couple moments. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c, january 22, 2016. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable jeff sessions, a senator from the state of alabama, to perform the duties of the chair. signed, orrin g. hatch, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. on tuesday, january 26, 2016.

become fully engaged in civil society d that is what has been done. we also -- the partnership is a central part of the program, so not only the national voluntary agencies which have affiliates in 49 of the 50 state that represents virtually every major mainstream religious denominations as well as non- religiously affiliated entities as well. a lot of the volunteers -- whether they be be retirees with university volunteers, a broad range of society. the program and joy is, as many of you are aware, a great deal of support in the communities which is the only way it can function is dependent on the public funds and also leveraging that to create private support for the program.

the communities are critical. it's also critical that we as barbara mentioned can indicate clearly and effectively about the program -- what it does, who we are bringing. we always do that but we are striving to do it more effectively because it is critical and it is a life-saving mission. the people have referenced the u.s. program isn't coming here for economic betterment, they are coming here to save their lives and those of their children. they are coming to rebuild their lives and they are deeply appreciative of the opportunities afforded them to start their lives in a secure and safe setting and that's reflected in the contributions they make to the communities. but i would like to underscore there is an active consultation process. many of you are probably aware of it but there is consultation on both of the annual and quarterly basis at both the

state and community level in every community which there is a refugee resettlement program. there's usually come almost always -- it's a requirement there be a regular convening was to bring civil society actors, schools, law enforcement, all of those parties who are involved to come into contact with refugees about the program, about the plans for future resettlement, about the needs of the populations advance of their arrival whether it's torture, trauma, cross-cultural issues. so it's very much a private-people partnership and we encourage you or your designees to engage in that process if you're not already doing something that is a welcomed part of what we do and a critical part to ensure the success of the programs that we support across the u.s.. thank you for that support and

engagement, and we look forward to the continued partnership. >> thank you, robert. i will open up to questions from the audience. go ahead and use the microphone. >> [inaudible] i will try to be brief. it's hard to be brief. i'm very inspired, robert, by what you've just articulated. i think there are communities similar to mine that have been working with the immigration community for a long time. our community is a western suburb northwest cook county. i'm on the border of three community colleges. for townships, seven school districts. a diverse community with 40% or

more first-generation families whether they are latino, whether they are from southeast asia, from bosnia. we set up a process that took four years older but it's very much a stovepipe organization. i don't care what district you are talking about. the breakdown in the community colleges so that we can share across the borders. a year and a half ago in august, we opened the education center. the community colleges discovered that we were not being served. now we are a small community, a mile wide and 7 miles long. it's crazy how we ever got that way. however, we've put into place opportunities for in place opportunities for the first-generation families and young people to -- people with a second language, i think they got like five different levels

of the language. ged move to right in. many people have in education someplace else and get their ged so they get in the pathway to community colleges, jobs, internships. we are bringing all of that together. it's in place. my biggest concern after a year and a half of doing this, i don't tell you between my community colleges, my state rep and myself, with 250 people inspired in the program the first year, we consider it a success. we were well over 900 in the first year and there's still a waiting list. we are really trying to continue the movement. in the state of illinois that is so upside down i can't tell you we have fears about trying to keep these initiatives open. so we have the kind of environment that's receptive and open, and hearing what you've

shared -- how can we be a part of the american dream for some of these people that are looking to get settled? if i pull open a newspaper i would have everybody where is that guy coming from. but we need to find a way to help people integrate into our community and move to the next level level -- more than -- and our crime rate has gone down because people have hope for their future, their families and their commitment and they want to be part of the pta and part of the community. so we have these opportunities that are flora shing. but trying to -- when everybody is looking at where is the dollar going to come for that because you have to pay the rent and folks have to encourage others and have the right folks in place that are welcoming and open and can help others with the pathway. so that's the kind of environment that i'm trying to establish and have established in the community.

being a mayor for nine years i don't take no for an answer. but we have to find ways. what you're sharing -- you're trying to find and i'm trying to say we have an environment that's welcoming and cut for -- could flourish made i just wanted to comment where we are at and i believe there is hope and opportunity because our first-generation families are the hardest working, want to go to work, the cleanest house in town from it is just a beautiful thing to see so i am optimistic. i have to submit my driveway and everybody says what's that about? [laughter] so these are the kind of things we do so i would just make that comment. >> great comment. maybe the follow up on that is

there any federal funding opportunity for the city's time is your city doing these things and concerned about where the funding is going to come from? [inaudible] any thoughts on that? through the office of refugee resettlement we provide funding to the states which then directed the priorities of the states to serve refugee populations as well as through nonprofit organizations directly that the majority of the funding is coming through the states and then directed out according to the priorities which are both identified at the national level and then modified according to the priority needs. we focus primarily on issues

related to employment or in support of other employment. the school impact as part of that for children as well as english-language instruction which is funded often through community colleges with funding at the state level provided through as well as the related transportation costs. the funding isn't what some of us would like to see but it has the budget request to call for an increase this year. there's been a strong commitment from this administration and others are passed as well ball to this program as being important. but i think we have a state coordinator in illinois and there is a state of refugee coordinator so that may be a good vehicle for determining whether resources are and advising about how the resources can be accessed.

>> there is so much conflict going on the state has deliberately frozen our funds coming back to us, we had $800,000 in my community. i was marching all over the place saying you support us and we will support you. talking to legislators from our area and they said we have to do this and that. i'm tired of it. we had a bill they should already be -- we hit at 800,000. i ended up writing 34 letters we had conversation with. thank you. we have to work together. i would rather be down here in

harmony than advocates or whatever. but there's 900 so it isn't functional right now. so the city in chicago and the state is a complete disaster. if i have to go through the state on anything, i'm reluctant. we need some direct funds. the city of chicago is an 800-pound gorilla in the room because they will suck up everything that the rest of the state has needs for safe you have a bubble money coming in it's good to be pretty far down on the order so coming out here and being a part we have to find ways to bypass the state but they just are not working very well for us today.

>> as a part of the task force we are working with the department of education into the department of labor in particular on the implementation and i know that we are thinking a lot about how we can promote best practices and help people understand how the funding can be used so sometimes they don't know how it can be used and they are looking for ways to have to refugee the refugee integration efforts using that fund as ball into the department of education had something of integrating the new americans project which was the pilot project in the five communities to find out how we could do more and refugee integration. we've are doing a great job helping connect the dots because

babies and people were eligible for citizenship and they should learn about that while they are a captive audience learning english maybe they need more skills to get into the workforce and we should make sure that businesses are working with the community colleges into spaces so it wasn't a lot of money but what we found is by connecting those folks with federal agency partners international partners they actually learned about these other resources and how they've got another grants in the department of labor and the citizenship work and others toes are a couple of others. he highlighted a number of these efforts and over the next year in particular as the implementation happens we are talking a lot about how we can do the cities and states the technical assistance and the

know-how. people could use the tools that didn't exist before for using that money in the creative ways and creative ways to help the immigrants and refugees. >> to go straight through the cities if we got some feedback as the way to do that i would appreciate it. >> thank you for taking the leadership on this very important topic for the country. thank you for joining the conference of mayors to educate on the importance of being proactive when dealing with immigration and refugees. we've done it in st. louis. we had nothing historically but positive experience with our immigration community and people coming to the city because they

are looking for a place to raise their family, to get a job, to be part of the community, and in addressing the refugees have come to the cities, nothing but positive experience and it's because of the community we decided in st. louis that but it is not only the right thing to do for families that come to the city and to the nation, but it's the right thing to do for our future as a city and as a region we have established that project which is a regional project where we have philanthropic and corporate and civic and political communities coming together to make a statement that we want to be a welcoming committee and we do a lot in educating the public and we talked to the press and the press helps us get our messages out in a lot of different ways because the work you're doing throughout the united states talking to the communities is very important because knowledge

really is important in this effort. there's a lot to know and as i said there is nothing but good that can come out of a regional and a city effort to be a very welcoming community. we have international institute that is there to help refugees and immigrants and the city of new americans is connected with healthcare and learn a lot about what you need to do and now in the united states and the city to be a part of the community, a positive part of the community. i am personally engaged in a lot of those efforts and we have a health care center for new americans that come to the city and it's not just for documented citizens as well we know it's important everyone gets access to quality health care, but i do think that it's important to the

leaders stand up and talk about why it's important and how it strengthens our community. what we have seen with the bosnian refugees and the vietnamese refugees and we have this eerie -- the syrian refugees. and as it was said, they were not something good and better for themselves and their families and it is good not just for them but for all of us that we make sure we help them with that effort so i'm going to ask one question and it has to do with what on the syrian refugees situation what can we expect over the next year in terms of the amount of refugees that will be coming to the united states and we are already on record we are on board and for full

disclosure my grandparents came from the territory and immigrated to the united states back in the part of the 19 hundreds but we are a nation that was built on immigrants come to vast majority of us are and i think that about to be an immigration we need to support a >> this program just would not work without the support from the mayors such as yourself. it's the strongest element of the program and let me say mike and i came to the u.s. when i was 5-years-old so i am an immigrant as well and i appreciate what the country has to offer those that decide to move here. the goal is to bring in more than 10,000 refugees this fiscal

year. we think we can make that number and it's a significantly to increase its next year. i know that you have worked with the small business administration as part of the task force on the new americans to launch the campaign that has focused on promoting on people who access sba tools and help start their businesses, so i know you've done that work and as a part of last year's event we did at the white white house we honor the champions of change people that were immigrant refugees themselves or folks that have been here for many generations hoping to welcome immigrants and refugees and we honored anna who is part of the st. louis project. we appreciate your partnership

with sba and integrates model you have in st. louis. we always want to look it up. >> very good. >> [inaudible] the city of new haven. our immigration resettlement organization came to my cabinet meeting about a week and a half ago to indicate they would be doubling the number of refugees and our city as well as doubling outside in the region and really came to thank all the department has for the work they've done over the years and helping them to resettle people. my question isn't so much about that and i'm just wondering if we can as i talk to people who have and are in the process of

citizenship how sometimes it has taken as long as 17 years for them to actually get through the whole process. i was wondering if there's anything being done about the bottleneck and helping people get through the process once they've made a commitment to the country and they want to be here and they want to become citizens. it seems to take a long time. >> i will say a little bit about the santa barbara may have some words as well. so, it's the cochair of the task force on new americans and has been a star in terms of the work they are doing at the federal and the local level to make sure people know about the citizenship process. i want to make sure you get connected with the right-field office. not sure the particulars about some of the folks that waited that long but there've been a number of good efforts under way so they underway so they have a new program that we launched in

this administration for the last seven years we've given out millions of dollars to the ngos and sometimes the cities and sometimes do community college is working to help promote and give people the information about citizenship. also sometimes cost is an issue and in this administration we established a process that allows a number of people who have the will and have been desired to become citizens but the cost might get in the way so we have a new process that is used by a number of ngos helping people in the citizenship and we also kept the fee for the naturalization constant through the entire administration and recognition of the important benefit it is and how we want to promote citizenship. there is also a number of different interesting tools that they've pulled together. they have a physics exam online in spanish and english and it's getting translated into other

languages so sometimes the test is what worries people. i don't know if i could get through the cervix citizenship test sometimes. and i've been for several years. people can -- if that's what people are worried about coming as i said i would love to have to get in touch with the right people at u.s. ics but also to figure out ways you might be able to partner at the local level they are all about community engagement and citizenship and they are doing even more work on the refugee front as well. there are waivers for people who are older or who may have trouble with the english language requirement. we would like to see those statutory streak -- the people that are coming in as older refugees and english is just going to be hard for them to master have a little bit more availability for those folks

that there's quite a bit worth doing and we want to make sure we are partnering with the community. >> i'm very proud of the people at anaheim and how welcoming they've been to refugees and continue but there's also a concern about the security aspect that somehow they might be -- what assurances do we have that isis might not have? if you could elaborate a little bit. >> i'm happy to. as i mentioned, we do both biographic and biometric on the refugee applicants apply the biographic these people's names,

dates of birth and other types of information that we have. we collected a lot of detailed information from the applicants and look at all of their documents. many refugees in particular are heavily documented. people in the family have passports, they have family records commodity cards, registration documents, so we work with the interagency which is shorthand for the law enforcement community said the fbi for example is involved with the intelligence community with the national security community and they are part of our trainings of the training so the officers when they trained specifically to interview the applicants we've invited those national security and intelligence community experts to help us to be knowledgeable about the conditions out we know the lines of questioning to talk to people about and we can test

what they tell us not just internally for credibility but against the known country conditions and then there's the security checks so that watchlist information and other types of information. the czechs themselves were kind of an alphabet soup. we talk talked about the constant lookout and support system and something called the security advisory opinion in certain categories of applicants who've been deemed to be a higher risk at a higher level of security check. we have interagency checks with the national counterterrorism center and other partners behind that and all the checks run comfortably in the background. it's not one and done. but it takes a while to protect the case before they travel to the united states up until the date they travel if there's any intervening derogatory information we become aware of that. on the biometric side we are checking fingerprints so we checked them against the fbi that in addition to that there is a system that's called on again to that is run by the department of homeland security

that has fingerprints from a lot of other places and they are not necessarily derogatory, for example the encounter overseas if an applicant ever went to a u.s. embassy or consulate and applied for a visa whether fingerprint might have been captured when we talk talked to that refugee applicants we are able to corroborate its the same identity, the same nationality, the fingerprint was collected at a time and place consistent with what we are being told and i also mention we check the department of defense so it's not uncommon that the iraqi applicants in many instances have worked for the military or the government at some point and in connection with that beer issued an id card and their fingerprint is captured so we can have an applicant for a sign that risk because i worked with the americans and i am perceived as an enemy of certain interest and we can check the fingerprint database and corroborate the story they told us is true so we

have lots of tools in addition to the in person interviews and it really is an interagency partnership within the department of homeland department of homeland security we have an agency called the office of intelligence analysis. we talked to them as well as all of the agencies throughout the administration that have an interest in making sure that the program has the best integrity possible while we are meeting the humanitarian mandates that he's been talking about. >> even before we get to this very extensive process, a refugee will have had to register as a refugee in the countries of which they fled. that's usually done through the un and sometimes local governments and then we call from that list an average of 1%. so i i'm just making the point that someone that was trying to get into our system would have had to register as a refugee,

sat around for months, sometimes years, and then be lucky enough to be one of the 1% independently run them through this very extensive system to make sure that they are not a security threat. >> a follow-up question if your intent was to do ill well this probably wouldn't be the way. >> [inaudible] i don't want to suggest [inaudible] it's about 10:30 infected is. i want to thank all of our guests particularly for coming into town today when everyone else is leaving into traffic is

coming and probably not too bad. i wish you all safe travels home and i think everyone is aware of the brave states this must be a and and i want to thank you for all your help and the conference and the staff. we stand adjourned. thank you. posted by [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> a picture of the white house today but today's briefing was canceled because of an unexpected blizzard of snow blizzard a snowstorm in washington, d.c.. in fact the entire region expected to get up to 30 inches of snow that's going to start around 12:30, 1:00. there was an unexpected testing wednesday that measure that measured less than an inch but it stopped the roads and delay the president obama wednesday night coming back to washington from detroit. air force one landed at the ace andrews outside of washington and the president plans helicopter trip back to the white house was canceled so he traveled by motorcade. normally a 25 minute drive but because there's no wednesday night and the streets that were not prepared for the trip took more than an hour. today as you can see, no snows just yet. but with one or 2 feet expected, the federal government shutting

down at noon. the washington subway system natural will be closing at 11 p.m. and remain out of service until monday morning. iowa is more accustomed to snow and people here in washington and today the virginia senator tim kane is in iowa campaigning for color e. clinton in .-full-stop by the office in davenport to speak with supporters and volunteers with the presidential campaign. that's underway at 12:30 eastern on c-span and coming up at six eastern also on the companion network c-span has a look back at the ruby wade supreme court decision that was decided 43 years ago today and again that is tonight at 6:30 eastern.

>> power war inside of the post 9/11 presidency readapt 10 p.m. on afterwards the former senate leaders tom daschle and trent lott on their book crisis point, looking at the current climate in congress and offering recommendations for moving america forward. they are interviewed by the former congressman of oklahoma. >> just just to the incredible adjusted the incredible insatiable demand for more and more money is one of the issues that is exacerbating all of this and made it harder for the leaders to bring people together because first, they are not in talent. second, they are doing all this other stuff that doesn't allow them to be the legislators they were elected to be and third you have the special-interest pressures. >> they say this is how we did things or look at history, it is littered with this function and the challenges george washington

almost resigned because the treaty. what we want to do is look forward and say here are some things we think would make a difference. sunday at eight eastern the journalist examining the changing world for young women in the middle east in her book excellent daughters. she looks at the kind of choices that young arab women are making and how they differ from those of their mothers. >> when men are going to the university in greater numbers than men all over the region and especially in the gulf countries where the proportions of women are even greater compared to the men and the women will tell you this is partly because it is a socially acceptable way of building marriage were to be outside the home in a way that the families will support. >> watch with tv all weekend every weekend on c-span2, television for serious readers.

the environmental protection agency last year announced its clean power plan to reduce carbon editions from power plants. several states sued about yesterday the the federal appeals ruled that it can take effect as the lawsuit go forward. the epa administrator gina mccarthy spoke at the conference of mayors yesterday about the clean power plant. [applause] >> thank you for all of your tremendous leadership and it is great to see some of the mayors whose communities i have been to. it is a wonderful opportunity to share our experiences and talk about what is going on today and what the future might look like so i will spend -- my time just talking about the climate issues because i'm joined by janet mackay who manages the group planned by our interface, or major interface with both states and local communities and i

think there's been a lovely marriage and the work that we've done about how we have been reaching out to the local communities and building on their success. so, my main message is thank you for all the work you've been doing and let's see how we can do more together. but before we start talking about the issues of the future in the work we are doing together, i want to say a few words about the ongoing concerns people are reading about and we are all working on concerning flint michigan because the entire federal government is responding to what is essentially a serious public health crisis. hhs health and human services is leading that coordinated effort and the epa is involved as well as fema and hard and other agencies. our first priority has to be and is to make sure that the water and -- in flkint recognized

recognize that as all of our number one priority is. the epa ability to oversee the management of the situation was impacted by failures and resistance of at the state and local levels to work with us in what we know to be what is usually our standard operating practice of acting any forthright transparent and proactive manner so we need to return to god and i think we are seeing it's certainly in the conversations i've had with the mayor and interest in making sure that we move as expeditiously as possible and with the governor's statements to move this issue and resolve it forward. but the pa is conducting an audit of the state's drinking water program. we are taking a hard look at what the gpa might have done differently so that we can present a situation like this from ever happening again. in addition, we have to all recognize the cities are facing difficult resource challenges.

we know that and we've always been facing those issues but we want to make sure that in the face of this challenge is we maintain an ability to provide the core infrastructure services and we have the ability and resources to maintain what people have come to recognize as the essential need to maintain the drinking water systems in a way that does not place our community at risk so we will work together but we need to do that and i want to mention this in front of the mayor because we have a history of working together on these issues and i want to make sure if you have concerns you can come to us because we all have to work together at the federal, state and local levels but it was a pleasure to talk to the mayor yesterday. we are on a path forward and we will address this issue as quickly as we possibly can. now let me return to the issues at hand which is to talk about the clean power plant because one of the reasons i'm here as i said before is to thank you because i don't know if you've

been reading about this. i will give you a bit of a background but the most important thing for you to know is that the conference has been remarkable in the commitment to the issue of climate change. they had a presence presence that paris had made a difference. what you have said through your policies and statements has made a remarkable difference because we would never be where we are today if it were not for the innovation and of the investment and the drive into the and the energy that has happened with the mayors all across. it is the local level that we are building on as the states have touted their success and the u.s. has been able to count its leadership. when we went to paris it was all because for many years you've been looking at ways of decreasing your energy costs by looking at energy efficiency. you've looked at why the local resources, renewable resources you could build into their systems and how you grow jobs and keep the community safe and

instead of wasting money on energy you've been investing in your teachers and in your police. this is what this is all about. so i am very excited to be here to first of all say thank you and what we are trying to do with the clean power plant because we did so much outreach to learn the lessons you have learned and how we can marry an effort that is about driving carbon pollution down with an effort to provide you continued resources to manage fiscally in a more productive way so there are ways you have married this before and we will use the claim power plant as a platform to continue those great efforts and investments moving forward so that we stop and say a few things about the power plant because it may not be apparent to all of you folks that have been at the local level if you haven't been involved in some of the state discussions. first by power plants really reflects a tremendous amount of outreach we did and as a result of their work a lot of changes

between the proposal and final but one thing did change and that's complete flexibility for the states to develop their own plans. in fact, we have done as we provided ourselves an opportunity to look at how to develop a model rule at the request of the states and local communities that reflects that flexibility as clearly as possible so this is an opportunity for us to stand up and say if you want a cooperative federalism, you've got it. the ability for the states to do what they need to do that's best for them is entirely fair and my chance today is to tell you about this is the time for the mayors to get involved at state levels because you can make this work for you and i will tell you the conversations have been with the epa and the state incredibly productive so if you haven't been engaged in this you have to

step back i stopped reading the headlines and talking with folks at the state level about how much there is positive momentum moving forward and i'm not talking about just environmental constituents i'm talking about the utilities themselves saying this is so flexible we can make this work and there is a transition into the more we move towards the more we will capture jobs and economic opportunities. every time we have an issue that comes up, janet is setting up a webinar, going to the state and local community. we are nothing to stop not going to stop now but it's finalized. states are looking for the most creative way to do this to maintain the viability and keep the energy flow so that we provided them resources and help and technical assistance to be able to get it done in a way that they can meet their

obligations but also continue to drive the shared economy moving forward. we can provide more information if you want a more detailed level but the important thing is now is the time for engagement. we have weeks where there there are's takeover meetings going on in the different states at the same time because the state really want to know how to do this. if you hear that we are getting sued, just think to yourself there's nothing new in this. it happens every time. [laughter] [laughter] below that, there is a level of engagement that is really positive and really interactive and indicates everybody's pulling us to take advantage of climate action to keep the cost down and away to continue to grow the clean energy economy.

[applause] thank you very much for your comments on the clean power plant. the wonderful people are very challenging on this issue. the best thing we will ask the mayors to raise your hand and ask a question and i will take the chair's prerogative and ask the first one you mentioned all of the headlines you are dealing with the provide misinformation regarding the clean power plant and if there's one piece of information that you would like to get off the record what is the biggest piece of information people are getting as it relates to that clean power plant?

>> the fact is a number of states are suing us and the lesser advertised fact is we are working with everyone else's states because they have every right to protect their own interest in the interests but in the end their best interest is to make sure they follow the law and the rule of law and that we are willing to work with them to provide opportunities to turn this into a significant way in and that it is in their hands to steer but they are asking our advice and willing to provide it and we will do that for any mayor that wants to ask for that advice as well. >> the request i know you will follow this but questions, not speeches. we have a limited amount of time. we are here to help and they

want to help because we are dealing with this every day. so the first question is how can we directly work with the epa if the states are not willing to work with us how can we directly work with these issues because we work on the region number five. the big question is how do we work directly with you because we will get it done because we have to. >> that is a great question. everybody should know that each office that wants to get engaged

on the clean power plant. he is backed by a huge group of people at the regional offices are taking questions and thinking through these things and the administrator said the beauty of the clean power plant is it does provide the state and all within the state the ability to craft the plan for them and because it is pushing towards an and following along with the move towards the cleaner energy that's where this piece shine it's almost in parallel to the work that the states are doing to develop the resources and provide information on how to develop the resources. we already have a working relationship with the cities and towns on these issues through the energy conservation parts of

the epa. so contact the regional contact or contact me and we will make sure you get put in the right place and we want to hear your ideas because then as we are working at cross with the states we can make sure the mayor is interested in this, too. if you were involved in the negotiations. both of the utilities agreed by 2035 so i didn't know if you were part of that. >> there are many great things

about being the epa administrator. one of them is the track pollution but we don't provide direction on the energy sources and what folks want to use. so even if you look at the clean power plant our analysis shows that would still be part of the system there will be opportunities between now and then to find out how we can continue to work to make sure the coal that is generated is as clean as possible so that is my lame and i'm sticking to it. i'm wondering if you might be able to speak to the coal that is being shipped to the country and traveling by open rail to the community. >> there are many ongoing discussions in general which i

think people know and that is both coal and oil and other things because the problems that have arisen and there's a lot of investment is being discussed to make sure that they are safe and how we addressed that issue relative to the number of facilities many of you know are being proposed to transport coal along the western seaboard. there is a lot of different arguments being raised on many and concerns. it's considered and well

analyzed. i served with the affordability coalition and we had some good discussions. we appreciate the fact we are willing to understand affordability from the point of view and a better environment area to the affordability resolution was finalized and would take the result of the conversations that doesn't mean the conversations stop into the appreciate the dialogue and the final outcome. but nothing is final in my book. we have to continue. part of this is very much related to the resource struggles that many were going and how much you can demand under the law or for common sense as you are moving forward to make sure you can keep the

cities running and while we recognize there is a lot of infrastructure investments that need to be made that conversation isn't stopped and should never be stopped. the epa does recognize that we are but one consideration in terms of the needs that you have to meet for your constituencies in the city. but we have to have honest dialogs to figure out how to get at those issues in a way that doesn't put the citizenry to risk. >> i work in san francisco bay and we need to build the land up to protect the areas from the rising sea levels have attacked and what we need is a lot of dirt. >> can anyone donate?

>> one of the sources that could be material used to clean out our harbors and channels, and we are in conversations with the corps of engineers to do that but right now the conversation, the rules are all based on the cost benefit and it turns out by a slight margin we are hoping to figure out more things to put into the equation now. it just seems like that's not the way that it should be. the environmental benefits should be an important component on medication. so to make that happen we would greatly appreciate it.

>> i will certainly take that back to the leadership of the army corps which you probably know the irony of that is i spent five years in connecticut and the big deal was how do we find a place for this dirt. i don't know whether it is worth sending it to you but we ought to figure it out. there are some mayors from the great lakes area that's become an issue about whether or not you want to continue to put threats in western lake erie that are getting warmer and contributing to the blooms and the cyan of toxins shutting down the systems in toledo. we need to be open and i think the army corps is still

conversations that connects the dots because you need to think holistic but are not confined by any one law that need to be developed as the issues move forward and we see what the challenges are today in the future are bringing. i know the army corps is looking at this and i'm more than happy to talk to joe ellen and see if there's opportunities to have what is essentially the direct opposite conversation she had before. i want you to know one of the fun things i said that i realized yesterday as i got to ask my advisor what's going on with the task force on dirt? because the community is very invested in how to keep it in its place, so it's become a very common thing to talk about. it's a good subject matter and we will see if we can contribute to it. >> other questions from the mayors and the audience?

>> many are developing very ambitious plans and we are dealing with issues like climate resiliency and the need to plan for the climate resiliency. they signed onto some ambitious plans and the mayors and the cities were represented at the same time and it appears we are heading into the longtime of cheap oil. what are your thoughts about the whale on the very ambitious climate change and sustainability both the federal level and at the local level. i've been to phoenix and i know the leadership that you provide the last time we got together we were basically unveiling a solar array which was going to cut about one third of the energy cuts associated.

frankly in your states and many others now solar energy is competing. i don't see that changing. in fact i just left one of the largest solar companies in the manufacturing operation i visited last week and they are getting solar to be cheaper and cheaper. so i do not know how quickly bees are going to reflect in the energy market for the advance towards clean energy systems. it will continue no matter what for many reasons. we don't talk at all about climate adaptation and we should. there's a variety there is a variety of resources the agency has to help you at the local level to understand the resiliency need to build into your systems and how you can

think through those we actually have great local toolboxes. one is how do we advance mitigation and reduce carbon pollution and the second is recognizing that adaptation is critical and there are many sitting here but have provided leadership and i want to thank them for that and also reminded the others that it's important for us to not forget we are at risk from climate impacts already. if the epa can provide assistance or advice we are here to serve you in that regard. we have expertise and tools and we would be happy to work with you on that because while we are trying to not get worse, we know we have challenges today we are not prepared for. >> the congress the way it's currently set up isn't going to pass anything further. it will be up to the cities in the united states to make sure that they meet its commitments under the paris agreement.

any final questions for the administrator i know that she has a busy schedule but we have to move on. any final questions, we have this one here as the last one. >> we have the climate action activist in the carbon tax as a way to fund all of these solutions. what is the policy on the carbon tax, thank you. >> that's another lovely part about my job. [laughter] i work with my own tools. i think the president when he unveiled his climate action plan, and i think the situation hasn't changed is that he indicated the need to take action on climate right away and he's worked on what authorities the congress gave him to do that. the epa is responsible for looking at our tools. he also left open the door that if congress wants to create u.s. congress wants to create another

more flexible tools that folks think is advisable to pursue, then go at it. let's do it. but we don't see that happening. so i do not want to combine any state from any resolution they want to bring to the table to address climate change. under the clean power plant we are here to help. so i wouldn't take a thing off the table for others to do but the epa itself is not in the business of creating those types of taxes or fees. ..

>> so next i'm going to bring up to the podium, to the dais, bob, spoken before this committee. he has moved on to a very important topic you know serves as president for the center for climate and energy solutions which is the successor to the pew center for global climate change. his role and responsibility is to help cities, help states adopt their climate plants. with the government come with the private sector, with universities and others at the table. the center is an independent nonpartisan nonprofit that works

to advance strong policy and action to address the twin challenges of energy and climate change. the conference and the center been discussing how we can work together to educate and help cities as relates to the clean power plan. we are trying to create a more formal relationship between bob and his center of the u.s. conference of mayors, a more official role that he can act as an advisor, a friend and help draft these plans around the country. first we will hear from bob and then we will hear from brendan, regional director for north america at sea 40. he supports see 40 cities in the united states and canada. prior to joining see 40 he served as chief of policy sustainability for the district department of the environment in washington, d.c. i want to thank bob and brendan for joining us today. each will speak one right after the other and it will take any questions. and then for the closer we have our friend, the mayor from the

city of st. louis, a good friend of the conference that he will talk about an awesome program he has been working on and demonstrated some leadership on and that is the restoration of the monarch butterfly kisses region. cited success story. we want to end on a high note. without further ado, bob, the podium is yours. >> thank you, mayor. what a pleasure to be with all of you today. out to be as fast as i can without becoming like a blurred since the boards are elected to in brooklyn for a while and i can say forget about it as one word but i don't think i can do the whole thing is when were. thank you for the introduction and all your leadership. last year we now know was the hottest year since recorded temperatures for the earth, 2015. and that comes on the heels of 2014 which was the hottest year before that. that. and no comments are to believe

that this might be another hot you get what's going on outside the remember boston was substantially called lester as well. think of these temperatures, global temperatures and what's going on. so we know the climate is changing and we are starting to see the effects of a. many cities are being affected by it whether it's summer heat, cold disproportionally cold and precipitation as well as asgard from the san francisco bay, concerns about rising sea levels. sea levels rise not just because the i.c.e. caps are melting, because the ocean gets hotter and its water and expense to 70% of the earths surface covered with water expands because it's warmer. it would take up more space which is a scientific way of saying there will be rising sea level. gina was terrific in laying out why the mayors should be keeping

an eye on the clean power plan. i want to emphasize that more. also having been in paris with gina and some of you, 300 mayors were there at the summit of mayors, the mayor from paris ran. it was awe-inspiring and it really did come in since whatever relationship with many of the negotiators from many other countries, it was an inspiration to them and pushed them for to see such support, not only from mayors but also from the business community. this leadership has demonstrated worldwide not just here in the u.s. climate mitigation programs, adaptation and resilience issues, livability, sustainability, economic competitiveness that is driven by the work that mayors are doing. and so what are the opportunities to leverage thatcome and to leverage that leadership beyond the city itself.

obviously working with each other is really important but one of the things mayor stanton mention is that we want to start to look at and follow-up on what gina mentioned is how can mayors start also influence the states and maybe even participate in a the united states meets its global commitments. certainly that was a big emphasis in paris. so we look at the clean power plan for the things ended about the the clean power plan to which he was taught about that mayors are doing, things like energy efficiency, building codes, rebates, renewable energy. mayors preparing for renewable energy, building renewable energy, doing land-use reviews to see how they can accommodate thing some batteries to photo solar rays. keypoint, water energy to look at those two things together. arizona i believe, one of the largest energy users in the state is pumping water. i think california would not be too different from that.

most families get a ton of water a day if you become for and each one has one of gallons, is about a ton of water. think about delivering a ton of anything to every family in your city. think of the energy would have used to do that. we do this now with our drinking water plans and are pumping. lots of opportunities that mayors have the states don't have to look at how that works right on the ground in their home. tthe clean energy is a program which gina didn't cover in detail in her comments but is part of the clean power plan which is the incentive program for energy efficiency and renewable energy and cities, and a particular targeted to in communities. where is that could happen? mostly it will happen in cities. revenue potential. if you market mechanisms which was talked about, tax or cap-and-trade hard how does the state accomplish this plan? how to companies trade with each other? all of that one of revenue move

around and pointed the mayors play a role in that? said just give you a quick example of why this is important, if i look at just two of those things i mentioned, energy efficiency and renewable energy, and i look at the cap at the united states has to meet its 2025 goal for the paris agreement with a 26-28% reduction from 2005, the gap is between 300 million metric tons of carbon equivalent to 700 million metric tons. it work of mayors in the united states can accelerate the energy efficiency and renewable energy implementation of the clean power plan by just instead of 15 years to 2030 they can do it by 2025 is 210 million metric tons. that's not a small amount of 300-700. but right now how to capture that, how to get that to be there is something that we don't

really have a good handle on soviet support for mr. but does but in these state programs because they don't want t to hae the state have to reinvent the wheel on something you've already done. you want your programs to become part of what the state is thinking about. if market approaches are not used by the state, mayors need to play in that revenue decision. you will have much of the damages of any low income incentives, not all of it because i don't want to dismiss the back with significant poverty in some of our rural areas. and on the national level mayors were there and they were center stage. with the goal of 26-20%. recent white house report that came out, i know this is for high visibility on new year's eve, showed how the current think about how to beat the 26-28%, there was a mention into about cities. they just had policy gaps. how do they do? if all of this combined energy can be harnessed and measured

and somehow modeled maybe we can measure because they're so many cities in so many things that maybe we can model it, that would be really important. so those are pretty important. as their mention and i will stop with this, we have been around for almost 20 years, our center, and we are one of the top ranked think tanks but we also have very strong and trust relationships with most of the business community in the country. particularly we have empower companies on our business advisory council. we have trust relationships with the states, and we have i believe including myself has the trust relationship with mayors. and so we want to use and have started to use that relationship to bring cities and states and businesses together to talk about the things i just mentioned. and what we want to be able to do this more of that and be more up front about it with the conference of mayors. we think the conference of mayors has a tremendous opportunity as a well respected institution to play a pivotal role in moving the city input to

clean power plan's, and to play a role in the united states commitment globally. so we are looking forward to that and i'm looking forward to questions. i will just to quickly we do have a meeting with states and cities coming up in phoenix in february, and mayor, i think will be in anchorage in march i want to say so we're looking forward to that, getting some of the lower 48 up to anchorage in give our last airlines a little bit of business smack so thank you all for this opportunity. i look forward to questions. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. thanks very much for having me come at such a good executive them he is advancing my slides to keep me on time. i'll go back quickly to the first, to the heading.

this is discontinuing the line of thinking that you've heard already from the administrator and from bob about cities as actors, as innovators, and really key what they're looking at numbers for greenhouse gases or quality of life for all these different indicators. sea 40 as a global network of cities and we are very much focused on the fact that we're not going to solve the world's problems without cities taking serious action around climate. and being these engines for growth for innovation and for change. just quickly, right now sea 40 is more than 40. we are 82 or 83 cities actually. this just drives home the point that when you put cities together industry and the united states and globally, you are looking at larger number so people. we are 11% of the global population but an outsized% of gdp. if you look at them we are a quarter of the world gdp

represent the number of cities. even look across the conference of mayors at a critical impact not only in population but as a gdp did not have economy you all are moving you will understand the impact that mayors can have. cities are engines of change. cities are where the future often and often happens first. at and climate i think an action in response to a natural disaster, climate change, cities are acting first. but cities are essentially the problem. when you're looking at current demographics were at half the worlds population cities. it will be three quarters by 2050. so where the problem which can put you in the position of also having to be the solution. if you can't solve climate, transportation, energy, food,

livability solution for cities you are just not going to fix up for the planet. that's where we come and and i think is very much the kind of leadership you see from the conference of mayors in many of the cities in this room, many of the mayors that up and walking the halls here today are truly national and global leaders on these issues. so we say that the battle to tackle climate change will be won and lost in cities. it will not be won or lost only by cities in cities and states and nations working together very clearly, but when it comes down to which the solutions we are going to have to be intimated by you. so if the nation wants a new program, a new transportation approach, if you decide to implement solutions for transportation congestion globally or nationally, it's going to come down to cities that have to implement that really at the street level. what we find in the way we are organized is that the best way to get anything done is mayor to

mayor. we are very much a mayor led organization to our steering committee is made up of mayors. they set up a policies and direction. in return around and work with other organizations of mayors like the conference of mayors nationally, cities and others. the best inspiration looking at any of these types of tools, trying to transform the market, trying to provide trusted allies and better to me occasions, the best answer is usually coming from up here, another mayor was tackle the problem and has a solution to offer. so working together is pretty much, and collaboration come is a core of c40 mission is the core of our efforts working with you, the conference of mayors the other organizations the epa and the department of energy, with the white house, going to paris. none of us can solve these problems together. so a number of the solutions

that we focus very strongly on across the cities in the united states and then globally were bringing mayors together to provide leadership and into learn from each other. we had a reception at the other night, a good number of folks in the room were there for the contact of mayors. a number of you -- has anyone here signed on? i know a number of you have signed on the are those of you who are not, i even have the form right here where you can sign onto the compact of mayors. this is a global effort. this is a leadership after but also one that provides a path and provides collective leadership of cities to demonstrate their leadership locally but then rolled out nationally, role that of the global leadership. cities are taking actions and mayors that are taking action help build the community to provide support to each other. what can mayors to collectively that they cannot do individual?

that's i think to click into any catholic to implement in really ambitious goals coming out of paris we can do much more together collaboratively that we could individually. there's also opportunities to the conduct of mayors who recognize your efforts and to let us compare apples to apples and to be transparent about how we are doing. and when you are not doing as well as you should be, looking for tools and technical assistance to get there. so the compact of mayors will start at about a year ago. it's an effort of the united nations with organizations like c40 particularly and other global entities to bring mayors together. so this is very much a focus of what happened in paris, the climate some of the local leaders and i don't know if anyone in the room is in this picture. i think bob, we have 500 mayors and over 700 local governments represented at this one meeting. unprecedented really. and brought together by the mayor of paris and united

nations, invite mike bloomberg in his special role as u.n. envoy for climate cities. so at this point there are over 450 cities signed up 120 in the united states. we were very lucky to support te support from the white house in this effort in the fall. president obama actually put a charge outcome we want 100 cities on this compact before pierce. we exceeded that in a sense grown to 122. this is a process of committee, planning for medication, leading for adapting to climate change. and then you actually get to the end and you get compliance, which mentioned done greenhouse gas inventories and you made a plan for how you're going to bring the solutions to your local community. and it's doable. at this point the auburn 45 global and u.s. bashing seven your cities that are compliant

with the compact but i think it's afford to sign on, when you're signing on to know this is something that is beneficial in doable. it is not an empty pledge. so back to the collaboration i just wanted to focus on a couple of specific best practices and then finish up. the ideas that you've heard today around clean power plan, there's all sorts of policies moving from all sorts of trends in the market, oil prices going to all these things moving. but on the ground, the cities need to be delivering new solutions day today. this is not just climate with large. this is time as transportation congestion, open space management. this is health and welfare of citizens. one of our efforts across the globe and with just cities included is called cream -- clean buzz declaration, using i signed on. they say we want cleaner buses with the specifications. we will by 20,000 globally in the next 10 years.

what can the market deliver? in the last year is driven the price, delivery price down by 15% for the cities participating. this is a denigration c4 digrest out of latin america but it's not open to any city and i would love to talk to folks here if you're interested in signing on. another one is to highlight the fact that cities can we get towards each year and focus on d.c. since where local and the comments that's been brought up with phoenix. the ability of city to collectively use your purchasing power is really untapped, and untapped resource. you see cities like d.c. getting towards because they are moving 40, 50 megawatts of wind power, solar power, or in the case of the southwest hundreds of megawatts of solar power. communities and businesses follow. there's a great opportunity there to talk about what cities can collectively do.

to move renewable and clean technology. so a major study came out last year new climate economy basically said this about $17 trillion to be saved in the coming years. much of it as you well know the less money you sent out, the less money export spending on fossil fuels and pretty much all this export. i very few communities our cities in the united states adults and almost all of their fossil fuel money out of the community. more of that you would think him and it is big money, the more of that you retain stays local. the are huge opportunities in the new economy. would've been is capturing the valley of fossil fuel in particular. and translate that to local service of that great compact connected or coordinated cities that are lower carbon. i don't want to run on too long so going to just go through these last slides really quickly. the keys to unlocking further

action i want you to. we are working with a variety of partners in three opened with a conference of mayors comes on the gulf of cities solution platform which brings this is together with cities and technical experts to talk to deliver solutions to your staff to the people executing policy at the city level. what is the best new district energy system? how do you know? these are hard questions. how can we provide a safe space across industry and ngos and researchers to deliver those two cities? the next is to unlocking the money. i believe is to the last because it all comes down to the money, but there is a movement, l. number of factors that are working on this. in our case with a tool called the finest facility which is working globally to bring money for technical assistance grants to unlock private capital.

i won't go into more now but happy to do that later. we know we need a lot more money but we also know there's investment, particularly today, if you're looking for investment ask your portfolio slides, there's clean investment out there that are indeed going to be the future. so thank you very much. [applause] thank you, bob and brendan are coming. we are short of time but make one or two questions for bob and brendan. quickly for you but i ask this in the past administrator mccarthy. the availability of cheap oil. looks like you'll be around for a while. is that they help or hindrance for cities in trying to adopt strong sustained the and/or climate adoption, climate change plans? >> i don't think there's any question that complicates the transportation scenario, which is hard. especially when you've got some cities, the biggest is maybe only 20% of your emissions and many other cities its 40, 45%.

a huge percentage of the energy that the cities are using, the majority almost edward is buildings, electricity driven, it's open to new finance and not really affected so the solutions you are doing with solar and wind, you know, i think it gets hard on transportation side by technology is delivering solutions there as well. >> here's where there's a real opportunity for another marriage. the epa, gina didn't talk about it, has put in place regulations between now and 2025 to issue the automobiles sold in the united states have to be more fuel efficient until 2025 where they are will be 54 miles to the celtic there's been a lot written about people by more suvs because the price of oil is lower. it really is aligned to what kind of course people by. general motors, ford, toyota, honda, they also have to meet those goals as an average

industry. if they sell more of the big ones they will have to so more of the little ones. the big deal is vehicle miles traveled. so the next of course is problematic but the automobile industry will have to deal with that to comply. but you can't compensate or the epa rules can't compensate for the fact until some of the cars people might drive more. but he was best control over traffic management to start 26-28% alternatives, et cetera, et cetera? cities. you have the ability to make an impact on vehicle miles traveled by delivering of the working with metropolitan 26-28% authorities and others. we are talking about a long window. there's real opportunity for a marriage between transportation systems management and the technologies in the corporate i wouldn't throw out that it's a hopeless situation with cheap oil but nonetheless it is a

challenge. >> no, city better represents the city up represen represent s the switch as many suburban city. were going urban in a big way and the voters just as a few months ago the largest transportation infrastructure investment in the entire country. they voted to tax themselves triple the amount on light rail the city of phoenix, bikes, buzz so we're trying to follow the. mayor slay will be our closer but before mayor slay comes up to our many talented staff people working for the united states conference of mayors. but we got the best one. let's give her a round of applause. [applause] spent tom cochran, i know you're watching. give her a raise, please. mayor slay, i said we will end on a high note. mayor slay as a great success story that he's been showing leadership on as mayor of st. louis preserving the monarch butterfly. mayor slay, give us words of

wisdom. >> thank you, mayor stanton. appreciate your leadership on this committee. i am going to be very brief. i know we're running out of time but this is something i'm going to talk about that engages our resident on a citywide basis and even beyond for that matter. it helps the environment. it connects people with nature which is really bored and it's a fun project. we call it milkweed for monarchs, the st. louis butterfly project. this is a project that really addresses the issue of the tremendous drop in the monarch butterfly population. it has dropped by over 90% in the last 20 years. these are beautiful pieces of major. these butterflies, if you noticed bob had a butterfly tie on. there he is right there. this is something that really does impact our nature and impact our communities in a big

way. and there's a real easy way to deal with it. it's planting milkweed. ..

already in the second year noticing a lot more monarch butterflies in the city and people are really enjoying that. but studies have shown time and again that by connecting people with nature and improving the amount of green space and accessibility it does have a lot of social, economic and environmental positive impacts with lower stress and anxiety and reduces blood pressure and improves overall happiness. it also reduces symptoms of adhd and results in high gear academic achievement and better fitness and also it has an impact on increasing property values. we have more green spaces and neighborhoods so these are the reasons why we are doing it and to learn more about it we have a flash drive that we have passed out here. kathryn warner brought this idea

to me and i thought it would be great. this is the cycle of a monarch butterfly and the photos that you see are of my butterfly garden at my home so you can actually see it first hand i have a video of monarch coming out of the chrysalis. if you have questions catherine will be available after the meeting. thank you. [applause] let's give a big around applause to the outstanding speakers. [applause] thanks for coming today. an audible conversations

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] a live look at the white house. no snow falling yet with today's briefing has already been canceled and that the government

will be closing in about a half-hour at noon eastern time because of the blizzard predicted to hit the nation's capital later today. 2 feet of snow were more with 50-mile per hour winds. the washington matrox system, the region's subway is closing down for the entire weekend for the service ending tonight at 11. lawmakers left town town and head of the snow and they don't plan to come back for legislative business until tuesday. the u.s. capitol police put out a statement saying saying although sledding is technically prohibit on capitol grounds they will not enforce the sledding ban because last year's trillion dollar on the spending bill included a provision instructing capitol police to allow sledding on the hill. as the snowfall begins in the washington area of area to area of the virginia senator tim kane is in iowa to campaign for hillary clinton. he will stop by her campaign

office in davenport to speak with reporters and volunteers in the presidential campaign. that starts at 12:30 p.m. live on c-span. more coverage coming up this weekend. 10 a.m. saturday morning it's the new hampshire republican party town hall meeting. we will hear from a number of candidates, rand paul, jim gilmore, john kasich, chris christie, rick santorum, marco rubio and candy cars in the and the wife of ben carson will all be there. then at eight tomorrow also on c-span ted cruz holds a campaign rally with radio talkshow host glenn beck and iowa congressman steve king. they will be at the five sullivan brothers convention center in waterloo, iowa. coming up sunday, new hampshire senator jeanne shaheen on her state's presidential primary on february 9. senator shaheen is a supporter of hillary clinton, news makers coming up on c-span at 10 a.m.

and 6 p.m. eastern. >> booktv has 48 hours of nonfiction books and offers a free weekend on c-span2. here are some programs to watch for this weekend. saturday night at a:30 charlie savage argues president obama who came into office saying he would turn back the excess of the bush administration has picked up where president bush left off in his book power war inside obama's post-9/11 presidency. then at 10 p.m. on "after words" senate leaders tom daschle and trent lott on their book crisis point looking at the current climate in congress and offering recommendations for moving america forward. the are interviewed by former congressman jc watts of oklahoma. >> just the incredible insatiable demand for more and more money is one of the issue the issues that is exacerbating off of this. it's harder to bring people

together because they are not in town and second, they are doing with this other stuff that doesn't allow them to be the legislators they are elected to be. >> they don't want it to be a luck this is how we do things. it's littered with dysfunction and challenges. here are some things we think would make a difference. >> at eight eastern the journalists examining the changing world for young women in the middle east in her book excellent daughters. she looks at the kind of choices young arab women are making and how they differ from those of their mothers. >> women are going to universities in greater numbers and especially in the gulf countries. the portions of women are even greater compared to demand and

the women will tell you this is partly because it is a socially acceptable way to delay marriage were to be outside of the home in a way that the families would support. >> watch tv all weekend every weekend on c-span2, television for serious readers. >> supreme court justice stephen breyer was at the brookings institution yesterday to talk about his book "the court and the world." it's about how globalization affects american law and house up in court decisions have an impact in other nations. justice breyer said the court should consider international precedence when the u.s. case law is unclear. >> good afternoon everybody. it is my pleasure to welcome all

of you here this afternoon. thank you for braving the elements. it would require a little more bravery tomorrow afternoon or not this time. so we timed this event i think perfectly. and a particular welcome to justice breyer and joanna breyer. they are both friends of this institution, friends of many of us here. the connection with the brookings institution goes back a way. i suspect most of you noticed when you came into the front entrance of the building that there are some banners celebrating our hundred birthday here at brookings. this is also the 40th anniversary of the publication of justice breyer's first book, which came out under the brookings institution press. later this year by the way, the brookings institution press will

be publishing his dissent in the death penalty case. that will be in the hall. we also have an annual lecture series here in his honor and in his name and the next one of those will be during the course of the spring and the subject is always the theme of international law and it's important, its importance to the world and of course the united states. today, we are going to hear from him and the two panelists and my colleague from the government study program been on a related question which is the degree to which input reasons for united

states law taking account of the law of other countries. this is the topic of his new book, "the court and the world," which has been widely and prominently enthusiastically reviewed in recent months. so, with that, i'm going to turn the proceedings over to the panel, and there will be plenty of chance for you to interact with justice breyer and be part of this conversation. so, with that, ben, maybe you will open up. >> thanks for coming out on this cold day. i will dispense with introductions because we are dealing with two people who don't really require an introduction to the brookings audience.

we are going to structure this as a conversation. dahlia and i will ask questions for the first half roughly and then go to questions from the audience. please make sure your phones are silent and as you have questions and want to get in on the conversation, signal me and i will say this again before the time comes, wait for a microphone to come around before you start talking. so, justice breyer, let's start with just a little bit of an overview of the project that you undertook in this book. why did you want to write a book about the courts situated not in american law but in the world as a legal and nonlegal venue, and what the overarching theme that

holds the project together? >> i wrote it so i could speak at brookings. [laughter] the first book by the way you still could get. it's on amazon. it's called the regulation of energy by the federal commission which i wrote. and it only costs a penny. [laughter] if you have one of those free postage things it's just a penny. the second book, which i think is a better book was regulation its reform and i perhaps said this here but the "los angeles times" reviewer said in alice in wonderland alice emerges from the pool of storms in the history of england why are you reading that says alice and the dormouse says this is the driest thing i know, that's before breyer wrote this book.

so in any case i thought i would try to do better. you see the theme of this is to show people something. what is it i want to show? i want to show others and maybe lots of ordinary people who are not specialists that when they hear words like interdependence, the globe is shrinking, globalization, it's like the hero of the charterhouse who's wandered around in the battlefield of waterloo. bullets are flying and he thinks to himself something really important is happening here i just wish i had any idea at all what it was. [laughter] and that's sort of what we think about -- some of the -- think about globalization. so i want to be absolutely concrete and say here i'm giving

you a report from the front. i've seen considerable changes in this respect in the 20 years i've been on the court and i want you to see that change not in terms of generalization but in terms of specific problems which may be one senate term and now maybe 15, 20% of the cases where you have to know what's going on abroad in order to decide the case and not necessarily picking up someone else's legal opinion and putting it in hours. sometimes, yes but it's not generally. it is knowing how other people suffer from and deal with similar kinds of problems. so i picked five or six because i want people to see how lower court has changed because of

this and it has nothing to do with individuals. it has to do with change and the nature of the world. and i went by the want by the way, i also like people to see more about how the court decides decisions because there's no way you could read about these decisions without understanding better how we actually go about approaching the decisions and why we do what we do. the last point i think i would like people to get out of this and i hope some people do is that we do have a kind of choice in the world. the problems are global, security, environment, commerce and call for cooperative solutions and if we cannot do this through law, there will be other ways of doing it and those other ways are a lot worse and we see them everyday on the television so i think there is an important general message and there is an important learning experience and i think there's a more specific learning

experience if you can get out of the public world that world has changed even with respect to our institution. >> o. okay so jump in as you have questions and i'm just going to put out two of them. so, one is when people read your name in connection with the title of "the court and the world," a lot of people will immediately jump to your long-running debate with justice scalia about under what circumstance it is appropriate to use foreign law sources as authorities in american judicial opinions. this book is about a much broader subject than that and i am -- i would like you to sort of walk us through what the connection between what that debate and the larger project is and then talk of little bit about the four areas that you've identified as kind of ground zero in this conversation in

your report from the front. >> let's take the first. it's true in most of the reviews in the united states but said what you just said that they don't even notice -- it's dangerous to read a review of your book. paul told me that years ago. he said he read a review of a book you want and either it's sort of rude words complement her he. and if it is rude you think why did i read it and its complementary if it's complementary where it says it was good you think that it do they know how good it is? [laughter] but it is true. there is one in the economist and the online version that did get the point. this is not about a debate with justice scalia.

there is a connection. what is the connection? it is that there is a political debate i think more than a legal debate about whether the court showed in its opinion reefer to decisions of the foreign court. i learned that with congressman goodlatte in a seminar. he was going on about how we shouldn't do that and i said i guess that is in debate and he said yes. [laughter] i said well let me tell you why i do it. people in public life are usually pretty good at debating so don't be quite as self-confident as i was at the moment. i said i was told you why i do that. i do that often because there are many more quotes in the world today in countries that have a constitution like ours with independent judiciary since they have problems like ours.

so a person with a job like mine mine in a problem like mine and documents like mine and rights, why don't i read it? i don't have to follow it. that argument. he said yes, read it just don't refer to it in your opinion. [laughter] but there's a lot of countries in eastern europe that are just trying to establish these chords. they help produce protections of democracy, human rights, and sometimes they need a little recognition so they can go to their legislatures or public sensei we are recognized. the united states in court, they understand what we do, they recognize what we do and i said that helps a little bit. he said fine. right from a letter. [laughter] what is driving at? this is what i think the connection is.

i think the reason the -- this is my own view -- it's become so salient of an issue because the issue has arisen a merrily in cases involving the death penalty and rights -- gay rights. it says in the constitution when we are considering that it has a prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. start arguing about the death penalty. i think that this might be a spillover of their. nobody not justice scalia or anybody on the court denies you have to look or should.

there are many other cases involving the scope or the reach of even mundane subjects of antitrust law, security law. of course you have to look at what other people do. nobody denies that. but what's moving the congress? why is this so salient politically? my own opinion because people are concerned that the more we consult with chords from a broad institution would be the same old group of people consulting with each other or more importantly what will happen at the watering down of the american values. the reason i write this in part is to show you what's going on

and i hope the time you read it, and i hope you do, you will come to the conclusion which is mine. but the best way to preserve is to know what is going on abroad into the problems are in scope and nature solutions have to import at least be international in scope and if we do not participate and learn the world will go on without us and we will have less influence than we would otherwise. so working out the relationships and taking into account what goes on elsewhere is part of an effort to preserve what we have come to cherish to see if you don't agree with me. maybe he will. that is the major motive. >> can i follow up because i have the same response to the book review that they were trying to put into smaller arguments about fighting the

foreign law and i think you do with it deal with it in three pages and say what you just said i think the other thing that is the public misleading about the justice is this a normative book so it's not to be enmeshed in the conversation in the world and the court needs to be global and bigger in scope. what you're saying is we are. this is the status quo and it's not because of the nature of the cases, it is the nature of the world you live in and we are deeply engaged in this. it is given that this is the world we live in here is how we are going to do it. is that fair?

spinnaker that is how i do it. i think probably it is partly style and i think that a position that i taken the court is completely correct. it's only partly correct. i would say how right i am but nobody would believe that. i think that you persuade somebody if you see this and this and this. that used the program and model all of us are old enough to remember that.

i would like to show you where we are. a few thousand years ago or so he said basically i translated it and. that was petty much the american courts acted for a very long time. stewart had a bell on his desk and he called the british massacre.

of course you can understand him come he was up against the big problem. after the war was over with a couple exceptions. go to world war i and you'll see what they are doing about the same thing. you'll see the citizens and taken from their homes and in california putting into camps for what reason, no good reason but by the time that case came up to the supreme court in 1944.

people were worried about the invasions of san francisco. nobody was worried about the invasion of japan. and when the justice department lawyers looked back into the rationale for supporting the removal being the leading opponent, earl warren being one of the leading supporters he later said it was one of the worst things he ever did that he supported it. for what reasons, what evidence? they looked at this and said there was no evidence. none. i mean, the general said there are 743 signals that were sent offshore to the japanese submarines in 1944 at the department of justice he said let's look at that and they came back two weeks later with a title like this and said not one. what were the 743 uses?

they were all working machinery they didn't know how to work. not one. so those lawyers were not signing the brief. then they worked out a compromise, a footnote but nobody could understand this and we don't believe the defense department. and what's his name come herbert j. wexler was the one i worked up a compromise and got them to sign the brief. you could say the supreme court gets the case, that was the case. he's a great guy. he was very feisty independent or next-door neighbor in cambridge whose father had been the aclu lawyer in san francisco we used to play poker with and he wasn't supporting them in that case in the beginning. he says but i'm going to win.

i'm an american. there is no evidence. he lost six through code free. for a while i thought they didn't understand the footnote. then i read the transcript. you will know the lawyer here who was representing the japanese american defense. they keep pointing that out and they said read it. six through code free. black, douglas, frankfurter, the people that were on this committee decided brown v. board. the governors were murphy and jackson, roberts. very interesting. and why? i thought the reason must be that some of this is generally viewed as one of the worst cases in the report. it must be the justices of the majority but somebody has to run th