friend and ally, feeling like we should be your enemy because your enemy gets treated much worse, or much better than your ally and it doesn't make sense. this is a ridiculous position because there is 80 plus pipelines going across the border, 49th parallel. keystone pipeline is just one. we're integrated as a continent and we should be so why pull one thread out of that and make it into an environmental lightning rod when we should be first in class on the continent and energy independent as entire north american economy that would be envy of the world. we could then actually probably export some of our green technology and best in class to the world, to our allies instead of our enemies? >> you want to frame that in a question? >> yeah. i'd like to ask a question and

get comments from the panel on exactly, you know, whether they see it the same way. whether -- >> some of them are going to and some of them aren't. >> well, i would like to ask danielle, why venezuela not attacking venezuela? >> start there. >> so the argument has been made that the oil from keystone will replace venezuelan oil and we reject that. we don't agree with that argument. that there is, right now we know that venezuelan oil is already on decline. so it is not replacement. but getting to the broader issue, what is alberta's environmental record? i used to live in alberta for five years. i know, i know those policies up there. right now alberta does not have a good record on environmental stewardship. there has been a number of plans that have been proposed that are not being implemented. the tailing ponds have grown. toxic tailing ponds grown to the size of washington d.c. so

there is, there are a lot of legacy issues in addition to the climate issues. we work with first nations who are extremely concerned about cancers in their community. so this all these issues are, issues we're raising about where is the source of oil to the united states? where is it coming from? is that, is it massive expansion of that oil source in keeping with it a clean energy economy and environmental stewardship? and the record in alberta, the answer is no. >> i'd like to say from our side we, trust canada more than we trust venezuela nigeria and others. if somebody is going to do it right canada will do it right. there is transparency issue. canada is transparent, if we want to know what is going on in canada canada's government represents well, the province represents well. we know what is going on in canada. let's do business there, with somebody we know what is it going on and how they're doing

this and what their plan is for the future. we're not holding panels like this with venezuela. we're holding it with canada and having open dialogue about it. that is beneficial. this is where we need the table. this is the table. we keep talking about the tables. we're not talking about having tables with venezuela. this is the real table we're talking about discussion. >> i looked for three minutes left. >> danielle, 750,000 barrels a day from venezuela in last numbers. so i heard a couple years ago it was all going to disappear from people opposed to pipeline of the the state department, puts in the report, it will displace venz ven ann oil. it will. if you look at 100,000 barrels from the bakken, 730 from the proposal from the oil sands, displaces venezuelan oil. it is not going down. it bumps about 750,000 to 800,000 barrels a day. has for last four years. >> environmental protection agency doesn't agree with that. >> they don't agree?

this is stats in the u.s. department of energy. produced last week. >> we can agree to disagree. >> those are not disagreements. those aren't opinions. those are fact. >> we are keystone. went beyond keystone. >> just to wrap up, we skirted over couple other irritants. country of origin labeling. we don't have time to delve into great detail. given fact a whole lot didn't come up, i guess those are things we can deal with as two countries? maybe we should have gone another half hour? >> i think we should have gone another half hour. >> when you talk about country of origin labeling we lost now a couple of times in various -- >> third appeal. >> on third appeal. seems to me the solution to that is simply indicate on the packaging that we have beef made or coming from canada and the united states. solves problem. resolves the cool issue if you

will but 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. you know when you look around at issues we've been talking about, we're looking for tables. i agree with the ambassador. >> next panel is going to have a table. >> much of what happens -- >> or a new metaphor. >> at the top of the pyramid is the security issue and it is paramount right now. i think that is a fair discussion for the prime minister and the president to be having. we have lots of other groups who are out there. you mentioned the council of ceos in canada. we have the canadian american business council. we have other groups that could be handling these issues if in fact some of it was pushed down. i think many of us believe that's where these proposals should come from because they will get proper amount of attention. >> that has, do you want a quick country of origin labeling or buy america? we continue to fight those from

the canadian side. >> i come from a province -- >> got about 20 second. >> where we would, the born in manitoba raised in minnesota and processed iowa. so it's i think people want to know where their food comes from. there has got to be a way to deal with that reality and not we won three cases. we'll win a fourth. we would rather negotiate than retaliate would be our view. >> what do you think? >> cultural trade is healthy and continue to be healthy between the united states and canada. we'll see how the court case turns out. >> notwithstanding those slight irritants. we come to the end of our conversations. i want to thank all our panelists being here. it is enlightening conversation absent the table. at least continue the dialogue. i suppose as long as everybody's talking, maybe not the two guys at the top but as long as rest

of us keep talking, as long as rest of us keep talking about the issue, there is always a way to work through it. thanks for being here. thanks to all of you in the audience. see you here next time. thank you. [applause] >> today the alliance for health reform host as panel on the affordable care act. marketplaces. employer sponsored coverage and other aspects of law. live at noon eastern on c-span. later president travels to south carolina for a town hall meeting. he speaks to students at

benedict college about creating opportunities in their communities. live starting 2:15 p.m. eastern also on c-span. >> the c-span cities tour takes booktv and american history tv on the road traveling to u.s. sit cities to learn about history and literary life. we partner with comcast for a visit to galveston, texas. >> people throng to the beach and rising tide, the rising wind certainly drew them. they watched in amazement as, both of these factors batter the beachfront structures. at that time we had wooden bathhouses over the gulf of mexico. we also had piers we had huge pavilion, olympia by the sea. as the storm increased in

intensity, these beach structures were literally turned into matchsticks. the 1900 storm struck galveston saturday september 8th, 1900. the storm began toward noon increased in dramatic intensity then finally tapered off toward midnight. that evening. this hurricane was and still is, the deadliest recorded natural event in the history of the united states. >> watch all of our events from galveston, saturday at noon eastern, on c-span2's booktv. sunday afternoon at 2:00 on american history tv on c-span three. >> here on c-span2 we take you live to the national press club for a focus on cybersecurity. a policy forum. that will feature among other

speakers, pron john, the senator from wisconsin also the chair of the homeland security committee on capitol hill. he is keynote speaker. national security council senior director for cybersecurity ari schwartz. an event should get underway shortly on c-span2. the senate is in briefly this morning 9:30 pro-forma session. we'll break away at 9:30 and continue coverage here at national press club. . .

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good morning, and welcome to

the united states telecom association's fifth national cybersecurity forum. before we begin today, if anybody is trying to access the wi-fi network, the password is npc3v3nt5 but if you didn't get that mary shultz right outside can give you the password. today, we are here to listen to industry and government leaders discuss issues that are defining our understanding of the risks that cyberattacks posed to our national security our economic security, public health and safety, and the very social and political fabric that governs our lives. indeed, as noted in the world economic forum report was released last year many leaders

in business, civil society, and government realized that for the world economy to fully derive the value inherent in technological innovation a robust coordinated system of global cyber resilience is essential to effectively mitigate the risks of cyberattacks. this report found that senior leaders in the private and public sectors across different industries are unaware of the need for cyber resilience, and are urging greater collaboration towards a broad cyber resilience ecosystem that spans technology providers enterprise users, regulators, law enforcement, and other related institutions. we are pleased that this commitment is beginning to take root to the ongoing discussions taking place across government and industry. which today's forum is going to highlight. it is evident that there is not only robust collaboration among industry sectors and within

government, but also an increasing scope and pace of cyber related activities. now a key question for policymakers and one we will be debating today, is identifying what actions and initiatives are necessary to ensure the highest probability of success in mitigating cybersecurity risk. we are honored to have with us today three esteemed officials have given substantial thought to these questions in each of their spheres of influence. our keynote speaker is the honorable ron johnson chairman of the senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee. we are also pleased to welcome ari schwartz, white house senior director of cybersecurity, and adam sedgewick, nist senior information technology policy adviser, each of them will speak on panels that will address the recently released executive order on information sharing, and efforts by nist industry to

promote and advance cybersecurity risk management. as the new chairman of the homeland security committee, senator johnson is playing a major role to further advance cybersecurity legislation by seeking to build broad bipartisan consensus on key issues. in addition to a cybersecurity leadership, senator johnson also serves on the budget committee, commerce committee, the foreign relations committee. before his election to the united states senate in 2010, he spent 31 years at packer llc, a polyester plastic manufacturing business that he cofounded in 1979. mr. chairman, thank you very much for joining us today and for discussing the outlook for the coming year on this important legislation. [applause] >> thank you. first of all thank you all for braving the cold and the snow. was regarding these the streets are pretty good but against

those who had to travel a little bit further did battle some issues appreciate that. i'm going to open up to questions and answers and i think that's probably the best forum for really addressing some of the details about cybersecurity and my thoughts on the. let me just make a couple foundational points. i did come from the private sector. my background is in accounting or finance but i ran a manufacturing plant for 31 years. i sold an awful lot of problems. the private sector experience, that kind of perspective is something that is pretty important here in washington, d.c. because when you start talking of things like cybersecurity a user talk about regulation of business there's two problems attitudes in washington, d.c., that we have to force businesses, for example, provide safety to their workers or we've got to force them to make sure the products are safe. i come from the standpoint of

business realizing it's just bad business not to a worker safety. it's bad business to of airplanes fall out of the sky. it's bad business to leisure customers personal private information. so it is a necessary attitude from my standpoint, or an important attitude and important perspective to bring to this particular discussion. frequently when i'm talking to business groups i do like taking the opportunity to give my ask. as this and i hear it all the time senator here's my ask. in the private sector for far too long businesses have been viewed as evil. rather than celebrating success we demonize and demagogue against them. so this is again, laying the foundation of what i want to talk about, is i'm asking businesses to defend themselves. tikka with the people that work with them. and understand i use the word with. i think is excellent important for every business manager every business owner, every

corporate chieftain to make sure the people who work with them producing products and services that we all value, that we all need, the power economy that produced good paying jobs. you need to make sure the people working with you understand you have to succeed. if they're ever going to get better pay, better benefits comes up and come from all over right here in washington, d.c. if you want better jobs constitute him a better job opportunities, the business and the people working in the business together needs to succeed and then, oh, by the way, in business, and the private sector, success is measured by something. it's called a profit. that's not evil. it's absolutely necessary. now, in today's culture as we demonize businesses for decades and it has worked politically that's kind of heavy lift. but if you succeed, convince the people to work with you that it really is good to succeed, it is good to make a profit so you can

invest that money to expand your business and create better products and better services take the next step. make sure that people work with you realize your supplier has to succeed. your customers have to succeed. this entire free market marble that we called the american economy has to succeed. even big pharma and big oil. am i the only one who wants a life-saving new drug or drive a gas tank down to 10 miles left and i'm glad there's a gas station at the next interchange, or the sense i'm talking to use telecom here, even big telecom has to succeed. it's just a tragedy that now chairman wheeler has decided to regulate the internet. do it on the basis of this really wonderful sounding phrase, net neutrality. so we can all have faster speeds and we can get more information over the internet the what will end up happening from my standpoint is you've actually now decrease the incentive for the type of capital expenditure

that will expand broadband expand speeds provide better innovation. i mean, what is a better model of innovation and advancement of economic activity and explosion of the internet and all the services and all the progress that has spawned from all the jobs that's created. now we're putting at risk and that's a real shame. i want to start there. looked at all of it about my attitude toward committee. and this is key in terms of how we think we move successfully a cybersecurity bill. coming from the private sector, i did a lot of negotiating a lot of relationship building with both customers and suppliers. i wouldn't start those negotiations or those relationships arguing. what i would always do on the front end of the negotiation, particularly is i would figure all the areas of agreement that develop a relationship, a level of trust which came to this area the disagreements it was a whole

lot easier finding, grim. so that's exactly my point for four years, try to find areas of agreement, how to approach the committee. so upon taking chairmanship i reached out to my ranking member, tom carper, man of integrity. he wants a bigger government. he does want to see ways. so let's develop the mission statement. let's set our initial priority. we established a mission statement. a cool we can all agree and. it was pretty simple. to enhance the economic national security of america. and by concentrating on that goal, that shared purpose, it's going to be a lot easier finding common ground. often when i give minot exactly uplifting powerpoint presentation laying out the financial condition of this country, good thing and by the way, you she touches of lucky that that's not the topic of my conversation here today or i would've ruined your day. i will start those conversations again like i started business negotiation. what do we all agree on? we share the same goal.

we all want a prosperous safe and secure america. we are concerned about each other. we want every american to have the opportunity build a good life for themselves and the family. that's the best way to start any political conversation. that's my approach. find areas of common ground to my committee come its two committees in one. government affairs and homeland security. government affairs, we've set up two subcommittees. one will focus on duplicative programs, waste, fraud, and abuse, things we can find agree. nobody wants to see wasteful spending of taxpayer money. the other part is regulatory reform. there are literally thousands of regulations regulations that are hampering businesses and organizations even in lieu states from being able to expand. when we had our first business meeting for our committee i set up an aspirational goal to go with that mission statement recognizing the fact that every united states senator around the table came here to do something,

to a copper something, to represent their constituents, so the reality of the situation is in or to do something, congress, you had to pass legislation. in the united states since that means we need six democrats joining with 54 republicans to pass a piece of legislation to the aspirational goal was let's find areas of agreement, let's find the regulatory reform, streamlined or outright eliminate it. i won't ask the democrats to violate the principles. and asking them not to ask me to violate my. let's find those areas of agreement and by the way, we reported at nine pieces of legislation, not the most momentous but nine pieces of legislation that passed on a voice vote no dissent. hopefully we can just pass the both the house and the senate by unanimous consent that starts making that incremental improvement. on homeland security side of the committee, the top priorities are we have to secure our border.

but we have to do it by looking at our immigration laws if they got what all the and sinister people coming here illegally, let's reduce if not eliminate those incentives. another tom gerke was cybersecurity and that's obvious. what about protecting our critical infrastructure, not only from cyber but potential terrorist attacks. and my fourth priority we set with a want to do everything i can in the committee to make sure that secretary jeh johnson who is an honorable man has got a series responsible to them so. i want to do what i can to make sure jeh johnson succeed in his mission on keeping this nation safe. now let me transition to cybersecurity. we failed in number of hearings on this. this has been for years everybody recognizes we have to do this. i always ask witnesses what are the top priority somewhat of things we just have to get done? it's always been exactly the same or the top priority is we have to facilitate the sharing of information at i'm talking at

threats one of those. we're not talking to the m.e.d.i.c. program. we're talking about sharing threat information so we can prevent cyber attacks. and then it's just impossible for business to just to really try and comply with a multitude of different jurisdictional requirements in terms of notification in case of the data breach. i think it's crucial that we do set a federal standard that can preempt all the other either state or potentially even local laws. those of the top to priority. though should be from my standpoint pretty simple. took office but has not been so because you do of interest illegitimate interest. people are concerned about america's privacy that we have to take into account. i think a point i've been trying to make to privacy advocates is if you as an american or as a privacy advocacy group, if you're concerned about america's privacy being lost, then you really ought to be concerned that doing everything we can to

prevent cyber attacks. because the greatest threat to our individual privacy are these attacks where literally the private information of millions of people are being lost with everyone of these attacks that which is right about apple pay. has been attacked in a certain way or certainly there's been fraudulent activity not as the result of the previous attacks on home depot and target. so give that represents a significant threat. now, from my standpoint, our first committee hearing because it was such a top three was on cybersecurity. we had representatives from microsoft and american express, marsh mclennan so very encouraging about that is following the hearing, this very thoughtful hearing, i went down to talk to the witnesses and they were talking among themselves, and the conversation was we're really not that far apart. i think we can actually do this.

and i think we can, too because not only does congress think this is an important priority but president obama recognized that as well. all these high profile attacks, as dangerous as they are two to american economy, certainly is grading the awareness to the public and hopefully creating the political will for congress and this administration to work together to find the common ground. we've got a bill moving through the intelligence committee. it's been brewing there for the last couple of congresses, and senator richard burr and senator dianne feinstein of come to include a. i think that there will be marked up next week. that is i think a good starting point. we have in our committee senator tom carper, president obama's legislation on cybersecurity. a little more modest if you're composed with the intel bill is but i don't how this is all going to work out, but one role that certainly the homeland

security committee can play in this is we can hold hearings. we can continue to hold hearings. it is a contentious issue, if there's a component of any bill that might eventually work its way into the floor we can hold hearings. i will say one thing i absolutely want to make sure of is the whatever liability protections the bill provides to industry that it actually works. i'm not interested in information sharing in name only bill. so we've got an interesting letter from i think 29 chief counsel of major corporations last week, my didn't even this week. pointing out how important it is that we get this thing across the goal line here. i'll be going back to those chief counsel. i weasel is an input from other chief counsel. my question would be pretty simple. based on whatever is report out of committee, whatever likely protection we are evaluating on whatever bill eventually gets to the floor and starts getting voted on, i want to ask the chief counsels a major corporations and even a smaller

companies, is the liability protections provided in this bill, is as likely protection going to allow you as the council for the company you serve them is that going to allow you to give advice to your chief executive in the case of a data breach to actually share the information? any answer other than yes really renders that bill completely useless. so again there will be differences of opinion. it may not be universal but when he did a really strong show of support in terms of the rarely situation that whatever liability protection we do offer it actually has to work. so with that i think i've kind of laid the predicate, the groundwork, and happy to at any specific questions you might have. >> i'm larry clinton the internet security alliance, so thank you for being here.

i think i agree with absolutely everything you just said and we want to be helpful. one of the activities we have undertaken is we did a handbook for corporate boards of directors on cybersecurity. and we specifically tackle the issues that you just mentioned, which is stress of corporate boards have is that they have to be secure but they also have to be productive innovative, they need to grow et cetera. and the problem is that the economics of cybersecurity are not well understood. we believe that includes in the congress with all due respect, things like using voice over internet protocols, very cost effective, supply chain, same thing mobile devices. bring your device to work. one of the things that energy say early after your smc to the

chairmanship which are going to take a step back and look at the bigger issues as opposed to kind of these information sharing. is there any prospect of the committee may hold a hearing specifically looking at the economics of cybersecurity in the broad sense that i just described? >> possibly. i mean, i want to talk about regulatory form in general terms, the economic impact of that, but there's some estimates $100 billion annually. general keith alexander made this table just over took him this is the greatest transfer of wealth in yemen history, you know cyberattacks. people do have a sense this is a really costly problem. now it's also true from the standpoint of being ceo. you want to invested capital in new products. and i think for far too long ceo such as basically ignored it.

that's the i.t. department over there. i don't understand it. just make sure that we're safe. put up firewalls. to security passes. hire some of this giddy firms and let's keep yourself safe. i think a pretty good comment i fbi director james comey said that there's two types of large companies. those that know the impact by the chinese, those that have been hacked by the chinese and they just don't know what. that's a paraphrase. i think that's largely true. i think again because of all these attacks because the high profile nature, because we've seen the loss of literally tens of millions of personal information, tens of millions of americans, people even the boardrooms and ceos are starting to realize this is really a problem. from my standpoint there are plenty of private sector solutions to this. coming from a manufacturing background we have sprinklers in our plant. first of all is just good business. i didn't want to see my plant burned down by the sprinkler heads were probably a lot closer

than how i might've designed because the insurance companies said in an inspection demanded go okay those 10 feet apart, they need to be eight feet apart. if you don't turn them into eight feet apart your premiums are going up. so the actual a private sector model that will work year. let me speak about president obama because this is another private sector model because it sounds like the administration is working toward, and i'm glad to hear it because when president obama first announced his information sharing bill i got a call from secretary jeh johnson telling me about it, give me a heads up and said we willwill be i estimate it would come how strong is the liability protection? he said it is unqualified. it doesn't get better than this. as we look into it it was unqualified as long as you qualified for it. how do you qualify for it? you have to be certified to best practices. who's going to certify it? if the government is going to do, i got a real concern about

that. there's a private sector model a private sector model out there. you have interest model. the discipline of my premiums. you also have an iso type of model. my manufacturing plant was iso certified. which means you have to go through all that best practices along a host of different criteria. and you go through a surveillance plot every six months so that best practices are always being improved. it sounds like the administration is going to support a third party private sector model for determining what best practices are. if you qualify now you of qualified, it's a thorny issue that's not that easy but having government facilitate information sharing rather than taking it will be a far better model. you can see how impossible it would be for the federal government to set these

regulations on this. when we had had a hearing, this was back a couple congresses ago when we're trying to do cybersecurity. i asked the representative from the department of homeland security again that will be the depository of this information sharing how long would it take them to write the regulations around that information sharing, and the answer honestly it was seven years. well, i'm thinking then it will be kind of reinvented in seven years. there's just no capabilities the federal government, within the bureaucracy. even though we have real talent but as a bureaucracy there's no way it can be nimble enough, fast-moving enough ammo for thinking enough to really write these regulations. i think that's what the private sector's got to do and the only way we can i think long-term stay ahead of the attackers is we've got to do the private sector and we got to kind of you know reinventing our security measures just on a continuous basis. i think it gives us the best

chance. >> brian finch from pillsbury. thank you for being here. i won't make any comments as a fellow -- some of the few inches of snow yesterday spent is going to melt and a couple of days. >> i did want to make a comment regarding liability protection. i think one thing you will hear from the general counsel, and this is in my experience working with the general counsel with a number of utility organizations and individual that is when it comes to information sharing, the liability protection is offered, whether in the president's bill or even in the senate intelligence committee bill is very good at what is missing and disconcerting for a number of companies is that there is no liability protection for companies based upon what actions they may take or not take. on the information that they have received.

and that's very disconcerting and open for them particularly when you consider that for instance, the federal trade commission is suing a hotel chain in one of its claims against the hotel chain for having inadequate information security policies was that the failed to act upon information that had been shared with them. so it's not just the fact that you may be the to get signatures or other areas of compromiscompromis e but it is the process by which companies can take into information to make a decision as to whether really is relevant. that sort of was pointed out in your hearing earlier that not all information shared is good information. to come is double that of discretion as to whether they need to act on are not. >> you were hitting a pretty thorny issue. this is what go back to the prospective. i really do believe that companies want to protect their cyber assets and they want to protect their customers information. recognizing this is a very rapidly moving issue.

what is best practice they will not be best practices tomorrow. so from my standpoint i think if you have a certify come and get i also understand that. you do need to do your due diligence but you have to show good faith. if you get the liability protection need to show good faith and try to put comply with best practice. if you engage in a process. if you are an interest insurance model using al such litigation process and passing the surveillance audits at some level% maybe i can give you all the things but i can conflict a private sector model, the ought to be certainly sufficient enough but it's going to have to be what you certified is a process of developing and being involved in always updating your standard and being involved in the process of best practices as opposed to at a particular point in time he held accountable, oh, you should have had that. we were three months away from

our surveillance audit, new information coming in cut us a little slack here. i'm willing to cut industry a little site because i really do believe you realize it's really bad business not to do this. that's going to be an argument. that's going to be a thorny issue but that's the type of process that will certainly want to assist him. otherwise you will not share information. what have we gained? if we don't get adequate liability protection don't set up this process so the chief counsels so the chief councils to give advice to share information, what have we gained? i think that's a powerful argument to hopefully find some common ground, again producible that isn't just an information sharing in name only bill. in the back. >> senator we have a question from our online audience if i can just read that to you. i agree that strong policies are important speak we will break away briefly you on c-span2. the u.s. senate is coming in for a pro forma session. should be real short and we will

be back to this discussion on cybersecurity. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 2:00 p.m. on monday, march 9, 2015. adjourn: >> the senate back monday for legislative work. we will take you back live to the national press club. ron johnson leading off the cybersecurity summit. >> these are some pretty dedicated individuals. it's not perfect, it's not easy, but that is the challenge to try to get those threats addition those warm abilities shared and computer speed and have a system set up with a gets disseminated

to information technology, professionals at the nation. let's face it, there is a real strong network of i.t. professionals that we can very rapidly disseminate this information. we can throw up the shoe. this will not be perfect. will not be able to prevent any attack but we'll be able to prevent a whole lot of them if we can share those threat signatures and do it in real-time speed. one of the very interesting outcomes of our committee hearing was how long hackers are actually in people system before they ever find about. i wasn't aware of that. i was shocked. it is months or the hackers are actually in their maneuvering around trying to find the back doors into they finally get that personal information. so again it takes that long. what you understand this is how they did it and you can share that, share that information can really potentially prevent a whole lot of harm.

even in non-real-time computer because you might you really might have weeks or months to protect yourself against an attack because it takes a while once they're in the system to actually do the damage. we have time for one more question. [inaudible] >> your counterpart on the house side is working on a bill as well, and his approach to some extent seems to mirror the administration in terms of centering the liability protection around sharing with dhs, with the senate intelligence folks have taken a broader view of the types of sharing, the avenues that should be protected. what are your thoughts on that? >> i'm sympathetic to a certain extent with both the rss on for an elected official? where we already have very strong relationships between industries and the regulators and their sharing a lot of information, why do away with that? at the same time and i also understand the concerns of sharing information with let's say the nsa or the intel

community or department of defense. i understand that sensitive in terms of privacy act because rather have it be a civilian agency. maybe you could of some kind of hybrid for. form. again because of these things come its computers. you can ping from here today. to there. i don't know what the final solution will be but i'm actually sympathetic with both positions. i guess what i can view my role as this let's see how the intelligence bill winds its way marked up let's see how that comes out. let's see the reaction has more people in evaluating it, the comments. we will pop in the fray at that point and if at some point in time we got to bury types of bills what the house is doing, what senate intelligence him unhappy to play that role. but again to me the more components we can actually get

passed, the better. because sharing threat signatures is one fingertip to prevent attacks is one thing but we also got to solve a crime. but we also do need the capability of going after the criminals the hackers and shutting them down or holding them accountable will bring them to justice. that will sometimes require some personal information, some threat, the attacker identifier information. again let me leave you with just to emphasize my point if you are concerned about personal privacy and losing your personal privacy, you really ought to support a bill that helps prevent cyber attacks and also allows our government to solve the crime and shut these criminals do. so thank you very much. have a good day with the conference here. [applause] >> and good morning folks. if i can ask the next set of

panelists to please join please come to the dais please. so in the interest of brevity i'm not going to spend a lot of time on the bios. they are all in great detail in the material that you are provided. i'm robert with u.s. telecom. i think we have a very exciting panel today. it will begin with some remarks that ari schwartz will make him and ari is the white house director of cybersecurity comment somebody i think many of you know has been actively involved in setting national policy in cybersecurity come and most recently upon information sharing. with ari we have chris borich was the assistant vice president for global policy for at&t. also very active and a whole series of national and international global policy issues with cybersecurity. and, finally david to rescue.

david is the current partner at akin gump, and many of you know that in a former life recent former life david was the bureau chief for the federal communications commission public safety and homeland security bureau. and then finally last but not least i'm going to introduce the moderator, charlie mitchell, who is the editor of a very important publication in washington, inside cybersecurity cybersecurity. charlie, if you're. are i guess, ari, you will make your remarks and then charlie will make your remarks. >> it's a pleasure to be. i do have a suggestion to make, which is a year ago i came here and i walked on the ice sliding my way. my kids school was canceled and i to do with that in the morning. so if you think about april next year. [laughter] just a suggestion. [inaudible] >> thank you. if we have a hurricane, is usually later in the year. point taken.

i want to start briefly by talking a little bit about the administration, the obama administration's work in this area are a lot of this goes straight to the topic president obama upon taking often said that cyber that's one of the most serious economic national security challenges that we face as a nation. he made confronting him a priority from the beginning of the administration. he has renew that pledge several times with each action taken moving this issue forward in the public consciousness. in particular most recently at the widest cybersecurity summit last month at stanford university where the president once again renewed his commitment to keep combating cyber threats is top early. let me just break down some the things that happened along the way so people have an understanding of where we are and where we've ended up on

policy issues. four years ago, the administration promoted legislation in this area. covered in several as including critical infrastructure reforming government agency, security standards, the new hiring authority for the department of homeland security a lot of the more authority information sharing and liability protections for information sharing and data breach national data breach notification standards. two years ago it became clear that congress would not be acting in these areas as close as anyone would want to last year they did past two of those provisions in particular and we're pleased to have that move forward but two years ago him when it was clear information sharing and moving forward on standards for critical infrastructure were not moving as fast as anyone would like the president signed an executive order to promote

cybersecurity standards for critical infrastructure. this had two pieces to it. one was an effort to share more information from the federal government to businesses. the second was the creation of a voluntary private sector led cybersecurity framework which nist was convened at the time the national institute of standards and technology. the cybersecurity framework really has been the key to the success of this effort, and the work of groups like u.s. telecom and its members and other trade associations and companies and many other stakeholders have really led to the framework to become a truly successful document in terms of creating voluntary, a voluntary framework that can be used in this space by boards and by executives who make decisions on cybersecurity. and i think that the cyber city summit we really heard about the success of that effort and how

it is starting to really change the consciousness of u.s. industry and the organizations around the world, even, and i heard, i think the best analogy i've heard of the framework came from mastercard ceo who said that it was like that the subsidy framework was the rosetta stone for cybersecurity. that's really what it was originally intended to be mirroring up all of the different sets of standards that have been done over the years and making them so we can read them across a little infrastructure structures, make sure with coverage and we are moving forward in different areas. that is exactly what we wanted and i think that is where we've ended up. it's due to the leadership of industry and groups like u.s. telecom that we've been able to get there so we really appreciate that effort and i think we're making real progress towards having a better set of understanding of where we need to get to and where growth needs to happen because of that effort.

another space the administration spent time and effort is an incident response. we've heard from stakeholders that we need to do better job, that the government needs to participate better and wanted to give the tools for industry to be able to respond to threats. we've continued to work with many sectors in this space in particular financial sector has worked with us very close in terms of trying to come up with ways to respond better to these threats. we continue to move those efforts forward. but one of the areas that was the cyber threat intelligence integration center. a lot of discussion has gone on around information sharing. i think for the government ever lets information should but i think, however let's to incident response. because there's not going to be a public space between industry and the cyberthreat, intelligence integration center. it's going to be much more, the way the government is going to

pull its information together pull the intelligence together that already exists out there. this new center is not creating, is not gathered new intelligence. it's pulling all the intelligence together, taking the analysis that is out there and integrating it in a way very quickly so that it can be shared back out with stakeholders and that information can be used better. so this is about responding to threats, responding to incidents in ways that can have a much more -- happen much more quickly to the industry will remain the same was it's working with dhs or intake or the secret service and worked with the treasury department or working with the fbi when there's an incident working with other sector specific agencies -- nccic that those will continue to be the face for the incidents. but in terms of the integration now we will have a place where that can happen much more quickly than to pass and does today. next, on information sharing

efforts that have happened in the space. again, we've been promoting the idea of moving forward legislation in the space a while is happening we continue to take, make efforts to get more information sharing from the government to the private sector. that's the executive order. two years ago did among private sector entities, and from the private sector to the government. we continue to work in all of those areas and try to move those efforts more quickly than we have in the past. for example, we have beyond the executive order after the executive order for two years ago we changed the default from sharing to say we want the default should be to share unclassified information and to make more information at the class i more information to make sure that any shared with the private sector and move in that direction. i think in my discussion at least in the private sector

they've seen a marked difference in the last few years and the type of expression that getting and the amount they're getting from the government. i do think we're making headway in the area. but also in terms of private sharing we've seen a lot of efforts as well. for example on antitrust, the finger both the largest barrier for sharing with each other to the department of justice and the ftc have now put out guidance saying that if you have come are showing legitimate cybersecurity threat information, that there should be no real barrier to antitrust. i mean, from antitrust concerns. so and we have seen, heard of secretary panetta being able to share among each other in ways that they could not in the past because that concern has been taken off the table. number two, we have seen from the department of justice that they publish guidance on sharing information in the aggregate and

making sure that that does not run into barriers from electronic communications privacy act. we think that that isn't helpful for companies to be able to understand what information they can share pretty clearly today. and where there are issues. also at the cybersecurity summit we had the release of a new executive order signing a new executive order from the present which is focused on information sharing organizations. we use the term information and sharing analysis organizations which is taken drug from a homeland security act. we use the term because it's the broadest set of organizations that are out there. a lot of times in the past and focus on information sharing analysis centric we still support the disinformation we still support the disinformation to announce a center for contact information sharing and analysis centers our organizations by definition but information sharing and analysis centers

happened to be sector-based. so we're talking about sharing across sectors as well. this could be regional sharing, this could be threat-based sharing and other ways of coming up with new ways of sharing information, not just tied directly to a site. best actor work that's been going on for the past decade really has been instrumental in demonstrating how information can be shared for building of standards and best practices in this space to is it's exactly that kind of work that we think needs to be put into a real standard private sector led consensus-based standards body which is why we promote this idea of dhs setting up wrapping up a new funds to private sector body to stand up in the space but we think will help to drive effort in this way. the way the executive order does is completely market-driven. we think that will be enough we have seen enough new information

sharing organizations that want to start a. they just have trouble with the resource understand of what they need to do to stand themselves up and we think having the best practices out there in a clear way want to do that just from a market-driven way. but we've also said in are legislative approach that if we can get bodies information sharing organizations to self assert that their following these come we think that will help to move this area forward. again we're not talking certification. i think there's been some discussion on certification. we're just saying that organizations with self assert that they follow these practices. we think that will be enough to drive the marketplace today since there is demand for these new bodies to form. we think that light touch will help to it's exactly this type of information sharing legislation would like to see move forward. we think it is essential that

all the effort we've done today can we feel as though we are continuing to do what we can under existing law but there is still these barriers that exist where we to need legislation today but we think we can have targeted liability protections that make it very clear how companies can and should share information and in a way that ackley protects security and privacy through civilian channels which will allow us to do government oversight of our own work to make sure we are protecting the privacy and security of americans as we do that. we think that it is possible to get to the balanced and we should do it in that way. we effective response from the private sector and stakeholders moving this idea for. where open having further discussions with stakeholders and with congress and look for to have an adult weekend have some of that debate today on this panel. [applause] >> all right great.

hello, everybody, and let me just start out by saying i want to thank u.s. telecom once again for holding this event and this whole series of events really throughout the entire framework process. i think it's been an invaluable contribution to the dialogue and the public discourse on cybersecurity. so thanks, and hope we have more and like ari, i hope we have one in may. that would be great. it's probably a good point let's bring chris and david n. and can you speak a little bit to the state of information sharing that is going on right now and that executive order is likely to affect that come affect the current environment? chris, you want to start off with the? >> within our sector within the committee tatian sector by the obsession that meets regularly to facilitate information within the sector. and also the individual telecom

of the compass and cells actually meet on a routine basis to talk about the cybersecurity issues. i think there is some information sharing going on today. certainly there could be more editing the legislation action provides a key aspect of what potentially could be done in the future. in terms of the executive order effects that i think remains to be seen. i think the concept is interesting. we'll see what happens over the next several months. my understanding is that the existing standard will be grandfathered in to the process or be viewed as kind of the basis for the standards that will be used to develop that. if we do the existing as the best-of-breed whether that's the in the process and provide leadership and provide examples of things that they do that can then be applied, i think that process will be effective and we will see what happens. >> i also think that the communication sector companies have something to gain from the process because while they can

control through contract some of the supply chain issues, if the process is successful then they want some of their vendors who wouldn't otherwise qualify for participating to pursue -- to ensure that they are getting the best information as well to defend against cyber threats. i think one of the questions in addition to the important question of liability protection is going to be whether the information sharing that is proposed in congress and at the president incorporate into his executive order these the president test. the president noted that the private sector needs to defend itself. government can't do that. but also said that he needs to be a partnership because government often gets good and

important information at the private sector doesn't have that would be important to defense. and so i think one of the questions that will determine the success of the sharing arrangement is whether business feels like it is not only providing information but getting good information back that makes it have greater success in defending against cyber threats. there's been some view that that's a challenge that sometimes that kind of information hasn't been received. i think the process with the nccic that ari outlined is designed to try to improve on that and deliver on the president's recognition of what is necessary. >> ari, how quickly do you think the private sector will see a tangible difference perhaps in the quality of the information

that it is getting from the government speak with from the government side i think over the last two years we've heard that companies already are seeing a difference in the amount of information in terms of a court of information and i think it depends on how fast you can get the cyberthreat intelligence integration center up and running so you see that kind of analysis and trying to get that out. and i think also making sure that we can prioritize the classification of a thing to get information on classified, that the center will help with that as well. so it depends on how fast we can get that set the. our goal is to get it set up very quickly. i think as with anything having to do with organizing and intelligence committees there's always a lot of questions about how that's going to work and we're working with congress on the details of that and we want to make sure they're stronger understanding of it as we move forward. i think people will see over the next few months as that body

gets stood up and we get people there working that they will see, start to see a quality of information improve as well as the amount of information. >> i just want to add, i think the point david made our critical point to a mutually change of information is really big incentive for countries to purchase but in the process. if it's a one way information flow, and companies are not going to sit as viable as if it is going both ways. it's also sure within the private sector. as it comes up i think there's a potential for there to be a lot of information shared conceptually if it takes off it's a lot of information being dumped on. so making sense of out of that and put in context around and making actionable are really critical issues. the mutual exchange and make an actual intelligence actionable for companies is where will it be provides value. >> it's also the importance of the move to automate it.

information sharing, because so much of information sharing today relies on folks to take action themselves. everyone wants to join in information sharing organizatorganizat ion in order to get information but they're not thrilled about putting it in there. if we start to automate this and say you're part of this information we're sure you'll know exactly what you are sharing because there's a certain set of fields that get shared based on the type of incident. that gets shared automatically out. you will see more information coming out and more certainty about what information is. as we move to a more automated, you get a lot more of that. in some ways the move and having the policy overlay as we dealt the technical standards that go underneath it, will help to make people do more for us to move into the process doing the automated sharing. where we get more information and more certainty around. >> into legislative proposal you structure the liability protection around the act of sharing with either the nccic at

the department of homeland security or with the new isow. spent in order to share, drop by share that were not on the individual copies of not talking about a small number of companies but it could be -- that's not too. the way isow is set up the term means basically anyone who sharing with one or more individual. what we are saying is will to make sure that there's some rigor to who it is educating liability protection. in this case all you're doing is raising your hand and saying we are following under the liability protection in our drastic you're just a year in and saying we're following this best practices that interest put forward but there is some basic commitment to doing something in order to get the liability protections. so that's a somewhat those based

based on best practices there. when it shares with the government the reef we want coming to a civilian portal and the reason the nccic has been the place to do it is because we need to have some kind of oversight. if we are making sure if we're overriding all of the privacy laws that exist in government today, and to make sure that information is being done and it is being shared in a way, that can can follow some set of guidance that's going to come in the future from the attorney general, the secretary for my ticket, the way to do this to make sure it flows through a place. then as david and others can flow out to other parts of the government, but the key point there is that we have that kind of oversight that has on top of it that make sure that when it comes in that it's actually cyberthreat information and that privacy rules have been put in place, the confidentiality rules have been put in place, that covers the want to see. we want to make sure that that is made very clear and moves

forward across the government. the way to do that if they get the kind of oversight, you can't have the kind of public oversight you need it that's happening in the intelligence community. >> how did industry folks feel about that? would you like a more expansive look or more expansive arrangement in terms of who you can share with and no that you get liability protection? >> i would say that's probably true. i think we appreciate the administration putting a proposal on the table. we've been trying to information legislation pass or so readers. the administration putting a proposal out there is something that is a think hopeful and something we can work with them on going forward, but yes i think we do think the concept of tying the liability protection back to the framework is limiting. i think the approach at least i would prefer something more akin to what senators feinstein and burr are working on in the senate select committee unless it approaches being taken in the house but i think overall this debate will play out over the

next several months i think we look forward to working with all sides. we are very i think from at&t perspective are mindful of the privacy concerns and we think that information sharing should be balance of public with privacy. i don't think we're that far apart on some of the issues. i think we work together and hopefully, to some reasonable conclusion this year. >> we don't want to override any relationship. we tried to carve out in our legislative. we're open ideas. we just feel as though we need to follow the basic frameworks framework that needs to come to some kind of civilian place primarily a north be able to make sure that we have that kind of oversight, that privacy is being protected as has happened at the liability protections are targeted to sharing. if we could stay in the framework we are happy. there's lots of ways that information can be shared. as long as we get those key goals, the administration will be supportive of the legislation

legislation. >> private to private sharing site, if it is shared with the government, i always get information and integrated them into three different sneers, government to private private to cover, private to private. the issue is always been should go through seven agency or through the intelligence agencies? i think our view in the passes been the legislation that was in the senate unless you the previous version, the 2014 version would have that run through dhs and generally we were okay with that model, as long as it didn't disrupt existing relationships a lot of times are companies deal with entities like fbi and other parts of government. and i think those long as the proposal would apply for some the existing reestablish relationships to continue, we would've been okay with that approach last year. ..