>> the promotion of the drug started 72 years before drug comes on the park and while it's illegal for company to market a drug before it's been approved by the fda it's not illegal to market a disease. so check companies have sometimes invented diseases or exaggerated the importance of certain conditions or exaggerated the importance of a particular mechanism of a drug for example and then blanketed

medical journals and medical meetings and other venues with these messages that are meant to prepare the minds of clinicians to accept a particular drug and also to prepare the minds of consumers to accept a particular condition. masks a task force of retired u.s. generals was in a new report on the 2014 gaza conflict. they travel to israel to assess the conduct of the israeli military and hamas during last summer's conflict. the report was commissioned and sponsored by the jewish institute for national security affairs or jinsa the host of this event. it runs an hour. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> if i could have everybody's attention. i wanted to continue eating and please don't let my speaking interfere with your having lunch lunch. thank you very much for coming today. my name is mike petoskey. we are here to have a very special event and we are glad to have everyone here as well as

members of the press. we thought during the last summer during the gaza were between israel and hamas that was going on there in that conflict was a lesson for the united states. that was their view and consultation with former u.s. military folks. as many of you know if you haven't been to an event of hours just so was founded in 1976. it's a pro-u.s. defense organization. we have been members of u.s. military including a lot of retired generals and admirals for many years. we thought in our consultation with some of the generals it would be very useful for former senior military folks to do a study of the gaza conflict last summer and one of the lessons

that we could learn for the united states. we have five very distinguished members of the task force and we have two very distinguished advisers and i advisers and i'll i will introduce them quickly. we have five of those people who are here today. chairing the task force's general chuck walz who is on my right. chuck was former deputy commander of united states european command and also had of the air command they air attack at the beginning of the afghanistan war. attorney general bill caldwell was former commander of u.s. army north. he also for 13 months with our spokesperson was a u.s. military spokesperson in iraq. lieutenant general richard natonski former commander of u.s. marine corps forces command that also was an important commander in fallujah.

major general rick devereaux former director of operational planning policy and strategy for the air force. major general mike jones former chief of staff of u.s. central command also was an important commander in iraq. our two advisers professor elliott cohn professor of strategic studies here at slice and lieutenant colonel jeffrey korn who is on our panel today presidential research professor of law's south texas college of law in houston. without further ado i'm going to turn over to general wall. each of them are going to speak for a few minutes and then we are going to ask everyone come in their index cards on all the tables. if you have any questions we get to the q&a which i will moderate please write down the questions. people will pick them up and we will ask a select group of questions to the generals. again thank you very much and i

think we will have one more thing before you get to the discussion. many of you have initial drafts of the report. you can also find it on our web site at jinsa.org. general wall. >> i hope he cannot hear me but first of all i would like to complement mike makovsky is that the junta for the great job they did setting up a trip, coordinating the individuals who saw working to get this report put together so great job there. i like to tell you all thank you for taking the time today. a couple of good friends dave thanks for being here. i'm sure there are others out there but it's good to have former colleagues here. our intent is mike mentioned was to take a look at the 50 day conflict and by the way many of you are familiar with this. in israeli terms 50 days is a long more.

everything is compressed and a lot different from the standpoint of distances, the strategic depth, the time the tolerance of the international community which was a big part of this summit will talk about that a little bit. the 50 day war to them is a long time. there are a lot of things we could talk about today but the major takeaways we thought from this particular conflict that would be beneficial for all of us but primarily u.s. military were and we have heard much about this before but it's becoming more and more common knowledge is that this conflict with hamas and the gaza in more of an urban terrain is going to be probably the more common type of warfare we will see in the future, hybrid type warfare. we have heard a lot about that but a lot of people don't know specifically what it is. hybrid warfare is what we feel will be prominent in the future.

nonstate actors, in this case even though hamas is technically the government they are, the fact that so many of the -- sophisticated hamas can. [inaudible] enemies are going to be creative and use anything they can and as an aside when you don't have lot to worry about you can do a lot of things that are pretty creative. third the israeli defense force their efforts to avoid civilian casualties were ironically beyond the call of reasonable anyway. they were civilian casualties nowhere and for military people of my type that have been in combat a lot we i think our respective of the international

law of conflict and the fact he would go so far overboard that you almost put your own soldiers in jeopardy is an issue that we can all contend with. the iao campaign the information campaign we talk about that in nine states. united the united states military has had different definitions of the iao campaign for a long time. but our feeling was hamas really grab the narrative in this conflict for a couple of reasons. one is again and you can argue the point of whether it's moral or not but you can make up your own story in fighter pilot lingo lingo. they took advantage of the deeply debris. they develop the narrative and had no compulsion about making up the facts which shouldn't surprise anybody. i know it doesn't hear that but the fact is the international community started believing this

narrative if you will. our feeling was the israeli defense force didn't do well at countering that and our feeling is in the next complex whenever that is you have to develop your narrative and you have to be quick and nimble and you have to be credible because there is questioning and you have to develop a strong campaign and we will talk more about that. lastly we need to develop some of our own new technologies. hamas builds as you may know or if you don't know 34 sophisticated, was from the gaza into israel. the issue was they were going to use these tunnels to get inside the farming areas of the israeli citizens kidnapped them and the kidnapping issue is a big deal. these tunnels are very sophisticated. it isn't like a tunnel that you imagine. they start from inside the gaza and a civilian building so you

can see where it starts. they take down almost 40 or so meters under the ground. they are cement and very sophisticated tunneling. it's living has security. they are up to two miles long and they can build these things fairly rapidly. they have different branches that go out so it's very sophisticated that you can can't find these things zippier for example. their other technologies we will talk about that we have of that that -- but a better handle on. i thought what we do is start out with kind of an overview of the war itself what the context was and what we are talking about here. if we could start with rick demirel. >> i wanted to elaborate on what general wall covered in our first area findings and that is this notion of hybrid warfare.

which is in our view based on what we observed looking at the hamas idf campaign and the new face of modern warfare. it's a type of warfare fought by nonstate actors. sometimes using advanced weapons like hamas had available to it rockets, missiles, uavs, special ops forces fought in densely populated urban areas. just as a refresher gaza is about 1.8 million inhabitants in this area about the size of the district of columbia so very close quarters and it was a conflict like in any hybrid war where civilians become the focus of the information campaign. those civilian casualties civilians as targets, civilians as shields also part of this hybrid warfare.

so the information campaign becomes a very important component of the conflict and as we will talk further about interpretations of the law of armed conflict and how an adversary can use those against an opponent. all those factors were sorted in play and we believe will continue to be in play for our u.s. military as we face these nonstate actors in the future. isis for instance fits some of the parameters of this hybrid warfare in more and more that we will be embarking on and if you think about the implications where the gaza campaign, israeli forces by virtually any measure defeated hamas on the ground unequivocally get the narrative in some respects was a different one. kind of reminding us that the

strategic outcome of the campaign in hybrid warfare will not necessarily be directly tied to the results on the battlefield. good lessons and implications for military. certainly the u.s. has faced these characteristics before in various complex going all the way back to vietnam but i think again the gaza campaign brings them all together in a way that may integrate these factors in a way that we are going to see more frequently in the future. the trend lines are pointing in that direction. think about the urban populations. by 2050, 75% of population on the planet is projected to be an urban areas. access to advanced technology technologies like drones certainly rockets and the tunnels and sort of the low type

type -- low-tech and that we'll talk about are more available to adversaries yet to fencing against these capabilities becomes increasingly more expensive than more complicated. certainly the information sphere. you have to be hiding under a rock to not understand the impact of twitter, facebook social media and other devices that in many cases our adversaries are using very effectively. as we step back from the conflict we really saw this notion of hybrid unrestricted warfare really playing out in the gaza campaign in ways we think will have great implications implications for our military. >> thank you rick. next of the professor talked about the law of armed conflict which in this case from a former military person what we learned growing up in the military is that the rules of engagement the law is the law.

morality is an issue. that is how the western world thinks of conflict. in this case it was distorted. >> thank you sir and thanks to all the members of the working group. first i would like to emphasize the fact that when i was first asked to participate as a role of legal adviser i was really excited about the fact that this was going to be a report written by warfighting commanders on the challenges associated with fighting these types of hybrid enemies. one of those challenges is the function and the role of the law in this fight. i think that's an important point to start out with. ultimately this is the domain of commanders not necessarily lawyers. lawyers contribute by guiding commanders with complex legal questions that ultimately what we are talking about here is the

abdication of national combat power to achieve a strategic objective and that is war war and at worst the business of warfighters. this reporter think is remarkable job of highlighting when you confront an enemy who views your compliance with the law or for your commitment to comply with the law as a tactical and strategic enabler for its own objectives it creates an immense challenge in compliance. a couple of points i want to highlight that are reflected in the report and i think are going to be reflected in many of the comments, the first is this domain of images related to conflict has in many ways distorted the proper understanding of the law. there's a perception that the law of armed conflict is stored body of international law that regulates the conduct of hostilities at work. somehow opposes military commanders in a petition to prevent civilian casualties.

in fact what it imposes on commanders is an obligation to mitigate risks to feasible measures designed for that purpose and in that regard i think one of the points the report highlights which has been unfortunately lost in a wider discourse is that process matters. the process of making an effort to comply with the law is an indication of the good-faith commitment to the law by the parties to the conflict. on that score the outcome seems relatively clear. there is evidence reflected in a report of two sides to the conflict. one side making significant efforts sometimes beyond what is required by the law to mitigate the risk to the civilian populations and the other side actually trying to increase the risks of the civilian population in order to gain a strategic advantage in the international public domain and a tactical

advantage by making it more difficult for their enemy to deploy their power to bring about the objective they seek. so i think the most important legal aspect of the report is that the law has to be properly understood, properly analyzed and properly explained -- explained also will have a distorting effect on the function of military force which is to bring about the prompts of the enemy. war is not supposed to be a fair fight. nations unleash their military power in order to achieve objectives efficiently and effectively within a framework. now the report also indicates the very significant efforts that the members of the commission were able to observe and assess on the part of the idf to implement the long good-faith beginning with training, going through the deliberate targeting process and in a time-sensitive attack

making efforts to mitigate the risk to the civilian population. that leads to another important aspect of this discourse. the question should be asked when there are civilian casualties in war is not what caused them. what causes civilian casualties in war is combat and combat in proximity to civilians as general devereaux indicated the reality is that that's the most likely scenario that u.s. military forces and many other military forces confront in the coming decades is having to engage in combat with enemy's in densely populated areas. the row question is not causation it's responsibility. if there are civilian casualties and civilian suffering in general, if it was unnecessary who bears responsibility for that unnecessary suffering? that is going to be dictated by looking at compliance or

noncompliance with the law. on one side we have efforts to warn to evacuate, to select the timing of attack and weapons for the use of attack that mitigate the risks to the civilian population and you were trying to do this in an environment where the enemy is the liberal he located his most vital assets at the most protected civilian sites it reveals to you where responsibility should be allocated for the consequence of those attacks. and focusing on responsibility instead of just general causation will have a positive effect on the assessing compliance with the law because compliance with the law particularly in the conduct of hostilities has to be assessed based on what decision-makers knew at the time they made their decision. it cannot be effects of base condemnation but if you think of the media reporting largely related to the conflict in gaza and other complex recently that

tends to be the end state. look at the effects of combat and automatically extrapolate that if there were civilian casualties the conduct most of them unlawful. that's a distortion. if it's an unrealistic standard to demand military commanders. military commander should be expected to do their best under the circumstances to feasibly mitigate risk that they can't prevent it. so if we focus on what the law really demands which is good-faith efforts to mitigate risk and may look to the processes that armed forces and commanders used to achieve that objective gives us a better touchstone of compliance with what the international community has established is the standard of legitimacy and legality of war. and one final point it's very important that is reflected in the report is the danger associated with being imprecise

in understanding the difference between legal obligations and policy constraints. armed forces will routinely impose policy constraints on the use of force that exceed those required by the law and the israelis did this on many occasions as many of these commanders have gone on vacation. but just because it's a policy constraints doesn't mean it's law. if we confuse those two what happens is we created perception that if you ever deviate from that policy restriction you are somehow acting illegitimately or illegally. clearly identifying the difference between rules of engagement which are policy-based limitations on otherwise lawful authority and the law itself is a very important step going forward to make sure that armed forces preserve the full scope of their authority. thank you. >> just a quick comment and i

guess you all didn't have the opportunity to read the poor. i hope you find time to do that. think you'll find it interesting that one of the things the israelis did when they were targeting buildings in the gaza and i guess everybody this table has heard this before i was in the military for 35 years and did a lot of combat led a lot of it and i had never heard of this before. there was a technique that the israelis used. some of the command-and-control were in the buildings obviously in gaza where they were fighting from. your intelligence meetings the israelis would find out where that was. if it's in the civilian type building the concern was they had debates over this how bad do we go after them? it wasn't going to be in the cards at that time. they came up with a technique where they would use a small charge that was not very destructive at all and wake

everybody up so to speak euphemistically, call them on the phone and tell them you have 20 minutes to get out you had better leave and also drop leaflets. my concern about that is probably the command-and-control people left too but that's almost to the extreme of watching the law of armed conflict. just a reminder i saw some of you have far to use these. you have a pencil and paper at your table. put your questions down and we will collect them at the end and go around those but thanks jeff. information campaign. to all of us here except for some, see some of our colleagues may have been in israel at the time that most of us were back here in the states reading in the paper and listing to it on tv getting our own impressions made and that's part of the conflict as somebody mentioned earlier in the narrative. hamas thinks they won this thing and a lot of people in the world think israel lost this thing and a lot of people in the world think the israelis were the

aggressors and hamas was a grass upon. and they have been they have the narrative so mike jones is going to talk a little bit about how we solve that part of it. c thank you all for being here. is professor korn said when you look at the facts it was clear to us that the idf had the right kinds of processes and systems in place to conduct operations in accordance to the law of armed conflict. we did not have access to the hamas military leadership and have the discussion with them but by looking at their actions it was very clear to us that hamas habitually violated the laws of armed conflict in several ways. one is in terms of their targeting where clearly there were rockets being fired and mortars being fired at targets they clearly had no military necessity and were clearly aimed

at civilian population centers and so forth. in the second by virtue of their positioning everything from their firing positions to their stores and command and control locations and so forth in places that were also not required by military necessity and therefore a violation of the 401. it was ironic that while successful tactically and accomplishing their objectives and that was for the israelis getting a cease-fire where you had a reduction in rocket fire back to the normal state of affairs i guess and instruction of the tamils that were being used to infiltrate into israel that they achieved their tactical objectives but in the strategic information agreement they seemed pretty clear to us that israel was not successful in countering the hamas narrative.

so that is seen ironically in the core of international opinion that hamas came out on top. so how was that possible? i think there were several basic fundamental reasons. the first is what i would call permissions to resources mismatch and that is the idf has a pretty good information campaign apparatus but as we talk to the idf their target audiences are there internal military compilation and the domestic audience of israel. ..

in order to try to achieve their aims and it was interesting to me that it was almost as if the idf was fighting a combat campaign with a support information effort, whereas for hamas, they were fighting an information campaign that was enabled by military operations. so they both looked at it very very differently. so what does that mean in terms of importance to the united states? i think, first of all, we have

also a similar issue in terms of the responsibility of the department of defense versus the department of state and who is responsible for what and who has the capability. and we really i believe, need to get the responsibilities lined up with the resources and the capability to be able to do the missions. because we're going to face this same kind of information campaign being worked against us. the second thing is i believe we have to solve the tension that rightfully exists but it's a tension between the government use of social media in order to get out the truth to the key audiences who need to know. so our truthful information we have to learn how to use this domain and learn how to be very adept at social media to combat the misinformation that i'm sure that our enemies will continue to use. and then the last thing is to

understand that we're not talking about the future. we are in conflict with enemies now. the information campaign is being waged. so we too not have lots of time to kind of think about this problem. we need to get on with solutions as quickly as possible. >> good job, mike. that last point about, don't wait until the conflict, it's an ongoing issue from the standpoint of, i guess, influencing the battlefield, if you will, and all of us could do better at that. lastly,' commissioner retired three star marine general fought in fallujah, led the battle there, is going to talk about some of the things that probably are more tradition wall military from the standpoint of technological issues we need to address and some of the lessons we learned from viewing this 50-day war. rich? >> as general wall mentioned, tunnels were pretty extensive in

the gaza strip. we've talked for years bat a land sea and an air domain, and recently we have talked about the cyber domain. we saw in the gaza conflict a subterrainan domain where hamas was actually operating underground, doing command and control, resupply, conducting offensive operations, all from underground, and an extensive and sophisticated system. this helped defeat the israeli overhead surveillance which essentially negated it. this is a challenge we face on our southern border in the united states. one of our findings was we really will see this in the future because it's a poor man's way to defeat the technologies of a sophisticated military, so we need systems that, one can detect tunnels, that can be as deep as 90 or more feet and

also destroy tunnels. it's not as easy to destroy a tunnel that is reinforced that it may seem. this was one of our findings. another one was unmanned aerial vehicles or drones. we have seen a lot in the news about the proliferation of drones in the united states. one of the greatest fears during the super bowl was for someone to use a drone to attack the people watching the game. amazon talks about delivering packages with drones. can you imagine putting a bomb on a drone and delivering that well hamas actually did that. they launched a uav into israel that was shot down, but it was shot down with a patriot missile. now, from a cost effective standpoint, not a real good tradeoff.

i was involved in january with a marine corps exercise, a large-scale exercise, and during the exercise, the opposing force used ua vs, and it was very, very difficult for the marine force to engage those uavs. so, another finding of the group was how can we develop technology inexpensive technology to engage unmanned aerial vehicles or drones. one thing we saw the navy has a -- aboard the uss -- in the persian gulf a laser. that laser for 1.50 can shoot. maybe that's a system we in the united states need start thinking about. the iron dome, and i think you have heard a lot about the iron dome in israel. very successful system. what is essentially did is

provide protection over israeli population centers from rockets that were fired from the gaza strip. approximately 6,000 rockets were fired. now, the iron dome actually engaged i think somewhere in neighborhood of over 500. these were rockets that based on detection methods, were going to land in population centers. they did not expend patriot missiles if the rocket was going to lan in the mediterranean sea or in a field or in the actual gaza strip. of those rockets the patriot missiles that were expended to take down those rockets they were over 90% successful in knocking it down. that iron dome and those patriot missiles, coupled with the civil defense system really protected the israeli population. to the point that there were six civilian casualties during that conflict.

however, one of the findings that we came up as a group was the fact that the patriot system could be overwhelmed. hezbollah has certainly in the neighborhood of over 100,000 rockets, and if you launch in that type of number you can overwhelm the patriot system in place, and of course the united states uses patriots as well. so managing expectations, as well as developing a system that can address an overwhelming attack by rockets, was another finding. and finally, mortars. mortars have been around forever. they approve quite effective. hamas would fire from underground and then rapidly cover up. based on the warning system -- and there is counter-battery

counter-mortar radar that will detect the launch, but it gives you 15 seconds warning to take shelter. if you have a mortar round inbound you have 15 second, if you're lucky to find shelter. we think along with the ability to detect the mortars is there a technology doing it may be star wars technology but to knock a mortar round out while it's in its time of night which is very short. that is another technology we in america have to address as we take our lessons learned from the gaza conflict. that concludes my remarks. >> thank you rich. just a real quick synopsis. four major areas. hybrid war has been used a lot and you see it in the newspaper, but there is a truth to the fact that we're in the 21st century facing a different kind of -- both threat and enemy and type of warfare, and people will

adjust. the enemies adjust to the asymmetries. two is the whole issue of the law of armed conflict and it's interesting to me, again, all of us wearing different things we go places we grew up the united states military with a law of armed conflict rules of engagement. morality and warfare being pounded into our head. the israelis haven't lived with that too. they were actually disadvantaged by an organization taking advantage of it or avoiding law of armed conflict and getting away with it in the international doubter or or opinion, not court. sorry d judge. we have known this for a long time and talked about it in our military career. again, unbelievably huge issue in this case, and like mike jones said hamas won the information war in this case. in our estimation they didn't win the war but won the international opinion. then lastly, as rich mentioned

this technological issue where any adversary is going to try to figure out asymmetry is. and they're moving rapidly to counter what is obviously a western technological advantage in almost eave year and we have to be nimble enough to address those. mike? >> thank you general. just two points before i start asking questions because i forgot to mention in my introduction forth good at to explain the logistics which brought the team to israel where they met israeli civilian and military officials. they also met u.n. and palestinian officials. their report is based on those conversations as well as analysis of primary and secondary research. so i want to just say i forgot to add on a personal level, we thought having -- putting together very senior military officers who have been in battle prepared for battle would be the best judge of kind

of these issues, and they've served our country honorably for many decades, and it was an authorize work with them in my small capacity. so i want to thank them very much for all their service. so, thank you. [applause] we got a lot of questions. please pardon me if we don't get to all of them but we'll try to get through a few key different questions that highlight different points. one of the questions had to do with idf and the way they operate, worked with us and the implications for the u.s. question is they were able to achieve unprecedented degree of cooperation synergy between air ground, and sea components, and they wanted to know, including

real-time targeting, and we -- the question is: what is the success imply for u.s. joint combat operations? >> i'm going to just take a quick answer there and dave and i were together in the beginning of afghanistan, in october 7th october 7th we started bombing the taliban and i was the supporting commander of that. at that time i had a three-star navy admiral in beau rain, the head of the naval forces in the area, had two carriers. had the marine component was back in tampa but part of a team. the jsk commercial was del daley, special ons and the army commander what p.t. mikelcheck. the night before we started bombing they called me and said i.s. just want you to know that every force i have is yours. do whatever you want to with

them. that doesn't often happen. and the reason i bring that up is because of expedience si. everybody there knew that we had the same objective. we had been attacked a couple weeks earlier, 9/11. the united states was totally together on this thing. probably the last time our country has been in agreement over one issue since before that and after that i can think of. and i think the israelis, my impression, is they -- just like every other service, there's conflicts but when wow get down to combat you're going to work together in a combininged forces. i i'm not surprised the israelis would be cooperative and work together and understand the fact that every element has a part to play. so if somebody end wants to comment on that. >> another question was professor could address best but

could you discuss the involvement of the israeli equivalent of jag in the gaza operation. >> well, for full disclosure i was not part of the site visit with the generals, althoughed did just recently return from a trip to israel where i participated in the first ever conference hosted by the eif military advocate general department. the mag is the idf version of the jag. i studied with idf mag officers and very close friends with a number of. the the idf in similar fashion to the united states military has made a very significant commitment to ensuring that qualified military legal advisers are integrated into both the training process and what we would call the deliberate targeting process. so in battle not all of your targeting decisions can go through a deliberation process, particularly when you're engaged in close combat with an enemy. but you can prepare your

soldiers, your warriors for those very difficult judgments through the training and development process. you can emphasize your commitment to the law through investigations and where appropriate disciplinary measures against sub bored nantzs who development follow the rules and in ha a deliberate targeting process you can make sure the target decisions are vetted through a command process that includes legal advice and in my estimation, the idf is -- their efforts to do this mirror those of any what i would call advanced military in the world united states, united kingdom, the dutch, the french, the germans, et cetera. this is a common trend, and it's an important trend, but it's also very important to recognize they also recognize that ultimately commanders have to make very difficult decisions and they have a certain margin of appreciation. that's not remarkable. that's what the law provides,

because the standard that those israeli lawyers are demanding of their commanders is reasonable judgments under the circumstances, and i think they've done a very fine job in integrating legal advice and law into the target decisionmaking process. >> general jones, you wanted to -- >> well, i think we talked to both a number of their judge advocate general folks as well as talking to a lot of commanders who were engaged in the fight. i it was clear that in the deliberate targeting process those lawyers were offering very solid and sometimes hard legal advice and from everything that i could tell the senior commanders listened to them very closely, and as you expect generally, were very sensitive to making sure that they were always on the right side of the law and taking that advice. but the other thing that was apparent to me was the tactical

commanders. as you know, because of the tunnel issues and the inability to be able to destroy those and find enemy from the air they had to do a ground incursion and in those kind of operations there's no consultative process when somebody is shoot ought you and ground commanders have to make split second decisions. but it was clear to me in the discussions we had that they were very knowledgeable of the law of armed conflict and that was in their calculus as they were making these combat decisions. and so it seemed to me very similar to what we tried to do, other modern armies try to do, and that is even when you're in a situation where you can't have the deliberative process, that they had the prior preparation to make sure their commanders were well-armed to be able to make lawful decisions.

>> i might just add that when we started the invasion of iraq, at the time there was one lawyer per regimen. as the war went through the years there, was a lawyer in every battalion, and he became the battalion commander's right-hand man. very cognizant of the law of armed conflict in the united states. make one correction. i mixed up my exercise with the study. but i mentioned patriots. it was arrow missiles for the iron dome. so i wanted to correct that. >> just make a comment on both those. first of all, an observation. i had not been in combat with any of these guys before and not sure if we ever served together but none of us knew each other very way two air force two army one marines and he would probable live say it's a fair fight. i will tell you we had good deliberation.

good collegiality. everyones is an officer. i it was amazing how much in agreement we were because at the were trained the same way. army guys find a different fight than the air force marines but total agreement on the big issues which is what you ought to have. it's good stuff. >> i have been involved in a lot of task forces. never been involved in a group that was more engaged than this one. i would say that also. let me combine three questions. one us, how could israel have been unprepared or unable to win the information war given their history and having to deal with the history of many conflicts. how do you explain the fact that we never see collateral damage from the u.s. bombing of isis but israel constantly has to defend its collateral damage and is it possible for the united states to use truth as a

weapon in its conflicts? >> i'll just real quickly -- this is a big opinion for everybody on this one. i think if isis could do what you just asked about, just like hamas did, they're in a concentrated area, small area compared to where isis is. they tried early on, as you -- -- we have all read the u.s. was killing civilians. that didn't work. and from standpoint of truth, there are subtle people out there that try to do tricky things and it isn't the military. the military if you're straight up and tell the truth you're probably going to be well-served. mike? >> let me answer those from my perspective in reverse order. truth, i believe, is a very powerful weapon. the most powerful. but the key enabler for truth is trust. you have to trust the source of

the truth otherwise it's not true. and that's why it is extremely important that whether in combat, prior to combat, whenever, our government, our military, has to be truthful and to the appropriate degree transparent, in order to establish that trust, not only with our own population but within the international community. in terms of why don't you see collateral damage with isis. first of all you have to be there to see it, and the history of western journalist with isis is not good. so i don't think it's fair. second of all i don't think isis has -- is part of their information campaign, which i do believe they have one and it has a sophistication to it -- their purpose is not to influence the international community or to use the international norms and

mechanisms in order to bring about any strategic change. their information campaign is actually designed to recruit new folks into their cause and so, therefore, it's not in their interests to show the collateral damage and all the fighting that has gone on. they want to show a different narrative. in terms of how do the idf not win the information war. well, they're truly very capable folks, very capable military but they, likes i said, they have this mismatch of mission verse resources and another thing i detected frankly, is that in many of the military leaders, at least, there was -- it was almost as if they had given up on the information domain feeling having been treated unfairly for so long, it was almost an attitude of why bother know. people have written this story

before they got the facts and that kind of thing. that has a -- there may be a reason for people to have that attitude, but my conclusion was, that's not a good attitude to have. you still have to fight in that domain, some manage to overcome and just be smarter some way to work around the advantages our enemies have in that domain. obviously people who don't have to be truthful who don't have to abide by laws and so forth, have advantages in that domain but we still have to overcome it. >> there's a whole bunch of issues. one last point and that is for the western fight against isis there isn't any end game time frame. we mentioned easterliery, 50 days is a long time for a conflict with israel. i didn't get a sense until we talked to them about it. there's been a lot of criticism about the west for not having more bombing sorties. why don't you fly more in just get it over with.

and without giving away information, the targets that the west is going after and against isis are really really not going to have collateral damage. they're so careful right now it's almost -- part of it may be the fact of what happened in gaza. the part is i don't think there's any timetable to get this over with. my feeling we'll be doing isis type things for the rest of our lives. but there's a big difference. you don't have people right across -- when we are in israel you can loo into the gaza and they have people who can fire rockets at you. that not the way in the west there isn't any political pressure to get this thing done. >> following up on that, chuck anyone feel israeli restraint was constructive or counterproductive, and does the

u.s. want to be held to he same standard that the israelis set for themes? >> rich, either one haven't said anything. i think we would all agree. >> that was a great question, whoever asked it. we look closely at that point because we all agreed that the idf used extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties and the question we kept asking over and over, did they go too far? ultimately if you become overconsumed with the prevention of civilian casualties to the detriment of your campaign, not only will you potentially extend the conflict, which could induce more civilian casualties in the long run, but think about future conflicts, and think about fueling a strategy that your adversary will use against you again and again and again as you

increasingly tie your hands to these sort of not legal restraints but policy restraints that you impose on yourself. we think hamas played that card very skillfully and that perhaps the idf went a bit too far in its restraints. well-meaning and perhaps mindful of this information campaign that we're talking about, that they also had to be successful at. so there's a certain tension. this is difficult stuff. it's a challenge that our military will increasingly face, especially as we fight with capabilities like unmanned aerial vehicles that will put our civilians and troops less in harm's way, will inflict more casualties so this mismatch can be used against us. >> rich? >> i think the real danger you seive is that in the future, human shields may be a way to

prevent the enemy -- could be us -- from targeting certain targets. hamas used every protected structure imaginable, whether it was mosque, hospital, a u.n. school. i think one of our -- go back to findings -- we really need to educate the public and the media on the law of armed conflict. you do have the right of self-defense. and there are times when you are going to target structures and there are going to be civilian casualties, but if you don't target structures because of human shields, and the fact that the enemy is actually using the civilian populace to deter -- prevent you from targeting thing, it's going to cause you a much greater challenge in the future. that's why it's so important that we do let people -- and professor talked to this better than i can but understanding the law of armed conflict and

how in effect you can attack military targets where there may be some collateral damage as long as it's not excessive. professor, i might ask you to chime in a little there. >> thanks. that last point is so essential. the term the general used was excessive. not disproportionate. we talk bat prore portionallity rule generally, and there's certainly this general knowns of proportionality in war but the legal test is whether or not the anticipated civilian harm will be excessive in comparison with the legitimate military advantage the commander will gain from conducting that test. that's a deliberately high standard to reach before an attack is prohibited. and i think that a lot of the commentary you hear is in fact a

'consequence of failing to distinguish cause from responsibility. civilian casualties are almost an inevitable consequence of war, particularly in densely populated urban environment. so the conflict causes civilian casualty us but the law doesn't prohibit causing civilian casualties. the law actually acknowledges and tolerates the unfortunate necessity of civilian casualties to bring about the submission of your opponent. the real question the real question that has to be asked is responsibility, and the law will get us to the right answer on that question almost every time. >> there's another kind of issue for us too, and some of you have lived in israel. i haven't. but i've ben been there and i can have a sense of small distances. it's almost unthinkable for a military to not attack people because of the sensitivity about what we were just talking about here, that would allow them to

kill your own civilians. think about it. does anybody in here think the united states of america civilians would say, yeah don't kill them but let them kill us and it's almost diabolical, and that's kind of what hamas went down this path a little bit of. >> we have actually run out of time. i want to thank all of you for being here. i want to again thank our distinguished task force members. [applause] including general wall, who chaired it and we look forward to seeing you at future jinsa events. thank you very much. >> coming up tomorrow night on c-span2, the memorial service for former u.s. senator edward brook of massachusetts. the first african-american popularly elected to the senate.

senate chaplain barry black will lead the service, and secretary john kerry and delegate eleanor horton are expected to give a eulogy. see the ceremony at 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> the political landscape has changed with the 114th 114th congress. not only are there 43 new republicans and 15 new democrats in the house and 12 new republicans and one new democrat in the senate there's also 108 women in corporation including the first african-american republican rub in the house and the first woman veteran in the senate. keep track on congressional congress chronicle. new congress, best access, on c-span c-span2, and c-span radio and c-span.org.

>> c-span2 providing live coverage of the u.s. senate floor proceed examination key public policy events, and every weekend, booktv, now for 15 years the only television network devote ode to nonfiction books and authors. watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. >> now several of president obama's cabinet secretaries address day tendees 0 at this year's national league of cities conference. this features jeh johnson, energy secretary bpa administrator and interior secretary. in addition to agency priorities the administration officials talk about public private partnerships on the city level. it's about an hour and 20 minutes.

>> good afternoon. again, welcome everyone. [applause] >> we welcome you to this afternoon's general session. thank you to jimmy robbins for entertaining the crowd. some to the city of nashville. for bringing him to washington. thank you so much. let's give him a round of applause. [applause] >> this morning we were honored to be part of a historic event for the national league of cities and its members. i believe this afternoon's session will be memorable in its own right and very informative as well. we will hear from several representatives from the administration as well as a thought-provoking panel discussion on infrastructure and climate change. it is now my pleasure to introduce our first speaker this afternoon. secretary of homeland security jeh johnson.

[applause] >> i know from my experience you'll really enjoy him, and we're going to learn a lot. he was sworn in on december 23 2013 as the fourth secretary of homeland security. prior to joining dhs, secretary johnson served as general council for the department of def. where he was part of the senior management team and led more than 10,000 military and civilian lawyers across the department. as general counsel of the defense department, sect johnson oversaw the development of legal aspects of many of our nation's counterterrorism policies. he spearheaded reforms to the military commission system al guantanamo bay in 2009 and co-authored the 250 page report that paved the way of the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" in 2010. secretary johnson's career has included extensive service in

national security, in law enforcement, and as an attorney in private corporate law practice. from its role in facilitating legal immigration and enforcing u.s. immigration laws to its responsibilities for coordinated responsibilities to natural disasters and other large emergencies, cities recognize the importance of strong leadership in the area of homeland security. please join me in welcoming secretary jeh johnson. [applause] >> thank you mayor. good to be here. good afternoon, everybody. >> good afternoon. >> welcome to washington and 60-degree weather. we're really happy about that. as i was in the back waiting to come up here, i had a moment of great trepidation listening to

the musical segment. someone said to me, well you know you have to sing. oh. well i can't sing. you're secretary of homeland security does not know how to carry a tune. i do know a few things about the national league of cities. i'm here to pay tribute to this organization and to thank you for two very, very major and important positions that you have taken over the last several months and i have an ask which will get. to an important ask. first, i have to tell a story. thank you for the wonderful and warm welcome you gave our president this morning. [applause] i recall -- this is a lively group, good group.

i'm going to enjoy talking to you. i recall eight years ago, january 2008, des moines, iowa introducing senator barack obama for the first time to my 12-year-old daughter. then 12. now a college freshman. he walked into the room. there were many cameras, a lot of excitement. and my daughter was standing right behind me, and i said to her, follow me. i'm going to finally introduce you to our next president of the united states. senator barack obama. and we pushed forward through the crowd, and i turn around to introduce my 12-year-old daughter to senator obama, and she is gone. and the reason she is gone is because scarlet johansen has walked into the room. [laughter] >> so, i found my daughter,

scolded her, and she said, i'm really sorry, dad and to my 12-year-old's credit, on her own, she pressed forward, through the cameras, through the fans and introduced herself to senator obama, with the words, mr. obama, i'm really sorry. my dad wanted me to meet you but i had to meet an important person first. [applause] >> i'm sure you all would agree that our president is an important person. all of you are important people for reasons that i'm going to discuss today. i was in selma, alabama, yesterday. and as i sat through the almost four hours church service, listening to the speeches and sermons, my mind turned to --

i'm a graduate of morehouse college, class of 1979. my mind turned to our most famous alumnus from the class of 1948, martin luther king jr. one of my favorite quotes from martin luther king is the following. the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience and comfort but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. today, of course, we'd have to modify that to say man or woman. today i'd like to say to you the national league of cities the ultimate measure of an organization is not where it stands in moments of convenience and comfort but where it stands at times of challenge and controversy. so i want to thank the national

league of cities. first, for your stand with the men and women of the department of homeland security as we fought for a full year 0 appropriation last week. [applause] >> i want to thank you for standing with the 225,000 people in our organization who are members of the coast guard, secret service fema immigration enforce; citizenship and immigration services and i could go on and on. for your courageous and unyielding stand in support of the homeland security of this nation and in support of a full year appropriation for our department and in support of our people. many people have said to me congratulations, you must be happy. and i had to respond we walked back from a cliff. literally. i would have had to fewer --

furlough 30,000 men and women of our department who depend on a pay check. you mayors out there, imagine having to tell your own work force, you must come to work but i can't pay you during the period of time that you must come to work. so, we avoided the shutdown and we now have a full year appropriation for fy15. it is a good bill. it is a good appropriation. we are now able to fund our vital homeland security missions, which include important grants to states, towns, and cities like those represented in this room, for purposes of homeland security. it is especially important that in these times we work together on our joint homeland security mission. the reality is that we have

evolved to a new phase in the global terrorist threat, which requires that we evolve to a new phase in our counterterrorism efforts. the global terrorist threat today is more decentralized, more complex. it includes the phenomenon of foreign fights, those going to places like syria and then returning to their home communities. it involves effective use of the internet to reach into communities, perhaps your own community, in an attempt to recruit and inspire someone to commit an act of violence. we're concerned about the independent actor the so-called lone wolf, who could strike at a moment's notice. for my department, and for the u.s. government in general, it makes working with state and local communities, governors,

mayors police chiefs commissioners, sheriffs, all the more important. we do this through issuance of joint intelligence bulletins and through our grantmaking activity. the reality is that given how the global terrorist threat has evolved in this country and in other countries in europe and elsewhere, the cop on the beat may be the first one to learn about the terrorist attack. in 2015 therefore, homeland security must also mean home town security. [applause] >> on our end we're engaged militarily against isil in iraq and syria, along with an international coalition. we're engaged in our law

enforcement efforts to interdict and prosecute those who provide material support for terrorism the fbi does a terrific job. i have directed the enhancement of our federal protective service at federal buildings in major cities around the country. we have enhanced aviation security in this country and at last points of departure airports into the united states. this, with the way must include working with cities municipalities on airport security as well. moving forward with our preclearance capabilities to establish more security on the front end at airports overseas. every opportunity i have to defend the homeland from the 50 yard line as opposed to the one- yard line we should take. we are evaluating whether more security is necessary for our

visa waiver program, for those who would travel to the united states from countries for which we do not require a visa. we're workle with our counterterrorism partners and allies overseas more and more to deal with the global terrorist threat as it has evolved. we are enhancing the effectiveness of fusion centers. those are things that many of you in this room are familiar with that exist in every state. we have revamped our, if you see something, say something, campaign. if you see something, say something, must be more than a slogan. it requires and calls for public participation in our efforts, in our homeland security efforts. we are engaged in what we call countering violent extremism interactions with communes around the country. i have permanently been to places like columbus ohio

chicago, los angeles, boston minneapolis, to talk to community leaders in communities where there is a potential for young people to turn to violence in my view given how the world situation has evolved it is all the more important that we do that here in the homeland so when i go to these engagements very often i'm with the police commissioner, the mayor, the city council member, the sheriff, and so forth. the other thing i want to thank this organization for is your support of our efforts to reform the immigration system. we would have preferred congressional action but the president and i identified nine actions we could take within our existing legal authorities to reform our system. we have issued reforms to

facilitate the employment of high-skilled workers, something the president talked about this morning, to facilitate the issuance of green card for high-skilled workers. hey have strengthened border security and embarked upon a southern border campaign strategy. i'm pleased to report that this january and february the numbers of total apprehensions on our southern border are -- and apprehensions or an indication of total attempts to cross the border illegally. the numbers month to month are now the lowest they've been in several years because of seasonal factors and, frankly, because of our efforts and those of our partners south of the border. last year as many as you know we saul the heartbreaking etch speck cackle of a number of children -- spectacle of a number of children, unaputt by any parent attempting to cross the southern border. i permanently met with hundreds

of children. i'm happy to report that this year this month, last month there was a 42% decrease in the numbers of unaccompanied children from where we were last year. we are through our executive actions encouraging citizenship through greater public awareness, to permitting people pay for citizenship applications by credit card. we are embarking upon pay reform for immigration enforcement personnel, and we are revamping what we call prosecutorial discretion. we're focusing the u.s. of our resources to deport and remove people felons, not families. we want to stop tearing families apart. [applause] we're emphasizing national security, public safety, and border security, over tearing

families apart. we have created a new deferred action program for parents for those who have been in this country for years, who have in effect become integrated members of society. there are by most estimates something like 11 million undocumented immigrants living in this country. the reality is that given our resources, they're not going to be deported. by any administration. republican or democrat. the most striking thing about that number of people is that at least half, perhaps more than half have been here in excess of ten years. so the president and i in november, directed the creation of a new deferred action program for those who have been here five years, who have children who are citizens, or lawful permanent residents and who committed no serious crime.

the reality is we have to deal with these people. we have to account for these people. and we should encourage them to come out of the shadows. as all of you know our actiones have been challenged in the court, and i thank this organization for your support of our position in that lawsuit in texas, the national league of cities filed an amicus brief that i think says it best. daka and da ba, the defender action program for parents, will fuel economic growth in cities across the country increase public safety and public engagement and facility date the full integration of immigrant residents by promoting family unity and limiting family separation. that's from the national league of cities. [applause] >> thank you.

>> from my homeland security law enforcement point of view we need to encourage people who have been here for years to come out of the shadows be held accountable. frankly, the litigation and the decision and the injunction puts us in an untenable position. the judge does not quarrel with the notion we have the ability to engage in prosecutorial discretion prioritize. prioritize felons over families. prioritize criminals over those who have been here and not committed any serious crimes. i want to take the additional step and encourage them to come out of the shadows so that we know who they are. the injunction basically prevents us from doing that. we're supposed to somehow leave these people in the shadows. we want to take steps to bring

them forward, have. the pay taxes, apply for deferred action and apply for a work authorization to encourage these people to be participants in society report crimes, pay taxes, and get on the books. so the only thing i'll say about the case the only thing more i'll say about the case, is this is what appeals courts are for. so what we say what we must say, to people in your communities, who i've personally met with now don't lose hope. as martin luther king said, the arc of the moral universe is long but always bends towards justice. those who in this country struggle for citizenship, struggle to be something more than a second class person know that history is on your side.

now, here's my ask. we have eliminated through our executive actions one of our executive actions -- the secure communities program. secure communities, the reality is was controversial, legally and politically, and we have replaced it with a new program called the priority enforcement program. in my view working together with mayors, governors, sheriffs, police chiefs, so that we can focus our resources on convicted criminals is a public safety imperative. that was the goal of the secure communities program, but it has become legally and politically controversial. but the overarching goal, in my view is a public safety imperative.

177 jurisdictions states cities counties to one degree or another there were limitations placed on that jurisdiction's ability to cooperate with our immigration personnel in the transfer of criminals for purposes of removal. since january 1 2014 over 12,000 detainers by our enforcement personnel were not honored. frankly in my view this state of affairs puts public safety at risk. into we have done away with the secure communities program and created a new program in its place which in my view solves the legal and political controversy. we're no longer placing detainers. on individuals except if there's probable cause so solve the legal issue. we're replacing nat with

requests for notification. we're no longer put can detainers on people based simply on an arrest. we're know only seeking to transfer suspected terrorists felons convicted felons those convicted of aggravated felonies, those ac enough street gangs, those convicted of significant misdemeanors and those convicted of three or more misdemeanors. so, here's my ask. we want to work with you to restore this relationship. we have replaced secure communities with a new program for the benefit of public safety, but i need a partner. in those in this room in governors, and mayors county commissions, and so forth. we have done our part to end the controversial secure communities program. now i ask that you and others get with your city attorney

your city council your police commissioner your chief, get ahold of the policy document i issued in november to see how we have replaced the secure communities program for the benefit of all of those we serve. and if you're one of those 177 jurisdictions, you will gate knock on the door from me. because we want to work with you. to rebuild this relationship in my view it is a public safety imperative. elsewhere in our department, we're moving forward on our cyber security mission. we have legislation passed late last year, the administration has a new proposal for cyber security. this year, which we hope the congress will act on, we're doing a number of things to reform the way in which we do business in the department of security. we have -- department of homeland security. we filled all the senior level vacancies. we're rebuilding morale within the organization.

we moving in the to direction of more transparency and so forth. so, this is a good time right now for homeland security. we have new budget and we're moving forward with our very important mission. but my overapp -- overarching message is it takes a partnership with the men and women in this room, for homeland security for hometown security for public safety for all of the people we as public servants represent. the last thing i'll say to you is for my part, i recognize that homeland security is a balance. it's a balance between basic physical security and our american values. the things we cherish our civil liberties our right to peaceably aseptember be. our right to travel. diversity, the diversity we cherish, our immigrant heritage

we cherish. i like to tell audiences i can build you a perfectly safe city. we could build higher walls. we do interrogate more people. we could erect more scanning devices. we could screen more people to create a perfectly safe space. but it would not be a shining city on a hill. it would be a prison. so homeland security must be a balance between security of our people and the preservation of the things we value as americans. i look forward to working with all of you in the days ahead on our joint homeland security public safety mission. thank you very much. and thank you for listening to me. [applause]

>> secretary johnson on, behalf of the national league of cities and members i want to thank you for all the good work you do to keep our cities safe, our country strong, and our citizens protected. it is now my great pleasure to introduce the members of this afternoon's panel session on infrastructure and climate change. at this time let me introduce our panel and each of these panelist are incredible in what they do for us as cities. first ...

we are going to go into a series of questions around topics that are so important to us as cities as well as most obviously responsibility.

>> mr. secretary where you start. the importance of cities and the importance of cities also in the context of our climate challenge but let me focus on a few items in opening remarks. let me say a word about the quadrennial energy review first installment that we expect to have coming out in a few weeks. this is a study that's been going on for over a year across the administration looking specifically at the issues of energy infrastructure.

transmission, storage and distribution of energy and electricity and includes fuels and includes looking out at the lower liability resulting safety security of infrastructure and as i say we will be coming out of that shortly, some of the bindings in there i will just note things like looking at analyzing the risks from storm surges for example the modeling they are showing category 1 storm's good inundate about 1000 vital electric substations for example over these next two decades of heat heatwaves, degrading our infrastructure but also increasing things like peak requirements. oil and gas supplies depend upon reliable at electricity to operate but in turn particularly our power sector relies on natural gas a complex

interdependency that we have to be careful about. the energy industry, and other different aspect is by 2020 we expect we will need to fill 2 million jobs in the energy industry and of course we need to therefore focus on some of the training areas which we are doing. in addition some of the outcomes of the q. we are in our fiscal year 16 budget so i can talk about those. for example our 63 million-dollar proposals for state grants for reliability and for energy assurance so hopefully the states in the cities will be working together to come forward with those planning activities which then in turn can lead to a

eligibility we hope for what will be major infrastructure projects supported. also, in the budget there is something called the local energy program and that is $20 million to help cities and counties accelerate investments and efficiency and clean energy. these are some of the items in our budget. let me mention two new things today. we are issuing now a notice of technical assistance for 16 climate action champions. one of them is seated here at the table so he is happy and maybe there 50 more of you out there happy with that particular grant but also, we are so pleased to announce $6 million there are clean cities program for alternative fuel vehicle market growth projects.

to reduce market barriers and improve buyer awareness of plug-in electric and other alternative fuel vehicles. one such project will enable visitors in orlando for example to rant and receive information on plug-in electrics and a whole bunch of other projects that will be announced today. so those are just a few of the things that we have moving forward in terms of clean energy climate and energy infrastructure reliability and resilience. thank you. >> thank you so much and i hope everyone is taking notes to help advance the community. these department of energy initiatives. thank you for being one of the best mayors in the u.s.. it's so exciting to see all the

work you are doing. it's amazing. [applause] i thank you for being a great adviser to the agency. first of all thank you for letting me be back again. i'm not sure what i did last time time that a maybe it does something right. and i know you are dying to get your questions and i hope you know we always want to answer each and every one of them. let me be brief and thank you for letting me join. i just want to mention a couple of things because i know communities across the u.s. are particularly our cities and towns have been really wonderful partners for epa both in identifying how best to spend things like state things like state revolving funds effectively to look at graham ground field redevelopment and continuing to support that. our fiscal year budget this year the presidents request has really been recognizing what a

great partner you are and is looking looking in a far ideal place to enhance our partnership with additional dollars. i want to point out a few things. number one to 42% of epa's budget goes directly to states, local communities and tribes and the president is looking to up the ante to provide additional funds to continue to work together and take on climate resilience and we can provide expertise and tools that you need to address your changing weather patterns the extreme weather events but also we know that climate is most significantly challenging our water structure. in dealing with a new challenge of climate change in the old challenge of what we do about water and wastewater infrastructure, what you all invested in, 40 or 50 years ago is now needing significant repair as well as looking at the new challenges that we are seeing in the drinking water side. we are going to continue to work

with you on integrated planning but also the president has requested a significant increase over last year's request in the area the srf and we are looking at new ways to continue to support wastewater infrastructure not just in terms of helping with resilience and helping look at how to do integrated planning and green infrastructure that we have also recently announced the creation of the water infrastructure in a resilience finance center. that's one place we can go to think about whether there are creating finance opportunities that will be private-sector dollars to the table. really build public-private partnerships because we know that the money we have in the public sector is not going to be able to get the job done that we are seeing because the $600 billion in infrastructure over the next 20 years, we have to pump it up and find new ways to finance it. we are also moving forward to lay the platform for our center

under an important opportunity that takes advantage of creating financing the transportation agencies have found effective and we want to do it as well so we are going to be building up that center as well. hopefully we will be creating a partnership and enhancing a looking for every opportunity to understand what your needs are and to so poor that as effectively as we can and i think i will stop at that. >> thank you. >> thank you. first and foremost a need to express my apologies to a former member anthony foxx. he is recovering from minor knee surgery. he is not up and about otherwise he would be here with us today today. let me also echo gina's observation about what a great partner mayor becker is. he is not just a great adviser to us but he and the city have been a great grantee. secretary moniz whatever amount of assistance you gave him we have given him a lot more. [laughter]

>> if they give me more money i would win. if anthony foxworth here he would be talking about the absolute imperative that congress move forward and passed the grow america act in the next few months. many of you know last year the administration submitted a long-term and last year was a four-year, 2 billion-dollar bill bill. so we can get away from all of these incremental extensions with 32 extensions that have been milking the program along for the last several years. last year we submitted a 310 billion-dollar, for your bill or frozen fundings for 10 months. so this year under president obama's leadership we are doubling down. we are going to be submitting in the weeks to calm a six-year 478 billion-dollar bill. [applause] that would bring overall funding

to close to 60% and we stay precisely what part of the tax code we were meant to pay for it. really get the money to augment the existing highway trust fund and we have also sent to congress if they don't like are offset to pay for we are opening, we are open to talking about others that they need to act. why are we pushing the grow america act so hard? we are doing it because we have looked into the future and seeing what happens if we don't change our transportation policies and we don't change our funding mechanism. just a few weeks ago we had d.o.t. released our draft beyond traffic studies. i would really encourage all of you to look at it. you can see it at www.d.o.t..gov backslash beyond traffic. it's a draft and we are looking for your comments. importantly what this document does is it looks 30 years into the future and looks at all of the trends that we are going to experience both in population growth, 70 million more people

by 2015 -- 2050. in fact all of these people are going to be locating in some of the areas that have already undergone dramatic growth especially in the south and the west that is already undergoing punishing congestion. frankly this study has taken on a resonance with the american public that goes far beyond what we expected. we are approaching a quarter of a million downloads from our web site of this study. and we think it has taken on this resonance because people know that something is wrong. they see it in the potholes every day. they are saying it in worsening congestion. they are seeing it in transit service that is increasingly unreliable in some areas even while transit ridership grows. and we have seen what will happen if this persists in the next 30 years is a form of congestion that we don't know in this country and one that will absolutely drag our economy down

rather than serve as something that's going to grow jobs to support the 70 million additional americans. so we are not asking for increased funding just because we like infrastructure investment. we are asking for dramatically increased funding and improve policies because that's what our economy is going to need going forward. [applause] thank you. a lot of our growth like transit and rail and mayor garcetti will tell you in places like los angeles there's not room for additional highways. so we are very concerned that the current moment that many of our partners in congress are looking to undershoot the target target. some want to go into the tax code and only raise enough money to freeze funding for the next six years. the reality is that frozen funding one even allow us to maintain the infrastructure we have. and for the critical pieces of

infrastructure that are 50 60 70 and in some cases more than 100 years old they will just continue to deteriorate because we will not have the money to replace them. when it comes to frozen funding and status quo policies we are against the policy and we are cancer the politics. we frankly don't understand the politics. where congress goes into the tax code and raises money for transportation for the first time in more than two decades only to deliver that -- to the public the existing theory. it infrastructure, existing challenges and being able to maintain our system. we think it makes a lot more sense to raise the necessary revenue to really address transportation and what our needs are going forward. we need to raise enough revenue to provide the growth the economy needs going forward. that is where we need your help. we needed to deliver that message to your legislators. their many things in the grow america act that this community

should like. there are opportunities but then increased funding to increase the funds to states and localities by more than 50%. there is more than a doubling of the tiger program, a program that is serve many cities including salt lake very well and where we are turning down 15 15 applications for everyone we can fund. so let me encourage you to tell your federal legislators that it's time to really address this issue and not tinker on the margins. if we are going to go in and raise money for the tax cut to pay for it transportation we should raise enough to prepare us for our future. thanks. [applause] spink. >> thank you so much to a preview. isn't it refreshing to hear talk about innovation creativity and meeting the needs and partnering with our community's?

[applause] i have a few questions that if you will allow each of you to maybe expand a little bit on some of the things that you talked about in your comments. you have noted of course how our infrastructure is failing. we are certainly feeling that very directly and our local roads and transit systems and the things that we are trying to do to meet today's needs. tell me what your thoughts may be and i know this is true in the grow america act and i have heard it in some of your comments but how do you think we can pay for that matter maybe a little more detailed. ideas for how we can bring some of our costs down and in working with cities ideas that you may have to make sure some communities aren't left behind. for example there was reference to the tiger grant and we were incredibly fortunate and benefited from a tiger grant but for many smaller communities

particularly having the wherewithal to develop a grant application is really intimidating. so maybe you could comment on some of those things and the work that you are doing and each of you i think if you could respond. thank you. mr. secretary. >> first of all let me start by expanding a little bit on what mr. rogoff said in terms of you mentioned tiger, mayor. i want to say the tiger grant clearly way oversubscribed and the point i really want to make is in our quadrennial energy review broadening it out from tiger i just want to know that when we think of energy infrastructure, we think about wires and pipes. but in fact associated infrastructure like ports, and on waterways rail these are

all critical for energy today and in fact the energy boom that we are seeing in the united states oil and gas, are severely taxing infrastructure in many ways that we have not seen. so things like grow america and other initiatives without we hope to bring forward on these related infrastructures are very critical. just one comment on the issue of perhaps smaller communities. two points. one is as i mentioned earlier we are putting forward to congress and again we hope there will be action in terms of these planning grants. these planning grants $63 million as i mentioned they are in the budget request. these are precisely to develop plans that can then be fundable -- should go through all communities in the states.

in fact we held in developing ask you we are 1313 regional meetings and we have many representatives of state, local and tribal governments and we are just hoping we are going to be able to work with you in terms of developing these planning approaches that will allow us to forward infrastructure. the second i will make and i was out recently and it's not a small community but in toledo ohio for example where the city's plans for downtown rebirth very much tied in to developing novel ideas around energy and combining power and renewables etc.. those are areas again through our cities programs that we are very happy to talk with

communities and provide technical assistance in terms of developing proposals that are forward-looking in providing infrastructure that is good for economic growth but also good for resilience in the face of the threats that we see ahead. >> let me mention a few things because i think all of you know that epa does not have this euros on the end of our budgets that these guys do so we have to work on it. one of the things that i think epa does very well is to provide technical assistance to communities. we have strong relationships with our communities. we don't go in there telling them what our vision is. we go in there asking the question of how do we work with you to make your visions succeed succeed? i think we have shown that in the work that we have done. it's amazing what a 15 or 20,000-dollar technical

assistance grant can do to get a community that's struggling to identify some good steps moving forward about how they can change their dynamic. how did they make it more vibrant than economic and use some of the funds the other agencies can bring to the table to then get a tiger grant. doesn't take much to build a bike path but when a community decides they are going to build it we can help with that but then that changes the dynamics of that community. it makes them more visible vibrant active and all of a sudden other things happened. one of the good things that epa is trying to figure out how to do better. learning lessons from sustainable communities. we are going to be honing our technical expertise and our regions. we have identified 50 communities where our regions are actively working with communities and with our regional partners our partners from hud from d.o.t., from d.o.e. and other agencies that can work with us and go to communities that do exactly what

they want us to do is listen to them, identify opportunities for funding. we can attract those 50 communities and we will come back to you with our success on those. what did we do? would be amazed at what a brownfields grant is for planting and cleaner. the economy of local communities can dramatically change as the result of just a small cleanup of a small lot that makes people feel better about the community makes us safer and make the more vibrant. we are looking at how do we expand our opportunities to do that and really track it? the other thing i wanted to mention is that we have a bunch of work is going on which i think you know on infrastructure. how do we look at infrastructure differently? how do we build great infrastructure that makes communities more livable, more vibrant in and of itself but also has to be a whole lot better than concrete and

building big pipes. they are opportunities to cure the problems we are trying to cure in a way that's tremendously cost-effective and will build up local economies and joe's grubs at the same time. believe it or not i firmly believe that climate efforts are exactly the same thing. that is why when we are looking at our power plants are opening up opportunities for states to think more creatively and inflexible about how to work with you to bring advantage economically in job growth in the choices they make on how to reduce their carbon pollution. they can do it if they want to so get active in those discussions with the state. we are providing providing hopefully at the president's budget goes through $25 million directly to states to help them with his planning and implementation peace. the president has proposed a 4 billion-dollar budget line

item that actually is trying to establish an incentive for states to want to grow faster and further to be able to build the kind of infrastructure you need to make climate reductions work. [applause] these are things that we can do together so all we have to do is be really smart. epa needs to be focused on providing the technical assistance to know how you can make your environmental challenges in ways that actually promote economic growth and job growth. if we can keep our eye on both of those prizes at the same time we will be the partners that are public demand the partners picking keep them safe keep our infrastructure moving and healthy keep them healthy and continue to grow the economy. that is what we are all working towards. none of us are in our own fiefdoms in our little stovepipes.

i know it bothers him a lot but i'm trying to get over it so we will do with these issues and that's what you want and that's what we are delivering. [applause] >> let me quickly address issues of lower costs. it's actually embedded in title i have the grow america act. we have worked with epa and our other partners in the administration who are responsible for the environmental review process and that is a whole series of statutory provisions intended to allow us to speed up the environmental process on our infrastructure process while getting better results for the environment. it's not all that hard but it does take statutory change. areas where we can do our reviews coincidently or at the same time rather than concurrently where someone is going to the file for many months only to hand it to the next agency who hands it to the

next agency. we are making progress on that and we intend to make a lot more progress. secretary foxx will tell you what he was the mayor of charlotte projects would be 20 to 30% more expensive just for the passage of time. initiatives that are affordable can be -- become unaffordable in time. we can take time off the process they can get more projects for the money. we have a series in erbil to address that issue. you asked what about communities that struggle with a tiger grant? we actually are hearing that message loud and clear again because we have a mayor as a boss who struggles to be able to put together dollars locally to match funds at the time and get a very prosperous city. so you will see a difference in funding availability for tiger this year where overmatched by

local communities. we'll continue to do so but also we will recognize those communities that cannot provide matches to be sure they are fully competitive with everyone else. >> can i mention one other thing that i forgot to mention? i did mention the water resiliency finance center which is a new effort to look at creative financing opportunities and bring in private sector dollars. that also is a partnership with the usda so i should mention they have significant funds for rural infrastructure. a lot of the focus if you are a small community in the center is going to be how do you bundle small community projects together to allow them new opportunities for financing? the usda is really on top of this issue so if you are interested in the kind of work we are going to be doing we are more than happy to reach out to you and make sure that you have the right connections whether it's srs or usda for the rural

development funds. >> this is the d.o.e., d.o.t. close collaboration with the power of these grants that allow good planning, a great example that we were involved with was the new jersey and it involved again a novel approach to a microgrid to support a resilient transportation grants. we did some cost-sharing to develop the plan and then i was successful at d.o.t. for literally hundreds of millions of dollars in a grant to rebuild that infrastructure. so these are the kinds of creative ideas certainly that we are looking for in terms of new approaches to resilient energy infrastructure in our communities and in this case supporting transportation corridor. >> it's a very good example because that one actually grew out of the disaster hurricane

sandy and our relief money to address hurricane sandy but importantly a lot of people don't know this. for many many of the transit time all some highway tunnels that funded -- flooded and hurricane sandy had floated earlier in hurricane irene, far less newsworthy but it makes the point that we are going to have these increasing frequencies of nature climatic conditions. the president provided money for hurricane sandy he he made a point the taxpayers should not have to pay to clean up these critical facilities time and time again. we need to build them smarter and in a fashion that they can withstand the future and that's part of what the microgrid does to make sure there's going to be a power source for the rail of the structure that's critical. that is dependent on the power lines that have been serving for the last seven years. >> cope -- to go back to the

earlier thing about congress needing to act there are also policy congress needs to take to remove constraints on federal assistance to rebuild something only the way it was before supposed to building it for the future. see back absolutely. [applause] >> it's time for me to leave and we are just about out of time. >> what happened to the questions and answers? >> all right. i'm afraid not. but listen show we'd give you each their cell phone numbers and you are welcome to call them them. >> let me invite you to do this. follow-up e-mails to these folks of their departments and they will follow up and i will say this. for those of us trying to work with what should be our federal partners to have