there are a lot of transparency concerns for me on that side. in order to have a true free market we have to know what you

are buying in order to figure out what each cost and also i would note that on the songwriter side, songwriters guild featured music coalition that have brought up issues of transparency because arbitration might lead to issues where the artists themselves don't necessarily know what the rate is or how it was decided. >> i think my time is up mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator franken. >> thank you mr. chairman for this hearing. mr. harris and you talked about this 150,000-dollar fine that could be imposed for infringing. have you ever paid such a fine? >> no sir. >> how many times has that fine in your experience your knowledge been imposed? >> well in the context of pandora. >> just in the whole ego system

of this? >> oh hundreds if not thousands of copyright infringement cases going on right now. farah williams is involved with a lawsuit over marvin gaye's estate of her blurred lines were statutory damages and willful infringement are being sought by the plaintiffs. >> i go back to the question, how many times has this line been imposed? >> the maximal 180,000 i can't give you a number. >> you brought that up. >> yes pandora was threatened by music publishers by their outside counsel. >> i want to know how real the threat that is. ms. matthews in your testimony you say section 114i of the copyright act prohibits a court in setting fees for the music

words for looking at fees paid by those same services to the recording industry for the performance of sound recordings leading to rate disparities in favor of sound recordings on the order of 12:1 and i think this is why mr. miller is saying that in the digital area there is just an imbalance and i don't want to get into this is about pros today but it seems very ironic that in terrestrial which is what we have been living with since 1941, the performers did nothing and the copyright holder and the songwriters and publishers there's an imbalance for them obviously.

here we have just got the exact reverse where the performers knew very well and the songwriters get next to nothing. i mean this is why we are here what's going on in the digital space. that's a big reason why think we are here. the digital space is nothing practically nothing. it adds up after billions of plays to a little something but this ain't no way to will earn a living. i think if you want to use that mr. miller, this ain't no way to earn a living. [laughter] >> it will be demoed by the end of the week. >> and i would get what? >> half. would you like to know what that will equate to? >> i would like to know, three plays. can i talk to the whole panel

here about this issue? i know it gets into something we aren't really discussing which is the right of the performer but what would it entail to try to address this where you would sort of equalize, and i know that the performers would go oh great, we have been doing radio for 70 years and now you want to equalize this. but what would that entail besides looking at these consent decree's? what would this all entail if anyone would want to handle that how would you sort of knowing we are going more and more into digital and this is going to kill the songwriter how would you equalize this anybody? >> mr. franken if i may you should recall that the largest record label in the world owns the second-largest publisher in the world and the second-largest

record labor -- label in the world owns the largest publishing company predicted of the day of right holders believe there was a different distribution of the royalties for 450,000 they were paying at the right holders himself wanted to distribute that money differently they are controlled by the same corporate parent and frankly i'm the best position to understand the relative value of the input to our service. >> does that sound right to you guys? >> if i may. >> first mr. pincus and i'm sorry. >> on a music publisher who does not share corporate parent with a record company and what i would say is that in one good example of where there's a free market for these two rights are rights are 50/50. they are equal. >> okay. >> mr. pincus is referring to

the market for audiovisual synchronization and i would also like to point out anecdotally outside of the united states oftentimes those two copyrights the copyright in the sound recording versus the copyright in the musical composition are equally valued. our proposal would be as part of copyright reform we have platform neutral technology neutral laws and we let the free market decide what the allocation of value would be between those two rights. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator franken. senator hatch is the chairman of the finance committee so we are going to let him take a few more minutes before he has to leave us. >> i appreciate that mr. chairman. i am in the middle of a big hearing on taxes and all of you will be interested in that i am sure. let me ask this. the law prohibits taking into account evidence of what other

rights holders pay for the same piece of music. that doesn't make much sense to me. that is why last week together with senators whitehouse and alexander m. corker i introduced a songwriter equity act to remove this barrier. the songwriter equity act would authorize the judge to consider rates paid to other rights holders such as performers as part of determining a fair market break. do you believe this reform makes sense and how will that help the rate-setting process? >> i do believe this reform makes sense. i think it's a step in the right direction. we believe he would be helpful and are actually incredibly important for a judge to be able to have all of the information about how the money flows. >> okay, thank you. mr. harrison in your testimony expressed support for the creation of a single database

with a record of all music copyright information. to enable services to identify on make catalog by catalog basis the owners of the song. this sounds like a good idea but how much would that cost and who would pay for it and who would manage the database? >> all excellent questions senator. i think the best answer i can give is pandora and services like pandora was certainly be willing to bear their share of that burden in creating such a database because it's vitally important for the transparency that currently lacks in the system and so we would be more than happy to contribute to its creation. >> thank you. the consent decree is 70 years old and it's only been amended twice. in light of the significant technological advancements in the music industry over the last 70 years do you support making

any modifications? >> thank you senator hatch. i think we have to be a little bit more mindful of the fact that the nature of the music services and the distribution models may change. there may be modifications that could be undertaken to address those types of issues but the actual nature of the pros and the market power that they yield in this space doesn't change. the nature of the rights that they are administering does not change. so even if you have to address new technology the actual underlying problems still remain. so any of the changes that will be proposed have to keep in mind it has to be within the construct that allows and enables the market to function. if you take it outside of that

construct you are going to have a difficult time having that efficient system. >> ms. matthews again can you tell me what your experience has been with the rate clerks process and how does that process impacts on writer's? >> since 2001 ascap has spent $86 million on court litigation. in the pandora litigation alone we discovered more than 75,000 documents. we deposed more than 35 individuals. these rates were proceeding sometimes last for years and sometimes require an appeal process to the second circuit. we think any other form of alternative resolution. every dollar spent to good outside counsel are dollars coming out of the pockets of the songwriters.

>> let me go to mr. harrison again. compared to the 48% of revenue you pay for performances of musical works is paying 1.7% to songwriters the amount you proposed to the rate court judge is that an equitable rate for songwriter's? >> 1.7% that pandora proposed in the ascap rate proceedings is the rate that terrestrial radio pays to songwriters who publicly perform their works and we compete most closely with terrestrial radio fertile listeners in ad dollars soap we are going to have a distribution neutral or structure the 1.7% of revenue would be appropriate. >> mr. chairman could i ask just one more question? i apologize to my fellow senators but i've got to get back to the income tax matter.

some songwriter groups have expressed concern over the lack of transparency and licensing deals the terms of which are often subject to nondisclosure agreements. under these confidential arrangement songwriters who composed them don't even know the details of the agreements in which they are supposed to be paid. do any of you have any ideas about how to address that particular problem because it's a big problem as far as i can see. anybody want to take a crack at that? >> one of the roles the pros play for people like me who have a hard time replicating the scalable we do is providing transparency in the market in the same way so having a pro player constructive role in administering agreements would be a very good way to handle with drawing rights. >> senator hatch one of the things that pandora did last year was lodged its artists

marketing platform. admittedly it's geared towards recording artists but it allows any recording artist to sign onto on to the service and see how their music is performed a number of times it's perform to their audience is, where their audiences. there was nothing that would prevent us other than lack of transparency in the ownership for people who provide the same kind of disability. it may not allow the songwriter to track the dollars that come from the service into their checking account but it was certainly enable them to see how their music is performed on the service and whether they are getting the money they believe they deserve. >> senator hatch if i might i think the one thing that ms. matthews has opined on this and i appreciate her statement the one thing i think all of us on this panel could agree with is if the consent decrees or modified at all they should be modified in the way to create better transparency throughout the system both for licensees for songwriters, for the pros

for that matter. we ought to know what it is we are licensing how much is being paid, by whom and to whom so that this is all public. it's all available to those who are participants in the system. i think we can all agree that transparency is really big issue and if anything comes out of this hearing it should be that. >> thank you mr. chairman. i appreciate the courtesy. >> thank you chairman hatch and we wish you the best of luck with your tax -- >> i would like to thank you in the ranking member for raising this and thank you to the panels for being here. this is an important topic today today. in recent years georgia has played an increasingly important and prominent role in our nation's music industry is one the move from national -- nashville to atlanta there's a lot of music activity in atlanta but i think everyone agrees that the music marketplace has

changed and undergone radical changes in the last few decades. since the bmi distant decree was made in 1984 a year in which the billboard top 100 single by brian adams and boys to men. only two of my kids know who that is. i would like to pose a policy question about those% decrease. the department justice revised the distant decree all doj consent decrees would contain a sunset provision. these sunset provisions word terminate the degree degree degree within tenure status was in response to congressional action and strengthen the penalties for violations. for more than 35 years the distant decree should not be able to to terminate in under decade unless exceptional industry specific circumstances are present. the policy was in perspective but the rationale is worth

considering in the context of the distant decrees we are looking at today. my question is this, i would like to get each of you to respond to this. for those witnesses who support continuation of the consent decrees in the present form can i get a quick description for me to be regarding the music licensing market that trumped doj's perception and for witnesses who favor the elimination of the sunset provision or amendment of the consent decrees do you believe the sunset presumption applies here? >> today ascap is not requesting a termination of the consent decree. while it do think it's appropriate to have some reasonable pathway to consider regular modifications to the consent decree possibly eventual sunset today we are only asking for a few discrete changes to save collective licensing. the hypotheticals publishers leading ascap is not a

hypothetical. this will happen if we don't make these changes and it's our greatest fear for the songwriter that we are running out of time. >> thank you. >> senator i think the key issue, what makes this exceptional and suggests that sunset is not appropriate is most of the time when the consent decree is entered that behavior that gave rise to the consent decree goes away so the consent decree is no longer needed. at the end needed. at the end of the day what ascap and bmi are our horizontal sales agencies. they take otherwise competing licensure's aggregate them together and fix a single price for what otherwise would be competing catalogs. unless that behavior changes that doesn't seem appropriate to do away with the protections that are provided licensees for there to be abuse of market power and super competitiveness.

>> in the market today there are many digital music services that operate without the kind of regulation that music publishers operate under in the market is thriving and as to transparency for example my understanding is that the majority of publishing date is currently available on a voluntary basis by private actors. so i think where the market is more free in this particular area it becomes more competitive. >> senator perdue thank you for the question. as mr. harrison said these are very unusual decrees. the department of justice entered into these decrees not as it usually does, to prevent and deter anti-competitive conduct. they actually entered into these decrees to enable anti- anti-competitive conduct in the construct that it could be regulated. that makes them very unique and that makes them necessary. if we are going to continue in the world and have ascap bmi

csac and the large publishers that represented they can operate and collect the way they do there has to be a construct or they will engage in anti-competitive activity. >> in a perfect world i think consent decrees could go way. what we don't want to see happen is we don't want to destabilize our collective agencies because it's just too important. we would hope they find ways to modify it to give us some relief. it's just crucial to what we do now and a relationship with the pros by and large is good. my wife of 23 years as i was running these technicalities by her looking for a little bit of wisdom she says i don't know what any of that means but i do know this, the only days i circle on my calendar every year are the four days your bmi check is coming. do whatever you got to do to

keep that. >> senator, i agree the consent decree seven in place for an unusually long time because these are unusual circumstances here and i would say i don't think anybody at this table would be happier than i would be if we found the silver bullet that created competition in the marketplace in may the consent decrees unnecessary. but that is not the world we are living in right now so especially given we have seen increasing consolidation among the publishers some of which was justified because we have the consent decrees as a backstop and we have this federal court case where a judge found the publishers have the opportunity to compete and they coordinated with each other that sunset think the consent decrees at this time would be a necessary but we should always be reevaluating as we go forward. >> thank you all. thank you mr. chairman. >> i think i would like to start with mr. dowdle in this round.

mr. dowdle i think as has been mentioned today a distinguishing characteristic of any free market system is that two parties negotiating have the ability to walk away from a negotiation if they can't achieve a mutually agreeable outcome. and yet it's been suggested that music services and broadcasters in particular cannot they literally cannot walk away from license negotiations with a publisher. or the pr because they don't have total control over what music they publicly perform. let me just ask you that question. can a broadcaster remove a specific licensure's catalog from its service? is that possible? >> theoretically possible, not

practically possible and here's why. we have various types of programs that we put out over our airwaves. some of that we produce. the amount we produce would identify the music and we are able to do that exactly. but for a very large -- the. >> identified music. who wants a copyright? >> exactly right that if we can come to an agreement with them we can cut that music out. the programs such as local news magazine shows and things like that. but for a large portion of our programming we don't have the ability to do that. part of that programming which is network programming is cleared through to the viewer so we don't have to worry about that. the networks worry about that are syndicated programming all of our commercials and a lot of the stuff that comes in between we don't have editorial control. we couldn't do it if we tried. therefore we are at the mercy literally of these pros. everybody that's going to come

to us and say if you don't license for me i'm coming after you, we have no way to avoid that. >> what any of that change if the broadcaster were provided with a continuously updated list of songs in the catalog at issue or would that change? >> of it when changing the sounds that the syndicated programming or commercials don't identified whose music they are using. i don't know is within the realm of possibility to have every single producer that's going to provide music to us and our programming identify music. if you could do that is theoretically possible it is not practically going to happen. >> you've basically have to have the ability to see the future. if you had a superpower a lot of other things would be better. >> if we were king it would be a different place. speeding ms. griffin i believe much of the pressure on the department of justice to make changes to the consent decrees

may well stem from the threat for withdrawal by the publishers which would seriously threaten the blanket license scheme that we have in place today. if the blanket license framework is truly at risk of falling apart what in your view is the best alternative to the dissent decrease system when it comes to ensuring robust competition in the marketplace for performing rights licenses? >> in terms of alternative structures other than an antitrust consent decree we have statutory licenses for certain uses and copyright laws. if we can come up with a statutory license that also protects competition and provides transparency helps artists get paid directly we would support that. at the time we don't have that for those kinds of uses. i would be concerned about

dismantling the protections in these dissent decrease in the wake of the new structure setup. >> can you tell us what you think it makes sense to have this quasi-regulatory system? it's essentially regulatory system administered by a handful of doj regulators and a couple of judges? or should congress consider legislation setting up some type of regulatory structure and if so what would that legislation look like. >> so we do have other structures. as was mentioned earlier we have a copyright royalty for statutory licenses but in terms of the consent decree now the department of justice has deep antitrust expertise and evaluating how markets are working which is very important here and for the federal judges they are impartial. they understand the law and to the discovery process they are able to obtain all the facts. i would say i don't view that is

a bad system but it's not that we can't consider new ones. >> thank you. my time has expired. senator klobuchar. >> thank you. ms. griffin one of the things we know regardless of the consent decree review and you talk about some other other things as senator lee ever possibilities of the kidnapped the consent decree and there would be a problem not to have it from your perspective from a consumer standpoint but how about private enforcement of antitrust laws? even if doj is an competition issues private party can seek to address issues in the courts. do you see downsides to relying on private enforcement? >> guest senator. my concerned with private enforcement would be the parties bring the cases could likely be smaller or at least it would make it relatively easier for a very large company like a pandora or large broadcaster to bring a suit although that

itself would not be prudent but the little guys who would be nearly impossible for them because of the expense and also as a transparency is an issue here. part of the problem is that it's difficult to bring antitrust lawsuit against somebody you don't know that they are coordinating. >> very good. mr. dowdle dumont away and? >> frankly i don't know if there's a construct we can come up with then certainly it's problematic for small broadcaster like us. we are not very big frankly. for us to be left with a private antitrust enforcement against an entity such as ascap is not very appealing. talk about expense and that's not an expense spread over an industry. that is our expense and i just don't think we can do it not even talking about the little broadcasters that are smaller than we are. it's not even a practical possibility for them so i just don't think that's a workable

solution. >> i just wanted. i want to get people's views because that is then thrown out. do you see any changes to the dissent decrease that you think would work in the concerns have been raised here? >> i mention transparency. i think it's been mentioned by everybody and agreed upon by everybody. transparency has been historically a real problem. i know that because i used to license all of the music used in the intel commercials before he came to bonneville and four among other things. finding the songwriter and finding the record label that controls the rights was a real problem and without better use availability of data and use of the data i just don't think it's workable. >> okay, thank you. mr. pincus do you want to weigh in on this? >> a couple of things. first to transparency. i greet like the other panels

that that's a very important issue. i think the market is solving that issue. there is more data available in copyrights now than there ever has been and it's getting better on almost a daily basis not only at the independent level but they major level and quickly to another point about the blanket licensing system many of the arguments coming forward here are a good reason to preserve the licensing system. i agree with mr. dowdle that the television licensing system should operate on a blanket basis. the problem is it is attached by reports to the digital icing -- digital licensing policy. digital licensing is easier so it's a good argument for why partial withdrawal of right ought to be allowed to occur. >> mr. miller. >> well, that's one of the million technical questions that

is probably beyond my pay grade. i will say as far as transparency that i think would be relevant, if i have a hit song a million plays on terrestrial radio is a threshold. they send us a plaque at a million plays. if i have one of those every now and then i'm raising a family and we are doing okay. and now we are getting into a situation where we see these numbers on the number of 50,000,100,000,000 spans and the songwriters are shaking their heads saying what are you talking about? we can't even comprehend and understand it's a different medium and we can talk about the internet and we can talk about technology but a million plays we are smiling and taking the kids to movies 100 million plays is worth a few thousand dollars? we get transparency on that.

we see those numbers quite clearly. so i think that is what we can't emphasize enough, how is that fair and where is the middle ground? under those numbers if you move that ledger brown just a little bit doing what i do is a very profitable business because apparently music is more popular than it's ever been and i think everyone will tell you that. >> senator klobuchar and think it's important and as mr. miller talks about a million cents on terrestrial radio versus the internet and noted it's a different technology the internet delivery is a one-to-one delivery mechanism. it's not a one to many like broadcast so if you wanted to do a real apples-to-apples comparison if you were to take a million spends on pandora to reach a million people on for examples the 100 the largest radio station in new york city you only have to play that song 16 times. if you wanted to reach that same

million person audience in los angeles pay sfm the largest in los angeles you only need to play that song 21 times so it's important to contextualize what a million spends on pandora means relative to spends on a terrestrial radio broadcast. >> thank you. >> senator blumenthal. >> thank you senator lee. i have a question for mr. dowdle. in your testimony you talk about i think both the value of the consent decrees generally and about the harm it could be caused of composers and publishers could withdraw from some other rights. you didn't address the two changes that ascap and bmi have proposed to the decrees to arbitration. could you give us your view of those proposals? >> yes senator blumenthal. thank you.

i think you are out of the room i did address arbitration. arbitration is a poor if even they second choice of poor second choice to the system we have now for these reasons. with an arbitrator you don't know who you are going to end up whether you know anything about the industry and what you do know with the rate courts we have is these courts have deep experience and a lot of history with these consent decrees. they understand the underlying dynamic that's going on. that's first. second in the federal courts you have a lot of tools available. mr. harrison talked about this in discovering information and getting that information from the tribunal. having both sides able to engage in that process freely and openly so the full panoply of information is in front of the

communal. with an arbitrator you don't necessarily have that and i think substituting arbitration for what we have now is not a good solution in my opinion. as to other licenses from my standpoint and i mentioned earlier i'm a member of ascap and have been for over 20 years i have owned music companies and i think there is maybe something to look at there in allowing these pros to administer additional rights. their competitors are certainly doing that. csac is able to, global rights are able to end ascap and bmi are going to compete we should look at that. >> let me ask ms. matthews if you had your choice would you abolish the consent decree or just make reforms to it? >> i'm sorry if i had my choice what i abolish the consent decree?

>> or would you abolish the consent decree or just reform? >> in a perfect world i would illuminate the consent decree. our immediate concern is keeping high-value writers and publishers in the system because of the system goes away everybody loses. licensees lose because they will not have access to millions of copyrights to clear it wants through a blanket agreement. consumers lose because once the money stops flowing or once the song stopped flowing the money will stop flowing but we are mostly concerned about songwriters because they are simply not going to be capable of licensing 700,000 establishments in the united states millions of establishments outside of the united states which means they will not get paid and their works will be in friends. >> why do you think -- i think i know the answer but why would eliminating the consent decrees be preferable in

a perfect world? >> because ascap believes the free market works without regulation. we think you get to the right result and is copyright owners we believe at the core of our laws this principle that you should control your assets whether it's a real property asset or intellectual property assets. you should have control is that owner. the consent decrees take that control away. >> thank you. thanks mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator tillis. >> mr. harrison you made an interesting point about the one-to-one relationship of streamers versus broadcast. in your opinion today and i think mr. miller's concerned about being unjustly compensated in your opinion when he normalized that weighty feel like the streamers are justly compensated?

>> tandoor is the highest paid form of radio there is. we pay more than terrestrial or satellite radio. i think the best performing song by mr. miller on pandora is country girl which i believe was recorded by tim mcgraw. last year 2014 pandora would have paid around $7000 to mr. miller. his two writers in the six publishers list on that song candidly pandora would have paid close to $90,000 to mr. mcgraw and his record label. i understand the disparity is a motivating factor for mr. miller and mr. pincus and ms. matthews to seek to modify the consent decrees but at the end of the day if tandoor is paying 50% of its revenue to the publishers i

can't make that up in quality. if there is going to be if the disparity is going to be solved is going to have to be solved by the copyright owners themselves back in services like pandora. >> i have a general question for anyone who would like to speak up. mr. harrison was talking about this database to increase transparency and senator hatch mentioned it. in your opinion is that a good idea or a bad idea? what are your concerns are what are the merits and let me start with ms. matthies and run down the line. >> as i stated earlier ascap supports transparency. they most recently made modifications to our own proprietary system which is available to the public. >> ms. matthies would you have a concern with the concept of what mr. harrison is proposed or do you feel like your already achieving its existing? i'm trying to get a sense for this net new idea and whether you have a specific concern with

it and for what reasons if you do? >> my specific concern would be practically how one would require cooperation throughout the entire sector especially with unregulated actors, our competitors. i know that ascap and bmi are fully willing to cooperate but i worry that if others don't completely cooperate licensees will never have access to the full picture of data that is required. >> mr. harrison you mentioned in your comments, do you have anything you would like to add in terms of your rationale for its? >> i think the transparency and certainly we know the database exists. we know that the publishers in the pros assign unique identifiers to be works. mr. pincus had made his catalogue publicly available. i've already downloaded and sent it to our engineer so we can put it in our system so we can understand what songs are

controlled by songs but the transparency piece has to go far enough to allow us to understand that not just the owner of the song but also what sound recordings have been made of that song. >> mr. pincus? spin that this is one of the issues in which mr. harrison and i agree in terms of the open availability of data trade my position however is that the market has taken care of that problem and where the market can take care that problem it's better that regulation take care of that problem. one area where we disagree is i understand mr. harrison's comment about not being able to pay 50% of each party but i would also say i'm not sure that i i feel as a small-business owner it's my responsibility to subsidize a public company. >> mr. dowdle. >> thank you senator. yes think it is problematic.

i believe ms. ms. matthies is corrected as problematic for everyone involved but with ascap and bmi controlling 90% let's start there. let's start at 90%. that's a pretty good place to start in if you get the other actors in peace mail that's okay but let's start with 90% of the work goes. >> mr. pincus and ms. matthies can speak without much better than me on the technicalities. i will clarify mr. harrison's comment come is called southern girl not country girl and that's important. it would be $7000 split six ways. i got 6% of $7000 that's the number one song by tim mcgraw. >> i agree living forward and trying to figure out what that would look like and how to get as much information as possible is important. there are a lot of details a lot of factors have been talking about there including the copyright office who has looked into this issue.

i would say i do not think the market is handling that right now. right now if you look at the biggest licensors you may be able to at least download a list of all of the songwriters are all the songs in the catalog but there is no guarantee that is what they currently control. it's more of come at some point this was our catalog but we will not promise you that is what is in it on the day that your license which brings up huge liability concerns for somebody trying to enter the market. >> mr. pincus? >> with respect to my business it's not the case. we are approximating open data close to a real-time basis is practical. my understanding is at least one of the natures has disclosed all the information including shares. >> thank you all for testifying and thank you mr. chair. >> thank you senator tillis. senator blumenthal. >> i don't have any additional questions, thank you.

>> mr. harrison. we have got two different types of royalties that end up getting paid in some circumstances. i want to establish under the consent decrees and another established under the crv under the copyright royalty board. those established under the latter as i understand them are substantially higher than those established under the former so you have got one set of royalties that go to those that wrote the song and another set of royalties they go to those who recorded this song. why should there be a substantial difference between these two rates? >> well senator i think as i mentioned earlier i don't believe tandoor is in the best

position to value the relative contributions of the song versus the recording. i think that's probably better left to publishers and songwriters and artists and labels. having said that you now if you go back to the early copyright proceedings what you had was executives of companies that owned both record labels and music publishers who argued that the rates that should be paid to perform a sound recording should be higher than the rate that was paid to a music publisher because according to these executives the record labels invest significantly more in bringing new music to the market. as i said i am not in a good position to make those relative value judgments. at the end of the day the copyright owners themselves have made those arguments. >> now at the department of justice decides to allow partial withdrawal likely it will

impose other requirements of the pros. including increased transparency transparency, changes to board membership and some of these things that have been mentioned earlier in the hearing. in your opinion will additional safeguards be sufficient to ensure competitive market of publishers can partially withdraw? >> without seeing the details of not just what the suggestions are but the language intended to be used it's hard to judge prospectively. but i remain confident that the department isn't going to do things that result in less competition in the market. >> i certainly hope they wouldn't do that. but do you think those things would be sufficient? >> as i said without seeing a full list of what the department would propose and then actually read what language is used to implement them it's tough to

have an informed opinion. >> okay. mr. dowdle, whenever we consider the potential increase in prices in one market it's important to consider its potential effect on related markets. in this case related markets might include not only other music licenses but such as performance rights for sound recordings but also prices at restaurants at bars and at stores that play music. what effect might increase rates have on prices further music licenses or poor for goods associated with basic? >> i think as we take a look at what is really happening in those fairly rare instances where actors in the market are negotiating with each other and there are couple of those that

have been recorded in the last couple of years. you have at least one major label who has entered into an agreement where prices have been at play for many of those things. we don't know all of them because they are not particularly transparent with all of that information but the reports that have been received archer there is an equalizing in those deals of different prices for different rights throughout that deal. i think that's very instructive. the market itself as mr. harrison has alluded to the market itself one allowed to operate in those instances is able to equalize those rates. there will be an effect but i just don't know what i can foresee in the future what that effect will be. there clearly will be an effect. if you untagged one rate there will be an effect on other rates. it's ironic that the provision

in the copyright act that ascap has complained about at this point was actually placed in that regime at their request. now they want to unpack it because they don't like the way it's operating presently. but i think if you do unpack it be careful what you wish for. >> yeah. a good observation. i understand your songwriter and you have a long career in music before your time in broadcasting broadcasting. in that respect it that respect it come with a unique set of perspectives to this panel. let me just ask you, do you think the consent decrees as written are necessary to preserve the benefits of our system or do you think they could be achieved outside of the decrees? >> what i can say is i believe the system has worked. now all the parties have taken their turn in various scenarios

coming to the tribunal says they are set up now and taking advantage of those forums and arguing whatever issues they have on the consent decrees. those consent decrees have been proven more or less to work over at period that spans more than 70 years. playing with taking those systems down were fundamentally changing them we have to be looking at it very carefully, very cautiously. it is a system that has been working. i don't know what we would be looking at. it's hard to say hypothetically whether something that would be replacing them would be better or not. all i can say is they are working and i hesitate to change something that has historically been working. >> i would assume it's not just unknown, it's unknowable whether that could be achieved outside of the decree until we know what the other it is. >> exactly right senator. >> thank you.

i'm going to keep the record for this hearing open for one week and that will include keeping it open for written questions. i want to thank all of our witnesses for coming today. this has been a very helpful hearing and your testimony has brought a lot of insight to the table on this important and pretty complex issue. i thank senator klobuchar also for her help in putting this together and this hearing stands adjourned. thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] him next week the senate is

expected to debate the nomination of loretta lynch for u.s. attorney general and joining us with "cq roll call" is todd ruger. he has been reporting on the nomination as it has been making its way around capitol hill. you have an article lynch attorney general nomination he were writing about senate majority leader mitch mcconnell announcing the senate's plans to deal with alleged nomination. what are the next steps here? >> guest: well that's right. the next step is the floor. her nomination was reported out of the senate judiciary committee on february 26 so it's been waiting for a little bit to get to the floor and brought up and mitch mcconnell and the answer that question saying he was going to deal with that that's the next logical step is to bring it to the floor to have it both. >> host: last month the senate judiciary committee approved

this 12-8. three republicans joining in that approval. those republicans included jeff flake orin hatch and lindsey graham and your colleague david hawkings sent out a tweet writing that lynch has 50 votes plus the vice president today. here's how she may become attorney general just one more than ashcroft's record low. so what's going on there? >> guest: well most people think loretta lynch has the votes to be confirmed when she gets to the floor. she does need a majority of votes so that would be 50. right now susan collins of main has said that she would also support clinches nomination and that's not surprising. she does support a lot of obama's nominees when they get to the floor. then there are a number of other republican senators who do tend to vote along with obama nominees who could possibly add to that total of 50. but if no other republicans

decide to vote for loretta when she would have the three committee pluses and collins and i would make 50 in addition to the 46 democrats and independents met who are strongly supportive of loretta lynch and at that point there were to be a tie vice president joe biden could come down to the senate in break the tie and he would be voting for loretta lynch. >> host: what reasons have senators given to say they're opposed her nomination? >> guest: she is a very qualified individual according to almost everybody. she is a lifelong prosecutor and she worked in a law firm. she spent a lot of her career at the eastern district of new york prosecuting federal crimes. she was the u.s. attorney there now and so everybody seems to think she is qualified. the problem republicans have with her nomination is that some of the answer she gave to questions after hearing particularly on immigration.

she backed up the obama administration and the doj legal interpretation that they have the authority to make some pretty broad changes to the immigration policies that would bring -- though it would stop deportation for millions of legal immigrants who are here in the country. a lot of the republicans say they can't back up. they don't agree with that interpretation they can't back up an attorney general who would do that. it's not only a policy thing though. they also say that show she wouldn't stand up to obama and wouldn't be as independent as they would like to see an attorney general because the attorney general is representing the american citizens, not representing obama so those are the things they have said in the hallways and a committee meetings on why they oppose her. >> host: democrats in outside groups have been lobbying for this to make it to the floor of the senate for debate in a vote

what kind of lobbying strategies have they been using and what have they been saying? >> guest: here are one of the remarkable things about her nomination right now. it's been pending for over 120 some days. it could be close to 130 by the time he gets a vote which is longer than any of the last five attorney general nominees. that's something that the democrats are pointing out. they are continually pointing it out and that's adding pressure just for republicans to set a date for this vote. they have refused the accused the republicans of slow walking through committee and now they are wondering why this isn't coming up for a vote. there were a lot of questions and a lot of tweets from lawmakers and last week majority leader o'connell don't think he caved tedious to that on his own timeframe but he is ready to go now. >> host: we will stay posted

and see what happens is coming weekend. todd thanks much for the inside and we will let people know that they want to continue following your tweets they can find you at todd ruger and your web site's cq.com for more reporting. >> guest: thank you. >> the u.s. special representative for the arctic spoke at the brookings institution yesterday about climate change and melting polar icecaps. he took questions for about an hour. >> good morning everybody. welcome. my name is bruce jones. i am the interim foreign-policy

at brookings and i'm happy to welcome you here today. before you begin i would like to acknowledge and thank charlie ebinger and tim from our energy security initiative to organize today's event. i would also like to acknowledge and thank the commander who is a fellow on the coast guard here at brookings who has been a terrific colleague over the last several months. admiral i know you are going to steal them back from us soon but i hope we might borrow them back sometime down the road. as all of you know in april the united states will assume the chairmanship of the arctic council for two years. we go back about five years i would say there were two things are richer. one in all frankness not that many people i've heard of the arctic council and two people who are writing about the arctic council were writing about it and saber rattling terms.

this was about to become the new area of tension and security in clashes between those dangers nations, the canadians and others. i am canadian among other things so i can say that. and of course the most dire predictions about how things would evolve in the arctic have not come true and an important piece of the story has been a deinstitutionalization in the development of the arctic council. of course things are changing fast from the arctic region. one of our board members described it as the next emerging market. since 1979 we have seen a 40% reduction in the ice coverage. that's having important impacts on communities, on wildlife and is changing the pattern of fisheries but of course even more substantially it's meant that since 2007 the northwest passage is open year-round release for countries that have capabilities.

and of particular importance is opening up new prospects in terms of oil and gas developments and huge levels of reserves particularly for russia driving a sense of potential for the region but of course challenges in terms of where that energy lies and claimants to it. it's a region without any question of strategic and economic importance to the united states but also to india, japan, to china and of course to russia. we are therefore delighted to have admiral john papp here to talk to us about these issues. the admiral was appointed in july 2014 at a special representative for the arctic. he is the 24th commander of the coast guard. he has had an illustrious 39 year career in the coast guard, the graduate of the coast guard academy,, two master's degree

one in securities study and one in management and is a coast coast guard officer he has served on six ships commanding for them including what i'm informed as the u.s. government only active ship the coast guard training ship eagle. i'm also reliably informed that on the ship he is free only found in the sales inspecting the rigging. not just a leader but a leader held in higher regard than the coast guard and his colleagues and the rest in defense and security community. it seems to me extremely appropriate to have a sailor service are represented to the arctic subcommittee so we are delighted to have you here and thank you very much for your service and thank you for joining us here today. the floor is yours. [applause] >> good morning ladies and gentlemen. what a great crowd. this is wonderful. i feel great. i think i met here at brookings when i was a commandant.

i know canadians pronounce things a little bit different. actually i have been introduced as the 24th commandment. [laughter] i know the first 12 commandments. i'm not sure what happened to the ones in between but i thought at the time the 24th commandment, that's a great title. i like that. but thanks for the introduction and yes canada is one of those dangerous places. in fact i remember going a couple of years ago they brought a bunch of us up to the foreign relations committee in the senate. secretary kerry was the chairman at that time and we did a hearing on the log to see. we might want to talk about the love the sea the sea at some point this morning but at that particular event somebody talk to me and said one of the senators said we don't need ac

to the law of the sea treaty. we can do anything we want and i gave as an example between the yukon territory and alaska there's a segment that is gray because united states and canada has not been able to agree on a board of their. the senator said you can't tell me by -- that we can't come to an agreement with canada. it's true, we can't and do still exist today although many might want to touch on that because i think are interesting developments in terms of continental shelf claims that we could talk about. it's great to be here at brookings. i feel good because all my basic needs have been taking care of. i was served a hot breakfast. i had coffee and they brought in a team over breakfast to warm me up with a lot of challenging questions so i feel ready to go. as i look around the room i'm also a little concerned because i see so many faces that i've seen in so many other places and you start after while losing track of who you have spoken to and what sea stories you have

told and whatever else. there's one other thing i have to correct that i can't take jason back. i'm no longer the commandant of the coast guard said the current commandant may be concerned about him coming back. you can keep them as far as i'm concerned. [laughter] drew pierce, where are you? senator pierce from alaska. thanks for being at the hearing last week in front of senator murkowski's committee. true has heard my story many times so i will have to watch and make sure i don't do any repeats this morning. because there are so many people that i've have heard me talk another opinions -- venues i thought it would take a different course and i will start off with an alaska story. back last fall i went up to alaska for my second series of listening sessions. we rented city of kotzebue and there was an alaska native who got up to talk to us. my recollection his name was -- he says subsistence hunter and

he's involved with marine mammals very articulate and interesting individual but he was talking about the challenges of washington coming up and telling alaskans what to do etc. etc. an example used was he said one of the department sent the seau expert appear to talk to us us. it kaluza it is a seal hunter and it has been in his culture and his tribe for thousands of years. as i looked out across the bay i could understand why. everywhere he looked you could see the heads of seals and the alaska natives revere them. it's a part of their culture. they use it for food for furs and other things. it's a part of their life so the seau expert came up from washington and came in to speak to a group of men. when he was introduced as the seau expert ikalusa looked at

him and he said so you are the seau expert. how many seals have you eat? i like to tell that story because as i've gone and started talking about the arctic i find i find i can usually classify people to seal hunters and seau experts. there are an awful lot of people in between some who are sincerely interested in the arctic and others that couldn't care less about the arctic and hopefully during our chairmanship the arctic council will be able to bring more those people into that category of people who are interested in the arctic. i found it's very important to listen to the seal hunters and i use that as a metaphor. they're certain people that is spent a lot of time in the arctic that are interested in it and they are passionate about it. in the city i find a lot of people who are seau experts.

i was in a meeting the other day or preparing to go into meeting at the state department and a young staffer came up to me and she said admiral i'm so excited about meeting you. she said i'm passionate about the arctic. there's so much work to be done and she went on and on. fine i said when is the last time you visited the arctic? i have never been there but i'm passionate about it. i have watched the nature channel etc. and there's so much that needs to be done up there. that can be excused. it's great for youth and young people to be interested and have that passion because we need more of that in this country particularly as we address the arctic. where i'm concerned is when senior leaders are not necessarily bear in that seau expert category. at a senate hearing last week

there were a couple of senators who had very legitimate good questions. there were others on the panel who almost have to establish their credibility first. one of them and i know ambassador gerhardt are you still here from iceland? there he is. in fact i looked at him because one of big senators to establish credibility said well my wife traveled to iceland once. they have a very nice country then i turned around and i looked at the ambassador and use their. you know at that point they have some sort of very shallow interest or knowledge about the arctic and yet here they are making decisions. another one mentioned the alaskans who were in attendance that he visited alaska once. i checked later on and i'm told and i can't confirm this with one of the senators told me he took a cruise to alaska once so therefore establishes credibility in terms of understanding alaska. i would never put myself in the

category of the seal hunter. i respect the seal hunters. i respect our alaska natives and i've learned a lot from them. i would say i'm in that category of people that's interested that is concerned about the arctic and i have a limited amount of knowledge. i started out my coast guard career in alaska. i was let us say academically challenged at the academy and in those days we selected our first assignment based upon your class standing. there were not many choices left when it came down to me. i saw a ship in alaska and i said that looks exciting. a kid from connecticut going to alaska and the ship is home ported in a place called adak alaska. i did not wear a. i didn't know where adak was but it sounded exciting. so i went back to my room and i broke out a great big atlas open

it up and believe me, do this. open up and atlas and usually alaska will cover two pages in the atlas. except at the bottom there's an insert that has part of the alaska peninsula and the first couple islands of the aleutian chain's and another cover that covers the nexus of the aleutian chain. suffice to say my fiancé at the time was not too pleased however after going out to adak that got us off to great start in terms of our marriage and she is with me 39 years later so it probably was a good experience. professionally was a great experience. i learned a lot about being a sailor and alaska. first of all you have to deal with what i call the tyranny of time and distance and we are still challenge without today.

going back to my coast guard position the nearest air station that can fly helicopters for search-and-rescue in the north slope is 850 miles away in kodiak alaska. that is tyranny of time and distance. when you are sailing ships out there and you have to refuel and the nearest port is 800 or 900 miles away that you can get two for fuel it causes you to be cautious and concerned and then the weather you have to deal with up there. i have seen the worst sustained whether of my entire career was during my first two years in alaska. i've seen whether in the caribbean the last 2448 hours. they call them hurricanes down there. the same weather conditions in the bering sea they call normal weather during the wintertime and at last for weeks on end. so the challenge is that i faced

serving and learning as a sailor up and alaska stayed with me my entire career and drove me to be very interested 36 years later when i became a commandant of the coast guard. of course at that time it was almost forced upon us because there were a lot of coast guard equities involved in the opening of the arctic and we began a process of coming up with the coast guard arctic strategy. at the end of that and after trying to campaign for resources to better prepare our country for what was happening in the arctic i was about to retire on may 30 of last year. secretary john kerry called me and asked me if i might come to the state department to coordinate activities in preparation for the arctic council and i didn't even hesitate. asked to serve the country by a senior official of the government in an area that i was passionate about there is no

decision involved. i automatically said yes and here i am seven or eight months later and i'm very happy with that decision and very excited about the prospect of us taking him the chairmanship in another month here. so as i came into the job the big task was organizing our u.s. program for the arctic. but i was pleased to find was there was an awful lot of work that had transpired in preparation. in fact if nothing else what we have to do was pare it down a little bit packages and market it was the way i describe it. we went about that process. there was something called the arctic policy group the apg that works across the interagency and consults with alaska. we have seen arctic official julie gourley who has been working on that job for 10 years. she has a lot of good contacts not only with the other countries but also with groups and alaska. what i found during my career as

an officer as a ship captain is one of the most important things you do in terms of developing policy programs were carrying out a mission as you listen to people. we set about the business of listening to others informing our program and packaging it together. we came up with a rough idea first of all for a theme which is one arctic, shared opportunities, challenges and responsibilities. if nothing else comes across during her chairmanship that's the theme i want everybody to remember because it is one arctic not just shared by the eight countries of the arctic council but it's a part of our world and the things that go on in the arctic impact the rest of the world. we want to to develop an interest in other countries about the arctic as well. and then we have this collection of projects literally scores of projects that we could choose from and we started lumping them into categories. one that appealed to me as a former commandant of the coast guard was arctic ocean safety

security and stewardship. in fact it's a theme we use within the coast guard but it's really the components of maritime governance. when you look at the arctic, when you look down from the pole which is a view of the earth that not too many people look at what you see is the predominant feature is an the notion. a lot of it's covered by ice. in fact there are certain times when it's all covered with ice that it's opening up. their new maritime routes that are developing and it's exciting and i think it's going to change the world in the way we conduct commerce over time. but once again i maritime environment and the first responsibility of a maritime nation is to provide for the safety and security of mariners and ships that will approach its shores and have to transit have graced the capability navigation and other things in order to assure safety of navigation and navigation and maritime trade

contributes to prosperity of the country. maritime trade and commerce will contribute to the prosperity of alaska and the arctic. it's already happening in other portions of the arctic and we need to be prepared for it as we go along. we are heavy on the emphasis on arctic ocean safety security and stewardship. hopefully everybody has read some of the details of those programs. search-and-rescue and exercised in the search-and-rescue agreement. we are going to besides exercising the bahrain oil spill preparedness and response agreement that was executed by the arctic circle countries and another of the -- a number of other projects that we will move forward. the second category is improving the economic and living conditions of the people of the north. a series of projects to go from renewable energy all the way to a rep review of telecommunication capabilities within the arctic. and in the third is adapting to

climate change. very important. we are not going to cure climate change within the arctic council but we need to draw attention to the effects of climate change and also come up with ways to mitigate and adapt to it to hopefully protect the environment of the arctic to demonstrate to the rest of the world that what goes on and the rest of the world affects the arctic and what's happening in the arctic affects the rest of the world. people in boston massachusetts and people in washington d.c. in fact probably don't need to be reminded that some of those changes that are occurring are drastically changing our weather patterns. i'm not sure that we can change that in the short-term at least but we need to be about the business of thinking how they can do that also helping people that do live within that environment to adapt to it. so we lumped those things together in that order and set about the process i talked about, listening to people in first and foremost the most important place to go to us

alaska. last august our team went up to alaska and we met with the full range of people starting first of all with our alaskan natives in various venues. we met with environmental groups, other ngos. we met with the oil industry. we met with alaska legislators and everything in between. we took their input, went back to washington, refined our program a little bit and sent it up to secretary kerry for his at least conceptual approval. having received his conceptual approval we took the program back to alaska. it coincided with an event called weekend at the arctic and we have listening sessions and -- [audio difficulties] there we go, okay there we go. so we went to gnome and additional listening sessions

and brought that back and further refine their program. we had projected that i wasn't going to speak publicly about the program until we have done those listening sessions. i can't remember the exact date but there was an event that heather connolly at csis had scheduled which was passing the torch between canada and the united states and that was to be my first opportunity to speak publicly about our arctic council program. until i was asked by other leadership to speak at another event the center for american progress, on the day before the csis event so i sort of use those as markers. for those of you who are familiar with the center for american progress they have in environs of and when i spoke to them afterwards they said you got it you recognize the importance of climate and he recognized the importance of the

environment. a little strong on the security and safety stuff on the other side but it's okay. it looks like a balanced program. i went to csis the next day and spoke to them and they said you know you've got that the security stuff, the arctic ocean safety and everything else. you are a little strong the climate change and environment but it's a good balance program. i figured okay we hit the sweet spot. we are doing good here. and that has followed through across-the-board as we have gone around and spoken to groups. so the next step was to take it internationally. so it coincided at that time was something called arctic circle. the arctic circle event was being held at reykjavík iceland. that's the first time i met investor -- ambassador gerhardt when i was in reykjavík in my first opportunity to speak publicly in front of a large group. talk about interest in the

arctic. 1300 people from 39 countries in reykjavík iceland and really lousy weather, no offense sir what it was rainy. it was cold. it was blowing 40 knots. we were walking into a headwind from the hotel but it was very invigorating. it certainly helped to get me even more excited about this program and it also gave me the opportunity to do a lot of bilateral meetings with folks that had come in. we were fined a program once again and did another briefing to secretary kerry and recently about a month ago i went on another trip to go to the rest of the border countries. we started out in sweden. we went to norway to an event called arctic frontiers. once again another opportunity to speak to a large group another group of about 1300 or so people from 39 or 40 countries seeing representatives

from around the world and once again an opportunity to talk about our u.s. program. from norway we went to copenhagen that was not only the danes but the greenlanders as well to get their perspective. went from there to finland and not only did we meet in helsinki with a full range of activities but we also traveled north to meet with a salami parliament to meet with one of our permanent observers in the arctic council. then most importantly we finished up that trip by going to moscow and i will talk more about that in just a moment but very productive meeting. it was the first senior-level meeting of the u.s. representative in moscow since the imposition of the sanctions so was this a good was this significant event not just for the arctic council but for the united states as well and i'll be happy to entertain questions on that when we get into it.

so there is an awful lot of listening going on and what i would say is it's broken down into a couple of themes. the first theme being this theme of balance finding the sweet spot and as i said i have spoken to an awful lot of groups similar to this diverse groups. brookings tends to have a very balanced view of things more centrist so perhaps this program resonates. we have tried to make it a balance program to try to reflect all of the needs there. the second comment i gets most constantly when i briefed this to groups, to the press and in particular to the other seven countries is almost immediate response is wow that's rather ambitious. and it is. i will lay claim to our united states program probably the most

forward-leaning ambitious program that has ever been proposed during a chairmanship of the arctic council. i think that's the way it should be. leadership our leadership is setting the bar high setting goals and measuring process toads -- towards those goals and that is what we'd intended to appear while everybody else says it's a rather ambitious program there is one dissenter. every time i briefed us to secretary kerry he says are you sure we are doing enough? can we do more? perhaps we found the sweet spot there as well. the third thing that comes up frequently that came up in the session this morning is why doesn't the united states support the arctic economic council? the arctic economic council or the aec as it's referred to was one of canada's initiatives and i think a very good initiative. the focus of the arctic council since its inception has been

environmental protection and sustainable development. so we have plenty of representation on the environmental protection side. if we want sustainable development it seems do we -- it seems to me we need to let industry know what the standards are. we need responsible sustainable development within the arctic and the arctic economic council i believe the setup to facilitate that. i think where the united states where this misperception occurs about the united states not supporting the arctic in common council is we have some disagreements on exactly how we ought to employ our participation and i would say now that i have had a chance to dissect because of all this feedback about the perception of us not supporting it i have had a chance to get into a little bit and what i've found is that eight countries you have a different approach is just like you have eight different forms of government literally as you look across it. for our form of government in the united states and united

states government does not own industries. now some of the industries that are represented from other countries are at least partially or wholly-owned by the state. there's a state interest in helping those countries and their to be able to develop things within the arctic. we took a different approach. first of all because of our culture. once again our government does not own industries. secondly if we start getting too close with industry we start running into federal advisory committee rules that have to be complied with. so our choice whether you like it or don't like it our choice early on was to turn this over to the chamber of commerce in alaska and the chamber of commerce selected three alaskan companies to be our representatives to aec and the aec has only just had its first meeting. so i think there are going to be

some dispute on how the aec should be used. there will be questions about how we employ it. there will be questions about how much influence should have an arctic council activities. should have different status from our observer groups? i don't know but what i'm saying is it's still a work in progress. the united states fully embraces it and we continue it. we thank canada for starting it but there is more to come on that. the next thing that came up most frequently is are we going to talk to russia? i will just leave it at that. obviously well obviously i was sent to moscow. we are talking with russia and it's very important what we do. everything within the arctic council is done within consensus. one country can break consensus and we don't take on a project so it's very important to keep russia in the fold not just for the arctic council but other things going on in the world.

the next to the last thing that is repeated frequently as we are excited about united states leadership. and i like that. i have found that. one of the things that is the most gratifying to me is america, when i travel overseas either as the commandant of the coast guard are in this position it's the respect that the united states gets wherever we go. it's be looking to us for leadership wherever we go. i can be at an event here in washington and i'm seated in the back of the room. if i go to tromso norway or reykjavík iceland they gave me a seat of honor up front. regardless of where we are in the program people stop and they listen. it's not because it's papp it's because of the united states be the last item i will bring up here is along with that being excited about united states

leadership they question our commitment. they want to know are you really committed to the arctic? and fortunately or unfortunately what they look at is commitment of resources. one of the questions i frequently get is you guys can't even buy an icebreaker. are you really committed to the arctic if you can't buy an icebreaker? yet the russians have more than two dozen. china is building an icebreaker and south korea's building an icebreaker. other countries are building icebreakers and i do want is to say we are focusing just on icebreakers. they're other of the structure needs as well but we need to be about the business of committing resources. ..

>> despite the grand plan you have outlined that the government has for the chairmanship of the arctic counsel. there are a number of crossed signals coming from the administration particularly if you are an alaskan resident. we are concerned about the taps pipeline capacity dropping rapidly and the need to find

additional oil reserves to have that vital asset continue to operate and yet we have seen the administration take large swaths of alaska out of any consideration for future oil development in anwar and the coastal plain. do you think we really do have a coherent in washington and i am saying washington, not blaming the administration, but do you have any coherence in the country on whether we see alaska as a land of opportunity and abundance for the future of the nation or the other view of close it off and make it all a national park. >> i will admit in listening and speaking to alaskans senators held a hearing last week on the day the government was shutdown

before the energy committee in the senate and i think they could not bear the risk of shutting that down. we are getting attention to it and there are alaskans on the panel with me and they brought up those same concerns. and i guess what i would say is part of our challenge is raising the visibility of the arctic. as we sit her right in this spot we are 3,500 miles from the northern most point of the united states right there in the center of the arctic. 3,500 miles and a lot of canada in between. so it is not a connection between the american people and the arctic. we only have 50000 americans who live above the arctic circle

in northern alaska. i think most alaskans, the rest of the state also have a connection to the arctic and they understand it. but it is not a large population. and someone mentioned earlier this morning, in fact i meant to comment on it it was one of the coast guard officers talked about being a maritime nation. i have had a hard time convincing people we are a maritime nation muchless an arctic nation. but we are. it has been recently with the opening of the waters we developed the center. and that is why we are excited about it. there is a changing climate opening up waters and there are needs there. but they are new needs and new starts. anything in washington that is a new start is very difficult to sell. so in terms of resourcing we all know the pressure on the federal budget over the last

decade or so and it is hard to get those in there. in terms of policy decisions, i think that part of our program is a very active and strong and robust public diplomacy effort which we will hope will raise the awareness of the american people and they are going to be at significant meetings held in alaska and some held in washington and we hope to bring senior leaders from around the world including some of the senior leadership from washington. some of the seal experts and bring them to alaska and teach them a little bit about it so that we can raise awareness. and then and only then i think will people take into consideration the full range of opinions and issues when they make policy decisions that affect the country broadly like that. >> we will go to the floor.

there are roamicng mikes. if you would identify yourself and please ask a question. i have one in the very back of the room >> my name is meredith sandler with sandler trade, llc. i was the state of alaska representative within the u.s. delegation from 1991-1992 and the last time the u.s. had the chairmanship and did all of the things you described. for one, admiral, i appreciate what you said. i am a ten year resident of alaska and worked for the alaskan governor tony knolls for seven years. and he would say with a nudge in the back if not for alaska the united states would not be in the arctic counsel or need arctic policy. clearly it has evolved and this

room is incredible that so many people are here but my question is i appreciate the listening but where are the alaskans the alaska governor's office in the policy making part of this? not just to be listened to. but to be an intergral representative to the delegation to the arctic counsel and what your you are talking about and a policy voice that has an equal voice. as we would say in alaska all of the feds. >> obviously as you referred to as the listening and i referred to it as listening that is consultation in a more formal term and we will keep that going. i see the alaskan legislatures here in washington on a frequent

bases. and i will keep our two senators and representatives here as well. every time we get alaskans in they stop by the state department and spend time with me. i have not had a chance to get back up there to alaska but i think we can understand with the preparations we have had going on with the arctic counsel which is an international body as you know, i am speaking for the rest of the room folks on international issues it is not within our portfolio to be dealing with domestic issues. those are the responsibility of other departments within our government. and as i said part of our program is this public diplomacy effort which in my heart i hope will raise the awareness of american people who use the

arctic counsel chairmanship as a means to get to the goal i advocate advocated for the last four or five years that we need to invest in the infrastructure in alaska. the consultation goes on and we brought an alaskan native on as chief of staff to ambassador balton. and within the alaska party commission and they are providing great input to us. we have been a little frustrated trying to setup a panel of experts to consult with from alaska natives. we are trying to find the right device for doing that. the right contract whatever it might be to make a more formal arrangement between us and consulting with alaskan natives.

at the end of the day where do we put the alaskans into this organization? once again it is an international thing that is a federal function. we appreciate the input and they sit in on the arctic policy group and that will continue. how do we more formally involve them? i know craig flynn is coming up as the new governor representative for the arctic. and we will continue to engage as much as we can. >> there in the middle. thank you. >> thank you just a question. starting with russia first. to the point of the pumping more oil and you had talked about that so if you can say more along the line and isn't the

increased nuclear activity in russia positive for the u.s.? the second question is if you could explain the ice breakers and what is your opinion on that? there was news on another day about possible international corporation in the u.s. -- having u.s. ace ice breaking capability and inthe minimum level you should have. >> okay. russia. one of the things the united states is deeply appreciative is that the the other arctic countries that stood shoulder-to-shoulder together in terms of their opposition to the

unlawful incursion in the crane and they all adopted the sanctions and supported the sanctions and we are a country are grateful for that. one thing we are also in agreement on is the seven other arctic countries, the united states and the other six minus russia, all believe that we should for the good of the arctic for the environment and other important issues we need to keep russia in the fold and keep communications open. we are all committed to that. i have relayed the message that the military rhetoric the actions by the russians in ukraine are not helpful to keeping that line of communication open but we remain committed to doing that.

and i think and i know secretary kerry's belief and the president's belief and something i understand intuitively is no situation is made better by cutting off communication. it is very important to communicate, not just for things we want to do in the arctic but to help other situations as well. we are committed to maintaining that line of communication as as it stapedes. military buildup. i don't know if you are touching on military buildup in the arctic. there has been a lot of rhetoric there as well. i was told by run russian when i said that rhetoric is not helpful and he said military people are going to be military people and say what they say. i am trying very hard to make sure either through our intelligence programs or otherwise to find where the reality is in terms of

capabilities. one person can look at what is going in terms of military buildup and have an awful long border along the arctic and if you have increased maritime traffic you should have search facilities and modern airports and things i would like to see as maritime activity increases. one person's search and rescue's response capability and another person's military buildup. i saw a couple news stories when i was appointed into this job saying the united states was not going to militarize the arctic because they selected an admiral to be their representative. it is hard to determine intent. intent is sort of a gamble. what you need to look at is capabilities. what are they actually building.

we are keeping an eye on that. some of it is rightful legit things that should be built because there is appear increase in maritime traffic. they are building ice breakers. i wish we were building ice breakers. last week's hearing senator capnt well called for information unt the studies out there. i cannot keep track of what the numbers are and what i told the senator is we get wrapped up talking about how many we should have and it would seem we need to come to agreement on we need one and should start building it. we have not devoted the money to building the first ice breaker. so i would be happy to see a start of a first ice breaker much les all of the other things. in the absence of that people are coming forward. commercial activities are saying

we will build you an ice breaker and lease it back to the government. all are other countries that might volunteer. part of the arctic counsel and what we might work at and i think as we work forward in search and rescue for instance we want to take that search and rescue agreement and exercise it now because no one country can provide all of resources that are necessary to take care of a major maritime disaster so let's inventory what we have and see how we can work together and share responses. maybe the ice breakers are out there and there is a way to cooperate between the countries. i hate to go down this line of logic but you know i watch fantasy. the star trek movies and you see on the bridge of the enterprise you see a russian, asian, african-american, countries came

together pooled resources and worked together. wouldn't it be beautiful if within the arctic counsel we could pool resources and work together cooperatively? that is a good gel. but the united states has to do their part and invest in resources the. and i am hopeful with the president's new executive order the responsibilities of the arctic steering committee will set priorities and push research proposals. >> lady in the middle there. did you have a question? >> hello. i am linda pre-be and i am a partner doing federal regulation and ethics and compliance here at a law firm in new york city and before that for 14 years i was deputy general council at the whitehouse drug policy official. i was interested in the federal

advisory commission act which is the federal act known as the sunshine act. and i presumed your comment expressed concern, correct me if i am wrong, about the arctic counsel con verting that to a use federal advisory commission. is that the concern you are raising? >> that would be the concern. i am not an expert on the laws but it has been expressed as a concern as we talk to people in the state department. >> that is correct and that is a legit concern. but i note with the president's new executive order there is no position or representation there for non-federal interest. i have a way to dress that but regardless by question to you is in light of the first question that was asked to you there is a desire for people to have input

to the federal making process who are not in the loop whether that is alaska or other areas as well. and do you foresee the creation of a federal advisory policy of the arctic being created to address that need? >> i have to admit up front i have not considered or thought about it. i am not going to use it as an ex excuse. i have been on the job seven months while i had a narrow interest i have had to broad n it out into the international portion of this and that has consumed an awful lot of limited brain space. so getting into the other details of how we refine this i think it is a worthy suggestion for consideration. we will make a note of that. certainly i could foresee it as a possibility but i don't know.

>> and besides that? >> eli with science magazine. the arctic is one of the most important places in the world in terms of climate change it is the most voltile region and yet it is poorly instrumented for climate. i note in your remarks you didn't mention this issue. how important is it that the nations of the world improve monitoring in the arctic and what do you think the arctic counsel should do about that. >> is part of the u.s. programming. we are looking at mapping, cn censors and doing inventory of other countries. it is not just that.

there is a great need for increased satellite coverage whether it is communication, observation, navigation and most of what we put up over the decades is optimized for the middle latitudes, not optimized for the higher latitudes and that is another thing that united states cannot take on by itself. there is benefit to all of the countries operating in the arctic and that is another area we are hopeful we can bring people together and invest in. we need better coordination of what sencensors are up there and moving toward getting them resourced. >> yeah, thanks so much for this event. i am claire with national journal. you talked about the need to

raise public awareness and it seems like one of the big chal challenge challenges is getting resources and vapidfunding and convincing congress and also the american public. can you talk more about how you can get the public to pay attention and i also wanted to ask if you heard anything back from disney about your offer to perhaps use the frozen characters as a way to educate the public? >> i am afraid my name isn't very good at disney. for those of you who don't know and know how you don't. when you go home google disney arctic and the last time i checked there is ten pages of articles there. one of the proposals we had was a bright young lady in my office who is a big fan of disney's

movie "frozen" i think she can recite the entire script and sing all of the songs. she suggested we need to start teaching the youth about the arctic and perhaps having public service announcements done with the disney characters from the movie frozen anna and elsa and so on i know this because i have grand daughters and watch the movie. when i arrived in norway they were in the middle of their film festival and on that evening there is an outdoor theater with about 300 children bundled up watching disney's frozen. so i told the story to the crowd at the arctic frontier event of 1300 people and mentioned i went to disney to meet with them and i didn't think my marketing

through very well and i said you know you have taught all of these kids around the world about a fantasy arctic city in norway. a kingdom that doesn't exist and conditions that don't real exist. you need to teach them about the plight of the polar bear and alaskan villages falling into the ocean because of the permafrost failing. and he said you might not understand. our culture is project positive images and happy endings. if you put out a good product i would like them to help us raise

awareness. how do ru raise awareness in american people? if i had that secret i would not be sitting here working for the government. i would be a lobbyist or something. no, i am not going to be a lobbyist but i would be running a media business or something. it is hard to get bandwidth. look at the things erupting that steal the attention of the maerp american people every day. long-term we are becoming kenned about what is happening in the arctic because of climate change and other things but it is slow. there is no major event that is happening. when you have so many event drawing attention every day it is hard to get the bandwidth to spread it out. it like why hasn't the white

taken it up? well secretary kerry is going to be the chair of the arctic counsel but do you think he has time to devote to on a day to day bases while dealing with ebola, syria, isis and everything else in the world? there is something that goes along with leadership and that is you have a lot on your plate. and the united states is unfortunately or fortunately involve in a lot around the world and the arctic isn't a huge problem so it is hard to draw attention. that is what i am trying to do. come up with a national imperative. something to draw in american people. >> thank you. richard ranger from the petroleum institute. the question prompted something for you to consider and that is

through some resource associated with the u.s. chairmanship a recommended reading list. something that you could develop over time with the state of alaska with academic. there is a lot of books out there that i think from the standpoint of the long toll building student and academic interest and public interest. that is a suggestion that could be developed over your tenure. >> we are using the full bright scholarships to gain interest and bring people in. that is one of the reasons why i was keen an trying to get disney in there. you have to start with the youth. like anything else when you look at the challenges we faced back in my previous job was getting

the best diverse american talent in the coastguard academy and you cannot start the junior year. you have to start marketing in grade school and we need to kerry over the problems. >> there is one cruise line that has plans to send a ship kerrying as many as 2000 people into the arctic waters. do we believe as a nation have the ability if we believe this is full hearty to regulate this kind of activity and nat allow them to proceed in the regions? >> we have the ability and this is one of those things as when i

was the common rod i would bring in lawyers and look at this. if a voyage is unsafe you can terminate it. so that can be done yes. will it be done in this particular case? i am sure they are going to demonstrate they have the capability. i am sure the united states coast guard and other agencies will take a solid look at this and say if a problem happens how do you rescue those people? i personal have been involved with a cruise ship that broke down and the only way you could rescue all of those people was to bring another cruise ship along side and transfer that. and i think it was only about 800 people many years ago and you had to transfer 800 people by ferries to another cruise

ship. there is a lot canada and the united states is looking at and will place down as requirements on these people. but at the end of the day, i am sure the united states and canada will deploy resources and have them on standby. and those are resources that might be used for other things. resources are limited so if you have going to do some new task you will have to pull them off other tasks. you might have to send ships up there that would be stopping drugs and illegal migrants and take them off that duty and make sure you can provide safety for the 2,000 people going through the passage. >> i would like you to join me in thanking andy for the presentation. [applause] >> thank you.

>> later a hearing on music and licensing rights. the consumer federation of america hosted an event today. one of the speakers was mark rosekind who talks about the mission's agencies and steps being taken to protect drivers. this is 30