factured for human beings. the primary difference being simply that they are packaged differently. that's. that's the dosage i would use for a five or 10-pound cat cat or ten or 600-pound goal is different and i would use for the human being but the drugs are the same. i have never seen a plan that actually looks at reaching out to leverage the pharmaceutical supplies for the agricultural arena to be able to make of the agency for the shortcomings we would have been a human event. while i do not advocate replacing the list of requirements that we need frankly that provides money and resources, jobs and other things we need to also added to these questions how to optimize the use of the resources that we have given we have nothing more what is the best we can do. the second issue is there tends to be a focus on the professional response community

if you will. again incredibly important that to put things in context depending how you look at the numbers it is between 1.5 to 2 million professional responders in the united states, fire, police and other medical related resources. under the very best circumstances that is one responder per 150 citizens. we tend to lack on the focus of how how do we empower the people to care for them themselves and it goes beyond public service announcements. an excellent example in my mind is the external bilbray -- the defibrillator. there needed to be a cardiologist and the full that the full resources of an emergency room to provide the care. as a direct result of technology and research, we lowered the

barrier to entry where quite frankly if you're bright enough to understand 30 of the 40 different languages and operate a fire extinguisher you can defibrillator somebody. there is the convergence response that first started in california as many things have and it is based on the fact that the true first responder is very seldom the trained professional. in the room today if any of us had a heart attack or started to choke, the first person to provide care and assistance wouldn't be a police officer it would be the person sitting next to that person. we lost sight of the fact whether we like it or not a population is self will care for itself. it may not do a good job that is failing on the part of the policymakers not planning for that and a significant shortcoming is the continue to try to focus again but we lose

sight of the opportunity to empower the public and that can be done into basic means training, educating and improving the capabilities to care for and provided some support but using the benefits and powers of the science technology to lower the barriers of entry. it doesn't require for example to diagnose the case of ebola in west africa when you come in and you were bleeding and coughing and running a fever. at if it pays a monthly you have a diagnosis. how can i train the people to provide a greater level of care analogous to what we do in the firefighting community when we have large wildfires out of control we don't go train more firefighters. we get a random unit from the military. we've already prepared for training and equipment so in three to five hours weekend

trained personnel not to kill themselves were others around them and provide a level of support to augment the professionals. we haven't taken it to the level of supporting the public to provide care and support not only to the professional response community but themselves. with that, i am done. doctor alexander. >> we answered some of my initial questions on how to optimize to reduce the risk. should we expand the security culture in terms of training the individual to empower the people that's one area in terms of the

security looking at the terrorists and their intentions and there is no end to their intentions. for example, can we provide a better accounting for some of the materials similar to the way we try to follow the money on the financing area or for example should we strengthen the actions on the nonproliferation of you are working on for the weapons convention so in other words there are a series of questions that are interrelated in order to try to bring down the risk level.

>> there's a term in the military which is looking at a variety of factors to function together. all of the points that you made and many more can be strengthened and improved our capability to protect against them but that is only half of the problem. regardless of the cause of the incident is coming to naturally emerging, the naturally emerging disease or intentional release of an agent i think there are a number of things the population itself can do to detect early that there is an event and i'm all its event than the to reduce or slow down the spread. many of those formed as a category if no one measures that don't require a large infrastructure to develop vaccines and drugs or logistics to distribute them or training to make them available.

the example i gave earlier used to be the area area as a trained medical professional because of technology improvements rather than making the effort helped to train the public to use it we accepted that they are not going to learn regardless of the reasons they simply won't. taking that as a boundary condition they were developed to deal with that as a real-world condition. does that answer your question? >> your thoughts about empowering the people. in the attack context, what would it be actions be that you would want the people to be prepared to do? you look at the 50s and the

shelters would exactly -- i love the idea of trying to professionalize the populace but what specific things when you train them to do? >> i was on the staff when he was the u.s. surgeon general and we talked on the concept of the standard of care and developed the concept of the population of care or health maintenance. let's assume for the sake of the discussion that the brownies we had here today have the color and ten people come down with a disease as a result of the colors but in the event that happened each of those people would probably end up in an icu have ten to 12 medical professionals caring for them. every infectious disease doctor

to be able to come and take a look at them being miserable. [laughter] it's unpleasant, not from personal experience. 20 to 30 people would be the same thing. we would clear out the icu and do the same thing. if we had 5,000 cases of cholera outbreak you would have a fundamental transition where the population would be told basically here's how you make a call or the bad is fundamentally keep you well hydrated, take antibiotics and basic treatment. where where are you prepared to documentation and training for the population to care for its own people that doesn't work in every case but that works in many cases if we start with the underlining tenant that no i'm not having everybody reports to a hospital but what are the basic skills and training and capabilities if you will but the

population needs to provide for itself which may not meet the standard of care that in an environment like that to meet sufficient or appropriate care does that make sense? >> i'm struggling because i think things in the past were devised to the state ended up not getting traction and is there that much that can be done medically by the laypersons? >> i'm not sure i can disagree. we had a granted malady that if but if you look across the board is traditionally the circulation those are the basic things that have to be maintained through

the combination of technology prepared us allow people to be supported by those around them and nearby you don't need professional medical care that it has to be held held to a trained them all to do it necessarily but the other half of the problem how do i prepare technology infrastructure and the basic infrastructure so it's a different point of view >> it goes to this question of having the public as informed as possible so there is that. this puzzled me a test and if it was an emergency we would have told you what to do. it's making me wonder if whoever that is actually knows what to

do. [laughter] >> i have talked on crisis communication in the past. i did these most teaching is wrong. we try to tell the population what the right thing to do is. we do and that's knowing full well either most people will screw it up or do something unintentionally. katrina most people left into some people stayed home and went to the super dorm. more specifically the proper thing to communicate is to try to get the most people to do something predictable. the reason for that is if they are doing something predictable i can plan for that. i cannot plan for chaos. the 20% of the population

requires 20% of the resources. it's further along than that but we want them to do something of benefit. but even assuming we know what the right thing is which we don't is trying to get as many people to do something predictable so that we can respond to that. again the superdome and katrina if we thought ahead we would have not only water and supplies that we would encourage people rather than stay home if you can't or won't evacuate, go here because we have supplies but instead we had the worst situation. a bunch of people showed up in places we were not prepared for and an enormous number more than 10,000 were scattered all over thousands of square miles. hispanic maybe you don't know this, but if there were a

biological attack in washington, d.c. now and all of a sudden our televisions and radios started to saying we've had an attack to you have any idea whether the advice coming forward is the right information and? >> it is scenario dependent. i go back to anthrax and they indicated the first threat thread was accidental from drinking contaminated water split its dependent on the situation of the individual. hispanic i want to make two comments. there's been a recent engagement and this is a topic particularly

if you start with measles and disneyland as start walking away to something more unpredictable like a bioterror attack and how you would protect your family. i do bb we will get the predictability by the apps we have on our phones and watches and gadgets over the place as well as the internet of things as more and more of our lives go somewhere we have a better ability to predict what people are doing but what are people doing different kinds of today times of the day and night they react if they see an alert on their watch that says your temperature has just increased by so many.

these technologies are being developed and used in all sorts of mobile applications now and that's something we should think about harnessing. hispanic to build up on some of the comments when we think about recovery we are thinking about the way in which we are rebuilding our capacity so if you think about the continuing of the supply and demand we have the ability to deliver medical measures and depending on the severity of the event if we could build more to the medical capacity overtime we have a faster way to recover and that's become more extreme you have to think about it empowering individuals to take on levels of care that would be taken care of in a professional setting.

think about the tools to enhance recovery one end of the spectrum you think about the severe incident where the capabilities have been overwhelmed me to think about individuals as we have discussed already. on the other side you can think about activities to make our own systems more resilient because at the end the ability depends on resilience. it could be expanded over time is the immediate data availability program and hospital preparedness program so they looked at the challenges during a medical event and we want to try to find a way they can release their patients within four hours so we have the ability so they worked as a process of planning to find ways they can quickly identify the activity of the patients in the

system and find ways to offload using a reverse triage system and upload from an existing emergency so when you think about ways to impact recovery you are thinking about a spectrum of tools and a part of it is about empowering individuals and on the other side it does come down to a preparedness process and helps institutions become more resilient. a >> hispanic as a university president i am not worried about call her a -- [laughter] >> vote on campus. a >> you have a lot of tabletop exercises that have been used a long time. what are the limitations now of tabletop exercises versus these

other types of things? >> and they are inherently different. the biggest limitation we have encountered is that people come with their preconceived notions and that's how they play and it's hard to get people to think about the role of some other function and how do i fit with that other function in my dalia life and so how developing the exercise out of their own skin and into somebody else to get to see how you would interact with different functions and how those relate to your own is important. then mobile devices that's a fascinating thing to watch happen. it is fascinating to me to see

how much information is collected and fascinating for me to just sort of think about where is that going and how is it going to be used in any capacity from an individual health perspective to a community perspective to even a national health perspective so we think about how we take all of the information that we have available to us from all sorts of different sources and provide that to decision-makers to say this is what we need to deal with that issue in a tangible and meaningful way. the tools are being developed to try to do that >> to follow on the point of

exercises you mentioned concerns on the decision-making crisis response and sort of gave us a teaser to the practices that can be disseminated. can you put money on the bones and have suggestions on how the decision-making process can be refined so the response rate recovery is better than it is now? >> money awareness of the structure now is if you think about the process of the people together and put them around the table to discuss a think you want to take an event like that and routinely have leaders put into situations where they can make decisions independent of the ways in which they would commit resources. i think to be more effective

than you want to make that perfectly preventive preparedness program so you think about the different types of threats you are worried about and the different types of capabilities you want to be able to exercise and the leaders to have at their disposal. hispanic so you would be advocates of more exercise. hispanic in your testimony you identified the use of the big data technology from geolocation to the type of potential pathogens that's out there and i think you use an example in germany. hispanic i described "sharing. so in 2011, quite a number of people, hundreds of people got very ill from equal weight -- e.

coli. it came from egypt, that's the interesting piece was that a chinese company sequenced the sample and then german scientists were able to do the samples very quickly and look at how they related to other bacteria to see this is natural, not many. and the situational awareness determined the response you have for the level of law enforcement >> it comes back to letting more people be involved in this effort so they probably pulled

that out to be the fastest ones to do it. in the leadership challenges that his defense a secret thing only we can do it or do we get the public engaged and most americans want to do good things and how do we take advantage of that and embracing to get more people in these things? they could just take that and about to go to the doctor. we trust the public to engage them into the long-term we

started teaching people about awareness and help and how to help the society. >> there is an important nuance but it's not a question of letting people be involved. they will do something. they will be involved. the question is do we give them the information to do something less bad if they had that information lacking. we need to take into account the aspects of the different people because we are such a diverse culture of people that we need to be able to say we respect you and where you come from and then go from there and that is what the public engagement and efforts kind of start doing now is start with that as a premise.

there are games now that allow people to play role-playing games where you get to save the world from a pathogen of some sort and that may be the way of thinking about how you would deal with certain issues and it's something to think about. >> thank you for the contribution. we appreciate the testimony. [applause]

the final panel we think we'll deal with will deal with an issue that we've wrestled with the question of the organizational structure in the multiple jurisdictions and private sectors so appropriately concludes the final day of the public testimony and i would like to introduce them to you. doctor bernard assistant for bio defense, former senior adviser to president clinton for security and health, your

admiral. [inaudible] [laughter] but he's the deputy staff director for the united states senate committee on intelligence , former special assistant to president bush for health and bio defense and a retired colonel in the air force at the epicenter of much of the discussions for the great work he did with the privilege of serving president bush and finally, the former director for combating terrorism and national city council and again both council and again both for president clinton, president bush and i might add within about a week after i got to the white house we had the first attack and we have our eye on the council and we experienced this in the first couple of leaks a lot of the concerns that have been addressed by previous

testimony not just today but in the panels how do you coordinate the effort should response an order to deal with that crisis. so we welcome the panelists and ladies first. ..

prior to and after 911 work serving to administration. therefore i hope to offer both an inter-agency and white house perspective of what should have been accompanist many years ago but what i believe can still be encompassed for the future. finally in the event my's opinions might serve to be dated i have been fortunate to be currently serving for more than three years as a number of the national academies institute of medicine standing committee on health threats resilience, workforce resilience which supports the department of homeland security office of health affairs. they also work for service disabled veteran small businesses primary focus is on inter- agency disciplinary support for state and local responders for ied's active shooters and weapons of mass destruction's.

when. when i became -- when i began participating in the 1990s it was to the interagency process known as the counterterrorism security group were support of the supported the national policy on combating terrorism a presidential directive 39. the interagency in the white house them began focusing on threats and largely within the united states, pdd 60 was born. i came aboard to implement president clinton's pdd 60 protection against unconventional threats to the homeland and americans overseas, domestic cbr and preparedness and response missions. the usual core players but we now added hhs come in rc doe, and other departments and agencies in the late 1990s our office under the

leadership of richard clark who held the position of national coordinator for security infrastructure protection and counterterrorism rather quickly realize in order to populate the new and broader ct mission we would have to figure out a way who in the interagency should participate. one of the ways was to uncover who had the mission, mission, the operational and technical capabilities and the budget authority. unfortunately there is still no way to determine exactly each agencies budgets and every element of the combat terrorism portfolio. too often we become aware of enter agencies exceeding their authorities and becoming self approval or self-appointed ct experts and there is no way to determine who was involved all where the american public's money was being spent.

we then enlisted the support of some great office of management and budget personnel and undertook the arduous task to develop a ct crosscut budget involving every agency at that time in 1999 to determine where resources were being spent. recent nearly a year. without this work would be invaluable. of course we had a lot of detractors the most importantly we were the nsc. how many resources should be spent. we also face a lot of pushback by congress at the white house might be exceeding authority because we would not be explaining funding rationale. there were term thrown around like terrorism czar.

most notably was all the agencies were gas even our omb counterparts saw the value of a comprehensive crosswalk. do this day after nearly 15 years i have been asked about this proposal. we discussed it in other studies and the study i cochair on the national counterterrorism center. the lesson to be learned is that there is still no single person or entity that can review all ct budgets and so truly every authorizing committee on appropriations subcommittee

oversees an apartment or agency with a ct mission. for those you do not agree, i ask you to name one single.of contact to can explain how taxpayer dollars are being spent across the committee well alone how state and locals are receiving the much-needed resources to execute there 1st responder missions. while the eight olds -- age-old issue often plays a role it takes leadership and trust. if you let me -- if you will permit me i would i would like to now fast-forward to shortly after september 11 in the midst of the horrific attack we were quickly enveloped in the anthrax attack. governor, we 1st met the morning after president bush announced he was establishing a homeland security advisor. you were you were briefed on the ongoing domestic preparedness and response.

this was in the midst of the attack. serving as your.men we pulled together what i think even as to this day an incredible group of unlikely -- unlikely bedfellows such as you sam read, cdc come hhs, the u.s. postal service and the intelligence community to deal with daily threats and many of the people that were participating are in this room. we visit daily if not more often to ensure everyone was up to speed on the medical law enforcement and other related matters. also critical to ensure that both you and the white house press secretary were often briefed as often as necessary to ensure that the american public was updated on the crisis. i mentioned anthrax because it brings me back to my initial point, your leadership. without a.a.men that had authority in

support they would have been no way to operate as effectively and admittedly sometimes on the fly as we did during the anthrax attack. i will never forget what it took to make this critically needed coordination happen as i often recall when one late evening we gathered in the white house to discuss interagency challenges and processes command when i looked across the room a solid director of central intelligence sitting next to the postmaster general of the united states command i doubt anyone would envision that scenario. in effort to keep with your panels guidelines i would like to thank you for letting me highlight what i believe are two critically important examples of what continue to be challenges. getting a handle.

illicit has the authority behind it we have tried and tried and tried again to determine who is in charge and eventually the politics or interagency infighting take over. someone needs to make a decision and execute someone is to undertake a serious review of the mission. some agencies have unilaterally taken on missions for which they have no authority and determined which require additional funding. necessary to branch the name and agencies. having the authority over budgets and mission. some progress made and such such, for example, the office of the director of national intelligence. as long as there is a vacuum in leadership and execution

in washington we continue to fail state and local 1st responders who are our 1st line of defense risking their lives every day across our great nation. for many days and weeks after and even has unfolded. that said, i firmly believe it is possible to get the executive and legislative branches to work through this long-standing leadership vacuum. the top must be fixed before we can expect our frontline 1st responders to be fully effective in there critically important missions. thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. >> thank you very much. >> it is a privilege to be here. look around the room and think i no half the people which makes me wonder why they aren't actually working in government right now. i went into her office not long after 911 and there was a special forces knife up on

the wall. i realize that she was not to be traveled with. i we will say like that target i i have seen that one, too. it got my attention. she always gained ascendancy by showing you a few of those items. seriously,. seriously, i just want to mention, lisa did an incredible job with an unexpected attack and we all should be grateful. someone else we should be grateful to, it is interesting the two people, leaders that i worked for toward the end of my career secretary shall wail and governor ridge in 1998 i was working at the us mission in geneva and secretary shalala decided that hhs needed somebody at the white house because

national security and health was becoming a more and more critical issue for whether it was hiv-aids or smallpox or bio defense so she called her good buddy, sandy berger and said i'm sending you somebody. >> and i'm paying for them. >> and i was the 1st person ever to do health policy at the white house. which was interesting because my 1st two weeks i sat on the steps of the old executive office building inside with my computer on my lap because there were no desks. i learned a lot about speechwriting. unfortunately at the end of that tour of two and half years the bush administration came in and decided health and security was not really the thing.

so they abolish the office office, which was a shame. i understand. 911 happened. when a little bit about the hill and a little bit about republicans. i went up and worked for him for a year but the problem the post problem related to health issues especially post anthrax attacks governor ridge took that to heart. and so we had one serious leader and another serious leader and governor ridge. i am pleased to be able to talk to you about this. he called me in exactly one year after september 11.

he had he had just come in from a memorial service in pennsylvania hired me on the spot and said open office you have five positions which of the white house is unheard of. join the office, and we started to roll. i think we did a pretty good job considering that we were starting from a system that did not really have a place for health and security at that white house. we did hs pd 17. that is still that is still the kind of guiding document for homeland security. i don't think it has been superseded. agricultural bioterrorism and command that i left in 2,005, bob came on. then at the end of the administration they abolish the office again.

the obama administration came in about what we don't do this. i was astounded. this was -- i did not know what to say. they then balkanized health issues divided them up against three different directorates and to this day i still cannot figure out on bio security and by a response recovery planning preparedness countermeasures, development who at the white house is really in charge of what issue. i can figure it out but it takes a little while. and this is interesting because in the latest national security strategy that was just published last month by president obama health is one of the top strategic risks to our

interest. there are only eight and health was one of them. it is still a pretty mushy system. the ebola outbreak continued to puzzle me as to why they have divided up the response and coordination of the agencies among so many different parts of the white house. i was out in california. i will finish because i want to hear what bob has to say. i was out teaching a class last october. a whole bunch of faculty and students, smart people. in october who is in charge for the ebola response in the us government. all internationally savvy people. who is in charge? silence. and it just made the.that we

we're not putting the right people at the senior position to manage crises that repeat every two or three years. whatever it is we are not managing the leadership. governor ridge understands the importance of leadership and makes it more personal to me. >> thank you. >> first of all my thanks to the panel and the people who made the panel possible. i hope that won't be overlooked.

in commenting on being asked to come here today, i feel like i am preaching to the choir because you are individuals who have had the pleasure to work with serve with the or no about. i have read some of your stuff and it a little bureaucratic archaeology and found the document that characterized all of the many important things that at the end of the clinton administration you highlighted as being the 1st delve into the issues of bio defense. that did not come out of the blue. and i think that that is part of it. lisa and can have already talked about governor ridge's governor ridge's role. heroism and about great leaders someone who is a sitting governor gets a call from the president and jumps in his car and caused three or four of his closest advisers and confidants and tells them we're going to the white house and does so dropping everything is an indication of what leaders

do. they lead by example they have a bold vision. >> smart enough to get people like the three of you around them. >> the net does not fall far from the tree. how is tree. how is that. i worked for can, enabling leadership. >> i worked for you. >> no, i worked for you. it is the whole.that in some ways having the opportunity to work for leaders who are comfortable and themselves and have confidence in their capabilities and to have a desire to learn and understand what is right is important. i look at jim greenwood who brought the bioterrorism act and bio shield it takes a collective set of leaders to effectively do things. i look to my left. it is self-evident that these people led by example. i had the good fortune to do

so. >> you should give them as much time as he wants by the way. [laughter] >> extend and extend in extend. >> sir this is not the congressional floor, so i we will try to keep it short. what makes leaders special leadership important is clearly identifying the mission and having a vision of what needs to be done. i cannot think where i learned the mission was not working at the white house put working with a group of air force. rescue men and many of you may not know them, but there are enlisted personnel to jump out of airplanes fast rope, scuba dive, and there on the mission and motto is so others may live. really about saving american lives.

and there is no greater mission for those who are mission oriented like me to say that that is what i do every morning. the leaders we have today and i we will look to my left all kind of armored up if you will with that mission and vision and knowing whatever they do regardless of their interest they know that is an inherent thing. that is what motivates many of us in this room and is one essential element. leaders articulate a vision clearly for everyone. the other critical thing and you can talk about integrity standing for and doing what is right and to be the advocate when often times there are no others and quite frankly for this kind of arcane subject for

people who have not had a lot of seeping in biology and medicine or have not had a personal life experience around this it can be a little offputting. for the leaders that have been here and to my former leader who enabled me looking to me as a subject matter expert giving me the opportunities to pursue those issues that he knew were the right ones and stood for them and stood by me and basically allowed me to do what i articulated as the right thing to do to again, protect american lives. the other element is persistence not quitting or taking no for an example. i have to admit, there were times during my 2nd time at the white house where i i found that persistence can be both a virtue and the liability can't particularly what i had to write a personal note of apology to the deputy omb director, but

the.here is -- >> he got over it. [laughter] >> and we get on with it. >> i never apologized to omb. >> it is about risk-taking that is the epitome of leadership. if you are a ranger, during your tenor you know who the leaders were. they did not have bars on their helmets. they had stripes on their shoulder. that is part of this. there is a great quotation that i like that it is about baseball season you can't steal 2nd base when you're standing on first. in some 1st. in some ways you have to stretch yourself and basically take risks in your position, use the authority you have, have, the responsibilities you have and maybe others you may not have and argue was a firstly for a firstly for the mission you are doing to basically do that. the last thing as i

highlighted a number of people in this room it is not about an individual. leaders create alliances they put their arms around each other find other leaders and basically motivate each other to basically do what often times is said cannot be done but they do it now with the expectation they we will succeed but know that they just cannot fail. and so i may have taken a different tact than my colleagues to talk about what leadership is, but is is the leadership during my tenure knowing them in my professional life, the kind of qualities that you all have and many in this room that in some ways positions by their title are important but in some ways it is the authority that you have and

the authority that you are permitted to use and that you are willing to use. sometimes that is more of an issue of what you are willing to do rather than what you can do or are allowed to do. with that, i will end my comments and say thank you to the lovely ladies who represent the next generation. generation. i no that they represent the best that we have, and there are many in this room who stand ready god willing god forbid that we have another set of events like september 11. a lesson i learned who knows what is next but there will be something and it does require our best efforts now before the crisis occurs. >> because we no there is going to be something and you have all been in the white house i i am particularly interested how the white house days to organize itself. i no more about the cabinet agencies. what is your recommendations? a knew president and a couple of years. what would

you you say to the knew chief of staff, the new president the knew nsc director about given our experience how they are to organize the white house on these issues? >> my 1st comment because i have gone i have gone over this over and over with everyone who we will listen. it ought to be pretty much what governor ridge set up. it is just about right. you develop, but the right people is theaters, have a few people to help do the day-to-day work let the agencies have their own budgets, do what they know how to do. it is hard from that spot to control budgets without having to testify because you get caught in the presidential problems of the nsc testifying. you have to be a little careful with budget. you need to have the respect of the community. if you just share the interagency groups like

right after september 11 you bring everyone to the table and let everyone present what they need to present and then figure out what the pres.'s primary policy is going to be and then you get everyone moving in the same direction using their own components. it works. i've seen it work bob has done it lisa has done it it does work. >> should there also be someone in omb that watches the budget so that they can be better integrated? so there is a designated person that is a a staff person that actually keeps that data up-to-date so that when the president or the omb director puts together the budget they have actually have that information and do not have to ad hoc dig it up? >> i i could not agree more and perhaps that would be the person that would go and testify before congress. as i mentioned come all of

the subcommittee's virtually every appropriations subcommittee touches the counterterrorism and budget and one way or another and there is no way to enlist the support of congress working with the white house we have tried this years and decades and decades and decades and it does not work. one of these days someone will have to come up with a different idea which is really starting with the crosscut across all budgets and all the different agencies and if the agencies are not willing to pick a single.of contact it will either have to come out of the white house nsc, or omb that can go back to the hill and explain what's going on. but i think with respect to doctor bernard the system that has been in place prior to this administration it

works from and interagency coordination mechanism. until such time as there is a real leader in place we will be in the same old situation we have found ourselves and in the past and are in in the present. >> if i could follow up on that we can look at this issue being wmd terrorism bio primarily, from a number of different perspectives but i would like to focus on interagency and what it is that is missing now that used to be there. you should just be cloned and charted out for every administration but your position, the position the position that you had, the authority that you wielded

maybe that is what is missing. structurally what is it that we need? i think it might be a bridge too far to talk about bringing budgetary authority. i tend to be a believer that the interagency process can work with a strong person who is fully authorized by the delegated authority by there position and by the trust and relationship that they have with the chief of staff and president. do you see that maybe we can scrap by going back to a senior director? do we need something at a higher level? >> i am going to comment and just say that kayla's earlier ken's earlier comment about the state of affairs has been balkanized. what is interesting or seems to be a practice is you have the same group of agencies interagency partners going to meetings on different topical areas with different parts of the nsc which

creates a challenge for the departments and agencies when on any given day they may have three different meetings on three different topical areas that are not necessarily coordinated. and in some ways it requires a coalescence of portfolio of these to be in one office how that gets constructed is important. the 2nd thing is in some ways it does require a political level person whether sapp were senior director but has to be someone who is not going to be imbued with -- will be imbued with the priorities of the pres., not necessarily one particular agency. to agency. to get to madame secretary's comment, i we will just tell you an anecdote, i went to the omb director who had a preponderance of funding responsibility, oversight

and found out that that person did not have security clearance. i that my 1st 60 days justifying with the people in the white house that that individual needed security clearance because they need to have the understanding of the threat that i was privy to so that he could understand why was arguing we needed to do more. a lot of little things that need to be done but coalescing it into one office again the crosscut budget is important and it has to be a priority. it is clear it is but how it gets manifested in the bureaucracy or organization to your.is the essence of the issue. >> one thing about omb when we were doing the bill which we got through based on some

of scooter libby's friends and everyone else's friends in and around town we had an omb person in every single policy and drafting meeting. because they had a bw crosscut it was not all of counterterrorism but they had someone there and there were times when i would cancel a meeting if that person could not come because it was so critical that policy without money is just kind of show for. the the idea that you can incorporate omb, it can be done. >> it does not mean that the office has to have control of the budget but that everyone must understand the budget so that they can press the right button to get the proper coordination and depth. i remember why i sent can to work for senator frisk. the the other choice was to bury him in the public health service because we really didn't have a place for him.

he tells me every time i see him it was an interagency transfer. sen. frisk to this day says it is the best thing that ever happened to him because it "go for a senior member of congress to a whole new area. more of those interagency transfers and seeing this as part of the education process. >> and i comment on that. one one of the benefits was when i went to work on capitol hill for senator richard burr senator frisk was the leader at that time. senator burr was given an opportunity to be the

chairman of the subcommittee and bioterrorism preparedness which no longer exists. his sidekick was ted kennedy. that was a huge -- a lot of the same ground but too much more complete and further endpoint. >> and you need doctors in this discussion. i had a rule that when you were talking about some complex bioterrorism thing i made them where their white coat. [laughter] you need the trust and credibility of the american people. with all due respect, you cannot put political appointees in front of microphones to manage complex questions. you really do need -- but you also need doctors that understand the policy and politics at the same time. they won't do they won't do that unless you put them into the structure of the system. >> a comment about the process and the coordination mechanism logical step a

logical step to putting a national security team together in this area. i would look back into the late 90s where we did have a national coordinator for infrastructure protection counterterrorism and it was an all-encompassing office that looked at the issues of the day. under those different personnel there was traditional ct, the wmd preparedness the iran crisis management response to emergencies that happened overseas and within the united states. the the uss cole bombing and coordinating the interagency response the east africa embassy bombing. so that kind of structure actually worked quite well. of course it goes back to leadership. most people remember dick and know him as a formidable

entity. i can't think of a better person i would rather have in my foxhole. maybe there are five or six other people, but i would not want anyone but dick clark. he knows how to do it. if we look back and do a case study that might be an opportunity. bring them together and make the tough decisions and move on can't take it up to your deputies, principal, deputies, principal, and nfc meeting and then the decision is made. to to sit around and flounder and wait for the next event is not the way to do business. >> cabinet officers that understand the role of the white house and the nsc because you cannot turf fight. you have to declare in your mind talk about federated systems, you have systems you have to be clear about what the appropriate role the white house is command it is not that you are giving up turf but putting

the appropriate leadership roles in the right places. >> on behalf of the hudson institute i would like to say it was bob get to persuade us to help support this endeavor and then he quit halfway through. [laughter] that is leadership. [laughter] i just want to review your comments about leadership by example. [laughter] then move on to your comments about persistence if i recall. made some notes here. when i. when i think about this problem there has been a lot of discussion through all the panels and meetings now which i would say go largely to the tactical. when i think about this problem what often comes to mind is that listed missile summering. you did not get a ballistic missile submarine in one funding cycle.

you got it through a long, national consensus that the president should i repeat all those jokes? that the president and the congress were willing time after time to say say it is unacceptable for an american population to be vulnerable to millions of people buying. that is what kept us going through the cold war. i would i would submit, the chance of a bolt out of the blue attack which is what the triad was all about is lower than the chance that we might get and was lower than the chance that we might get some type of mass casualty event coming out of what has brought everyone together. so the word that has not come out enough is the president. the president has leader to say, this is a national priority so that we are fighting this war the way we fought the american revolution.

a bunch of guys in concord during what they can someone in valley forge bringing would. what what we need if you really want to get ahead of the problem is a much larger national consensus effort led by the congress, led congress, led by the president to say yes, we may end up funding nuclear abm machines that don't really work at the end of the day but somewhere along the line we will get ahead of this problem. we can be defense dominant instead of offense dominant and in the process we will make americans a lot safer than they are going forward where as whereas we heard from the opening panel today and from the opening panel in the 1st of our session there are enormous vulnerabilities out there which we have groups with resources to exploit and a willingness to exploit. so proposal number one is to make this a large national

priority. if the president were behind it i submit somebody like governor ridge and the job to get it done. >> i like the idea about the present getting behind it. [laughter] >> comments. >> i do think it is appropriate because so much of those of us who have been privileged to work in the executive branch, you do have there is a certain structure. yet the interagency process come to consensus get up to the principles and back to the president but if you have a president that is engaged in making priorities that process is necessary and accelerates the process because everyone knows the president wants it done so you damn well better do it. we will get the money if we do with the right way. everyone has been hesitant

to raise the issue but i think it is important. we turn this into a memo to presidential candidates on both sides. at the at the time being we need to drive it through the congress. >> i just want -- scooter captured the thinking exactly right. i concur with what he said it needs to be prioritized. in addition it does take organizational changes. this is one of these areas you look at a threat everyone gets it and coalesces in response to it. it's sort of like cyber one of those threats the people don't understand. very arcane seems remote in

most people's minds. they think about some flu. it is just not something that really stands out and operationally it is one of those areas that requires coordination. like cyber but worse because you have the health community and intelligence and law enforcement. incredibly difficult. it just seems one of those areas that screams for some of the constancy of a high level entity, and official or a group within the interagency structure that will keep a strategic focus. we don't maintain a strategic focus. i would love to hear from you all. i think you have given it to us in different forms, but specific recommendations for where you would see structurally that consistency that we need in the organization and the white house to maintain strategic focus on what is right now being neglected.

>> i said it before. it re-creates the structure. it worked. it was not perfect and needed refinement but it belongs. i think it should include somebody that needs to be respected. it is all it is all about personal relationships. the way you get things done in the white house is figure out what the president wants and then you develop the relationships with your counterparts and the agencies. none of this that we have heard about all day today is not doable. it just requires focus leadership, and it needs trust the trust between the person in charge of this component wherever you decide to place it and then

that person needs to be an honest broker with the counterparts at the agencies and i think that is completely dual. >> you are thinking. >> i could not agree more. i go i go back to the process that had been in place. most people did not know they existed. that was before 911. the counterterrorism experts but we had a core team, community of the state, cia joint staff, osd, the bureau of justice everyone knew everyone's telephone numbers. you had everyone know what the mission was, how to go forward everyone had the same goal in mind. and it is personality dependent.

all mission oriented. they know what they have to execute. it has been done before and we could do it again. it is it is a leadership challenge and it takes the formidable force to remind agencies that they are only one aspect of the entire peace. the nsc is the honest broker i was a career civil servant i might have been a gas. see what we were spending on what. i look at it now and say someone has to do it because i can't depend on the bureau i can't depend on dhs. someone needs to be an honest broker to say this is our mission this is our goal. who has the capability, responsibility, budget authority and if you don't commit is within your mission, we will get it the

budget and the people to execute so we have across and coordinated interagency effort to execute this important national security mission. >> i concur with my colleagues. i just want to.out the coupling of presidential leadership with someone who will be the leader and execute the president's policy and will and maybe it has been a matter of discussion or subject but when president bush learned of the pandemic influenza risk he yelled five policy times organized a very robust government response that was one of the individuals that occupied the office that i did basically managing that effort that basically necessitated about another five and a half billion dollar investment by the

united states government to prepare for a pandemic that had not happened at that time. unlike 911 and anthrax you have the coupling of presidential focus and an arm or an organ in the nsc or agency at that time there was able to basically organize the interagency and do so in a manner that was very effective. when you have is together there is no stopping it. >> we have not talked about the importance of the nsa having this capability and international protocols and the president goes off to have conversations with counterparts. setting the international agenda on health became just as important to get those inserted. >> we talked about presidential leadership.

vice president being advised by scooter libby particularly to elevate within my great opportunity for the vice president and conversations that only would the president on the help but in terms of biological and nuclear initiatives that were initiated over the past eight years. i'm not sure it would have gotten that far without you personally being involved in your team pushing that agenda. it is the competence in the capability and commitment of the white house team that has really lead of a lot of the things we are discussing today. >> any further comment, observation? >> my colleagues. >> thank you very much. thank you for your service.

>> thank you. don't be surprised if we knock on your door and say take a look at these recommendations. thank you very, very much. [applause] >> before everyone adjourns i want to thank once again the hudson institute. bob, you came down here late last fall and convince them that this should be a high national priority. obviously obviously you convened a group of people who share that.of view. i want to thank the advisory board for their invaluable assistance year. the hudson institute we had companies the academic community, ngos, not necessarily necessary to identify them but those of us have been privileged to serve as part of this panel acknowledged the most substantial support of our initiative. you pulled together a great team but we are done with

the public hearings and now we're going to go to work. we will convene privately. all of you have participated consistency a lot of familiar faces. some of you have been out there in the field when we have these hearings and meetings around the country. on behalf of the senator in my colleagues we want to thank you for your participation. we have a lot of work to do and we hope to make you proud of the final product. can submit anything without your participation. all right. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> sen. robert menendez was indicted today by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and wire fraud. federal federal prosecutors said the democratic senator used his senate office to assist the business interest of a friend and donor in exchange for gifts. also indicted also indicted today was doctor solomon melton, the florida ophthalmologist accused of bribing senator menendez. the state department has announced secretary of state john kerry will remain in switzerland to continue negotiations with iranian officials. the deadline for an agreement passed on monday. coming up today coming up today on our companion network, a conversation on the possibility of a nuclear deal.

that is coming up in the world affairs council and washington live at 6:30 p.m. eastern. a programming note, we plan to enter up this event at about 7:00 o'clock eastern when sen. bob menendez senator bob menendez plans to make a statement about his indictment today. here the fact checker blog >> here are some of our featured programs.

>> former federal reserve chairman ben bernick he spoke at the center on budget and policy priorities yesterday outlining ideas for reducing unemployment. part of a panel discussion. this is two hours. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good moible conversations] >> good morning, everyone. good morning. i am pres. of the center on budget and policy priorities and want to welcome all of you to this exciting event sponsored by the centers for employment project. i want to particularly thank the open philanthropy project for it's a very

generous support of the full employment project at the center which has made today's event possible. many of you know the center on budget for its work on pressing issues to reduce poverty and inequality and for our contributions to important budget tax debates in washington. the full employment project to include various economic policy issues that are critically important but may be maybe longer term in nature and extend beyond current policy battles. now i am happy to say we are creating a new part of the center on budget which we call policy futures that will apply the kind of longer-term perspective that the full employment project embodies to a broad range of

key policy issues and of which the full employment project will become the key part. policy futures will focus on long-term federal and state fiscal challenges knew approaches to reduce poverty and strengthen opportunity retirement security, health reform and on the intersection of climate change, change, poverty, and fiscal policy as well, of course, as on full employment. if you are interested you can find a one-page brochure on policy futures in your packet this morning. today's event with our distinguished speaker is a strong example of the kind of intellectual focus we plan to bring to these longer-term policy challenges.

as we are doing today, we will be engaging insightful and creative thinkers, commissioning papers, and placing a and placing a spotlight on innovative policy ideas. you will you will be hearing more of a policy futures in the months ahead. with that, let me turn things over so that we can commence today's event to the director of the full employment project. [applause] >> thanks, bob. happy to see everyone out here today getting our week started on what i think will be an enlightening morning. bob noted that today's event is part of our full employment project. the goal of the project is to identify and advocate for policies that help get us to and keep us at all employment by which we mean a very tight matchup between the number of people who want and need to work in the number of jobs.

it is our firm belief that full employment is one of the best ways to ensure the benefit of the economy's growth don't just accumulates of the top but are broadly shared by families at all income levels. all the work of the project including a video of today's event and the various papers we have commissioned can be found online at the center's website, center on budget .org. our keynote presentation will be followed by a short q&a then take a few minutes to set up our panel which will include valerie wilson and myself moderated by david russell. following the panel there will be another round of q&a i would like to thank alexander berger and the open philanthropy project for their support of our work thank from the bottom of my heart been spielberg and michelle buzzy who are absolutely integral and making this event happen along with many other of my see bpp colleagues. i want to thank kelly hunter

and of course especially been burning key and david russell along with my awesome panelists for the generous agreements to be here today. ben bernick he hardly needs an introduction. the chair of the federal reserve and member of the fed board of governors before that. he has made more important contributions to our understanding of macroeconomics, economic history, and monetary policy that i have time to note. i have always thought we were extremely lucky to have him where he was during the great recession. ..

>> >> dash i in trying to

develop a healthy economy to get a decent and meaningful work we are addressing not just the issue of in, but also of personal satisfaction. now my perspective a lot of that is from micro economics and my is from the macroeconomic perspective. and fall plan is the goal of the policy. i will not be talking today about prospective monetary policy actions out of respect for my a successor is and colleagues but i do want to say when i was that the fed obviously we took seriously the full

employment parts of our mandate figuring into our policy decisions. including in particular with of quantitative easing that explicitly tied policy to a substantial improvement of though labor market. so i know we have not seen as much improvement as to provide a meaningful improvement over the last few years. but going forward with macroeconomic policy to reliably or sustainably achieve full employment in our economy. i want to talk about to frameworks that give similar but not quite the same answers to that question. one is that secular stagnation perspective. the other is to update what

i talked about 10 years ago. but i will take the opportunity to note i kicked off a block today jared says i needed to buy new pajamas. [laughter] to mention it because tomorrow their bill provide material related to the remarks this morning with background data, etc.. if you don't get everything i say today go to the brookings website you will get more information. but to talk about the longer-term future of our economy and policy implications. to go back to el then hanson

with the presidential address speaking at the latter part of the great depression when unemployment was still 17%. at that time he expressed pessimism to bring fulham play in the future so those demographics are moving in the adverse way and was concerned about productivity and technological change and argued going forward is likely and that spending might be chronically weak in a way to prevent the country from achieving full employment from going forward. hanson did not take that because we had a period of

substantial growth and high employment relating to a population boom also to the application of the increases in the '50s and '60s. but summers has revised the argument and i want to be clear i think there is a lot of interest here. i am not trying to set up opposition but how these two perspectives said revival of the stagnation argument is tactical but the basic argument is because going forward returns to capital and consumer spending are likely to be weaker the of the past that interest-rate needed for full employment could be very low. there are lot of reasons why

basie real though interest rates to the national association of economics with said demand of capital or consumer spending.xd so we essentially you need very low interest=)ñ rates to bring the economy up to full employment. for some of those same reasons that hanson talked about that the demography is shifting to the aging society, a slower growth from population and so were technical change, also he notes looking at new industries like facebook from those that were dominant in the '50s and '60s obviously similar

companies have much smaller needs for capital. they don't need big factories or heavy machinery to produce their output. so less demand for physical capital so that demand for investment would be smaller to keep down the interest rates in the economy. related to that is the relative price of capital has been declining over time. so spending on capital it would be smaller. so the focus for capital goods from the perspective of how much capital people want to buy with consumer spending that is a bigger part of demand for.

to talk about increasing equality of many implications and causes and argues that increase of equality it puts more income in the hands of those who tend to save more of the rich and upper income. capricious down the demand for consumer kurds as well with stagnation. white is the implication of this view that demand for capital goods is weak gold ring for were there for the interest-rate needed to restore full employment could be chronically and systematically very low? what very has talked about if they're real interest-rate that you need for full employment is

extremely low or lower than a minus the inflation target and then the fed runs out of room. if that is not lonely enough then monetary policy finds it difficult to get full employment. he argues in order for monetary policy to get to full employment by itself has to allow financial bubbles like the housing bubble during the early 2000's 2.0 the economy did not overheat even though there was demand from consumer spending that monetary policy we understand bubbles are dangerous and we don't want that to be a part of the policy tool kit.

the main solution is fiscal policy and argue saugh in particular with the infrastructure that that would help the stagnation and problem and address the concern of monetary policy by itself is insufficient. with a couple of points of agreement of a betterçó balance is something we have needed for some time. and infrastructure has the advantage not only the source of demand with roads and schools but also provides productivity gains so i would agree you data fiscal policy and other

economies for the central bank is not desirable. and those that complain those are bad for various reasons we can debate if it is true but the night -- but the bright response is to have a more balanced policy to give the appropriate amount of stimulus at an interest rate that is not necessarily so low. so to take the point that is the inverse of the law that is the view that supply creates its own demand so the reverse is the lack of supply with the economy so

people have long-term joblessness. it will affect capital investment. so to have though weak economy already is not as productive. that is my overview and larry is not responsible for his summary of my views except to the stagnation hypothesis now let me give a few concerns of the responses to give a alternative perspective. first i think the notion in that the real interest-rate to get full employment is negative because the fed can get them down at 2 percent

target aha -- and that is strong that negative real interest rates there has to be things that our productive with the growing economy. i was on the panel when very first introduced this point. in what was taught in graduate school that real interest rates could not bibelots hero because he would walk down the rocky mountains to save the gap literally. if interest rates were zero they were not brought -- knock down the rocky mountains but interest rates that are that negative is questionable if you think about to have office

buildings and housing and consumer durables that day a higher return. and to aid the bubble to full employment. in the for the were presented at the u.s. monetary policy board they questioned quantitatively whether in fact, if it was true that housing bubble was the only reason the economy could get to full employment. they point out with the offsetting factors including the big trade deficit that was 6% of gdp that was demand going abroad rather than the united states and on top of that a major increase of oil prices.

there were factors working the other direction and that was a wash so that a recent evidence approaching full implanting is inconsistent with the view you need a bubble to get to full employment. the view to be taken seriously that full recovery are due to the headwinds that trends on the economy that will dissipate and i was chairman talking about the ted wins facing the economy with the aftereffects better still with us but are dying away and the housing sector is quite below normal with its growth. there is some objections.

again there is a lot of merit but the one concern i would like to do talk about for the rest of my remarks the way it has been expressed is the u.s. economy in isolation. it doesn't talk about the international aspects but trade and exports are a source of demand and in a world covered if the whole world has secular stagnation but if there is anywhere that doesn't with investment opportunities and growth opportunities the u.s. can benefit with foreign investment and exports to that area of though world.

i will not go into detail but in a world of reasonably mobile capital and trade that though whole world is in secular state to stagnation. i think the rest of the road is not a facebook tagged industry. so to think about stagnation of full employment it is important to bring in the of global aspects given that the united states is an open economy can that help explain to compliment that stagnation for those basic facts and growth is less than we would like to see?

ted years ago i made an argument with the basic idea that for various reasons global savings was exceeding the desired investment and the reasons for that? first i pointed out what was happening in asia in countries like china which have huge savings. touche shift abroad or in terms of supporting the export industry which was of big source of growth. not just there was no opportunities for investment but rather domestic consumption. in these policy decisions

the 82 savings leading into the a global economy. following that financial crisis capital investment went down the saving what off to the global financial market. likewise the oil producers were very high just before or during the crisis so countries like saudi arabia and others that huge amounts of foreign exchange so that was recycled. we have a high amount of savings in the a global economy in the first was with lots of savings with demand for investment and to argue at the time what

greenspan called the the conundrum tightening rates between 2014 and 2007 the long term rates stayed quiet though -- as low. the other part is that with financial capital flowing into the united states that strengthens the dollar contributed to our trade deficit. in the middle of the 2000's we had a trade deficit that was more than 6% of gdp. crabwise siphoned off into the global economy. that was talked about at that time. so that contribute to stover growth -- slower growth with

the demand on the housing bubble in those are tied together. in the of blogging will provide more data of and i will characterize how the world has changed in the last 10 years with a global in balances in the basic facts are first the trade deficit is about half which is positive to become major oil producers again we don't have to import as much but if you are the exporter but not a producer that is not entirely good news because the strength of oil production in of the reduction of demand from foreign oil means it is stronger than otherwise would be and hurts the non-oil exports but that is

secondary. but the u.s. has seen improvement in the trade deficit which is positive. the second observation is the emerging market savings looks to be very large but it looks to be moderated somewhat. chided has tried to restructure its economy not completely reliant on exports but consumption in the current-account surplus has reported the comedown meaning feet and they're working in that direction but that decline will be offset by increased surpluses with other southeast asian countries in particular.

end there is a major swing to the deficit in latin america that emerging-market surplus looks to be lower and declining which is a positive thing for the global economy.ñr when i talked about the global savings glut the european savings balance that essentially europe was in balance today since 2006 that net trade balance has risen more there of $300 billion with a movement to use the platte -- towards surplus. where does that come from?

by far the largest trade -- trade balance surplus and that is troubling because that looks to be structural analyze more as the hero gets weaker overtime. but a lot of the change comes from the deep recession in the periphery greece and ireland and spain and portugal has driven down it has through the european periphery is from a deficit or -- deficit importing more to a major surplus that is of major source so with those he emerging markets is one of the reasons they remain very low is the world

and that is a headwind to u.s. growth because it hurts our exports. the good news is the reason for much of that trade imbalance is that they are in a depression they are not importing much there for exporting extra savings to the rest of the world. that is not good news for the periphery of europe and some point this is not a long term structural issue because at some point that surplus will moderate so looking around the world we see a tendency of the savings glut issue as expect

to give those that develop so those implications are from that perspective said downward pressure on global interest rates would moderate overtime and the pressures for the trade deficit would moderate and those are positive factors that need to be taken into account about growth. i don't think these are racially exclusive but they are closely related ideas but that secular stagnation is the national perspective but in terms of policy but to think it is important to get us a better mix of monetary fiscal policy returning to full employment retire early - - relying on the fed makes it more

difficult to keep interest rates very low that have a better results. if you believe in stagnation thinking they don't have good returns to make our economy more productive or more desirable to use port technological change for all those things that make investments more attractive attractive, we continue to fight the head winds with the housing market and overcoming the remaining problems with credit cards. but finally from the global savings perspective we cannot forget the international part to do what we have been doing through the imf to reduce

global imbalances to reduce structural long-term balances that involve a large surplus which are counter productive in the world there isn't enough demand to prepare their interesting perspectives and i will stop there for questions. [applause] >> thanks very much. that is exactly what i hoped you would talk about. [laughter] we have 50 minutes so please make it a question in. no lectures the more we to make the questions and crisp

the more we have time. >> [inaudible] with fiscal policy but are you thinking of? are you talking about $200 billion of investment but to get that recommendation i will point to though last few years that is the worst of the macro perspective with other cuts and tax increases is a major drag on growth that fiscal policy takes a point and a half of the growth