other religion. so in other words, not to leave the decision on the status of jerusalem, for example, only to the politicians and diplomats but also to the spirit all leaders of the different religions? >> actually i believe that the three religions call for peace. i believe that judaism and christianity and islam are religions of peace and religions moved race. that is actually in the holy books. now step aside from the propaganda and media and things where people say islam is a religion of aggression, islam is this, more than 50,000 violent incidents have taken place in the united states and the year,

one year the, 2015, yet three incidents were done by muslims, so islam is being blamed as a religion of violence because of that. let's separate between the religious leaders and religions and what people do in the name of religion. i believe that religion, religious leaders and the religions will call for peace and are for peace and they will not stand in the way of having the old city to be a custodianship of the three religions. as a result we leave the politics outside of the old city to the politicians and in east and west jerusalem. i'm talking about places of worship where anyone can go in

and worship freely and openly like they do in the vatican. once we move on with this concept it becomes like every day and it manies about normal. we have to normalize what is not normal today. we to normalize peace. we have to rehabilitate peace because people now do not think much of peace and moderation. however we have to rehabilitate that again and make people believe in that. once they do, you don't have to worry about that. you have to worry more about who takes out the trash or the sanitary systems, the health, much more than the terrorism. we have to diffuse the issue by making peace and i don't believe that the present situation, the situation which is preserving the status quo could lead to peace.

that's why you are looking, what you are so concerned about is today. what i'm so looking for is tomorrow. i can see tomorrow, a vision of peace and i can see it where a muslim, a christian, a. >> can walk into jerusalem in peace and harmony without having to fear the other. now, there are minorities within these communities which are radicalized and who are instilling hate and fear in order to take control of the people because they are the minority. that is why we have to have the majority to wake up to be more vocal and to be more active and stand up for peace and we do not need the religious leaders to do that. i think ordinary man on the street wants peace to live in peace and just give him the opportunity and take off this

tone of radicalism which is being pinned in on them and this way i believe we will move to a better future. i'm optimistic. i look forward and i see the future where a muslim, and a christian and a jew will not have to worry about a knife or a bullet or a bomb but rather, they will live in peace and that is the future of the city. because we love the city and we love to see it more prosperous and to be more, to see it be the place where even, even jews who would like to come and pray at the dome of the mosque, the mosque should be open for anybody who wants to come and pray there. the idea there is to the politics is poisoning the environment. once we remove the politics of this context i think we have a better future. >> certainly very worthy i think

goal and hopefully the religious leaders will pay attention to your message. now we have a few minutes for, if you do have any questions or comments. again, ron? >> ron taylor with george washington university, senior fellow there. so when i listened to the two of you talk right now i hear professor yonah asking for more of a concrete step to achieve exactly what you just describe, professor dajani. his proposal is maybe get religious leaders from muslim, judaism and christian to make a statement to some kind and you seem to look forward into future and i see that but i don't see

that it is necessary that the leaders make a statement. so i think i will ask yonah this question in a different way. because people are just ordinary and we all need something to look at to give us an example of how to get to the future, could you imagine, you know, how do we paint that picture for everyone of the muslim, the christian and the jew walking into the old city in a way that they get to -- what picture we need to paint today they get the point you want to convey about the future? >> we need to send the message that the three religions are not in clash with each other. as a muslim, as the founder of the movement i read my koran and do not find a clash with the

other. on the contrary, i seeverses which tells me that in order for me to be a good muslim, i have to recognize the other, judaism whether holy books or the prophets and i should cooperate with the others and if god would have wished he would have made us all one nation or if god would have wished he would have made us all one religion or speak one language or speak one people but that was not his desire. his desire is that we are different people, different nations, different religions. so that we can meet and cooperate and live in peace together. and so i think this is the message that these holy leaders should pass, rather than for some of them to antagonize against the other or want to burn the book, the holy book

ever the other or to not, to want to collaborate with the other and so, in this way, islam is not a threat to the other. on the contrary, radical muslims are a threat to islam as well as they are a threat to others. that's why we extend our hands together, the moderates, in order to defeat extremism in three religions, not only in one religion or the other religion. this way i can see a future. religious leaders as they read well their books and if they pass that message to their followers we can live much better. it will help for them to make a statement but it is much more than a statement is work on the ground. it is what they speak to their people. and how we can collaborate with each other. we are starting a house in in

germany which in this house we call it the house where we are going to have the a must him, a christian and a jew come. if they want to pray, if they want to exchange knowledge about their religion with the other, if they want to collaborate with the other. i think this is, the spirit of the future and instead of having a synagog, a church or a mosque, let let us build one building where anybody can walk in and pray so there will be no separation of religion between the three religious communities so they collaborate with each other and understand each other and respect the right of the other to believe the way he believes and to accept that. and to tolerate that. so basically that's, that is our message.

>> okay. we have time for one more question. right here. >> thank you very much for your excellent presentation. i was really struck by your mention of the school situation. so i have basically have a nuts and bolts type of question. we talk about the lack of resources in the east jerusalem. now some people said because they don't vote in municipal elections. there is also been talk in the past, at least i think, they talked about a borough system. what can you see in the way of practical steps to improve the financial situation and improve the infrastructure in east jerusalem? is there any real political leadership that can push for it? have there been any efforts to try to get finding from the oil-rich states? where do you see it may go and

what are the prospects of improving the infrastructure situation in east jerusalem? i'm not a believer in economic situation, litigating terrorism but seems to me something that is good to do for its own reasons. >> i'm sorry that there isn't. i'm sorry jerusalem lacks leadership on both sides which would actually try to bring the two communities together. and unfortunately so much money has been donated by the arab-rich countries but it never arrived to its objectives and there has been money that has been donateed to build hospitals, to build schools, to build better environment in jerusalem but unfortunately the channels through which the money has been donated never arrived.

the train did not arrive to the station. however, i believe that now that israel is the in control of the city and the municipality collects taxes from the arab palestinians residents of the city that there should be more pressure on the municipality to spend more on these facilities to improve them. because one of the arguments also that the arab governments or arab donors would, do not want to do is to fund schools that are under israeli municipality. and so they, they always refuse to do that. so, we have a bulk of our student who go to extremely poor facilities and that's part, when you see 13-year-old kid carrying

a knife and thinking he wants to go to heaven, if he kills someone, this is part, i blame these schools and i blame the environment of these schools for something like that, for him to think that way. and it is education and yes, he gets education at home but also he gets a lot of that at school. and we have to improve the educational environment for him. we have to improve the quality of teachers because also teachers do not receive as much training, as much incentive as teachers on the other side. and this is one way to do it. at the same time, i previous that we should encourage the palestinian civil society within east jerusalem to prosper because unfortunately there has been efforts to really clamp on the palestinian civil society. and we have on the contrary to

give them israel has to give them more leverage to operate as long as east jerusalem is under the rule and under the jurisdiction of israel. in this way empowering civil society and giving them that, that will help a lot. also empowering people to people. empowering activities that will bring palestinians in east jerusalem with israels in west jerusalem together. so any joint projects in that field will be extremely useful in order to make both people live together in peace and try to coexist together. >> thank you very much, professor dajani. thank you. [applause]

general gray, last word, great american. >> certainly very thoughtful, very difficult topic. i want to thank both of our speakers and thank all of you for being with us. the one thing that crossed my mind in listening to this, and your idea, particularly, professor dajani about cooperation and peace and everybody living together, most of the people around the world also want security and security and control and somebody who sees that, who follows the laws and all of that kind of thing. so there needs to be a governmental type of approach that follows your ideas and your guidance. until we have that we'll be stymied a little bit. you know, we, who is going to

enforce your ideas? >> the people. >> i agree with that, the people. that's sort of a, that's sort of a democratic type of thought process and all that kind thing and it takes, it took us a couple hundred years before the declaration of independence to get the idea straight. it will take a long time. thank you very much. for all of you have a happy holiday season and prosperous new year. [applause] . .

[inaudible conversations] >> can you all here? yes? thank you. good morning, everybody. started on time for once and i'm very pleased to welcome congressman red bulls, chairman

of the house foreign affairs committee, republican of california. i'm danielle pletka with aei. we have the talent to talk about national security, the plans ahead, all of the challenges we face, all of the solutions you have in mind, and the president's state of union next week. so not going to take another second. i would like to welcome mrs. royce. i'm delighted to have her here. [applause] >> thank you. you are right. the state of being is coming up. the seven state of the union and we've had seven years now of policies that frankly focused on befriending our enemies and distancing ourselves from our allies, ignoring our allies. and the consequences of that i would just give one example, if we think back to 2005 that was a historic opportunity in iran to

have a chance at reaching out to the people of that country who had gone to the streets after a stolen election, and many of you remember the early broadcasting. you saw that young woman on the street who was shot by the authorities. and the consequences of a society in which according to the gallup poll, two-thirds of the people wanted a western-style democracy without a theocracy. and just have been robbed of an election. and we have the president make his strategic calculus in fact, not to do the reaganesque type thing, not to reach out in support of the people, but instead to decide that the engagement would be a long-term engagement with the ayatollah. and subsequent to that we also saw another calculus on the part of the administration. and that was a situation where the decision was made to embrace

the muslim brotherhood, the muslim brotherhood that had been funded partially by iran, but distanced ourselves from egypt, from the people of egypt. and the consequences of these strategies was to leave us in the middle east in a position come in my opinion, where, when it was the jordanians or the israelis or the gulf states, people no longer trusted the judgment of the administration. and that's important because that means people no longer necessary take our council. they begin to take things into their own hands, or the begin to adopt a new calculus in terms of who the regional hegemony is going to be based upon the assumption that we have now tilted toward iran. and the reason is takes on a new urgency is because in the last few weeks we have seen a series

of steps by the iranian regime in which you can't violations of the u.n. resolutions with respect to two missile tests now, what you see the firing of a rocket near the coast of the uss truman, our carrier. we have seen no another american hostage -- we have seen another american hostage, taken hostage. we've discovered recently of attempts to hack into a damp outside of new york city. i remember when we discovered the efforts here i the iranians to attempt to assassinate café milano by placing a bomb. the ambassador from saudi arabia and now you here iran openly speak of toppling the government of saudi arabia, after already seeing their activities in

bahrain, certainly in yemen where the did topple the government. so the question is who is watching this? not just our allies, all over the world people are watching our failure to respond to these evocative actions. and given that i think it explains a lot in terms of the busy we are in around the world. on the foreign affairs committee that i chair we are attempting to reach back to the old bipartisan consensus that america had in terms of strong engagement overseas. something the aei has long supported. we need u.s. leadership. we cannot be in a position where our policies of constantly backing down. we have to have a policy of more backbone, not a policy of more

backing down. that's the crux of the problem today. >> so you have a lot on your plate for the committee. i know that you've been talking about what to do about iran specifically. you've been working with your ranking member, mr. engel coming to introduced a bill on north korea that we had a north korean nuclear test. that sort of iran further ahead. that's supposed a nuclear deal that was at the time touted by bill clinton as the model for how to come to a nuclear agreement with the country, now we've got another nuclear agreement with iranians and the wondering when we'll see the same fate. want a you think about what congress can do? >> a couple of thoughts. during the original framework the great but i remember debating wendy sherman at the time who was the chief negotiator not only for the north korean agreement but also for the iranian agreement. and i would just make the point that we had an example of what

could deter north korea. in 2005 we have a situation where you had banco delta asia in macau was a discovery on the part of the treasury department that 100-dollar banknotes were being counterfeited by the government in north korea. is obviously gave the undersecretary the authority to go forward, anti-sanctions that activity. indicate a choice to the bank in macau and 10 other banks that serve as the conduit for the hard currency needed by north korea. they had a choice between remaining part of the international banking system, and banking with the united states, or being cut off and they could bank with north korea. they all made a decision against banking suicide and all decided they would freeze the accounts

for north korea. what were the results that we discovered afterwards? for example, the missile production line that the north koreans had run, they could no longer get the hard currency they needed to buy either the black market gyroscopes that ended for the missiles or other parts. they came to a complete halt. more importantly not only was the dictator not able to pay his army or his secret police, wasn't able to pay his generals. that is not a good position for a dictator to be in. and as a consequence, every meeting after that started with one question on the part of north koreans. when do we get our money? wingfield at our sanctions? unfortunately treasury was not in the position of making the key decision on this. unfortunately that decision was made by the state department,

and he lifted as part of a negotiation in the hopes that north korea, the false hopes, would come back to the table. the legislation i've offered -- authored which will come up to say what exactly that policy from 2005 and put it back into law. we will put a bill on the president's desk with strong bipartisan support. it passed unanimously out of my committee, and this is the approach that will work because you need consequences. the idea of strategic patients, which is how the administration defines its current strategy with north korea, means patience while north korea go forward with the test after test until it fully developed as icbm program. and its delivery capability, right now those icbms can get the united states. we don't want them to succeed in miniaturizing their weapons so that they can put them on the

code of those icbms and thus threaten us as well as the region. >> as the administration taken a position on that legislation? >> i have not heard the direct position from the administration of am hoping the strength vote behind it changes their calculus with respect to how to deal with north korea. >> you described a mechanism with north korea with a financial stake it was close. they responded t, the financial stake it was open and now we have had several nuclear test. we are about to open the financial spigot on implementation day with iran. what do you see as the options for the congress to address a violation that you of the u.n. security council resolution of the first iran is posing in the region? >> well, i'm going to try to move legislation that will address those issues, but i'd like to revisit a discussion i had with the secretary of state, myself and eliot engel, in which we were advancing legislation,

again based upon stewart lee these work, that would give the ayatollah a choice between real compromise on its nuclear program or economic collapse. and that legislation had strong bipartisan support. and again i go back to the post-world war ii cases that we always had in the night united states for leadership and a strong showing comes myself in eliot engel put the pill together and we passed it out of the house of representatives with a boat of 400-20 mac. our request to the administration was that they allowed that bill, this was in a prior congress, to come up. but instead the administration did the calculus and felt that they had to extend an olive branch to our argument was well, let's at least have this in reserve. if you are negotiating with north korea let's have something

in reserve for which there will be consequences if they do not follow through. so allah was to bring the bill up in the senate. clearly get more than enough votes for a veto override in the house, and at that time we had i believe 65 senators had shown an interest in the approach we were taking. the bill was blocked by the administration. as a matter of fact, as that session no foreign policy initiatives came up in the senate because the senate leader at the time was concerned that this would be attached to it ever get to conference or to get to the president's desk. i think this was an absolute blunder. and i think we've got to get back to the issue of whether or not they are going to be consequences. one of the things we were assured of was that if we went

forward with this agreement it would be enforced at a secondary argument that was made on the floor of the house of representatives was, look, there already are u.s. sanctions in place. we will enforce the idiocy of violation of either the issue of icbm testing. we have now had to violations, and what happened? the administration begin to move forward with some very feminine is partial sanctions, informed us in congress come and visit us there was pushed back from iran, they pulled it back. also we were assured that it the would be no lifting of sanctions against those who were involved in terrorism. you know, the irgc is going to be a main beneficiary. there are several banks in iran that have funded the icbm program that the iranians run, as well as terror.

so our point is why aren't we sticking to the letter of the agreement? widely considered to, why do we continue to fall back? we will legislation out yesterday out of the committee to address some of these issues and we will continue to push forward, but it is incumbent upon the commander in chief in this country to lead on these issues when it deals with the national security of this nation. we haven't seen that leadership. >> i want to come to the question of that leadership and authorizatioauthorization for tf force but before we leave unread i would ask you what your take is on the flareup between saudi arabia and various other gulf states and iranians over the execution of sheikh and seven. here is one of the unfortunate consequences of the calculus that is made in foreign capitals -- shaik nimr. or the administration is tilted towards iran. what that means is that they are

less likely to take our council. so when we get advice now, we quickly find, for example, the iranian code sources were involved in helping orchestrate -- quds force is -- in the shia militia there, and a decision was made in riyadh, along with other capitals, to put together an air force to go into yemen and to try to push the iranians out. angel notice that we were not included in those discussions. egypt, saudi arabia, other countries in the region are increasingly making decisions on their own without our council. and i think part of that is they now lack the trust in the judgment of the administration with respect to anything dealing

with iran. and the other consequences of this, by the way, is it makes it harder for us to get solutions to other problems when the sectarian divide come when sunni and shia begin to separate because of the consequences, again, of actions where the administration originally in 2008 i guess it was, 2008 was the iranian green revolution. had we lived in we might have a different situation right now on the ground. win two-thirds of the people feel strongly that an election has been stolen and you don't speak out antidote help increase the passions to 86%, which is what you could have done with radio free europe, radio liberty, if you don't take reagan's view on this, that it's

our responsibility to lead also with public diplomacy, which we could've done effectively by broadcasting into iran in support of those efforts in an effective way. and now we are in this situation. it is very hard to untangle the lost opportunities. hard to get the confidence back in egypt when it seemed the embrace of the muslim brotherhood. and this is, this is the challenge we face in this theater. >> you just brought by a whole series by want to talk about which is our public diplomacy which rings in russia and all the other question i don't want to leave the middle east into we talk about the aumf. this is been argument congress has abdicated its responsibility i know you support the notion of an authorization. there was back and forth between the administration which did want to give language to the congress, and the result is we've been operating in what amount to a military --

>> we are operating under the 2001 and 2002 authorization. what i support is an authorization of the use of military force that will give our commanders the flexibility they need in the field. one of the things we need though in all of this is the commander-in-chief to be commander-in-chief. one of the things we need as we move forward on this is a commander in chief willing not to tie his own hands and the hands of whoever follows him into office, but instead to be dedicated not to a containment policy with respect to isis, but destroying i suspect let me just be to the issue for a moment. because when isis came out of raqqa in syria and again it's the salt -- began its assault

across northern syria and then across the border into iraq, there were calls from the pentagon, called hamas in congress, to use u.s. airpower in the same way as we just did back during the first gulf war when kuwait was invaded. if you will recall, when kuwait was invaded the united states took a position that those 42 divisions were going to be obliterated. and we did that with 118,000 sorties. 118,000 sorties. took out those armored divisions. and the question we hav had at e time to the white house was, they are moving with toyota pickup trucks. you can see them from the air. why not use that strategy and remove isis before they ever take fallujah, or before the ever take most of? town by town, city by city.

this argument was made month after month after month after month as we held hearings on the. and somehow the administration said in a state of paralysis when isis could have been destroyed before they were embedded, before they were recruiting on the internet from all over the world, before they were selling the concept that they were indestructible. we could've taken them out from the air. let's take to the next stage. then they finally on the yazidi mountain, that's when the administration finally decided to take some kind of action. after mosul had fallen come after that taken the central bank. and what action did we take? we had a young yazidi captive speak before our congress, before our committee and explain to us what happened to her. she said in my village all of the men were killed.

the women, the girls and the women were sold. she said i was bought by in america. i was a concubine to an american who had been recruited into isis a few years ago on the internet. and he explained to me that as a yazidi i was an apostate and, therefore, that was what happens under just system. if you're not a believer in the isis, you know, in isis cause, you're an apostate. she said, why won't you armed the yazidi then? why won't you arm the kurdish men and women? by the way, 30% of the kurdish battalions are female, and they are fighting with 40 year old weapons, all right? they are fighting isis, and when you ask the question is, baghdad, yeah, they shia led government in baghdad does have

a problem with this army, the kurds or the yazidis or others in the region. but that's because of the influence of iran that doesn't want to see anything except shia militias operating across the region. why should we care about the pressure from iran on baghdad? why shouldn't we come and i got legislation, bipartisan legislation that i passed out of committee to arm the kurdish forces. you have 180,000 peshmerga. 180,000. you had, what, 30,000 isis fighters? but as the kurdish soldiers tell us, we don't have artillery that we don't have long range mortars people have antitank weapons but that is what it is so hard for us to stop i suspect another

question i have a site army the christians and the yazidis and the sunni tribes who want to take their towns back and live now in dp camps. maybe 7 million people now have been displaced within syria, and we have no, no safe zone that this administration has set up to protect them. they would like to go back. they would like to buy weaponry and some training from the u.s. to take their villages back. but as long as we're going to defer to shia militia go to baghdad and iran, how is that going to happen? and as long as we're not going to forward deployed our forward observers in order to call in those airstrikes, how are we going to give close air support to those kurdish units and other units fighting isis? we need a strategy not to contain isis but to destroy isis

so that those young men, and women now, watching on the internet, suddenly get the message that it's not their destiny to go join isis and expand the caliphate. that is a losing cause. that takes a change of calculus on the part of the administration. >> are you more optimistic about the iraqi government now that the iraqi military now without militia have taken back ramadi? >> i am somewhat more optimistic, because in the past when they accused the shia militia, the human rights abuses, to put it mildly, that they've inflicted upon indigenous village populations, have created a huge blowback. so some of it is moving in the right direction, but we could accelerate this if we listened to those in the field who want the authorization, i would say

75-80% from what i've heard from the commanders of the flights that go out come back without getting authorization out of washington in terms of dropping their ordinance. they've got to get approval out of washington, and in this kind of situation with those rules of engagement, you know that the challenge there. so for all of these reasons i would like to accelerate the rollback of isis, because so much depends upon us getting a handle on this enthusiasm of recruitment that right now is such a problem in europe and north africa, and now it's becoming a problem here. >> for as long as they proceed to be winning they will be recruiting. i don't think there's any question about that. let's change gears a little bit. you have introduced legislation to support military assistance to ukraine. i know the administration has frankly to me inexplicably

resisted that. this is the challenge we face in ukraine. we are not able to arm the people on the ground to support themselves. it isn't an analogy to what you're talking about in the middle east. putin is now in syria. he's heard it in ukraine. how do we meet this challenge? >> if we go back, dani, one more step, where did it begin? it began with the decision to pull our interceptors out of poland and the czech republic. our secretary of state hillary clinton and this idea of pushing the reset, the idea that the obama administration wanted to send a signal to putin, and we put in an interceptor system. we are expanding a system as a counterweight to iran ever threatened europe or the united states, the concept was have the interceptor system and a program where we could intercept any missiles coming out of iran before the ark to and felt into

european or u.s. territory. but the russians were pushing back on that. and so in the face of the commitment that had been made by poland and the czech republic, our secretary of state clinton and the president pulled out of the system. and i believe that as a consequence of that, putin read that as weakness, a lack of resolve on the part of the united states. and saw an opportunity when the situation presented itself in ukraine. now, myself and elliot engel a delegation of eight, four on each side, with into ukraine and we went all the with east, as far east as you can get before you get, energy talk to the russian's peaking region there, to get their feelings about what was going on, to take the temperature and we talked to the

civil society, the lawyer script to the women's groups, the jewish groups of the to minority groups, the mayor, council. the response we got was that look, we get a lot of, they said this, putin is recruiting every skinhead and malcontent he can find in the russian speaking world, and they are bringing them into with weaponry, but we can handle that because we can tell their accent from our own accent. we arrested the that is not our problem. our problem is the russian tanks. our problem is that we do not have antitank weapons to stop their tanks. and our problem is that you will not sell or give us those weapons. so the reason for the legislation, dani, is to give those in ukraine a credible

deterrence that says to putin, if you continue with the armor in this region, there will now be an antidote for inserting those tanks into this situation. because they clearly feel they could have handled the situation, the circumstances, if it were not for russian armor and russian troops. so our goal, we have the sanctions on russia to try to push russia out. but for me i think the problem is if you show resolve up front, if like reagan, you announced that because the iranians have taken hostages come when you become president, he would do something about it, what happened that day that he's being sworn in? our hostages at the time were being taken to a canadian plane and they were trying to get them off the tarmac as fast as they

could before reagan took that te oath of office, right? .. which is exactly what happened. and in east germany, where i saw this happen, you could see exactly what was happening with the population and you could see

that inevitably now we were sharing our values come in the types of values the aei is weeks along the road which had around the world to explain these political pluralism, freedom, free speech, freedom of religion. tolerance. as for the concepts being taught and people were listening to this. this is what should be going on now with respect to our broad cast into eastern europe and into russia and what does even the administration says the broad casting of vaguely defined. the legislation myself in england the movie addresses in two ways you put the strong ceo in charge of this instead of a seven board, you know, nine members of the board that can make a quorum. you let the ceo run it day to day and you give that ceo

domitian that we once gave radio free and get us back up countering what putin is doing with this propaganda machine along with what isis is doing. >> the surrogate radios and direct broadcasting back in the day were really a lifeline of how. we have heard talk about how they were really something that gave him optimistic they had a future. in the 90s, we created radio free asia. it's hiding over there in the corner. i am trying to understand what is happening. we created the broadcasting in order to double down on protecting these radios from the influence of the go along to get along in diplomacy. >> it is more than national public radio.

with the bureaucracy and without the mission at the time. our mission was to in these those societies with the knowledge to move towards greater freedom and greater support for market economy and a template and a lesson of tolerance and how democratic systems would work. we have moved off of that mission but there's no reason we can't know madonna and the legislation and it's not just about radios. it's also about television and the whole panoply of social media that we can tell. we have to feel confident in our message about our goals. we have to talk about freedom. we have to talk about issues and speaking of freedom of religion

and so forth and give people a vision of a different society than the one they see crashing around them. you've got to be confident to do that got to believe the right thing to do is to empower the people. i believe the right thing to do is to be with two thirds of the people that went to the streets. i don't think the right thing to do was to increase the leverage of the ayatollah or the arg see in that society which will now receive 100 plus. and rather nail because we're sort of forgotten all of those companies were nationalized including the oil industry. it is not not going to debris and people the way this has been set up. it's going to the iranian revolutionary guard corps. what are they going to do with additional money? this is not going to be empowering for the people in

iran. i think the strategy has to be reversed. >> we talked a lot about political freedom. we haven't talked about economic freedom. you've come up in favor of tpp, transpacific gardener should. >> a logistics in my thinking, which i have sat down with the representatives of government across the pacific rim and in europe and what they share with me his love, we there have agreements for international trade which are low terrorists, high standard or we have agreement is beijing is leading the process of low terrorists, no standards. we figured out that for us we are much better protected in the negotiations if we can have high

standards. so we are willing to give you more market access. we are willing to open our market after all your tariffs are pretty low to begin with. hours are pretty high. we will bring our terrorists down. agreements with high standards and we will sign onto that because we would sooner have america is driving this train in beijing. this is also what european parliamentarians of either political stray. tell us privately. we understand protectionist attitudes and so forth in europe. when you are talking to those who actually unders and what is at stake. they encourage us to move forward and to lead because if you don't need in the united states, beijing belize and that

will happen happy outcome. >> critics of tpp have said -- even among those who are nominally free trade, critics have said some of the provisions would allow the chinese and state-owned enterprises to slide in with no problem but some of the intellectual provisions are good. have you take that? >> they are a lot better than the existing ip provisions in there on indigenous and what i would like to see. i would like to see them stronger. ip protection are in there. you contrast that with what beijing is pushing, which has no protections, no protections. this obviously increasing don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. and remember this is not a

situation where if we advocate moving forward trade liberalization and a rules-based system, we set up after the second world war. i just want people to reflect on what part of the consequences have been in terms of liberalizing trade around the world. part of the consequence if you look at economies, the world economy was about 5 trillion. today it is $70 trillion. if you look at child mortality rate, we've cut the rate by two thirds. we have cut that rate by two thirds. around the globe, the answer is not to put up higher tariffs. we saw what that looks like during the great depression because the great depression was a worldwide depression in one of the things that accelerated it was government moving forward

with ever higher tariffs as we fight terror fours. today we are in a situation where we could bestow advantage if we could build on the momentum up higher and higher standards because we have our allies in europe and we have a pacific room who will agree to go along with us. peer but if we lose momentum on the process and instead it is driven in asia by beijing, i think it's going to be a much different future. >> i take a little bit of the blame on nice and institutions like ours as well. we talk a lot about political freedom and we don't talk enough about the transformative role of economic freedom and even in the middle east where we don't see that, it makes such a huge difference. i have completely monopolized the microphone and i would like

to open things up for questions. everybody knows our procedures. i will call on you. someone will come over with a microphone. identify yourself and your affiliation and put your brilliant statement in the form of a very short question or i will cut you off. this gentleman had his hand up first. >> the hindu american foundation. thank you for leadership on the committee. president obama has invited prime minister moe dee for talks here in washington in the spring. these talks are overshadowed by another terrorist attack. as chairman of the foreign affairs committee, what would you abide the trajectory cap steube curb religious experience ? >> i have long discussed this issue with the former chief

minister and now prime minister of india. this issue of better cooperation from antiterrorist cooperation between the united states and india. the attack on mumbai, for example is an example of where we pick up certain intelligence and we shared it with the government, that collect ugly we weren't able, even though we knew an attack was coming, the city that was going to be attacked, we weren't able to discern enough information to prevent the loss of life. our secondary cargo is many of the schools, in this case the campus that exists to recruit those jihadist has not been closed down. 1600 schools as well as the lat campus that exists in pakistan that i've been trying to get close down in three trips over the years to pakistan.

i've pushed, pushed on us. these are not funded inside pakistan. there's gold state funding that continues to play this role in pushing an ever more confrontational interpretation of this ideology. we need to work worldwide to shut down the funding of that kind of mechanism. third, we need to work on the internet with respect -- we've got to work with palo alto as well as in india and tel aviv with respect to those involved in the i.t. community in terms of how you take this down on the internet. so there is a number of different solutions here. we need to do all of this in tandem and we must understand that as we dismiss isis and this

other organizations, this is not the case. they are growing with their momentum. this is accelerating and instead this must be along with containing for stopping iran from developing the capabilities of getting a nuclear weapons program and i would argue the way this agreement was handled is just a temporary 10 year, 15 at the most hiatus on this. i do not think until we have a strategy to empower the people in iran, i think we have a problem that the ayatollah is making these decisions and until we close down these were those terrorists are recruited, we have the same problem in terms of the attacks in india. >> it's interesting. they've really taken our eye off the ball in pakistan and we are not talking about al qaeda and what they are doing in dan.

i encourage you all to ask. this lady here has a question. >> high. when you start with css is. what would be the first priority is restoring u.s. leadership around the world question or >> the first priority is to lay out a strategy in which we are going to lead and i think reaching out for us to our democratic allies and then two other friends around the world in order to lay out what the strategy is going to look like. also in terms of explaining the rules of the road internationally, the international trading thin agreement, for example that mean and are interpreted as such by other countries of the world except one that means you can not claim a recess or sovereign territory. you cannot take a marking pen

and draw a nine line around the south china sea up against the borders and men's bad all of this bizarre territory. so i think it is important. we work with the international community and with our democratic allies and others to say these are the rules and we are not going to violate the rules and with respect to terrorism, there is a new strategy and our strategy is not to contain it. it is to defeat it and you take it from there. >> can i follow up on your south china sea statement? what more should we be doing? we are doing very limited freedom of navigation in the south china sea to push back on the chinese. what were should we be doing? >> the whole question is freedom of navigation. what we need to do is do that on a routine basis and do that with

the pacific fleet. i don't think you necessarily want to send one out there. you just want to keep those feelings open and make it clear, by the way, working internationally since everyone else happens to perceive this exactly the same way. you make this a worldwide issue that these are the rules of the road. >> gentleman back here. >> thank you, chairman royce and aei. and the communications are at the of america. this week you had a closed-door briefing with the u.s. ambassador. particularly steps you another congressional leaders would like to see this administration take to bring peace to the region. as you elaborate on some of that as much as you can as well as steps -- other steps you another

congressional leaders would like to see the administration or future administrations take in regards to perfect game and helping allies, armenia and georgia were constant threat to external forces such as azerbaijan and turkey. >> fleet in the situation i sent a letter to the president by a ranking member and others on my committee that lay out a strategy of first putting these range fighting equipment to tell where a gun is fired from. though it can tell which side of the line of control the shell is coming from. it is a direction finding equipment. second, to put observers they are in or to require all sides to pull all snipers off of the front lines.

if these three things are done, the ngo community and those in the pentagon tell us it will lead to a much safer situation because he will no longer have the tripwires. so we are pushing or all three of those actions. now at the same time we are talking to both governments. i've been in baku as well as fear of men talking to heads of state that both countries with the bipartisan delegation. eliot angle and night trying to lower those temperatures. >> thank you. in your opinion, how important is it now that the u.s.a. -- the military capabilities. thank you. >> i think it is very important because first of all, the kurdish forces are doing most of the fighting on the ground.

second, the kurdish forces are the best fighters. third, as i said, 30% of the kurdish battalions are female and those women are fighting up against isis. you and i have both read about their bravery. i think it is morally -- it is not morally responsible for us to allow those women on the front to fight isis with 40 road equipment. they need antitank guns, artillery, long-range mortars that they have requested in order to match isis. and if they can fight with the same equipment, i have no doubt that they will be the tory is and i think it is a very important point. >> do you ever worry that supporting some of these groups on the basis of tribes or sect

or ethnicity is going to push apart the middle east or is that just a consequence we should tolerate? >> dna, which should be focused on giving them the equipment that would allow fighters to take militias back. that should be the focus. the munitions necessary to take their villages back because if we do not, as i mentioned the word paralysis, it's like the administration were in a state of paralysis. think for a minute of the fact we've got 7 million people displaced in camps they want to go back to their villages. what are the consequences of that? that is inside the area and iraq. imagine a billion and a half in turkey. the three quarters of a million of lebanon. the three quarters of a million in jordan. the million in europe.

we have been humanitarian night air and we did there because yes, we are pressured by the bag that government. yes, they constantly tell us if you are going to harm anybody, come through us. but the problem is until they show a capability of standing up to tehran, standing up to the iranian regime and actually engaging the sunni tribes and the kurds and everyone in the same way, until we see that action and i don't dispute that the kurt government is much better than maliki's government, that there is a habit that has been put into place. we have to break that habit and i would say the way we begin is arming the kurds and the sunni tribes that want to take their villages back.

>> young man in the back there. >> good morning, mr. chairman. he began by talking about the administration befriending our enemies get my question is that the administration attempt to support our friends with the asian rebounds. how would you characterize the progress so far? what more should we be doing and how would you respond to china's strategy? >> it is just attainment. >> it is not a containment strategy. what it is is an absurd to move forward with the rule of law and i support very much the administrationsupport for the transpacific partnership as well as region. those are steps in the rate direction in terms of enforcing the rule of law, the rules of the road.

it will better protect our ip property, but it will also lead to economic growth and i think all of that is a step in the right direction. >> i will work my way across the room. i tried to gather everybody. two ladies behind the camera. >> thank you. i have a question here. we talk about russia and china. chairman royce, in your view, which country poses a bigger threat to the united states in the coming year? >> the greatest long-term threat is still iran. it is a threat to the region and teen years out is a threat potentially to the united states. that is why i am convinced there

and the perception of till to iran in the region will complicate our absurd to try to constrain iranian behavior. the secondary problem we faced long-term -- by the way, i think the ayatollah basically has his own caliphate. when he is talking about overturning government in yemen, bahrain, saudi arabia, i think this idea of the shia crescent stretching to lebanon is a very, very destabilizing reality that we are dealing with and at the same time we have this jihadist concept of the isis caliphate. say you have got two competing ideologically driven interpretations. but both are moving away from

any acceptance of the political pluralism with the idea of freedom of religion for people to practice their own religions. that is not tolerated in either of these quarters. so with that in tolerated and radicalization comes the danger that either one of those groups get ever deadlier weapons into their possession. that is why i would like to see isis decisively destroyed. >> go back over that direction, mr. chairman. >> thank you. it seems that the sanctions relief on iran is according to secretary kerry yesterday and once iaea verifies iran meet its commitments, the nuclear deal

believes the sanctions automatically without the input from congress. giving your view of iran is a pretty substantial threat, what can congress do in the long term and a new era of u.s. sanctions lifted on iran's oil sector? >> i don't think it is just my view. this particular initiative only got support of 42 members in the south. certainly a minority of the members of the house of representatives comment including many defections from his own party in the house. so i think the question of what we can do depends upon our resolve to first try to enforce the agreement and i haven't seen any real resolve on the administration in terms of enforcing it. second, whether or not we intend to keep the commitment made by

both those who voted for it and those who opposed it, which was regardless of what happens next. we all agree that the u.n. resolutions that are in place to prevent iran from developing further testing on icbms and further support for terror. now that they are in violation of that, i would say this is the acid test of their intentions. i would put one other thing on the table. the report has surfaced in "the wall street journal" that iran had agreed to transfer the capability to your hands of hezbollah for targeting for their missiles, you know i ran has transferred some 100,000 rockets and missiles now in the hands of has a love.

i saw this some years ago during the second lebanon war. i watch the rings crash into the city every day. i was in the trauma hot at all. it covered it comes down there. but those were rockets. they couldn't target the tallest building. they couldn't target the airport. iran has said we will transferred that capability to hezbollah. we will also do that -- we will resupply the rockets to hamas down in gaza and rebuild the tunnels. ladies and gentlemen, those are direct violations of the international resolution in the call for sanctions against that kind of activity. is the administration going to make it clear to the ayatollah that we are not going to allow the transfer of that capability into the hands of nasa rolla,

into the hands of hezbollah. i think this is an essential question and all of this we intend to use our committee as we have done in the past to put legislation out onto the floor of the house of representatives, but also tried to encourage the administration to take action. ..

would you have concerns about doing so? >> no, i don't have concerns about doing that because we've been pushing the administration on this. it has to do also with our industrial base. the defense of our industrial base. when our allies need this equipment it makes very little sense to have them go instead to other countries, because, frankly, part of keeping our production lines open and part of offering a deterrence is having allies and friends able to count upon the united states for weapons of deterrence. and so this is, we've had ongoing discussions with the administration on this in order to try to expedite and reverse some of these policies that have gone on, things that have been held a year after year. i used as a month after month

but it is now year after year. so we are pushing hard on that. >> uncle and ask everybody to remain seated as the congressman has to head back to his job on capitol hill, but i know you all join me in thanking him. [applause] >> [inaudible conversations]

>> [inaudible conversations] >> a reminder you can see chairman royce's remarks again on our website c-span.org. the nationals continues this morning. to iraqi born palestinians who came to the u.s. as refugees have been arrested on federal terrorism charges. texas lieutenant governor diane patrick cited the rest is evidence of the wisdom of blocking middle east refugee resettlement. this is from reuters. this is exactly what we have repeatedly told the obama administration could happen and why we do not want refugees coming to texas. to our questions about who these people really are as evidenced by today's event. that from lieutenant governor diane patrick in texas. a source of money with the case of the men were not involved in any single plot let me been in contact. that report from reuters. also today from the hill, the

u.s. economy adding 292000 jobs in december well ahead of expectations capping off the second best year of the gains since 1999. the unemployment rate has held steady at 5%, the lowest since 2008. the labor department reported job growth for the year is a total of two points 65 million. they write the strength of labor market is likely to figure prominently into president obama's final state of union address on tuesday. >> as president obama prepares for his date of the address on tuesday the release of this video on twitter. >> i am working on my state of the union address. it's my last one and as i'm writing i keep thinking about the road we traveled together these past seven years. that's what makes america great, our capacity to change for the better. our ability to come together as one american family and pull ourselves closer to the america we believe in.

it's hard to see sometimes in the day-to-day most of washington but it is who we are and it is what i want to focus on in his state of the address. >> c-span's coverage starts at 8 p.m. a star with senate historian and real clear politics congressional reporters looking back at history and tradition of the president's annual message and what to expect in this year's address. then at night our live coverage of the president's speech bubble by the republican response by south carolina governor nikki haley pleasure reaction, as well as for members of congress. on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. we will we ever our state of the union coverage and the republican response starting at 11 p.m. eastern, 8 p.m. pacific. also live on c-span2 after the speech we will never members of congress in statuary hall with their reaction to the president's address.

>> next come epa administer gina mccarthy talks by the obligations of the paris climate change agreement and u.s. environmental policy. she outlined her role with the u.n. climate change conference and stressed the importance of climate change affect asian and environmental technology. she also said she's confident a federal judge would not block the administration's clean air plan, from yesterday at the council on foreign relations. >> well, welcome everybody. thanks for coming out. i'm delighted, my name is john bussey, i'm delighted to be here from "the wall street journal" that i'll be talking with gina mccarthy today. his of the program will play out. we will hear a few words from the administrator to begin with and then we will talk for 10 or 15 minutes and then at like to turn over to questions and answers from you.

that's always the most interesting part i think for any of these gatherings at the council. we have a few members of the press in the back. i will be diligent in getting to you as well. don't be offended at all if i lean all that more towards the members in taking them first to ask the question but we'll try to get everybody's questions answered i think we're just at a fascinating moment in the environmental discussion and debate, the paris conference was at a minimum quite notable, let me say -- many same-store, something a little more controversial in issues of implementation for still need to be resolved but fascinating no matter how you look at it. gina mccarthy is going to be here to explain to us what exactly happened and what needs to happen now. this is going to be on the record. so if you just can't keep that in mind when asking your questions and if you could mute yourself osha and the outset that would be very helpful.

and now i'd like to turn this over to gina mccarthy. please join me in welcoming her. [applause] >> hello, everyone. happy new year. it's great to be back again. john, thank you for the introduction. i expect we would have a great conversation and want to thank the council on foreign relations for inviting me here and for hosting the event. i know that 25 at least in many peoples views include my own will go down in history as quite a year. it was a year where we began significantly to turn the tide on climate change, and there's no doubt i think in my mind and the many others that that's the case that i'm also convinced that 2016 s. not going to be a year where we are going to slow down. it is a year we're going to keep building the momentum on the basis of the historic year that's gone past.

so last august the president announced art clean power plan at epa and its historic role to cut domestic carbon pollution from our power plants. that is what i mentioned this at the international discussion is because last month in paris we nearly 200 countries came together to announce a universal agreement on climate that in this groundbreaking, the clean power plan was one of the foundational issues that was brought up that allowed that success to happen. i am not saying that just because i want to give kudos to epa, although we did a great job, it was certainly a concerted effort but it's also a concerted effort to take a look at where the image world in this country is heading. and to work with those in the energy world that are both producing energy that are using the energy, and those that are regulating it. and it was an opportunity for us to show domestic leadership.

and so the task really is what it was successful as opposed to eluding us like it has for the past years, was really a result of three things, and we can get into these in much more detail when the talk but i liked it then although there. first of all i think it was the inevitability of taking climate action was quite clear. we did not hear from climate deniers at this meeting. we did not hear any country saying that action should not move forward. there was a certainty about the inevitability of needing to act on climate and the immediacy of that. i was quite palpable and very different. secondly, it was about u.s. leadership. and i can get into this a little bit more but it was both the president's leadership, not just in setting an aggressive domestic environmental agenda, but in his constant nurturing of this issue over the past few

years so we went into paris fully prepared for a deal. and his work while we were in paris. and it's also the work across the administration. it put u.s. back into a leadership position in a way that we have not been for quite some time. and it allowed us to speak with the credibility and and energy that we had not seen before. so if you look at these issues, why do i know that there was certainly of action? when i went to paris it was markedly different than any that i had into, and i've been to many, many of which i would rather have been home doing christmas present shopping. and being there. it was a positive level of energy that i don't think any of us had felt before. there was a collective motivation to come to a decision point here that would really

finally address an international effort that was commensurate with the challenge that we were facing. now, i spent a full week in paris. many thought i shouldn't or that was a long time. it proved to be a valuable opportunity for me because i got to listen to the energy level. i got to talk to many countries. i got to talk about in detail some of the issues relative to how you do a transparent system. how sdp done this similarly before with countries and help with that capacity building exercise. i also saw that there was a big difference in the way this meeting was handled. first of all we went into there was already 180 countries pledging commitment. that has not happened before. and so when we stepped off the plane, it was different.

in the prior year said world leaders, at the end of the meeting instead of the beginning. this time it was the beginning. what i did was to things. one is it allowed us to recognize the work that had already been done in the past year by this president and others to get the largest world leaders and world economies to the table in a serious way. but also chartered the course that the rest of the to follow. that meant that every day after that was substantive instead of a preliminary discussion prior to the world leaders speaking. it was a vastly different way of structuring this meeting and it resulted in vastly more substantive discussion, which shows in the language of the agreement. now that i think it became very clear as i've said before was the leadership of the united states, and the fact that we are not just at the table but we

were managing many of those discussions and putting them forward. we know that president obama made a big difference when he reached agreement with countries like china and with brazil, and when he had such rigorous conversations with india. i know in talking to all of those folks at the table that their job was to get an agreement, their job was to make good on those discussions, and it showed. i also know that one of the challenges i had going in there was to make sure that i could articulate the domestic agenda effectively. one the things i wanted to make sure that i talked about was our clean power plan. it turned out that a need to do a lot less talking than i thought because i had the utilities if they're doing that talking. that is quite a change. they were the ones talking about their ability to meet this. it's consistency in how this is

the direction we need to take in order to get investment once again in our energy infrastructure so that we could meet the challenges of today and tomorrow. there was private sectors beyond the utilities that were already on board and making pronouncements, including investments communities. this was an opportunity for us to double the research capacity funding that we would make available from governments but also to the private sector stand up and announce opportunities for investments in new technology. because while this is a great agreement that we fully expect to produce terrific results, we know that a lot more needs to be done. we know more solutions need to be driven to the table. and the right people or around the table saying the only way we're going to get those

investments is to get an agreement, is to keep moving forward, is defined and interagency, international way in which we could work together to identify those new technologies, to align those research efforts, entity got how developed and developing countries could take advantage of that not just to address climate but to address the multitude of environmental and economic challenges that face them, and integrate climate into those efforts moving forward. so it was a wonderful meeting. i think i should stop there since i'm at my time limit. i think we should just take some questions bottom happy to talk in detail about this. but 2016 will really be for epa to touch the a tremendous opportunity to move forward to continue with our commitments under the present climate action plan to implement the clean power plan which we can talk about. we are also going to have a

heavy role supporting state and working on issues to bring the kind of detailed that you are suggesting to the table to make sure that this agreement is cast in stone to the extent that we can, and provide that positive momentum moving forward. we are quite sure that we will meet the president's commitment domestically to move forward on issues like the heavy-duty vehicle rule, agencies, methane rules. we have a series of work that's going to continue but we are not going to take the ball, our eyes off the ball of sharing our expertise in supporting this international effort which for the first time as a framing that could make it very successful. and we intend to get there. so thanks very much, everybody. [applause]

>> well, thank you. i think there's been universal acclaim for this many countries agreeing on anything. and that the headline has been pretty positive. but criticism has been that the details are yet to be hammered out, enforcement of how to get to the fiscal of blending temperature change to two degrees celsius, or less? you certainly were part of discussions that cut into those details. walk us through step-by-step. how does this not happen? >> for those folks that many of these concerns, i don't know whether i call been criticisms. they are limitations of what you can get done and an international agreement that this agreement is much more specific in terms of how it must be carried out. it talks about coming back every five years to take a look at

goals and the technical needs to be more aggressive than the one before. it outlines the new capacity building efforts that i really engaged and interested in, which is to make sure that developing countries can do the kind of work that provided that accountability and transparency a will provide opportunities for them. >> the intellectual -- >> that's exactly right, and the technical capacity. what this actually does is it basically says that every country is going to have to meet standards that look at providing a transparent accountability system. innuendos to international work knows that accountability is a big thing. transpires is a big thing because it often is the key driver to getting countries to do with his coaches are supposed to do. most countries hate to be the one that did meet the goals that they articulated and that is a huge driver when you get into the international world. so what epa does is, and what we are doing at the conference and

convention is to basically outlined what those steps might look like, and why do not just a measure of accountability but why it's smart for developed and developing countries to do that. it's the exact same process bp has gone through with the states enabled many our national ambient air quality standards for its the same thing we've been working on with china on he began to address air quality challenge. it's not complicated. basically it takes technical capacity the first thing you do is you do an inventory of where your greenhouse gases are coming from. it's amazing how bad we are estimating that before we look at it. every country is the same. we have done this with china. we are taught them how to do inventories added never matches up what they think their emissions are coming from because we all have a bias on what the bad things are and what good things are. that's why for a long time we

have to keep telling people that cars matter that it's not just utilities. people just think things. you do an inventory, look at what actions you take. this is what every state does wonder implementing a standard when it out of the game, doing inventory, look at the range of action, measure what those analytically, measure with my deficit impact and then charge -- chart a path forward and every year you look at reconciling that or every two years. that's what this is all about. >> once that reflected in the background documentation of the agreement or -- >> it's in the agreement itself and in the background. the agreement itself says that every two years every country is going to do a report that monitors this success. to do that report you have to follow guidelines. those guidelines say what's the good inventory, how do you do this? the challenge for epa is going to be continuing to work with

other countries to expand the capacity of the developing countries to be able to do this well. we have spent a great deal of time in china to invest with detailed folks working with the state to different countries, to actually embed people there who can teach this to get professional expertise there. and my job was to explain what i was there, at least the job i took on, was to explain to countries that this isn't punishment. this is opportunities. because he can't say where your greenhouse gases are coming from you are not going to be a market for technologies that can address them. you're not going to be able to articulate what your research needs our for all of the research dollars that have been just committed. it is a foundation for them to be able to put their hand up and get the assistance they need as well as develop a plan that just might be consistent with whether economy needs to head. which is i think essential.

ever countries like china and india and others were we now have monitors that look at air quality and recognize the problems they face, for them this is the opportunity to look at not just greenhouse gas reductions but efforts to reduce those that can also have co-benefits, that have direct public health benefit. >> this is the argument you are making, that leaving beijing because you can't breathe the air which isn't good for business and growth in china. at the end of the day is it naming and shaming? this is a lot of countries with very disparate objectives, personal objectives and it's hard to get agreement even in a smaller group. at the end of the day is the naming and shaming process that's going to happen every two, five years, is about the

stake that the agreement has speak with no. the agreement isn't enforceable. the goals themselves are flexible. all of these transparency and reporting mechanisms are a great deal. those will move forward. i don't think it's just a naming and shaming. i think i should build capacity and country to look at this they will see the opportunities that the u.s. is beginning to see in terms of what are the solutions out there that cannot just address climate but build jobs moving forward. this is all about shifting to a clean economy and that is not punishment. that simply means smart about the future. >> the economy was slowing the last couple of years. that must have factored into some of the discussions are how does that factor into the discussion? if the indian economy drifts lower, authority happening in china, is there a temptation to fire up coal plant, give those factories humming, have jobs so

it's not pitchforks in the streets because that seems to be the natural instinct everywhere, into you figure out whether or not that's what you want your economy to head. and having those discussions were we are right now. we are certainly going to look at how we expend money to we dedicate to this effort internationally and try to make sure that that gut instinct to do that isn't all you look at. there are countries that are clearly china move themselves out of poverty. you would expect them to take every opportunity available to them. the challenge is to make other opportunities available, is who would bring opportunities an option to them that allo allowem to choose something that is more sustainable, and hopefully lead over to some of the other issues. >> when you sat across the table from india, how did you answer that question? or even china, half the population is still, only half

is as urbanized. they have a long way to go. how did you answer that question when they said at a certain point we have to keep people employed? >> the way to think about this, john, at this meeting the one other thing that was a different in that i think led to the lack of naysayers in terms of climate change action was the fact that india recognizes it's on the front line of disasters and that it is going to be significantly hard hit and a changing climate. it's not all cut and dried as we want jobs or don't want jobs. it's about what do you do to protect your population at the same time. the clarity around the climate and climate adaptation was really high. there was a lot of discussion of how do we support climate adaptation, given the change that's already happening. so it really isn't as easy for these countries to choose to

continue to the limited resources into things that are going to contribute to the future disasters. it's not that simple anymore. and so they are recognizing that they have to put people to work but they're also recognizing now that there are opportunities for that that don't rely on the same old technologies. >> the agreement talked about a big investment in that tactical capability as well as other type of investment. and yet there has been previous promises of investment i developed countries to help the developing countries alone. that has never really materialized. why we get materialized now but previous -- previously they did not speak with we've made some additional commitment. i know that president kerry came in any announced redoubling our adaptation fund. we also had a number of countries have gotten together

to invest in a new program is doubling everybody's research dollars. so government is stepping up there with very different is the private sector stepping up their there was a clear understanding that this isn't just government challenge the this isn't impact on business that's already being helped. international businesses were there in force. i met with the ceos of many of those. they are being with other countries and talking about this challenge. >> what would a discussing? opportunities to build out wind farms speak with opportunities to not make it worse by the g8 mitigation strategies like a but also talking about adaptation strategies because water is becoming a problem everywhere. not just water quality by quantity. flooding is becoming difficult, impact on agriculture is becoming something that's much better recognized and is beginning to filter its way into

business decisions and impacts. so it really isn't, it was great to see that the understanding of climate wasn't just about how do we reduce greenhouse gases in a vacuum just because the future demands it, as opposed to look at this as a concerted economic strategy, recognizing that you're going to live in a strange world. it was a different conversation entirely and that's because it was all government led. >> want to get to the clean power plan in a moment but on the topic of the u.s. been in a leadership position at this event, in part because of agreements previously reached, the tailwind to a point in, the agreement with china, for example. what else now does the u.s. need to do to maintain a leadership role and to expand its own objectives? the president has talked about

cutting carbon by 26, 28% by 2025 compared to 2005. what else politically, what else should the u.s. be meeting itself to? >> as you may note epa does our greenhouse gas inventory and is now reporting on how well we have done. we're going to keep looking at bringing more expertise to that. john, there's uncertainty about alall this and get to keep lookt how we get these numbers right for ourselves and for other countries. we are going to keep looking at the science around us analytics. but we are also going to be a preventing many of the initiatives that the president identified, those that the u.s. has put in as the basis for our goal setting exercise. we are going to make sure those move forward and we're going to keep over the next year looking at other opportunities. it's very clear that we're not going to get everywhere we need to go.

no country has put a plan that's going to get them there. so we have to keep looking. for epa it's looking at how we push the envelope on heavy-duty vehicles. it's getting of montréal protocol and inattentive and continued work on looking at hydrofluorocarbons and moving those out of the system, producing those so that the impact is not as large as it has been. we are going to keep looking at methane, oil and gas, look at what other opportunities in the sector are available to begin to explore this year. so we are going to look for opportunities that are available and keep talking about this and getting everybody's interest and keep working with the private sector and with colleges and universities to get the science continuing and also to get the investments we need. >> the role that the epa had, this go around, was quite an international one. that seems to be kind of a new

role for the administrator. is not likely to continue? from the standpoint of the epa isn't likely to be now part of the brief for you and for future administrators? and also what you defined to be the case at this conference, the opportunity for u.s. business internationally talking with the same individual you are talking with about helping them with mitigation come with adaptation compared to a competitor like the chinese are investing hundreds of billions of dollars of money into the zones? >> let me sort of get your first issue. i think epa has done a lot of international worked for a long time. because epa is more sophisticated than most other environmental agencies that any other country. so i think, i just have to admit it, we've always done this level of international discussion.

it's just people are noticing and to been more visibility of it. but we have provided international leadership for a long time. i think we've done it where resources are available to us. everybody has limitations and we work within those. one of the great things about the climate, the work on climate adaptation that's just beginning with this new agreement is that it will bring resources to the table to expand this considerably. not just by epa by other countries that have similar expertise. but we've been doing this for a long time, john. that's nothing new there and we'll continue with the because it's an opportunity to recognize that of our mental issues don't actually respect the boundaries, including international ones. we've been working in international forums for a long time. one of the good things is we are integrating some of our environmental goals into discussions at g20 and g7. we're beginning to not segregate

discussion on the economy from our other more segregated and departmental ones because they are overlapping. we now just don't have departmental goals, we have sustainable development goals. you are able to frame the largr investments that were really produce the kind of healthy sort of investment to come to mean that in my terms, public healthy, in a way that truly going to make the most sense. now, the second half of your question was what? >> about u.s. business opportunities for them. you said they were circling around, i can imagine they were circling around this conference looking for that business. how does that stack up against a china is also getting into this? we saw it with solar panels. >> i think the u.s. is trying to once again provide leadership on environmental technology and on renewables. and i think we can do that.

that's been one of the goals of the president moving foot with this climate action plan is to show that we are going to not just provide international leadership to come to an agreement but we want the benefits come the economic benefits associated with it. our investment community is responding to that call. i think they are also part of the discussion we had at the meeting was not just about investment but about protecting investment. that's where the climate at the capitation workingmen and that's what a lot of ceos of international companies were there pushing for an international agreement on this, recognizing that without that it doesn't really matter how will any one country does. so it was going on. these discussions were happening not in a vacuum but in a very integrated way. i've never seen businesses come together so much over an issue

that has mistakenly be seen as an of our mental issue for a long time. >> clean power plan, we are waiting for a federal decision on whether or not to blog it until -- till the states have an opportunity to muster their complex against it. you've been a confident that this is going to go through, but what if it doesn't? what is plan b? >> first of all, plan a is a good one and i don't want anyone to think it isn't. i think we will get through this day soon, getting the decision may be the next couple weeks or so. and i think that the work we did on this, and if you look at it, the support for many of the utilities are certainly the lack of challenge speaks volumes to whether or not we do this right. there's no reason, there is the damage that would warrant that any of us could identify. we're hopeful on a. john, i think the biggest thing that we are looking at is to

just make sure we continue the conversation with states. there are two key points. this date is immediate. you look at that but that's always the rush to judgment. but i think we are confident that we need to the legal test. but then the second question is how do we work with states to get those plans in in september? that's where i've been focusing, and certainly janet mccabe and joe, my dynamic duo, are out there working this issue very hard but i've been too many meetings and i've seen nothing that really actually very positive energy around this. the states are beginning to work together not just individuals but together, beginning to start making choices about what they think they want to head. i'm confident we're going to have a plan. >> but if it doesn't happen, plan b? >> well, this is our shot a look at this under the clean air act.

would have to again and would always welcome congress taking action. we don't see that coming up so we look at other opportunities. >> the politics of this can get sticky. i've got a lot more but let's get to you. writer in the front. if you could identify who you are, your name into your with. >> i'm with the naval postgraduate school. thank you so much for coming and expanding the store. my question is for you, john, which is how you tell the story, this holistic interdependent story to the general uneducated public so they recognize that time pressure and the importance. and i would suggest also it's incredibly important to do it visually because there's so many parts to this complex story. i was stunned, for example, the story i guess just about all the pollution going into rio and their concerns once that's going

to for the summer olympics. pictures to more than a thousand words and i would suggest overview start telling your story in that fashion. >> good. we will keep that in mind and i'm delighted to say that about five years ago "the wall street journal" finally did begin to publish pictures. we are almost, almost up there, able to answer your call. yes, please. right back there. >> michael gillette, world bank retired we spent an awful lot of time in that place to justify investment capturing the real price of factors, including externalities such as future costs. i was disappointed with the agreement that seems about the meeting doctor the issue of getting the cost of carbon

correct -- docked. and failed to identify modalities to get there, like cap-and-trade or carbon tax. would you please enlighten us about the discussion that took place there? think you. >> i wasn't involved in all of the discussion so let me say that. this agreement doesn't address everything. no one ever claimed that it would. there clearly is an open is and there are many countries that are looking whether or not they're going to look at a cap-and-trade or a carbon tax. it doesn't preclude that from happening. they are the ones that are going to have to make those decisions and i think it's wise to let every country get their own path forward but clearly it would need to be support for that and some consistency on how one would look at that and calculate its success. those are things we will be able to look at, because part of this agreement is making it clear that you set your goals, look at how you going to get there,

articulate a mitigation strategy, come back every two years to look at whether you're achieving those. you go to workshop conference is where we share information where we expand everybody's capacity to do that, and where'd you have an opportunity to challenge whether one another is going to achieve what has achieved. so we're going to have a transparent system that will hopefully allow folks to see what countries are doing, be able to share those lessons learned and articulate a strategy to see whether or not things are being done correctly. so it should if all goes well allow the flexibility choose different paths forward but allow us to learn from one another. >> yes, please, right over here. >> my name is michael hamburger. i'm with the state department's office of religion and global affairs, and for the past year or so we've been involved in engaging with faith communities, domestically and internationally

on advocacy related to climate issues. i wanted to get your impressions of the role of faith leaders and faith communities in the lead up to paris cop 21 and what their role might be in the aftermath. >> the pope gave it a big tailwind spirit it was the cutest thing, but the outcome single roll into the back of the white house. i think the rule is pretty enormous. i think maybe folks in the u.s. underestimate that. we have been working at epa is building bridges with the faith community for a few years now, particularly on climate issues but not just exclusively. because obviously many in the faith community see this as an opportunity for us to make sure that human beings are protecting the resources that god gave us, and they see that as a moral obligation. and i think the president has

stood up and characterized it like that and i think the pope has clearly been a large voice on this issue but not exclusively. people of all faith our committee get on this issue. entity different ways. not just the fact that we have a stewardship responsibility but they are also recognizing really that the biggest vulnerabilities are for low income and minority communities in the u.s., and low income areas internationally. they are simply not prepared to take on the challenge of a changing climate and they're generally not the ones at the table to signing the strategies towards that, toward addressing it. so it is being seen much more as a large moral obligation to address this. their voice is going to be extraordinarily helpful. one of the things that i've realized in working on climate issues for so long is how people, the minute they hear

climate they pigeonhole it into some kind of a tree hugger issue or a polar bear issue. you know, and we've had to make, and i think this goes to mickey's point of we've had to make this a much more personal issue. the faith community helps us do that. it helps us do that by putting faces on this, by reminding us that we have an obligation to protect people who cannot protect themselves. they are the ones most at risk. the other issues to help us design strategies that engage people. there are things epa is doing to engage the faith community and things like our food recovery challenge, looking at food waste and other reduces methane but also allows you to organize things so that people who need food get it, and people stop wasting food. so that are wonderful ways in which you can build this into the very things that faith communities has focused on,