a little bit. people were dancing industries but it wasn't muslims in america and it was an american muslims who were doing this, but our brain confuses visual information that is is taking in. ..one of the big shocks on 9/11 besides the attacks themselves, the other big shock was that people hate us to the point where they are happy to see us killed by the thousands. impression powerful on your mind, but you do not see american muslims dancing in the streets. that did not happen. host: pardon me. the next call for rick shenkman comes from suzanne on the independent line. go ahead, suzanne. caller: hey, rick. what you just said about the

politicians'advisors telling them how to go ahead and say of reahey are supposed to instead of really answering the question. that sort of reminds me of we are not really in the stone age. everybody is in the reality tv age. so what the advisors are telling him to do is help to get the very best response out of the viewers, and instead of thinking about how the politicians are what the politicians are saying on these different programs, we are taken to the reality tv world where everybody has we don't care about real stuff we

just care about what we think is happening. so, i don't think the stone age is here. i think we've progressed a lot from the stone age because we are at this stage we can sit there with a completely empty mind. >> host: let's get a response. >> guest: we are not living in the stone age, that's the problem, but we have a stone age brain on our shoulders and it's not good at helping us understand the problems that we are facing. for instance, almost daily one of the political problems that people face and faults the fate of millions of people whether we are talking about tax policy or whether we should go to war against terrorism alert whatever the issue is always a policy involving millions of people. the human brain wasn't designed

to address the problems of millions of people come it was designed to address the problems of a small number of people. that's why we have a difficulty when we hear for instance that we are going to drop bombs in id bunch of talents. and the human beings who may be at the end of the bomb site for maybe our innocent civilians who are going to get killed. we see them as abstractions because the human brain is only capable of seeing people as humans standing in front of us then we get to them as human beings. if we are talking about bombing

people who dress differently than us and look differently then us and live in a part of the world we can't even find on a map then it's far easier in the political debate then ted cruz. that's being careless with other people's lives. it's not being sensitive to the fact that some human beings are in a sense might get killed but our brain doesn't work that way we don't think that way. >> host: so basically, you're saying that we are all just pavlov's dogs. ring the bell and the salivate? >> guest: no, i am not saying that at all.

we are human beings with called me to thinking so here's the story that i tell when i go on the road and i give talks as i did this past week on a couple of occasions i tell the story of jesse washington 100 years ago in 1916 we started up a the program talking about in 1916 jesse washington is a black as a black man accused of a crime in texas. the authorities put him in jail and they came and got him out of jail and put him on a tree with a castrated him and cut off his fingers and set him on fire and killed him. now, we heard about lynchings. so it's not ten or 15 people but

15,000 people but there are people in the crowd but are not horrified by what they are seeing a day are pleased with what they are seeing a. it indicates that we find this hard to conceive what is going on here this is because the culture has changed. we are not outlaws dogs. we respond and we can think. but in politics most of the time we are not thinking we are simply reacting that we have the capacity to think and this is the wonderful things about human beings, we are not slaves to our instincts, we can think our way through our problems.

people cannot see other other peoples points of people's points of view and angry people don't compromise. when a small group of people want to create change in america often there are people who are very, very angry and they want to see some change happen. so this was true for instant of the civil rights marchers in the 1950s and 1960s when down in alabama they let loose these dogs on the crowds of civil rights protesters you can be sure those protesters were in a

piping hot angry mood and we need to achieve group cohesion. they were so powerful that they need anger to keep them going to be able to get up every day and fight the good fight. what happens when we are angry? it is activated and when the insula is activated we don't compromise and we become close minded and not open to fresh viewpoint.

that's the emotional power we can get anxious and while we don't like to feel anxious, anxious people have an open mind and are more likely to compromise. that angry people don't and we are in a situation today where a majority of the people are angry. this is very bad for our democracy. we have to get the anger out of the politics otherwise we won't accomplish anything. >> host: allen, democrat. you've been very patient. go ahead with your question or comment. >> good morning and thank you for taking my call. i want to ask the gentleman from your guest today are two questions. first, you mentioned that and you told them both information that certain parts of the brain fired off signals. i think one portion is what

would you recommend for those individuals that hear those but then it shut down and i think what recommendations do you have for them to pursue that and i think a second one is the belief in the current election like people are angry and we didn't want to believe they were but that they are and they want to say that this is what we are going to do. what are your solutions to words that anger because you said we can't shut down an angry mob but i really would like your comment on that solution. >> host: thank you sir. i struggled with this just like everybody does. we are human beings so we are going to have our instant

reaction. i had a part of the brain just like everybody when i hear favorable things about the candidates that i like, i really listen closely coming in because of confirmation bias, i think yeah, that's a good point. and when i hear bad information about somebody that i like i think that's not true. that can't possibly be right and i dismiss it. okay so how do you get around that? how do we make in and browse around our own brain? if you become aware of how your brain can undermine your search for truth, and that's what i argue in the book that we are not really after the truth, we are after the truth as steven pinker at harvard talks about, we are after the truth that reinforces our version of reality. how can you get around that? there is no magic formula. you just have to be aware this is how your brain works so you have to question everything.

you constantly got to subject your own opinions to really just a real sober, honest assessment of why you believe what you believe. now, the caller also was asking about anger. how do you get around anger? when you are in an angry mood, you know come if you are married every once in a while you will get angry at your spouse, and in that moment you really can't think straight so you have to wait until you calm down and then you can reflect. that's how thousands finally decided okay we are going to make up. you have to have the same approach in politics. don't keep listening to the same sources that keep you in an angry mood because you'll never have that moment when you can sit back and you can calm down. so if you are watching a tv show or listening to some jockey on

the radio that has you revved up all the time, tune him out for a while. take a break from it. take a week or two weeks off and called down to the point where now you can think a little bit more clearly because when you are in the grip of anger you can't think straight. that's just the way that human beings are built. and understanding how our brain is both that's what the book is about. >> host: in february on this program we got a call from somebody named kino in lakeland florida who suggested that we have you on the program, and i believe this is kino in lakeland florida calling it now. >> caller: good morning. please be for c-span. yes, most definitely. i read the book, and let me make him aware that people -- they have a bipartisan working group in congress. i've recommended that they take your book and have a book report

for all of congress to be aware of your book. the other thing when you talk about the dwell on anxiety that can bring about cooperation, i've recommended that this bipartisan working group come up , put the ten most serious problems facing the united states before they try to seek solutions they define what the problems are that need to be addressed. i want you to be aware i'm a citizen advocate for that group and by using your book as one of my main thrusts. and also i want the presidential candidates to come with a most serious problem they think that are facing this country, and i want the presidential candidates to go on booktv and recommend books people can read for a more intellectual approach rather than an emotional approach. so yes, i think c-span for what it does for the nation and i'm so glad they had you the one today. but be aware that i've asked the

congressional working group to do book reports and come up with a definition of the ten most serious problems facing the nation. so what might be your reaction? >> guest: well, first of all, thank you for telling c-span viewers that they ought to read my book. an author always wants to hear that and i'm really delighted c-span listen to you and that's why i'm sitting here today so that's great. can we talk about anxiety for a moment? because a lot of what i say sound so negative. it's kind of our brains have turned turned us into unthinking partisans. we get angry we can't evaluate their subject to manipulation easily. i want to talk about something that's positive command with the caller just mentioned, anxiety is one of the positive things.

so, when you are anxious as a human being it is a very unpleasant feeling, isn't it? it's something that we don't want to feel anxious. but anxiety is a wonderful thing. it's your brain telling you that you need to reevaluate your impression of something. so come if you have a view of the world in the way that the world works, and you now have some evidence before you that the world isn't working the way that i think it works for instance, i have a belief about a particular candidate and now i've just got evidence that candidate actually is behaving in a way that's contrary to what i thought about that candidate. i thought i understood then that may be i didn't really understand them. when we get that anxious feeling, we reevaluate our opinions. most of the time we don't bother

to reevaluate our opinion and the reason for that is that it takes effort. that literally takes brain energy. your brain consumes 20% of your body's energy every single day. and what that means is your brain is constantly looking for ways to not overwork because that requires more energy and back in the stone age as stone ages it was hard to get protein and get a lot of energies of the brain involved to be extremely prudent looking for shortcuts all the time. that's why we don't do hard high order the cognitive thinking and to expose the time. our brain doesn't want us to think hard because that means that more neurons are firing and that is going to consume more energy so rather than thinking horror to just goes into the default position and okay we are just going to go with the flow and go with our normal reactions with anxiety, our brain is telling us to stop. you can't just go with the flow.

you have to think really hard. you've got to use higher order cognitive thinking. that is your brain telling you to engage in think hard. so when you are watching a political debate and you feel a little anxious, don't try to shove that anxiety down. pay attention to it. that is your brain telling you that there is a mismatch between their beliefs and what the facts are. time to reevaluate. as for the caller backing up this bipartisan group in congress, that's wonderful. that's what is needed if we are going to get anything done. it's a democracy only works when people in both parties are at the very minimum talking to each other. if they put up walls between them and they only the only talk to their own supporters, democracy won't work.

>> host: in new york we have an independent. please go ahead, clyde. we are listening. >> caller: what you're saying is fantastic. you need to get together with [inaudible] life and you need to go on a tour. i studied yellow journalism as a broadcast student and a minor in psychology. and here it is. i'd like to i like to use a different word than what you have in your book. it's amazing because here it is you did inject the systematic racism. it's amazing. that's why i say you need to go on a tour together. anyway, that's all i have to say. >> host: who is tim weiss?

>> guest: >> caller: i think you had him on last sunday -- no, no. it was free speech tv. he wrote a book and speaks about white privilege, systematic racism and so on. i think they could do a lot of constructive stuff in this country. >> host: thank you sir. any reaction? >> guest: well, if somebody wants to pay to send me around the country to talk to audiences, i'm all in favor of it. i do have a day job and i run the history news website where historians are putting the news into historical perspective but i can take some time out to go on the road. >> host: helling and named him a democrat please ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: good morning.

i was struck by a comment that author michelle goldberg made the other day on chris hayes show about power seekers and how generally speaking, population are adverse to people who are related blatant policy seekers and how this is tremendously magnified when a candidate or the person with the power seekers a woman. and she used this really i think to explain or tried to explain some of the antipathy people have towards candidate hillary clinton. i'm wondering if your book addresses the whole issue of gender and how this plays into the current political field and also the role of religion where we know that the subjugation of women has been part and parcel hoping you would care to address those. >> host: overhead.

>> guest: those are great plains and i chose not to focus on gender. i thought my feeling was a lot of books have been written about the importance of gender and politics and i didn't want to throw another book on the file. i wanted to draw attention to the problems i identify in the which is problems with curiosity, the problem with truth and/or bias, the problem with empathy and so forth so i don't really focus on that. but i do agree with everything you said. those were all good things. >> host: you quote thomas daily, quote, every single foreign-policy crisis in u.s. history was shaped decisively by public opinion. >> guest: said, thomas bailey was a stanford historian for 40

years. he was the author of the textbook that i and millions of others used in high school called the american passion and also wrote a book called public opinion. or the man in the street and public opinion. the gist of the book was that if you look at almost every foreign-policy crisis in our history, you will find that politicians, congress, the president were always designing our foreign policy around perpignan, to accommodate public opinion which makes sense. the public or the democracy, whatever you want to believe about our system of government, there is a big raging debate on the internet about that. but public opinion is the key. woodrow wilson said if you have the public behind you, you can accomplish anything. so, the problem is if the public doesn't know that much that the

politicians are leading the public opinion guide their foreign-policy, then we end up making blunders. as for the iraq war is a classic example. here a president was able to generate support for this war by preying on people's fears about 9/11, and he was able then to turn around and launched this war without even a congressional declaration of war. he did get a resolution of support, but it wasn't a full-blown declaration of war. that's the problem. in almost any foreign-policy crisis you will see that that's a problem. sometimes of course like it was like in world war ii okay, pearl harbor gets attacked and the public says they have to take advantage and do something. but most of the time the public doesn't have an independent basis grounded in fact upon

which they are making their opinion but the politicians whether it is based on fact or not are usually following public opinion. they are usually slaves to the public opinion and that is the problem. >> host: okay we have 15 seconds. >> caller: i want to address a spirituality. i don't think i've heard you mention anything about that and what a person believes in their mind is right, and you're speaking so much about public opinion and what's what and why and what's wrong and a lot of what people feel is right and their policies -- >> host: thank you ma'am. you have 15 seconds to answer the question. >> i believe along with social scientists, jonathan hiatt at the university of virginia, that our moral values are innate and

we believe what we believe about it, and that's fine. there's nothing wrong with that. just subject your moral findings to the higher order of cognitive thinking. >> host: author, political analyst of the stone age brain gets in the way of smart politics. also the founder of the history news network, thanks for being on the washington journal. >> guest: thank you very much. and people can go to stone age brain to find out more about my research. c-span to live in new york where former president bill clinton will be rallying support for his wife, former secretary of state and new york senator hillary clinton to become the democratic presidential nominee. congressman eliot engel speaking at the college of mount st. vincent in riverdale new york. >> -- she was one of the most hard-working and effective members of the united states

senate and she is someone who has made us proud. so, we want to take her effectiveness to the state of new york and use it for all of the united states of america and i know what hillary clinton we will have one of the best presidents the united states has ever had in the history of the country. [applause] hillary is smart, she's hard-working, she cares about people, and what can be a better combination? but it's very important that you remember that four days from now, you need to go to the polls and vote and bring your friends, because a lot of people do not realize that there's an election or primary election going on. many people think i will wait until november and vote for president. but that's not going to do that. we want to make sure the democratic party has the right nominee. we want to make sure the

democratic party has the winning nominee. and let me tell you after that debate last night -- -- and i thought hillary was just terrific, didn't you? [applause] so, turnout, turnout. it's very important. so again, please make sure you not only vote but that you bring your spouse, you bring your brothers and sisters, you bring your friends, bring your neighbors. we have to make sure that new york goes strong for hillary and that will happen if you all go out and do that. now, one last thing before i have a special introduction. those of my friends, my cosa )-close-paren you know what we went through back in 1999. in 1999, there was a carrying out of genocide against the albanian people in cosa bow and we know that what was happening

with the serbs, they were moving along and doing all kinds of terrible things in the balkans and they were about to get hit and we don't know what would have happened. people would have been killed perhaps hundreds of thousands of people. we know people were driven from their homes and the albanian community in kosovo looked for the world's help. and for a while, it appeared nobody was going to be there to help them. but there was one person who was there to help and one person who made a difference for the nation of kosovo, and the person at the time as president of the united states, president bill clinton. [applause] now you know, i always joke and a state how proud i am that in this city they named a street after me. but in the main city, the capital city, they very

fittingly named a street after president clinton. so there was a great biggest straight such which is president bill clinton's street along with a terrific statue. but when you see president clinton, you will see that he is much better looking than that statute. [applause] but, when i spoke to the president during this terrible period in 1999 i remember one thing the president said to me. i said we cannot abandon these people and he looked at me and said don't worry, we are not abandoning them. and when he said that to me, i went home and i arrested comfortably because i knew then he that he wouldn't allow genocide to happen once again in the continent of europe and so when you look for people who saved albania, go further than

president clinton. when you look for persons who really care about people and who made a difference for people, they wouldn't be an independent nation in kosovo today if it wasn't for president clinton and i know that because i know how hard he worked for that. so it just gives me great pleasure to introduce to you a wonderful, wonderful president of the united states, and by the way i i've told you before he comes out that hillary clinton will do the same type of things president bill clinton did when it comes to the balkans and when it comes to caring about people, when it comes to making sure lives are safe. so it is my pleasure to introduce to all of you the person we've all been waiting for, our wonderful president, bill clinton. [applause] ♪

>> thank you. thank you very much. thank you. [cheering] let's give the skip the congressmen and other big hand. [applause] and i want to thank a family member of the first albanian american elected in the united states. thank you, councilmember andrew cohen, thank you as a president of the college of mount st. vincent charles, thank you for having us here and thanks to all the students that have joined us. a. [cheering] [applause]

first of all, i'm embarrassed to admit i've been living in new york and have been campaigning for longer and i thought i knew more about new york than the average new yorker much less the average american. i've never been in this campus before. it's so beautiful. [applause] [cheering] they supported me in the past and for the memories of what he tried to do but i also want to say that when hillary was there with me, she visited a refugee

camp in macedonia and she tried to protect and promote the albanians and make sure those that stayed were protected and they could that they could go home safely as soon as possible and for her efforts, she got albania's highest civilian award, the mother teresa award. [applause] the second thing i want to say is if you look around at the crowd today, here we are at a catholic institution of higher education within overrepresentation of albanians and albanians from kosovo, predominantly muslims and a great number of american jews and the people who come from --

look at these students here. it looks like we are convening of the united nations. [cheering] why am i saying this? because i want to start with this point. we live in an interdependent world. and i hear them talk about this all the time. he's made a broad part of the future. you could put up all the walls laws you want around america, not just across the texas border with mexico. you could put one across the border with canada in the atlantic and the pacific. you could stop airplanes from landing here. we would still be in an interdependent world because the social media. there is no place for us to hide and this is the model of the

future but i want for people not just in the united states but all of the world. look at this room. [applause] no one who walks through the store would adore today was asked to check your faith at the door, to check your race at the door or politics at the door. everywhere in the world people are working together for an inclusive economic opportunity and inclusive social policies which is a fancy way of saying we love our differences. it makes life more interesting that the common humanity is the most important thing and if we forget italy will turn into it or we will turn into stupid idiots doing destructive things. and that to do that, we have to

govern together and work together. in that debate last night, i saw a lot of interesting things but after the debate, cnn it turns out a couple hundred people from new york, and they said there were only nine undecided people but they did find somebody that switched. whenever i hear that i get so nervous. so, i go up to this man who appeared to be in his late 30s maybe, but it was a new york city resident, african-american come and he said are you the person who switched and he said yes. how did you switch? he said i wasn't for hillary when i came here but i am now because i thought the opponent was more focused on real living in the past and she was more interested in rebuilding the

future and that's what we have to do as americans we can so we can all vote together again. [applause] the work i did to save kosovo from genocide and of the work -- fact we were able to get our allies to move quickly was important to me because i worked for two and a half years to do the same thing for the bosnian muslims, nd i had enormous support everywhere from the pope to the king of saudi arabia asked me to help save the bosnian muslims and to and distill the allies in europe were reluctant. i just celebrated the 20th anniversary of the beginning and end of the bosnian conflict and the peace process triggered by the slaughter.

but i want to just say this to sort of make real what i said about inclusive economics and societies and inclusive politics. when we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the killing that ended the bosnian conflict and started the peace process, we did it in this old building, where a lot of the young boys were killed. and the meir, 36-years-old stood up and said, i want you to think about it when we allowed our neighbors and fellow american. this man signed the accidental survivor. i am the only male in my family who survived. i'm the i am the only member of my class at school who survived

16. i have no idea why they didn't find me in the woods. i am it, the accidental survivor so he said, i thought i should try to do something useful with my life as if there were some reason that i had survived. and we have to begin again. he had invited the 39-year-old prime minister of serbia to come, because he was trying to get them to move away from their nationalist dark path and take a different future. at first people didn't know what to do because he's the only surviving member of the class maybe we should listen to him.

he's acting like nelson mandela and it's only 36-years-old. he said you should make him feel welcome. you think it wasn't risky for him to come down here than you think that he wasn't afraid of what people did, but he came and we have to make a new beginning. that's what i want to say to all of you. look at all these people all around the world. the only thing that matters is our differences. the only thing that matters is whether we can get the crowd to stop thinking so we can demonize their crowd, whoever they are. the future belongs to people who continually expand the definition of us and shrink the definition of them. [applause] the first event we did, president diaz said even though

there were three presidents who came here when i was a kid, president carter came in the 70s and showed the poorest parts of the bronx instead of bad he felt. president reagan came here in the 80s and said this shows you what a mess the government makes the things that he said then i showed up and it looks like the future debate, let's get it on. [applause] the reason i think hillary should be president, number one, she's got the best ideas to share prosperity and share societies and the political future. member to come in a troubled world that is more divided than it used to be, she has a proven record and the best ability to make sure that we try to stop all these problems from ripping

europe and the middle east apart so that it doesn't also for americans drive down the economic recovery we have just started. you can't deny clearly that they entered domestic and foreign policy. look around this room. look at you. this is great. you can't do that. you have to be able to relate to and build a world as well as deal with the challenges here at home. and number three, in 45 years of trying to help people live their dreams and solve their problems, of all the people i've worked with, she is the best change maker and there's a lot of difference between talking about the change and making it a. [applause]

i told hillary the other day it just hit me one day your strongest supporters are the people that know you the best and have worked with you the longest. that is a pretty good recommendation. and that is a very significant difference in this race. not everything that sounds good is good and not everything that sounds good can be done but they've proved over a long period of time that we have a continuing ability to reinvent ourselves and make every new change and challenge our friend, not our enemy. the rio reason there is so much anxiety today is that whenever there is a massive financial crash like the world endured in 2008, no nation has recovered from it fully for 400 years in less than ten years. not ones.

we got the job is jobs done in seven and a half years, but there's still inequality because we haven't gotten wage increases in income increases back. aggravated by the fact that the cost of of college and any other type of training programs have kept people from getting the kinds of preparations that would make them competitive and aggravated by the fact that we have not made the investments we need to modernize our infrastructure. flint michigan isn't the only place with too much lead pipes that have elevated levels if you tore up all the pipes to create a lot of jobs and give every child a healthy future. [applause] and it's complicated by the fact that too many corporations in america today are spending 80 to 90% of their revenue, their

profits giving them to their shareholders and their top executives instead of to the workers in the places where they work. [applause] question about this is what are you going to do about it? she was the first candidate to say look what we need to do now, we solved the problem that caused the last crash. the dodd frank though which president obama signed is working. there are 50,000 fewer people working on wall street today than there were then there were the day before the crash. an article on the front page of "the wall street journal" hardly the democrats last best friend saying these banks are making more conventional loans and fewer gambles. it's working. we have to keep working at. the big problem today is that any company that sells shares to the general public is vulnerable to being dominated and distorted

by these activist shareholders who want all their money plus a profit back in a year and a day and they are trying to pressure company after company after company to give 80 to 90% of the money to the shareholders and the top managers because they get paid based on the share price. that's wrong. for the history of american business and business law was different until recently. until recently, corporations new they had equal responsibilities to their customers and employees, to their communities and to their shareholders and the companies that live by that rule still do better. maybe some of the students have studied this that make a commitment to a sustainable balance future with the environment and with their

community and is sustainable with their employed, good for their customers and good for their shareholders. guess what over any five-year period, those companies do better. so we are being held back by one of the primary drivers that no one has asked about yet in any of these debates and that is the demand for quarterly profits and capitalism when nobody with any sense he leaves you of these you can build a great business unless you have a five or ten year horizon which you take the people that work for you because they are the most important assets that you have. [applause] the other thing we need to do is replenish the workforce and the future which is why hillary has been a strong advocate of immigration reform and it doesn't matter where you came

here from there are now 11 and a half million undocumented people in the country most of them are going to school or working. the secession by the leading candidate on the other side is that he's going to send everybody home is not only unethical but it's the dumbest ideas i've heard in my life. [applause] so she said what's not to do that. let's support what the president did, leave the kids in school and leave their parents alone and pass immigration reform and put people on the a path to citizenship that doesn't have people jumping ahead in line to but let them know they are welcome as long as they are law-abiding and they are trying to make a positive contribution

in the country. [applause] if i were 25 again and i would like to be -- [laughter] if i had a magical experience where somebody brings me a magic lamp and a a genie comes out of the lamp ... i will give you one wish, here it is. you can decide where you want to live 25 years from now what you must decide right now it's at 25 i have had known what i know now, i would fix the united states in a heartbeat because of you. [applause] there is no place in the world where you can have in a catholic university organized by albanian americans and invite all of the students and it looks like you got the un.

no place else. [applause] no place else. all i can tell you is this is our future and if we need immigration reform committee had the chance to get it in 2007 with 16 million people, the undocumented and to their loved ones that are here with proper documentation would be living more productive and peaceful lives today if we had adopted them because for all the differences president george w. bush wasn't afraid of immigrants he wasn't trying to divide america by their immigration status and he said if you pass this bill i will sign it. the farmworkers were begging in society, all the immigration. there's only one person running for president left in either party that voted for this bill,

hillary. it's the right thing to do then and now. [applause] so i hope you will think about that. that was a good part of debates last night but i'm not sure that anybody fully understands what happened. we had the biggest college program since the g.i. bill. everybody got a 20% tax credit for anything that didn't hire education after the first two years we gave basically tuition aid for the first two years. within about five years the benefits were gone from inflation. we had the first program to let people pay their loans back as a percentage of their income, but it only went to colleges and universities that issued loans

and wanted to do that. when president obama came in he had an even bigger program and all federal loans. the option of paying it back as a percentage of your income and pretty soon the benefits of that by? because the cost of higher education all around america kept coming up into the public schools, the government's conservation went down because of the crash of the politics of many state legislatures and the need to fund the public school is a solutions. here's why i think that her program is the best. number one, she wants to make it possible for aid to flow to students not just in public institutions of higher education, but also private ones

that have a lot of first or second generation immigrants, african-americans, hispanics, working people than a modest income with reasonable tuition in high graduation rates. you should include the private schools like this one. second, she believes the people that need free tuition should get it and people with low income should get a much bigger increase in pell grants that it covers not only supplies but living expenses. [applause] i have a feeling it's about to get less popular. she believes every school should have an allocation of work study positions so anybody that needs more money would get ten hours a week and work study opportunities. [applause] now consider this.

the reason that's important is it is about the only thing the federal government can do to help the universities for their costs down. when you have a lot of students doing a work study that helps. one of the highest in america is the college in kentucky where 100% of people are on financial aid, people work in the schools, it was founded before the civil war in kentucky fully open to women and african-americans way back in 1955, but they still got the same model. it's democracy to empower students to get their education and to minimize the cost and maximize the quality of education.

there are new jobs that get through education. wondered if the cost would be deferred by state legislatures that have run against spending money on college and run in favor of cutting taxes. so we don't want to have a college loan program that only helps people that are lucky enough to live in the states with a democratic governor and democratic legislators and are not virtually broke. we are celebrated the resulting affect the governor and new york legislature finally had enough money to increase funding for the state state university and the city university system. i pat them on the back and say thank you. [applause] but it would be hard for them

over and above that to come up is to come up with a third of the cost of free tuition for every single student. so here's the more important thing for the students already have debt. i don't know how many times i've heard this story but the other night i was seeing my granddaughter and my daughter and hillary were campaigning and we were babysitting and on the way home i did what i tried to do often in other towns. i stopped in on a little coffee shop and this young african american woman was serving coffee and i had a conversation with her but i try to have everywhere. here's the conversation. how long have you had this this job? five years on and off. what's off?

she smiled. then i'm going to college. i said what's on? she said when i have to come down here here and pay off my debts so hopefully i can go back to college. it's already five years and she hasn't gotten a degree. are you looking at how? is my mother doesn't make enough to help me but at least i get free rent otherwise i could never pay back my debt. this is a big story in america. anybody know anybody like that? it's a big story in america. so, we talked about it and two days later, i went to buy a pair of jeans from a baby in new york lady in new york that i've done business with over the years and i knew she had a son that just graduated from one of the colleges. and i said how is your son doing? great. he's going to get a good job and

i'm proud of him. does he have any student ? quite a bit, she said. i said what's the interest rate? 9%. i said do you have a home mortgage and she said sure. did you refinance with? of course i do. what's your interest rate? less than 4%. this is crazy. a college loan is the only loan in the united states that you cannot refinance. every other kind of loan you can refinance so what does she want to do about it? like everybody refinance. if you could do just that -- if we do that overnight, 25 million young americans would save an average justify refinancing

think about what that would mean. move out of your parents house. you could, you could take on a lower paying job you love better because the payment would go down with the salary. you could go to the bank and borrow money to start a small

business you always dreamed of starting and your debt wouldn't count against your credit score because it would be as fixed percentage of your income and if you start the business and you don't make any money first year, your payment would go down. this could liberate millions of people who contribute to our economy so we could reduce inequality and all rise together. it would be a big thinto do. [applause] the last thing i want to say is this. i don't want to keep you all day, it's a beautiful day. in the end, being present is a doing job. there's a reason it's called the chief executive. and she's the best doer i've ever known and she was when i first met her. look, i really sympathize with a lot of these young people who are excited about being told that there is one explanation for the misery of america and that is the greed of the wall street banks but the truth is,

wall start screen is smaller and new york city is growing like crazy, led by the bronx and brooklyn and queens and entrepreneurs in new york in manhattan that are diversifying the income. right? so what are we going to do about this? and the thing that always struck me about hillary is she was just saying, what am i going to do, what i'm not going to do question mark about the only thing that disappointed me about that debate last night was the sneering reference that her opponent made to the mammoth victory she won in the south. oh, that's the south. we know how conservatives are. excuse me, but democrats need to win florida and north carolina to get elected and they are now are states of the future. they are very diverse and she won a big victory there. she won in mississippi partly because they have a mayor in

jacksonville, an african-american guy who is the embodiment of the future who helped her. she won in alabama, 93 percent of the african-american vote and the majority of the white vote because when she was a young woman, this is one reason. she went to alabama for the children's defense fund to help shutdown private segregated academies that were pretending to be public schools. [applause] and it took a lot of guts to go in and pose as a racist mother who wanted her kid and her own white school to prove they were ripping off the taxpayers and violating the law. and she did it and they knew it and where i come from, the proof is in the puddingand there's a difference between talk and do and she is a doer . [applause] so that's what i would say.

she worked on juvenile justice in south carolina, she got a big vote. she didn't want african-american teenagers kept in prison and having their lives ruined. past performance is nothing in an election except an indication of future performance. that is, i remember one time i was running for office and i asked the guy if you wasn't tired of me because i've been governor for 10 years and he said no, but most of my friends are. so i had my feelings hurt, i said, don't they think i did a goodjob? they said , i do but you got a paycheck every two weeks don't you? in other words, that's what we hired you to do. but if you are running for a different job than the most important job in the country then past performance is a good indicator of future performance. she has been a change maker all her life.

that's why when she ran for reelection as senator of new york she had a record of helping new york city and all its boroughs and she was endorsed by the head of the farm bureau of long island who stunned the local press and i was there the day this happened, they said, the press runs up to wisconsin. i thought you were a republican? the farmer says, i thought i was too. well, how can you be for her question mark and he says look, everybody sounds good at election time. this is all i know. i've been doing this a long time had she is the only official at her level who has ever actually done anything for our family farmers. i am for her. [applause] and so that's what i want to say to you. when she represented you in the senate, young man from the

pentagon came up to me when i was visiting the congress monday, long after i left office. he said, you want to know over there at the pentagon we know your wife doesn't agree with us all the time. we know she's the first member of the armed services committee for new york but we do know she knows more about our business and cares more about our people than any member of congress in either party. she always shoots straight. she never takes a cheap shot, even when she disagrees with us, she tells us what the deal is and what she's going to do. that's worth a lot. you want to be proud of that. i will never forget it as long as i live. and so i ask you to support her because i think she's got the best ideas. because i know she's got the best record and is maybe the only person, not maybe, the

only person leftin either party capable of walking into the cauldron of what's going on in the world and making as many good things happen and minimizing the prospects of bad things and making good things happen at home . when it's all said and done and you look at allthis wonderful diversity , you just think what you really want. and our family, we all believe, if you ask hillary this question, if you ask our daughter this question. how do you measure whether you succeed in public service? we all believe there are only three things that matter. our people better off when you quit than when you started? do children and young people have a brighter future? and are we coming together instead of being torn apart. if you can say yes to those three questions, it's a job well done. a life well livedand the future secured . if you want to answer yes, i implore you to go out and vote for hillary on tuesday. thank you very much. [applause]

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conversation] former president

bill clinton campaigning for hillary clinton in new york city today, speaking at the college of mount st. vincent in

the riverdale section of the bronx. and now your chance to weigh in with what you thought of the former president's comments today. your reaction to the speech and your thoughts on the campaign for the democratic nomination. phone numbers are on your screen. a republican 202-748-8921. democrats 202-748-8920. independents and all others, 202-748-8922. we will go to your calls in just a moment.

>>. [inaudible conversation] the question again, former president bill clinton campaigning for his wife in new york city today and an opportunity now for you to react to what he had to say. numbers on your screen. you can always to us at c-span or leave a comment for us close to our facebook page. let's go right to your calls. tessa has been patient waiting in kentucky on the democrats line, go ahead. >> are you with us tessa question mark. >> people need to get out and vote for hillary. because she will make the best

president next to bill clinton that they work together and they make a good pair so we need hillary in there for president. >> what in particular do you like about hillary clinton? bernie versus bernie sanders? >> she's very, i think she's a very kind person. she's passionate with people. >> all right, thanks for calling. don joining us from glen bernie maryland on the line for democrats, go ahead donnie. >> howdy bill. i think the cook clinton family tremendously because of the independence walk and the vote so i think they have a tremendous advantage. >> how so? >> the independence will probably vote for sanders. >> i see. all right, thanks for calling

don. the debate last night between hillary clinton and bernie sanders reported on of course across the country read this article in real clear politics reporting that clinton and sanders let loose in the debate with a critical primary contest days away. hillary clinton and bernie sanders met on a brooklyn stage thursday night for what could be their final debate and unlike their first debate many months ago and others in between, the candidates did not pull a single punch, underscoring the high stakes for both of them read a lot of disagreements last night but meanwhile the clinton and sanders campaign pursue arizona election officials so that we from nyt politics, you see a line there from voters in the recent arizona primary and a lot of reports of priry goers waiting for hours in line and problems with voting from both the clinton and sanders campaign suing arizona state

election officials. now to your calls, reacting to bill clinton's comments today. supporting his wife, hillary clinton for the democratic nomination. numbers on your screen. let's go to edgar in porter texas on the democratic line. >> yes, i've been here for a long time and clinton so now i'm a very staunch supporter. i believe she has the experience, the temperament and the knowledge to be a good president. bernie, i don't know much about him. he's had some good ideas but i will pass. i will go with what i know and i know her. thank you. >> thanks for calling edgar. to louisville kentucky on the democrats line, catherine joins us. >> hi. >> hi.

>> who am i speaking with? >> you are on c-span, you are on the air. what were your thoughts about bill clinton's speech today? >> it was fantastic because she'd make a fabulous fabulous president to me even though that mistake she made, she will still make a good president and i think hillary has learned a lot from him being president and she's a very good speaker and speaks her mind, especially about four women's rights and that too and i just love hillary and hope she makes it for president. >> all right catherine, thanks for calling. again that number is on your screen. if you are republican, democrats 202-748-8920. if you are an independent, 202 748 8922.

another caller on the line for democrats. william in munro georgia, go ahead. >> yeah, i want hillary clinton to be my next president because i think people rights time has come for this good country of america to be the president and shewould be the woman . she is more caring and what the difference i have seen with her is that she is more qualified because of the experience she has. she has been senator of state, she has been the wife of one of the best presidents in the united states and that is some of my qualifications. i think she will be qualified to be the president of this

good country of america. >> how do you think former president bill clinton did in his speech today. >> mister clinton did wonderful. i am so impressed. look at the crowd that he has. and look at everybody is really impressed with him because i'm so proud of his speech. i have got it right from the beginning and the points he has made especially that we can support her that they have all stood for what points. >> thanks for calling. next caller on the republican line, tacoma washington. is it lias? >> fleece like a tree. >> go ahead. >> well sir, out of all the house of representatives and senate, these are the best options we have? it's hard to believe even for my generation. >> in what sense? >> i don't know who to pick. >> on the democratic side, republican side or both?

>> on any side. it's either pepsi or coke, can i get a third option? can i get a better option? >> who would be that better option? >> out of 500 520 people that are supposed to run this country, there should be a better option. clinton, we already know she let her man step out. how is she going to keep us in line or anything for that matter? >> thanks for the call, robert in baytown texas also on the republican line. what did you think of bill clinton's each robert? >> yes sir. i think i didn't care much for bill clinton's speech because i'm a republican so i guess i actually wouldn't. i'm for ted cruz and i think that's the only way the nation can go at this time. he needs to get, we need to get

christianity back into the united states, that's what we were founded on and i'd like to know if the democrats have any plans to do that. are they going to get the nation back together by bringing us back together as a nation of christian people or how do they plan on uniting us? >> thanks for calling. an independent caller now from richmond hill georgia, alexander, hi. >> hey. it's a pleasure to be here on the show. >> what did you think of former president clinton's speech supporting his wife today? >> supporting his wife, i would say i don't know if you know what just happened, there's been major breaking news from japan. 7.0 earthquake.

>> we've heard that news. we are focusing here on the presidential campaign. do you have anything else to say about the speech today? >> no. >> thanks very much forcalling . we will continue our road to the white house coverage on the c-span network 7:00 tonight on our companion network c-span. donald trump will be holding a campaign rally in hartford connecticut. we will have that life for u again, 7 pm eastern time on c-span. now to a house hearing on the security ofthe nation's electorate grid.fema administrator craig a few says the federal government needs to address long-term response and planning should the grid be taken out in a cyber or physical attack . we will show that house hearing to you now from earlier this week. >> the meeting will come to

order. today we are holding a hearing to explore a critical and timely topic. there have been numerous congressional hearings on cyber security and how to stop the bad guys. what has not been discussed in great detail is what the consequence will be from a massive cyber attack that brings down for example a large portion of the electrical grid for an extended period of time. the purpose of today's here he is to answer an important question. respect to cyber threats to the electrical power system, what consequences should the federal government tell states and local governments to prepare for? in other words, with how many people and for how long should state plan on being without power? the federal government stresses now for every significant hazard that we face, whether it is a category five hurricane hitting miami or 88.0 earthquake in los angeles, the

federal government has realistic estimates or scenarios for states and cities to plan. the federal government does not have this basic planning scenario for a cyber threat to the power system and there is a huge disparity in what different groups think is a potential scenario for which state and local governments should prepare. the difference would be significant for local governments. if the power is out for a few days, it can be an inconvenience but if it is out for several weeks or months or more, the local government has to potentially plan for an increased public safety, water treatment, sheltering or evacuation. delivery for generators and other contingencies. what should we plan for? what should we plan for?

ted koppel in his book says we should plan on six to 18 months of uninterrupted blackouts. the industry seems to say a cyber attack could, at most, cause an interruption in terms of days, not weeks, and today we're going to hear testimony from the federal emergency management agencying department of energy, the department of homeland security's national protection and programs director, the congressional research service, the north american electric reliability corporation, and representatives from the electrical industry. i hope to get an answer to this question for state and local governments, who are on the ground and will be first charged with protection of people and property. imagine what we would do without

electricity for a day, a week, a month, a year. virtually all critical infrastructure is dependent on the electrical grid, particularly telecommunications, transportation, water, and financial services. and if the goal of the bad guys is to collapse the united states' economic system, they're going to try to cut off the power. there have been reports of hacking attempts on electrical facility biz foreign and domestic parties. the national security, public safety, economic competitiveness, and personal privacy is at risk. according to the department of homeland security the energy sector was the target of more than% of all reported -- 40% of all reported cyber attacks, and even more disconcerting ways the december 2015 cyber take on ukraine's electric grid which affected four dozen substations and left a quarter million people without power. at the same time as the attack on the grid itself, call centers

were hit with a telephone denial of service attack as customers were trying to report the outages. if anyone thought this was a glitch, think again. the electrical grid is not only attack from cyber space. the electrical power sector is all too familiar with the devastation storms like hurricane sandy can leave behind, where physical attacks like the 2013 incident at the substation in california. thankfully in the cases of storms and physical attacks, the power sector has strong plans in place and redundant systems to restore power quickly and to avoid the loss of life and property. but i'm concerned about a cyber attack. are there similar plans in place for industry and for state and local government? will those redone dan sunday provide the same types of protection? most renally i have been

discussing this topic with cot city opportunities in the district, asking what they'll do anywhere communities if the power is out for a prolong evidence period of time. honestly, most of them don't know. because we don't know what to plan for. we have brought together the right people here to tell us today. we are also going to discuss what preparedness looks like, best practices, and how we can achieve a greater level of readiness all the way down to the local mayors and township supervisors. i'm encouraged to hear all the industry talk about an all-hazards approach and focusing on mitigating the greatest risks. but i think there are some unique characteristics of the cyber threat that requires specific planning guidelines. i know we cannot gold plate the system, but given the independence of electricity with our daily lives, it is crucial that we understand the risks and

be prepared for the likely consequences possible from the failure of the system. i look forward to this conversation today, starting with witnesses and, i thank you all for being here. >> i now call on the ranking member, chairman, for his comments. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, you certainly laid out well the potential threats of a cyber attack against our critical electrical grid. we know there's constant probing, some being done by nation states, not just terrorist groups. nation states hostile to the u.s. and we need to be certain that we are as prepared -- well-prepared as we can be. the ukraine attack was perhaps a

harbinger of things to come. i do believe, though, that the all hazards approach can also cover the cyber attack area. the issue of probably most immediate concern to those of us who live in the northwestern united states is the threat of a cascadessan subduction zone quake and the magnitude of 9 or 9-plus, which will inevitably knock out our grid. so, there are going to be exercises conducted. , two exercises this year, with the cooperation of the department of homeland security and all the local and state authorities in the region to simulate what would be possible in face of that sort of a disaster. many of the problems that could occur will be the same. the loss of transformers is

particularly of concern, and i'm going to be probing that issue with some of the witnesses today. there's a question whether the federal government should be perhaps stockpiling these transformers since now they're basically custom orders and take six to a 18 months. what if we lose a dozen large critical transformers because of an earthquake, a tsunami, or a cyber attack? it seems to me kind of a no-brainer that we should either, through governmental sources or through cooperation with the industry, be creating a critical infrastructure component stockpile here in the united states to deal with any and all of these sorts of potential attacks. and a coordinated physical and cyber attack could of course be the most devastating outside of a massive earthquake, tsunami,

and again, many of the same issues arise. and then one that doesn't get talked about very much anymore but we held a series of hearings on it years ago on the resources committee, then called the interior committee, when we had jurisdiction over nuclear power, is the potential for a bomb in place. that is a nuclear plant. if you key destroy the black -- take over the plant and destroy the backup system you can create a meltdown, and how good is the security at our nuclear plants these days? i know this hearing isn't going to get to that topic. i'm not certain it's even within our jurisdiction but it is of concern to me and i just wanted to race that issue, too. like aviation, electricity, the grid, the -- and nuclear plants are of interest to terrorist groups and hostile nation states so we have to be prepared. so i'm pleased you're helding

this hearing today. >> we'll have two panels of witnesses today, and on our first panel we'll have administrator fugate, the fee mam administrator, assistant secretary hoffman from the department of energy's office of electricity delivery, energy and reliability. the office charged with coordinating the federal efforts to facilitate the recovery from disruptions in the emergency and energy supply. assistant secretary for infrastructure protection, dirits from the department of security, and richmond campbell, in the electric power sector research service. the second panel will be joined by mr. jerry cauley, the

president and ceo of the north american electric reliability corporation, the international regulatory authority whose mission is to assure the reliability of the bulk power system in north america. mr. william spence, ceo of the ppo corporation, one of the largest investor-owned uit companies in the united states. and miss bobby kilmer, president and ceo of the rural electric cooperative, nonprofit electric utility serveing 2,250 square miles in northeastern pennsylvania. i ask nance consent that the witnesses' full statement be included in the record without objection, so ordered. since your written testimony has been made part of the record, the subcommittee would request you limit your oral testimony to five minutes. let's start with the first panel, administrator few gate, you may proceed. >> thank you mr. chairman, ranking members. i want to address your questions. what is the locals need to plan for?

i think based upon our experiences dealing with other hazards that have called disruptions, planning needs to be measured in weeks, particularly if there's damage to infrastructure. and win again with cyber we have seen restoration quickly if there's not physical damage, but if you have damage to transformers or general a different capacity that will extend it. we do know that it is important that in an initial responseot you provide for safety and security. when lights are out, power is out, we have had major metropolitan areas go through this. you have fleury of activity with people trapped in elevators, traffic control, and the fact that initial response may mean going out on patrol looking for problems rather than wade wait fog the tradition call to 9-1-1. the next steppers pretty much gain as the ranking member points out, all hazards. you have to provide for the moët e most need needs. hopefully your critical infrastructure has power and

emergency power. you have the fuel supply you need. we found in in men case communities have not planned for that. either they don't have critical equipment on backup q pour or not adequate supplies, usually enough fuel to rub a test but no operate in a crisis. generators are expensive so there oar options such as putting in transfer situation. the idea is what are the things required to keep the community up and running until power can be restored that are lifelines. water estimates, wastewater treatment, communications, hospitals, and your 9-1-1 and other dispatch facilities. generally these have emergency power but it has to be planned for real, not just that it works during the monthly test. and then the duration now starts driving additional issues. as we saw new jersey and new york, the longer you have power disruption, the more you have cascading effects from everything from not being able to get tree tail stores, grocery

stores, gasoline contribution, distribution, and as a community tries to get back to normal these all become challenges. so the planning really is based upon safety, keep are your primary love support system -- life support systems ump, focusing on the reef storation of the grid and the reality that rural areas will be last to get power but a you try to get major core centers up first. the industry has sewn resilience and capabilities of doing those things and physical destructions and we think the lessons we learned would apply to cyber, but cyber has a lot of unknowns and i will defer to my experts to my left on what the impacts are, the potential threats and how likely these are you. said how big is big be look at narl phenomenon that ising and i that is geomagnetic storms because of the way the grid is built and vulnerability to large transformers this administration has developed a working plan of

what we would do in the event of major geomagnetic storms that impacts satellites and terese central systems. we're working currently now on the lessons from the previous power outages some add to the response framework look at power outages because of the unique capabilities of the federal government and has to be a true working relationship with the utilities. it's a partnership and has to involve all levels because at the primary place we regulate power is at the states through the utility regulatory operations the states manage. that framework this sturm will be going our senior leadership in the agencies to begin that progress of concurrence and updating it, but serves as a framework if something was to happen now. based upon lessons from sandy and going back to previous hurricanes and other disruptions. but the challenge for people to look at, planning not for what they do every day but what if power was out for not just hours

but days or weeks. do they really understand what they're capabilities are and the things they need to do to ensure their critical lifelines have enough power, and i've been through enough hurricanes to find out too many facilities had enough emergency power to pass whatever requirements were there but under full load in a crisis they failed. they didn't operate loads-didn't maintain enough fuel in the systems for that. did not have contracts for deliveries when the crisis occurred. so you've need people to folk on this, if you're going provide emergency power, it has to be for real and has to be able to operate for long periods of time, and you need to plan for this from the standpoint of a faced approach because often times when this starts we don't know how long it's going to be out so we have met response steps, and you need to ask the question, if pour is not on in 72 hours, what are the next things we have to focus on, out for a week. i think the story from industry is also good. we have learned a lot about how to get systems back up.

we have learned how to bypass failed systems and in many cases the automation has replaced the man in the middle and sometimes we have to bring people back in to run less efficient systems until we get power back. so there's a good-news story and still a lot we don't know. so, against that we're not going to be able to write a plan for everything that can happen. we need to write plans based upon consequences and as we have a better understanding duration eye tacks that will help guide state and local officials for dealing with power outages, irregardless of the cause but looking what would be happening and what the next steps are. a lot of the less katrina been learned from farm hazards. the question of cyber is how widespread and how many jurisdictions simultaneous live will be impacted. that's probably the one difference than a physical specific threat such as a hurricane or earthquake. cyberwon't bev defined by mitt cal or physical boundaries.

it would be system-wide ask that is another area that we ask questions about. and don't dismiss the threat from geomat neglect it storms -- gee mow magnet tim storm. the largest potential impact to the utilities and again, a lot of work has been done to minimize those impacts. stand ready for questions but i wanted to try to answer your questions in my opening statements. >> thank you for your testimony. before we move on i want to recognize ranking member of the subcommittee, mr. carson, for his opening statement. >> mr. chairman -- my apologies. i want to thank you guys. i think for the sake of time i think we should still continue because i was the one who was late. so, thank you. >> thank you.

>> we'll now move on to assistant secretary hoffman you may proceed. >> chairman, ranking member carson, members of the subcommittee, thank you for focusing attention on importance of being prepared for an outage, and for the opportunity to discuss the department of energy's role in helping ensure resilient, reliable, and flexible electricity system in an increasingly challenging environment. our economy, national security, even the health and safety of citizens, depend on reliable delivery of electricity. the mission of the office of electricity and delivery and energy reliable is to strengthen, transform, and improve our energy infrastructure to ensure access to a reliable, secure and clean sources of energy. we are committed to working with our public and private sector partners to protect the nation's critical energy infrastructure, including the electric power grid, from disruptions whether because called by natural or

manmade events including severe weather, physical attacks and sign b. attacks. -- cyber attacks. a crucial fact you're in immediate e meeting the challenge is to be pro-active and cultivate an ecosystem of resilience and that sim of operators, vendors, partners and consumers, acting together to strengthen our ability to prepare, respond, and recover. our organization works on strategies to inform and educate state and local officials and their energy emergency preparedness activity. this is done through forums, trainings, table top exercise that include federal, state, and local energy officials. in the area of cyber security, as part of the administration's effort to improve electric sector cybercapabilities the industry has developed the electric sector cyber security capabilities maturity model. this is an evaluation tool that

helps organizations prioritize and develop cyber security capabilities. in april, the clear path forward in portland, oregon, and washington, dc. clear path is an interagency exercise focused on testing and evaluating the energy sector roles and responsibilities with -- and response plans, utilized for a cascade ya subdusk zone 9.0 earthquake and tsunami. when a response is required and needed, the department of energy is lead agency for the response under fema's leadership. the department of energy works with industry and federal partners to assess the impacts of the disaster on local and regional energy infrastructure. coordinate delivery of assets, monitor and report on restoration efforts and provide regularly situational awareness to key decisionmakers at the state, the white house, and our

inner agency partners. we also provide strategic leadership by requesting and facilitating the development of an energy information sharing and analysis center, as well as the development of an electric sector coordinating council. this council is a group of leaders from across the electric sector that meet regularly with government to coordinate and share information. when power goes out, the local utility is the first responder. should any threat or emergency exceed the capability of any local or private sector resources, the federal government and the electric sector, through the council, will engage in coordinating a response to this type of a crisis. congress enacted several point new security measures in the act. this act covers cyber security coordination, spoil gas information sharing, the

development of a transformer reserve plan in addition the fast act provide the second new authority. upon a -- the secretary can issue orders to protect and restore critical infrastructure or defense critical electric infrastructure. this authority allows doe to respond as needed to cyber threats or physical threats to the grid. the department is actively engaging in the process and procedure for implementing this new authority. the keys to strengthening resilience are not only better -- not only understanding threat insight and response but also through innovation. advanced technology and innovation in cyber security storage, mike career grids, will also help the industry get ahead of these risks. in conclusion, the threats will continue to evolve. the doe is working diligently to stay ahead of the curve, to

accomplish this we must invest in resilience, encourage innovation, and use the best practices to retch hate the sector's cyber and physical security maturity as welling a strengthen local incident response and recovery capabilities. thank you for your time, and this concludes my remark and i look forward to any questions you have. >> thank you for your testimony, assistant secretary hoffman. assistant secretary, you may proceed. >> good morning, chairman, ranking member, and members of the subcommittee. i am the assistant streak in the national protection and programs director of the adapt of homeland security. thank you for the opportunity to discuss how nppd, which leads the national if to secure and enhance the resilience of our nation's infrastructure, fulfills its responsibility to support the federal government's preparedness or response to and recovery from all hazard events, including the physical impacts of cyber incidents.

i want to begin by acknowledging that protecting the electric grid is a top priority of this administration and of the department of homeland security. it is also worth underscoring, as you'll hear from industry partners later, the grid, by its very design, is resilient. it is a complex network of electric infrastructure assets that has built, in redundancies and can adapt to rapidly changing demand, flow, climate, and other factors inch short the electric grids has been engineered with one principle in mind, reliability. thousands of companies work together with the government to run the most reliable grid in the world. and while over 85% of the nation's electricity infrastructure is in private hands, the federal government recognizes we must work in partnership with industry to protect our grid because of its important to national security, economic prosperity and community resilience. had the privilege of working with industries that span the 16 critical infrastructure sectors and can say with confidence the

electric industry takes multilaird approach to risk management and is committed to continuous adaptations based on less beyond learned from real world events and exercise and understanding of the dynamic risk environment. industry and government acknowledge, however, we cannot stop every threat and natural hazard, and that we must be prepared to respond to a range of events and consequences. the federal government's voluntary partnership with the electric sector, which is defined under the national infrastructure protection plan, reached new levels in 2012 following two important events. the first was a report published by the presidential advisory committee, the national infrastructure advisory council in 2011, on the resilience of the electric and nuclear sectors and called for the most senior executives from industry and government to convene on a regular basis to craft a risk management agenda that was reflective of the increasingly chaotic threat environment. near lay year later, our country awoke to scene of an earthquake,

tsunami, and failure at the fukushima nuclear power plant in japan that put new emphasis on the need for the public and private sector in the united states to come together to plan for a catastrophic national incident. for nearly four years now 30 ceos representing the breadth of the electric power industry have comprised the electric sector coordinating council. and meet regularly with their counterparts at dhs, doe, some other members of the inner agency to address the growing number of sophisticated factors that put our grid at risk. this risk management approach is focused on ensuring the consequences of the most catastrophic eventses-minimized and the value of ore relationship is strengthened by identifying joint priorities and regular testing and exercise of these plans. projects conducted through this partnership include action-oriented information sharing around physical and cyber events, include black

energy. a 2013-2014 security outreach campaign around threats to substations recommended security best practices and the importance of reporting suspicious activities. and electric sector coordinating council playbook, a crisis management framework to enable senior executives from industry and government to coordinate effectively on response and recovery issues as well as work by dhs and doe with the electric sector coordinating council on efforts to institutionalize coordination with other lifeline functions in addition to our escc work, dhs works directly with owners and operators to help enhance security and resilience posture. understand dependences and interdependencies and size if we state, local, territorial, and friable partners to -- a cadre of security specialists around the country who engage with asset owners on a regular basis to help them understand the risk posed by physical and cyber

threats, perform assessments, share information, and ensure they are connected to the broader homeland security community to include state and local officials. nppd works with partners across the government in event of a needed response to a major disaster, resulting in a fail of the electric grid. nppd supports fema and helped provide an understanding of the infrastructure of concern in an impacted area and decision support and prioritizing restoration and recovery, as well as ensuring ensuring ensure reresilience of our new englands infrastructure. during a cyber or communication incident the national cyber security and communications integration center is able to coordinate with state, local, and private sector partners, including law enforcement and intelligence communities so the full capabilities of the federal government conclude brought to bear in a coordinated manner. the industrial control sim cyber emergency response team provides

on-site support to private sector, industrial control system owners and operators. in conclusion, government and industry have engauged in an unprecedentedded effort to assess and mitigate the risks from cyber attack, physical sabotage and natural disasters, all of which can result in disruptions to the electric grid in major step toward the unified approach the department proposed to transition nppd to an operational component. the cyber and infrastructure protection agency. this transition would elevate cyber operations and provide more comprehensive, coordinated risk management support to stakeholders that reflect the growing convergence of cyber physical threats. chairman, ranking member, and members of the subcommittee, thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today and to discuss npds efforts in managing the physical consequences of cyber threats. look forward to your questions. >> thank you for your testimony. mr. campbell you may proceed. >> good morning, chairman,

ranking member and member of the subcommittee, i am richard campbell, a specialist in energy policy for the congressional research service. on behalf of crsi would like to thank the committee for invited michigan at the testimony. my testimony will covers the possible connens of the failure of the grid and objective chaff langes in the recovery efforts. shy note that we do not advocate policy or take a position on specific legislation. electric power generation is vital to the commerce and daily functioning of the united states. while the electric grid is operated historically with a high level of reliable, various parts of the electric power system are vulnerable to failure due to natural, operational, or man-made events, natural events including severe weather or solar storms. and man-made events would

include actual attacks on the degrees shipment these would damage the grid would end depend upon the severity over the incident. the structure is aging new hampshire technologies utilizing two-way communication and other digital capabilities are being incorporated with internet connectivity. while these advances can improve the efficiency and performance of the grid -- >> mr. campbell. can you pull the microphone a little closer. >> okay. >> thank you. >> while these advantages can improve the efficiency and performance the grid they may also inning crease vulnerability 0 to cyber attacks launch. from the internet. the 2014 the national security agency reported it has seen intrusions into industrial control systems with the apparent technical capability to take down the control systems and operate u.s. power grids, water systems and other critical infrastructure. although there's not been a cyber security event resulting in a power outage in the united stat,