fuels, so that is the biggest . >> i understand what you are saying that the lower price competitor can drive investment someplace else and cost people a lot of concern but so can regulatory uncertainty. and i think when we look at advanced, just not to put a fine point on it but this is a building block industry. as you look at other potential available both advanced manufacturing for a product. so i used to say we want to move beyond food, fiber and fuel and the pushback i always got is that is this technology that can be developed and the plans that can be developed provide the building block for other opportunities whether it's styrofoam or whether it's a comp reserve, all of that again is at this level of

innovation so i think there is beyond all of the above energy policy that really works for the united states and gives us the diversity in our fuel, we have to realize that this is also technology that is very transferable, whether it's kinds of renewable manufacturing and its critical as we look kind of into the future of how we utilize natural resources, especially as a natural resource that the soils and the stuff that we grow in our country so we are hopeful that we will have consistency now going forward which will lead to an increase in availability but i want to get to the reset authority, i only have so much time and i think it's important we remember that the reset authority when we have this discussion around reports and not meeting advanced mandates , just because for a variety of reasons we don't meet the

targets doesn't mean the law is either a failure or needs amendment. we have a process in place -or to correct if necessary, thank you mrs. mccabe, the 2011 congress passed included the reset provision to allow epa to adjust the rfs mandates after 2016, the volume totals in the table had gone below the law by 20 percent in two consecutive years or by 50 percent in one year. has this authority been triggered for any of the tables in the lot today and since the authority, i guess i would like you to explain where you see the reset authority today and the likelihood of reset and if what role this disruption plays in the reset authority?

>> to explain what congress laid out, you got it exactly right, 20 percent in two years, 50 percent in one year area those levels have been triggered for cellulosic and for advanced but not for total. and so the agency has not, and we are just finishing 2016, the agency has not embark on the reset rule which we of course are paying close attention to it. a couple of things are going on that we have to think really hard about how to deal with that, one is the idea of moving forward with one or two but not all of the volume standards, it could be very disruptive to the market because of the careful balance that congress has established with relationship of those nested standards. we also don't have ongoing elasticity in the pending

litigation about our authorities with respect to the waiver in particular but we have not hit even the first year triggered for totals so it would be at least two more years before all three would be triggered and that's where we are with the reset area. >> we don't want a self-fulfilling prophecy which is the reset happens because we reset area so mister rusco, was this reset discussed by your panelists and with the reset not make the reports on not meeting increasing targets since the law already addresses this? >> it did come up but our reports just focused on what is likely to be available in terms of how much volume will be available, not necessarily whether or not the industry will be on that line.

>> we keep talking in circles because one of the terms we have and we had from the beginning is what's available depends on regulatory certainty and i recognize the marketplace. we were a big producer of oil so we understand what's happening with oil but the frustration for me is i would say what's available, what's available and it depends on what there's capital investment for and whether there's capital investment and innovation is going to depend on regulatory certainty so we are in this spiral that deeply concerns me and i'm wondering when you discussed the reset that well, what if we hadn't had the expansion or what if these targets had remained available? we would then have the ability to end up and meet the requirements under the law or the targets under the law. >> i don't think that we heard a lot of people say that if the epa had

maintained the statutory targets that they would have been met. i don't think anybody said. what we did say is that going forward, reducing regulatory uncertainty improves marginally the investment climate but i think they also did not say that that was sort of the problem and there wouldn't be, that there would be inadequate investment. >> they would have been likely to stay $100 a barrel. they were willing to say 40, $50 a barrel with regulatory uncertainty was not causation for the problem? >> well, in the report where we talked about the state of finance, they're just well up to the curve on

commercialization and bringing costs down, they are far above the margin for market rates. there are manyyears under the most optimistic scenarios . so even if you throw a lot of money at it, which right now there isn't a lot of money being thrown at this, you have many j generations of plants even for the sort of commercial scale operations. you are many generations away from achieving the efficiencies that are available and the current cost at which they can produce is so high that you would need many generations in order to bring those costs down ifit's possible at all . >> so the discussion is when it's a technological impossibility at this point in time. >> not impossibility but it's just far away for the cost currently given the state of technology is very much higher than a market competitive price of motor fuels.

>> i think were going to have an ongoing discussion given that we've reached the trigger on the re-event and i know the chairman has been discussing this quite a bit and we need to live in reality, i get that but we also need to understand that this was designed to create an environment of regulatory environment and an uncertainty, a regulatory certainty that would grow with investment and growth technology and i think we've missed a couple years because of the uncertainty that's been in the markets so with that iwill yield . >> let me pose a few questions and i'd like to open this up as we do two more open conversation. mrs. mccabe, the statute itself, the way that it was designed in 2007 had a high volume for corn-based ethanol at the beginning and a decreasing amount if i remember correctly, the number was around 44 percent by the time we get to the end

of the window. that is the other part of the statute because what you're trying to follow the statute that was written in an unworkable way as to you in an untenable situation to be in waiver land to constantly have to work with every side of an argument to try to figure out how to master this went really the statute itself doesn't work with the gallons requirement based on the gallons we are producing soyou are having to work through this process . how are you balancing this issue, the statute requires we use much less corn ethanol and much more cellulosic and advanced. the technology doesn't exist yet for large-scale production of the advanced so literally or you to be able to keep the total amount and not do a reset of total amount, you are have to violate a different part of the statute that requires reflex of this one. how does that conversation go? >> that's the point i was making a moment ago about our

concern moving forward with reset on two of these categories and not the third because of that balance. the goals of the statute as i understand it senator, are really to focus in the long-term on advanced biofuels and in particular on cellulosic biofuels that provide the most opportunity for greenhouse gas reductions and as has been discussed already here, that is an industry that is just starting as compared to the petroleum industry or the ethanol industry. where those technologies have been around for some time area so i think it was a tall order and this is what congress says at in establishing aspirational legislation to move things in a certain direction, i don't mean aspirational in the sense that we are not supposed to do it but it was a vision and an ambitious one so our focus in the administrators focus all along has been we need to be providing as much encouragement as possible to

advanced biofuels, to cellulosic biofuels as we can and because we are just at the point now with this rule that we have gotten to that maximum conventional amounts, we now move into the area where hopefully those volumes will continue to grow, continue to grow and move toward that ultimate proportion that you mentioned . >> some of this has been a redefinition of what's included in cellulosic and what's included in advanced fuels. as you explain more of the biogas and some of those things, give me a percentage for the advanced fuels of what was defined as an advanced fuel, let's say four or five years ago and some of the changes that have been made to add in some of the other types of fuel. >> it's not quite a redefinition because the statute says in order to be account as cellulosic you

have to get a 60 percent reduction in advance reduction so there are processes in the rule which we are implementing as expeditiously as we can to identify and approve people coming to us with pathways and so for each one of those, we look at what the applicant comes to us with, what does this meet in terms of the reduction and does it qualify as cellulosic fuel or does it qualify? so things that have been approved recently, one of the most promising is biogas which qualifies as a cellulosic fuel and has allowed increased volume of cellulosic quite significantly and we continue to look for those technologies and as they fit into different categories, we will put them in the right category. >> in that particular area, it is promising on the biogas to be able to see that

feedstock for that in the ability that's been some of the chain challenges with biodiesel is that it's been very productive, it's exceeded its targets on it but the amount that we actually produce of feedstock is the problem for that, you have to be able to literally go more hogs or find more way to get grease or something else to be able to go after that and get more of it but were going to have the same issue with the biogas, is there a and the amount of stock that out there? >> i don't know the answer, i'd be happy tofind out and certainly with the stocks, that's a part of the analysis is how much is available . >>

there is significant change the advanced fuel, correct? >> the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is uncertain in terms of conventional biofuels. in large part because most of the conventional biofuel production was already in place before the requirement of a 20% reduction. so we don't know how much reduction there is. it depends, just adjustment of what technologies they are using and that hasn't been measured. for the small proportion that are subject to that 20% reduction, then there is still a little bit of debate about how much i reduction there is with conventional ethanol because some people think that epa's

model has not effectively taken into account indirect land-use, the effects on carbon emissions. but that aside, if you so that part is 20% and then the advanced biofuels are in the market are 50% more, then there there has been a modest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. but it will only grow significantly with growth of advanced biofuels. >> let me follow up on one thing. mr. roscoe brings up what issue about land use. original design was to make sure grasslands did not suddenly have corn planted on the metal and have expansion. are you confident that right now that we do not have things that used to be grasslands being now used for corn based on the ethanol requirement? if so how are you monitoring and ensuring that? >> that is something that we look at every year for every rule and we work with our fellow

federal agencies to make sure that we have the best information possible on that, and that indeed we will to expectation. in each room we provide our analysis and the background information of how we have come to our conclusion that that is not happening. >> we have come if i remember correctly, about 8 million additional acres, corn, that you should not be corn. your confidence is those were acres planted with wheat or with soybean or something else that are now corn, not just originally grasslands have been transferred into corn use? >> i would like to have the opportunity to get back with more specifics on what our analysis showed and the reasons for conclusions. >> that would be terrific. the one thing i heard over and over again was one of the reasons that we are not seeing a gate in ethanol is because the price of gasoline is too cheap. that if gasoline was $5 a gallon they would be not necessarily more incentive but the cost of

the ethanol would be closer in price, meaning that the more we put some of the ethanol into gasoline now with a lower price of gasoline that we face now, we are paying more per gallon for a gallon of gas with the ethanol blends than we would if it was 100% gasoline and was typical. have y'all been able to run any numbers on the cost? again that changes every day with multiple features based on the price of crude oil, ethanol, where it's coming from. have y'all had any opportunity to be able to look at just snapshots of different days what the difference is in price based on ethanol or non-ethanol and what that would be for the consumer? >> we have not done that in the course of this work. in looking at past work, we did have an opportunity years ago to look at ethanol and gasoline prices, and ethanol use. most of this didn't make it into

a report, but it was a really our objective, but just as we look at it you could see what look like a strong correlation between the use of ethanol, when ethanol was below its comment below the blend wall, significantly below the blend wall and she was hit when ethanol prices were little gasoline prices that was more blending. so you would see that the market would work, that people were seeking the lowest cost, fuel. but when you're at the blend wall and you've got to blend that 10%, then that ability to blend -- there you would see, if there is fluctuations you would see differences in the price of the final fuel that would reflect that.

>> cbo did a study in 2014, the most recent one i could find and i passed the runtime to be able to do if i because this is a collocated issue when you do with the cost of fuel per day and what that it's a now that blends out. the most recent one i could find 2014, they looked at the rfs program and they tried to determine three alternative solutions or scenarios. one was complied with total renewable fuel and advanced fuel mandates, corn ethanol set by the rfs. segments whole future requirement at levels previously proposed, so the lower levels. and a third option which was repealed the rfs. this was the statement study evaluating the impact three options, according to cbo rfs, if the rfs was repealed or if it's future mandates were kept at previously proposed 2014 levels, corn-based ethanol production would remain at 13 billion gallons. which still stay high. and american consumers would

have lower gas prices. the numbers they ran behind that was that with a mandate and then pulling the mandate a way, if they remove the mandate it could reduce the price by up to 26 cents a gallon. this was again a study that was done 2014, and for diesel they could be reduced as much as 51 cents a gallon. that was a snapshot that they did at that point. the challenge we have is trying to determine where we are with greenhouse gas emissions and where we are with price to consumers. if i even dropped that down to a dime, if we have a dime a gallon more in cost right now per gallon for every gallon with the mandates, and the study they did they sit even if you repealed the rfs rfs, at that time they e estimating we would still use 13 billion gallons. tells me it's in the market, it's still out there, it's going

to be used it's not as if the mandate if it's pulled away suddenly no one would use ethanol. it seems to be a lot of people like using ethanol and it is a good fuel source and it's an especially good source for octane boost. it's plentiful, especially in the corn-based ethanol area. my question still comes back to it seems to be raising the prices and not hitting the totals we need for the greenhouse gas emissions. and if we remove the mandate, we will still use it anyway. what am i missing? why is the mandate is so important? >> i can't answer that, but you will definitely still use a lot of ethanol as an oxygenated, and octane boost, if for no other reason. there's another thing that might happen but it will take a lot of other changes, and that's that

automakers could make high compression fuels that would learn 30% ethanol and get great fuel economy, but that again, there's no current market for that because there's a lot of possibilities ethanol. it's just not clear to us exactly how much. >> if that was the primary fuel, and my folks in oklahoma could could not drive in 1978 silverado chevy pickup because they wouldn't have a good fuel option as well and that's the other challenge that's in it. tranfour, why the mandate? why is the mandate essential if it's a good fuel, it's in the system and it's out there and we know it raises costs, why maintain the mandate? >> senator, i also can't answer on behalf of congress but i will reflect that my understanding of what congress was also trying to do was to bring advanced cellulosic fuels into the market place and ther they were not aly there like ethanol. those were new industries.

a needed the push, they need the mandate, they needed the subsidy essentially, that the rfs provided in comparison to readily available petroleum fuels. that fit the goals of energy security and lower greenhouse gases, and congress chose to use a mandate approach in order to achieve those. >> looking back on it 10 years later, we have seen great progress in corn-based ethanol. we've seen some progress in solid lawsuit and some progress in the advanced, and obvious progress in the biodiesel programs. but it's the tax that is 10 cents ago for every gallon of gasoline to be able to accomplish that, i'm not sure most consumers would say so far that's been worth the cost. that's a pretty high cost to pay especially for those that are in poverty and very limited incomes. i would just challenge us as congress to look again at ethanol and the mandate, and to be able to evaluate is there a

better way to accomplish the same thing to incentivize a fuel without punishing the consumer so much every single gallon of gas. i don't want to -- i know we have several things to talk about. >> mr. chairman, i think we should always have a willingness to think about and reopen and explore new ideas on how we can do things better. i do dispute somewhat the notion that the only value that the mandate has had is, you know, those expressed in the statute itself which is greenhouse gas, which is looking at energy independence. i think that i'm variety of fuel sources, especially in transportation fuels, that up to this point there hasn't been the diversity that we had seen. we are seeing more electric cars. we are seeing more compressed natural gas is, natural gas

prices stay low, especially in fleet vehicles, especially in locomotives. arlington northern had a big project when we saw the differential between natural gas prices and oil prices, diesel prices. so i think that one of the problems we always have in this country is that we make decisions based on two short of a frame of our history. and i think that it was congresses judgment that incentivizing and providing a market for biofuels was essential for our long-term economic well-being. both in terms of transportation fuels. but as i said in the past in terms of developing technology which really can be extraordinary as we go to the next generation of advanced manufacturing as it relates to agricultural products. we move beyond fuel fiber in food and we go into using this

as a base for growth long-term. growth and advanced manufacturing and value added manufacturing in agriculture. so i get what you're saying, and i get that we need to have a broader discussion. but i also think we haven't had the time, given the disruption that we've had in looking at this in the marketplace and fluctuations in oil prices to really see this experiment and to really see this whole system from a a big picture, you know, mile mile high beneficial value. and so i don't disagree with you, mr. chairman, that 10 cents, if, in fact, you and i could agree on that number, a 10 cents cost to consumers something we need to take very seriously. because it's in aggregate very high. what's the benefit long-term and

not just in a fight or secure window but in a 20, 30, 40 year window? not to get on my high horse, but will delay with the so-called great plains natural gas. i served on the board of directors. it was a 1970s project. that was done in response to the oil embargo and we looked at what is our fuel that is abundant in this country. we saw a lot of gold if we set up a week gas if i call because we think will be in a natural gas shortage? so we went about that individual is a consortium that be investment bowed out because we deregulate natural gas. natural gas prices literally went below 1 dollar. we followed that we can put too much natural gas in the market. a market manipulation that really was not reflecting true market conditions. but that facility chugged away looking at byproducts from looking at how we could be part of the co2 discussion with co2

injection. and as a result now we have a facility that has created huge economies and gasification of call which could, in fact, lead to co2 reductions over all as it relates to kind of the global economy. and so how long did that take? the facility with online in 84, and who we are later really having a meaningful discussion about the value of that facility. and so i just think that there is a real impulse in this country to look so shortsighted entrance of the time. , and these technologies can be extraordinarily important and there is an important beyond just simply transportation fuels that if they need to be considered. obviously where to go with the

statute we have what you did a five what goals are. we will continue to have that discussion but we also have to have the statute being enforced the way the statute was intended to really evaluate the economic success. this won't be the first on the chairman and i concerning the not the first on th the gym andi disagreed about the subject and it will not be the last, but i think that the issues that are been raised here are ongoing and issues and been raised by the chairman are issues that we need to be, stand ready to patent the statute of his book, going into the future. i am concerned about the reset button. i'm concerned that creates more uncertainty into the market and because we had this earlier market disruption as we look for investment, that the sweet spot in all of this and we don't want to hinder or income or the development of those technologies to quickly.

mr. chairman, that's my speeders that your story and your sticking to it. >> you got it spin just reminded the department of energy gave out $509 grant in kansas that show just bought for $28 million recently because it just didn't prove to be viable long-term. they may very well used that 28,000,000 dollars and convert that into something else and future or it may be very viable and they hope they do. >> i would suggest if you look at the history of great plains, it's exactly that. federal loan guarantees that through negotiations, pennies on the dollar back to the federal government but i would maintain that facility on the prairie has enormous r&d benefit to our country. >> mr. rusco, give us a gas for cellulosic. you talk about the multi-generations to be able to

move. all of this as you talk to people in industry and you talk to experts and the science folks, give us a guess about a use it would take for by a building for cellulosic and do you feel it could reach any of the target numbers by 2022? >> so i can't guess how many years. what we heard is speeders that so we do. we are in congress. we guess. >> do my best. it would take three to four, even five years to build a second generation plant, and they think they might build, some think they might be able to achieve a second generation plant, you know, maybe 25% efficiencies that they're going to need to achieve you know, well over 100% efficiencies to get close to that. each generation they have to be able to achieve that. so if you figure that the go for

five generations, even if they can get that low, like right now they can see next-generation might get them 25% lower in cost but they need to be, they need to cut costs by a lot more than that. if they can see this one and it's going to be five years out, if they can get the money to build it, then they've got to pick up how to operate that, give that up and running and then they have to build another generation and then another one after that. so not by 2022. >> ms. mccabe, let's talk about the authorities of the administration would have come any administration, between now and 2022 and then beyond for the reset. how brought are the authorities to be able to reset the numbers for the epa? >> so the statute gives some guidance to the agency. i brought it might be because i thought you might ask, but it is broad. it says that if those triggers

are set, that the agency needs to look at recalculating the numbers all the way through 2022 for whatever category is being reset. and it gives a series of factors that the agency is supposed to consider. >> did they reconsider all three categories? you talk about they could reset the total amount, or individual categories or do all of the above? >> right. whatever categories have been triggered that the agency is moving forward with. so our thought is it's better to do them all at once because of the interconnecting relationship. so we would undertake a notice and comment rulemaking and background work to look at all of those factors to put forward a proposal based on the experience of the program to

date and expectations going forward, and as mr. rusco said, there are just so many factors we don't know what's going to happen with oil prices in the future and just the right of other things. but we would have a public process to do that so everybody could weigh in. >> a couple of quick questions. i want to be able to honor and one-time pick one of the main goals of the rfs was to get us often imported energy sources. what percentage right now of rfs volume uses any imported source, whether that be brazilian sugarcane or any other outside of the united states feedstock source? >> i don't have a precise number for you but we can get you a number. it is small and -- >> but there are some things that are foreign sources that are being permitted right now? >> yes. the statute doesn't distinguish between imported and domestic. it really varies a lot depending on all kinds of different factors that of nothing to do

with domestic policy. but it is small. >> you mention as well about the obligated parties. on the court to try to work into a corner. help us understand the decision for the denial at this point, just say no, we will deny this, and help us understand what brought you to the point as you know both sides of the argument have expressed this to you very clearly obviously. some of the independence refiners that i know of have told me point blank the second most expensive part of their operation are rents. its crude oil and rants after that it is the energy for the facility and personnel and healthcare, but the second most expensive thing they have a something that's paper, that doesn't really exist anywhere except in the world of government. >> yes students will help us understand the process you with your. >> let me talk about the process first. when we get petitions, it's up

to the agency to grant or deny them. and we don't, we often come when i required to go through a proposal process to do that. in this case we felt it was important, for one reason because people across the board asked for a public forum to be able to put information forward and have that conversation. but also because we felt that it was an opportunity for us to put forward our best thinking, at this moment, of the information that we had received. as you've acknowledged people are in very different places at that not only clear, they are vehement. i sat in many, many meetings. my staff of god to some of these facilities. we've had many conversations with people come in with the same exact data and say one thing to us one day and then another group will look at the same date and say exactly the opposite to us.

and so we're trying to sort all this through. one of the question i was getting from people as i was having these meetings is tell us what you think about what you were seeing. so we thought it was fair to do that and to put our thinking out in a proposal, rather than just say to open it up, we don't know whether we will grant or deny but give us your thoughts. we thought it would be a more meaningful opportunity for input if people could understand our thinking currently. we try to lay it out very, very clearly, our analysis of the objections and the points that people were making to us. nobody is denying that rins are a significant cost to businesses that buy them, but it is a complicated interplay between whether the value of that is recovered that the products that they sell. and again there's a wide range -- >> which is passed on to the consumer. >> or maybe not.

that's complicated, to hear and i think it bears a lot of discussion are much smarter on the economics of this and i am. i would not presume to be an expert on that. but i think there's a range of views on whether the consumer to see those cost of whether they are passed back and forth among the regulated industry. so people have different views on this and we wanted to try to make that out as best we could. i know we will get lots and lots of input. >> i am all for an open process. it's a complicated difficult issue. i am exceptionally skeptical that any industry could have a $200 million cost for a small manufacturer or for a small refiner, and that would not be then passed on to the consumer in some ways. if you are second high cost of your business -- if your second high cost if an item you don't swallow that and other folks don't swallow that that, the cor does at the end. that's part of the 10-cent

increase that we see just in cost that is sitting out there, if we can agree on a simple number. because that ongoing cost has to go somewhere. that will be part of it. by the way i don't think that is what if you ship the obligation, i'm watching it does. i'm not arguing one way or the other. what i hear is tell us how the process is going and i had integrated retail folks that have as a part of their business model that rins to produce and that cell and it's part of their business model now and if exceptionally helpful to them as a company. i have other groups that are refiners that struggle exceptionally under this. so i get that part of the business. the hard part is just the consistency and trying to guess how to predict i rins price it and it is as you know very hard to predict rins price and when it's such a large part of your business, everyone wants to know how to play for the next year and it's tough to do that in the rins was so much.

>> i will add to that. we made a clear point that if we're looking for certainty in the system, changing the point of obligation now will completely undermined that. it would take multiple years to get that fixed. people will be arguing about how we should do it. so that is a consideration. >> so much simpler if we just do away with the mandate and highly. >> i want to make a point about transparency in the rin market. epa has long recognized the potential for fraud and the concerned about lack of transparency and volatility. you have limited the quality assurance program. i don't think we should leave the subject without acknowledging that, and at least getting some feedback from you on whether that quality assurance project has worked. but you've also been working with cftc on a memorandum of understanding related to transparency and oversight. and so i don't know that we need, to give a short period period of time but i did want to acknowledge the work that you're

doing outside of this debate about, you know, who has the obligation to try and make the program more transparent, to try and work cooperatively with the cftc to guarantee minimization of speculation and fraud. >> thank you, senator. we are looking at those opportunities every day to try to provide more transparency spinning the only thing worse than rin is a fake rin. the last question unless your letter of the comments as well, ms. mccabe, you are in the process of dealing with the requirements for ozone and every era quality, at the same time you are dealing with the rfs. we talked about the conflict between the two. help me catch up on where the conversation is going right now. because as you produce more ethanol it produces more ozone in those areas in the production part of it, at the same time we

did it with reducing ozone nationwide as well. >> yeah, so back in 2010 when we did our analysis, we would put the rule in place we did note that there were places and times where ozone air quality could be increased. it's not uniform. it's not across the board. it's not necessary in place of where the ozone standard is not met already. so those are all complicating factors. senator, i think we are about what we were last time, which is that states and cities are working to meet the ozone standard. most of those areas that ozone nonattainment areas are large metropolitan areas, and so the contributors to ozone are overwhelmingly motor vehicles, generally, industry power plants and large emitters.

but i'm not, sorting not denying that we have found that there could be some increases in ozone as a result of ethanol spirit i did notice as well that you and others at very different, had a number of what is the zero, quite a bit higher than what y'all have estimated that the number is as well. around 200 million. there was somewhere around 5 billion spent an order of my duty. so that's a kind of discrepancy that gets people sitting down and talking to one another which we did, and worked out, we were looking at different points in the process. so we were looking at the retail level, their numbers were reflecting a point higher up in the supply chain. ..

in terms of people buying easier as opposed to somewhere else in the supply chain and being blended later. >> any final comments you need to make? your report is very thorough. appreciate that. and numbers and costs, and what does it cost the consumer, industry does not do and estimate. we are all guessing what that may be that are several years old and it would be helpful to get a good snapshot even if it was grabbing one day a month or a year and snapshot ing those

days and with or without the mandate or ethanol, i assume some days it is less expensive and the price of oil at that time. i assume many days it is more expensive especially with lower oil price with what we have, hopefully in days ahead we can get that number. >> thank you both. let me see if i have a very formal closing statement for you. that concludes today's hearing. that is my formal statement, i think the witnesses for their testimony. we will remain open until december 16th and submission of questions, the hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

>> any questions? see you later, take care. >> i am going to. how about you? >> over the next few hours on c-span2 we will show you a conference from new york university law school about the us political system. we will hear about the viability of third-party, remarks from joe biden, the conversation on campaign finance and a look at social media and news coverage of american politics. this week on c-span2, booktv in prime time. tonight we look at books about

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live on the free c-span radio apps. >> look now at preparations for the inauguration at the us capitol where donald trump will take the oath of office to become the nation's 45the president on january 20th at noon eastern. the vice president takes his oath of office that will happen

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>> new york university law school held a daylong forum on the us political system. gathering started with the conversation on whether a third-party can succeed in an electoral system that favors two parties. >> good morning. on behalf of bob bauer, my talented and collegial codirector of the nyu law school's legislative and regulatory process clinic, i want to welcome you to the inaugural session of the sidley austin forum. the system today is very interesting and perhaps a bit provocative. this forum would not be possible

without the generous support of sidley austin. a renowned international law firm. it gives me great pleasure to introduce john kuster who is a partner in sidley austin's new york office. on his co-flarf of sidley austin's complex commercial litigation practice and one of the firm's national cochairs of recruiting committee. a particular significance to us, john is an active alumnus of nyu law school. [applause] >> sidley austin is thrilled to support the inaugural sidley austin forum, a new political system which will be a robust discussion addressing the evolving role of political parties, state and direction of campaign finance law changes and other interesting topics.

we are very honored to welcome vice president joe biden today and providing his insights as his keynote speaker. we are positive the forum should be interesting, informative and enlightening, exploring whether we are on the vanguard of a new political system. sidley austin is a firm with tradition of public service have long a destination for lawyers who served throughout the government, two partners were krauter and can carry who served in the us government, rick is a member of congress and cam in the vomit of congress. several of our partners, were important to ensuring they moved forward today and those are virginia sites, all of whom served in the highest level of the executive branch. >> has other prominent alumni who served in the federal

government, and one of them is president obama who is a summer associate in the chicago office and as was first lady who was an associate as well. we are grateful for the hard work of sally and bob bauer putting today's forum together, they have done a fabulous and outstanding job. in addition we are grateful to dean morrison for his support and vision for sidley austin and the nyu legislative and regulatory process coming together to make this forum a reality. we also wish to thank you in advance terrific panelists without whom the forum could not be a success. sidley austin has a wonderful relationship with nyu law. so are nearly 100 lawyers in our firm including 35 partners. sidley austin is proud to partner with nyu on this innovative forum and two institutions get a valuable

confrontation on the dialogue involving american democracy, citizen engagement and public service. over sidley austin's 150 year history, fundamental tenant of our firm has been to honor and support the of law in this great democracy. the forum is an example of continuing commitment to do so and we are proud to be part of it, thank you. [applause] >> let the program begin. as our first panel assembled on stage i want to briefly introduce the moderator, rick boucher. my introduction and the introduction throughout the day will be very brief, the fool biographies are listed in your program which you should have received at the registration table which remain out there. we are going to hold our panels to roughly 15 minutes and allow 10 minutes for time for questions from audience members.

students assembled on both sides with cars and pins with you have a thought, you raised a hand and come and send it to you and as those questions, it is wonderful to have rick boucher here, he was a member of the us house of representatives for 28 years where he chairs a subcommittee on communications and the internet and currently chairs the government strategy practice in the sidley austin washington office. >> thank you very much. it is a privilege to take part this morning. a word of welcome to everyone in the audience, to our first panel which focuses on the role of the political parties. the election defied the expectations of many and by

almost all accounts it was a seismic political event. what are its implications for the future of political parties? what role do they play at a time super pacs are prominent and major funders of the candidates rectally without party intervention, are the parties stronger or weaker than they have been historically? is the situation right at this point for the emergence of a third political party? how half past reforms were? would feature reform strengthen the role of the party and do stronger parties contribute to a stronger democracy. are the parties at risk of losing core aspects of their constituencies? in order to answer these and other questions we are joined by a truly distinguished panel. i will say a word of

introduction about each of them at the outset. benjamin ginsberg is a partner at jones day and former national council to the bush cheney and romney presidential campaigns. he is counseled to the republican governor's association. we are joined also by richard pildes, professor of constitutional law at nyu. he is a litigator and widely read author on legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic institutions. his acclaimed casebook, the law of democracy, legal structure of the political process, launched an entirely new field of study in law schools across the country. and we are joined by david keating, executive director of the club for growth, he previously served as executive vice president at the national

taxpayers union and executive director of americans for fair taxation, also known as the man who invented the super pacs. full bios for each of our panelists today are found in the program and if you would like to learn more read on. it has been suggested that donald trump, whose positions certainly cross traditional party lines, part of his platform he evolves from republican principles come apart from democratic principles, part his own. truly perhaps the first independent american president. he largely financed his own campaign for the nomination, and staged a hostile takeover of one of the political parties. benjamin ginsberg, is that an

accurate description of what happened? i will expand the question by asking did the democratic party also come close to a hostile takeover by bernie sanders and his supporters, and what are the implications of these very unusual events for the future of political parties? that is fine if you would like to start their. >> very much and election that people didn't anticipate happening but i do think donald trump succeeded in triangulating all the party alignment. very tough to know what the base of the party is, what the core constituencies are. i think that i take a little bit of exception to the assumption in the question. if you look at the way donald trump named his first 15 cabinet

people, which is actually a fairly traditional lot, two generals and national security positions, four billionaires generally perceived as the party of the billionaires although we can't argue with that and seven or eight people who are people who are loyal to donald trump but also have movement conservative credentials so that looks like a pretty traditional republican government at least in the first 15 of the 660 people who need to be nominated by the senate. just to make one other point, i do think in this political cycle the party structure splintered a lot more than it has in the past. you are seeing an evolutionary period that started in the 2004 election where the party

structures are much more diffuse, much tougher to have principles governing coalitions in congress, i think you have senate and house campaign committees the take care of us senators and u.s. house people, a governors association, attorney general's association, it is not the democratic and republican national committees who are the core political boots on the ground, money to the candidate, tv ads on the air that they were prior to the passage of mccain-feingold. you have any evolving and changing party structure. >> richard pildes, your view of if this is a hostile takeover of major political parties? >> the larger framework within which i situate what is going on here, we are seeing what i view

as political fragmentation of american democracy but not just american democracy but democracies around the world and what i mean by political fragmentation is the traditional sources that organize governance and organize the political process have had their power and authority diffused in various ways. partly it has been diffused externally in the form of all the super pacs that really respond by the mccain-feingold law, not citizens united, and we have seen tremendous diffusion of power away from the parties, outside groups. there has been internal diffusion of power in the sense the party leadership no longer has control over the members that leadership once had. individual members of congress are more independent

entrepreneurs then they used to be. that is how i view donald trump and bernie sanders, independent free agents, sanders is an independent, never was a member of the democratic party, is not a member of the democratic party, trump was a democrat until 10 minutes ago and then decided it was advantageous to run as a republican and the parties become so hollowed out that it is now possible for independent free actors, free agent to capture the party label for their own purposes and their own agenda and that happened for two general reasons, one is institutional changes we made so particularly with respect to the nomination process choosing the candidate we have completely taken that process since the 1970s out of the hands of the parties, stripped the parties of any meaningful role whatsoever in the process when we went to a

system of pure primary dominated or populist selection processes for choosing the nominee. surprise surprise, when you shift the nomination process to one that is a completely populist controlled process through the primaries you are going to get more populist kinds of candidates, finding it easier to emerge from that process. there are other changes we have made. the second set of changes, cultural and technological changes which we are all aware of. the communications revolution and the technology revolution has undermined the authority of all sorts of organizations whether it is parties, churches, academic institutions, corporations, it is possible to bypass traditional organizational structures, that is why people like ted cruz and elizabeth warren, one year into the senate become two of the

most powerful figures in their parties in a way that was inconceivable for someone like lyndon johnson as powerful as he was in our politics in the past. it is possible for people to find their natural constituencies or social media, to raise money through the technology that is available and free themselves from traditional sources of control the party exerted, traditional support the party provided. what we are seeing is political fragmentation that empowers lots of individual actors, strips mediating institutions like parties of a significant role and inevitably fueling more extremism and polarization. >> let's take off from one of the points you mentioned, the fact that with super pacs

directly funding candidates and candidates looking to other sources external to the party in order to raise their funds, david keating, do you believe the parties are still relevant as funders? that has been a traditional role of parties, how damaging is it to political parties that the role is eclipsed to a significant extent by external funding sources and do you think parties perhaps have been weakened by virtue of the fact that candidates can now so directly communicate with voters on their own? i am reminded of mister trump's twitter following of something like 48 million people that gives him instant access to a large part of the electorate. what is the effect of those changes on political parties? >> i will see if i can remember all the questions. to my audience here and elsewhere, i am president of the center for competitive politics,

a group that works to defend first amendment rights which i used to work at the club for growth a number of years ago and also i want to make sure it is clear to people super pacs cannot directly fund candidates, super pacs are independent groups only, they can't coordinate with candidates, they can't coordinate with parties. there is a long list of rules ben and i could give a whole seminar on if people are interested. these are independent groups, people getting together with other people in the united states and talking to voters and urging them to vote for or against a particular candidate. on the previous question i agree with virtually everything rick boucher said. in terms of the individual members, congress and candidates, they have always been to some degree entrepreneurs. otherwise they wouldn't have gotten elected in the first place, but i agree to changes in

campaign finance laws and advent of media has made it even more likely that these candidates can emerge and spring out of nowhere. in terms of the parties i don't think the right approach is to somehow blame independent groups, these are groups of citizens after all. the real problem is the campaign finance laws have undercut the ability of parties to organize americans and speak out together. if you look especially, the democratic party is hurting right now in a big way. look at their bench, the state level, the state legislative level, gubernatorial positions they heard, and it is a wipeout over the last eight years.

one of the big factors people don't talk about very often is the incredible complexity of the campaign finance laws especially on state parties. much of the political activity of state parties now has 2 struggle not only under state laws and regulations which are obviously bad in many places but the federal laws. a lot of state parties are crushed by regulation. we have 2 simplify campaign finance regulation in a big way and the extent we can lift contribution limits, raise them, take them all together on political parties, that would be much more important, better way to go than trying to figure out how to push down independent groups. >> benjamin ginsberg, let's continue that discussion.

what do you see being very constructive in terms of changing the law practiced by either party, that would make the funding of campaigns by the parties more effective? for example each of the national parties has an independent expenditure committee. if you count all the areas that are in existence it is six in total. does having these parties spend significant sums in isolation without coordinating with the central party unit a sensible way to do things? would it strengthen the role of the parties as funders if they were able to coordinate more directly at least internally? your views on what could happen in terms of making the parties more significant in terms of funding campaigns? >> to answer that you need to take a stark get the system as

it exists today which is in limiting candidates and political parties and what they are allowed to raise but with none of those limits, individuals in a series of supreme court cases on corporations and trade associations and citizens united, you have a system where you are limiting what the actual actors in a campaign can do which is the candidates in the party and not limiting special-interest groups across the spectrum who could raise unlimited amounts of money from sources to candidates and parties, so you have a system where the candidates have agendas set by outside groups as opposed to being the loudest voice in the debate. if you were going to strengthen the parties he would look at this function that parties have historically performed, they raised money for candidates, no longer done primarily by the

parties, not done by super pacs and independent expenditure groups but it is done by large number ship organizations on the left and the right who will mobilize their members to give contributions to candidates they like so the candidates will go to special-interest groups rather than the political parties, they will owe their allegiance not to broad governing coalitions of political parties but particular groups that help fund them. the mobilization efforts these days as david pointeded out are not done by state parties because that is now a federalized process with limited contribution. if i want to put out a message as the state party that says vote democratic, i now have to use all federal dollars, can't use state dollars even though the message help state candidates as well, federal dollars are limited, each state has its own set of laws. that has been outsourced either

to campaigns or special-interest groups to do the mobilization and ground game. and the third core function of parties was always doing the messaging to help their candidates. that too come outside groups have a lot more money to put into that process than the parties do. .. the the parties to have these independent expanded tree units still much more than what outside groups can do. they are not independent expenditure units are not allowed to talk to the core group. so there's bizarre messaging that takes place. sometimes you get party committee independent expenditure messages that are

not with the campaign and the candidate would like. it's a very sort of messy and nonsensical system, if, in fact, your goal at the end of the day is to have members who get elected, pay some agree -- degree to some special interest groups that are now the core of funding candidates. >> rick, your comment on whether there are constructive changes in campaign finance that would strengthen parties? >> i want to kind of push this to a more cultural exceptional love for second because i think so many americans and particularly younger americans hate political parties, have contempt for political parties. you see the figures about the plurality of voters under the age of 35 registered independent, not as one of the party members.

in this discussion it's important to step back and say more about why the parties actually are so important, despite all of the awful things that are true about that. one standard, one standard point is that unless you have strong political parties, the private interests are going to carve up the government. because individual politicians who have to stand there on their own without a strong party apparatus are extremely vulnerable, particularly in the united states. they are more vulnerable than politicians than any other country, spatial in the u.s. house, as you know. they had to run to election every two years, a primary and the general election. they mostly raised the money independently. so they have to do that. so they are constantly vulnerable, and what strong political parties that can take

concerted positions and then defend their members who are following that party position can do is protect these of vulnerable members when they take difficult votes. the second thing is is, it are separate up our system, the system simply can't function unless we have a certain degree of compromising typically across party lines. unless yet unified government, large enough to overcome a filibuster in the senate, and that compromising is very likely to come in my view, from party leaders who if they are strong enough to make these compromis compromises, as tough as they areare, bring their members alog and protect those members. so the fragmentation that i'm talking about makes our system also not just more extreme but more dysfunctional and more paralyzed. so when we talk about strengthening parties i think it's important for people to understand why it's so important

to be doing that. and i think along the same lines of the measures that then has described, try to channel the flow of money into the parties and away from these outside groups though people to want to give, they should be free to do it, but we've created all these incentives that force them to go to the outside groups, including people who would rather be giving the money to the political parties. we can allow greater coordination between the parties and candidates. we can allow greater coordination across national and state parties. here's an extreme suggestion just to get people to think and a framework. when we talk about public financing and the few states that have it, there is more interest in that in various states, no interest at the national level, it's about financing were money goes to individual candidates. we could think about public financing where and not one of the money to the political party

which is the way public financing works in most democracies which have public financing. so empowering the party through a public finance system that doesn't get to be so individual candidate centered but tries to empower these organizations that a thinker absolutely essential in any healthy democracy, but particularly hours with a separate up our system. >> david, what do you think about allowing more coordination internally within the parties, in terms of how the funding flows? is their harm in that, or do you still prefer that the extra role take prominence? >> i think it's amazing that we say to political parties they can't coordinate with the candidates. who came up with that idea? it makes, it really makes no sense. a party is going to corrupt its own candidates? it's silly.

so i think they should take the coordination limits off completely, especially if we have the contribution limits that we have today. but even so there's lots of things you can do i think. if people are concerned about the ability to raise super large chunks of money then say to the candidates and the elected officials they can't make the asked for the big chunks of money. let the parties get more money to let them coordinate with the candidate. there's a bigger problem, and i think rex analysis is very much on point. but there's also a tradition that's developed in the parties itself if there's only so much the parties can do. they can protect their own candidates in the general election, but when it comes to the primary election, there's a lot of internal pressures on the parties not to get involved in primary races. it's interesting to watch that politically. in the presidential race look

what happened when all the wikileaks emails came out. it was clear that yes, the dnc was on the side of clinton behind the scenes. it caused a huge reaction. last year, i think was last year when senator mcconnell wanted to make it easier for parties to do things, there was a big blowup among the tea party type republicans in the house because they've concerned the parties would be able to intervene in primaries and everything know, we don't want to pass this. i've seen this recur at the state level in terms of liberating parties. a lot of the concern from the more right wing republican is they don't trust the party establishment and they didn't want the parties to be able to intervene in primaries. there's both a tradition that dithey not do so but there's alo been fights to oppose the legal

means the parties to intervene in primaries. that would only solve half of ricks problems if we loosen the rules, we allow parties to chordate with the candidates but they're still a pressure to not protect these vulnerable people in the primary situation. >> we think of something of a consensus that more coordination internally within the parties would be sensible. we saw something pretty unusual in this presidential race with, on the republican side, many people who would be defined as traditional business persons deciding not to support the republican presidential nominee, making public statements to that effect. many others but nothing to say publicly or privately at least expressing a lot of discomfort in the way things are going on the republican side. on the democratic side we saw people who classically have been democrats, blue-collar workers, people living in rural areas who

historically at many places have been the core of the democratic party defecting en masse to support donald trump in his campaign. so what does this say about the future of coalitions within both parties? is there some risk that these core coalitions might defect, and are the circumstances right now for third party to a rise based on these and other factors? i'll make this a jump ball. who wants to go first? >> on the third-party angle, as much as i personally might want to see a third-party, i'm one of these people has been registered as in any event for a long time. i don't particularly like a lot of what both parties are having to say. i just don't see that it's possible under the campaign camn finance regime that we have today to really get a third party going. i'm not saying it's impossible,

but it's difficult to start with politically. when you look at the campaign finance rules i think it's even more difficult. so no, i don't see that happening. to me one of the interesting things about the last couple weeks, ship together part of your question, what's really interesting to me as there was a lot of discussion about the republican party was going to go so far off to the right it would be calm irrelevant and with the democratic shifts occurring, the republican party might go, disappear in some fashion. but i actually think this whole script has been flipped. there's a huge amount of upside for the republican party withdrawal. i'm not predicting it, don't, i don't want to make people think of predicting it's going to happen, but i think the democrats are in serious trouble. one, from a lack of -- trump has been able to break through in

very important democratic constituencies and, obviously, flip a number of states but we've only seen west virginia over the last 10 years ago from a totally solid democratic stronghold, now the republicans control both houses of the legislature and it's voted for republicans solidly in several campaigns. and then you look at the other court, democratic and a core constituencies, hispanic, african-american community. i think it's possible, i note this is hard to imagine right now i think it is entirely possible trump could make inroads in there as well. wwe've already seen him make inroads into the working class. the democratic party especially if it continues this shift to the unit, senator warren, bernie sanders left could be in real trouble if trump turns out to be a terrific politician, and we

simply don't know what will happen with that. >> you are talking about centrifugal force within the democratic party possibly throwing off a major coalition or big components of it. what about in the republican party? will the business community get along with established that within the republican party, pa, remain entirely in the fold? >> i think they probably will simply because the democratic party, if you look at the policies and a lot of the things the party and the elected officials and congress have done over the last decade, as bad as the republicans might get on many issues important to the business community, the democrats are not giving them anything either. they really don't have anywhere else to go. >> your thoughts? >> think about how much donald trump's coalition represents what had been the old kind of union democratic coalition in terms of substantive policy issues. against free trade, restrictions

on immigration, protection of entitlement. i think we are in the midst of something we don't understand yet but absolutely, i think we could be in the midst of a significant reconfiguration of both political parties in a way that would unscramble the polarized structure that we've had over the last 30-40 years. i think that democrats make a big mistake and assuming, as some of the analyst have post trump, that well, the demographics still favor the democratic party over time because the hispanic population is growing, the minority population is growing. that assumes that these groups are going to continue to vote at the same rate for the democratic party that they have been recently. i think if republican party manages to cement itself as the party above the working class,

which is the pitch trump is trying to make, i think, adopting a lot of traditional working-class issues, you know, once the incendiary rhetoric and the polarizing rhetoric is not there because some other candidate who is republican carries on down that path, it would not surprise me to see other working-class voters beyond white working-class voters moving in that direction. trump already got two points or other latino vote than romney did, too many peoples amazement. and protectionism protectionisms kinds of thing trump is doing, the antitrade agenda. that may very well push more and more of the business community towards the democratic party. it's been moving in that direction to some extent already. i don't know how i envision how this coalitions will or won't come together.

but what's happening right now is the biggest disruption to the established set of coalition structures that we've had since reagan's election, and it's going to have profound effects on both parties as they struggle to redefine their identity in response to whatever policy initiatives actually emerge from this administration. >> ben? >> i think both parties coalitions are under an awful lot of stress and strain from the historical norms. currently, the triangulation that donald trump has achieved by surprising everyone and winning the states in the upper midwest with noncollege educated white blue-collar workers is absolutely true. but the other thing that donald trump showed is you don't need the old three legs of the reagan stool to win nomination and then

ultimately an election as a republican. so you do see a number of strains of there. seems to be the democratic coalition is equally strained in its own way, but largely between a donor class that has wanted candidates to stress things like climate change and social issues and union blue-collar base, the historical base you mentioned, that clearly was not terribly interested in those issues. you've got a country that if you look at the red and blue maps is blue on the coasts and pretty solid red everywhere else, the exception of a couple of metropolitan areas in the midwest. and the leadership, the face of the democratic party is going to put forward in this congress is a coastal face. every leader of the democratic partyparty, chuck schumer and te senate, nancy pelosi and steny

hoyer in the house, or from the coast. and so i think that's a huge change and a huge strain. seems to me the best legislative strategy that the democrats have and what i think should worry both the trump administration and the republican leadership is the ability to triangulate on policies that donald trump favors that are not core republican conservative issues. you've already seen that a little bit in the back and forth on the trade deals. you've seen it when you talk about infrastructure, something the democrats have historically supported, and donald trump certainly supports the budget deficit hawks amongst republicans are going to take a pretty different view of massive infrastructure spending, while our footprint should be overseas is also another one of those

issues that can be triangulated. just wait until carried interest comes up as an issue if you want to see some interesting strains. so i would agree with the point that you never know great change when you are in the middle of it, and we may be in the middle of it and not fully cognizant of how great that changes. >> one statistic to drive trend once point home. i put together the numbers on the votes for clinton and trump in brooklyn, manhattan and california. when you take both manhattan and california out of the election, donald trump won the rest of the country by nearly 3,000,000 votes. so you, you say the coast, it's just manhattan and brooklyn and california gives you that picture, and then you probably know some of this date if you look across the rest of the country because i think it's a mistake to focus just on the presidential election to understand the struggles the

parties are going through, particularly the democratic party to 66 of night in a state legislators now controlled by the republican party. 33 of 34 governorships 34 governorships controlled by the republican party. donald trump one virtually every county that obama won only once which was about 207 counties of the 709 counties, obama won twice. donald trump 130% of those. so we can go on and on. donald trump one ohio by 450,000 votes. that is staggering. so the problems about the democratic party and its base in new york city and california and a couple of other places is a very serious problem that the party has to be confronting as the republican party deals with the incredible intracoastal and will be be going to under president trump spirit once historical anomaly that you're going to see this usual and

midterm election, the party in power holds the white house, loses seats. just by kind of chance, does the senate map new-line\next line is very tilted republican, candid democratic incumbents were up are in states won by trump are 24 of the 34 seats four seats some good like that this late in the election cycle the congressional districts are pretty locked in. so that if you are looking at it now you would not see the sort of historical course correction that comes in midterms. >> lets link this to the point about the state parties that david was racing because i think this is an unusual connection for people to see. one of the recent the democratic party or the clinton campaign may have been blissfully unaware of all is going on in places like wisconsin is because of what david was talking about and

bob bauer is the one who really taught me this point. because of the state parties just don't exist in any robust form in a lot of places now, the campaigns, police on the democratic side, are run out of a center in brooklyn with lots of data analytics, but not really connected to what's going on out there in wisconsin or in michigan. they are not getting the input that they used to get from state political parties and key figures locally in the same way. and the decline of the state party may be connected to the way he's campaigns are run, what what they missed about what's going on with big block of voters. i just think it's interesting to draw the connection. >> in the election just past, the democrats basically had no message directed towards rural areas.

mr. trump focused on the rule about intensely and a message tailored for people primarily people who are blue-collar in rural areas. and the results were pretty dramatic. he carried t the role counties l across america. do the democrats as part of the effort to regain prominence and to solidify their historic coalitions need to develop a real message? what could it be? can that be done consistently with the democrats continuing their strong appeal to people in the metropolitan areas across the country? who wants to try that speak with you are all looking at me. i have no idea. [laughter] i'm not sure anyone does. i think it goes back to the problem of the state parties. they have been hollowed out. if you're going to develop a message for the rural areas, you've got your people people in the rural areas and you have to

have some functioning party structure there. i really think it's not only a matter of resources but it's a matter of, this idea of federalizing all the messaging at the state level is just, i mean, if you were sitting around in a laboratory saying what can we do to destroy state and local parties, what we do to make it difficult for volunteers to get together? someone says i've got a great idea. let's come up with something with a set of rules that no one can understand unless they are people like ben ginsberg advising them at every step of the way. you know, ben is a very talented fellow. they are not, you don't see ben ginsberg in some real county somewhere that knows federal election campaign regulations. and is going to do it on a voluntary basis. and even if he did they still would be able to follow the

advice most likely. it's hard to overemphasize how bad the situation is really. >> in the broader context was going on globally, because this is a problem that is affecting democracy everywhere. it's a big part of the vote in brexit. it's the rural areas that are alienated. it's a big par part of the bookt just took place in italy rejecting the referendum. it's the rural areas. what has happened over the last 20 or 30 years, you do, for whatever set of reasons, is there's been more and more concentration of power, financial power, cultural power, political power in the dominant cities. and rural voters, whether they're in england, france, italy, the united states feel increasingly alienated from power, ignored by those in power, condescended to by those

in power, not responded to by those in power. and this is a global phenomenon that has to do with the transformation of how people live. so it isn't just a problem here, for better or worse, it's a profound problem for democracy across the world these days. >> we only have a few minutes left, and we would like to offer an opportunity for anyone in the audience who has a question. so sally is behind me. she's going to moderate this portion. >> i've got a series of questions, and this won't quite be one second answer but if you can keep your answer short because there is a lot of interest in this. the campaign finance laws were primarily enacted to diminish corruption. no one on the panel has even mentioned corruption when discussing them. where wer we wrong or have we jt given up cracks anyone?

>> well, the reality is the standard was corruption or the appearance of corruption. so there has been cases of actual corruption but a lot of newspaper articles written about the appearance of corruption. and in effect even if corruption, the appearance of corruption is what you're trying to start, now has a system with a candid unlimited in what they can say. special interest groups can set the terms of the debate, dominate the debate, make the candidates talk about their issues. so i'm not sure that even if that was a virtuous standard to begin with, it's been proven in fact, and certainly that is a rationale that is led to what i think is a really distorted system now. >> other comments? >> i don't think, there is no evidence that contribution limits have reduced corruption. and there's no evidence that

contribution limits have increased trust in government. many studies have been done to track this, both, especiall spee state level where states change over time. there is just of and i think what people need to do is ask themselves, to date do we have a better, less corrupt class a politician stan we have had for the first 200 years of our nation's history cracks i don't think there's any evidence that we do. >> discuss a subject which was discussed. given the presence of such different candidates during the primary, should party leadership continue playing a neutral role in primaries rather than unflinchingly rally around certain nominees, or would they be better served throwing their resources more behind the favorite? in other words, clean, what they want. [inaudible]

[laughter] >> a trick question. they are fighting over it. >> my question is what resources? i'm not quite sure how parties were capable of weighing in on the presidential level. and then when you get down to the senate and house levels, they are actually work attempt by leadership or the silverbacks affiliate with leadership or groups like the chamber of commerce to circle up against tea party people who want in 2010. so i think it depends what level you're talking on, and on the national committee level real hard, not muchard, not much rest much ability to impact it. more on this in an house with incumbents. >> let me just add a quick point. point. i find it remarkable because people are now like, have been involved in politics and they

keep asking me what's wrong with republicans, or what's wrong with the democrats? why are they coming up with candidates like this? i think there's this impression that some of the parties can control everything. that's about as far from the truth as the reality. the reality. the impression is almost exactly the opposite what the reality is. >> this goes back to my opening comment about the change in the way the primaries work. just think about how bizarre this is. the democratic party cannot keep an independent from running for the democratic party nomination. in fact if the democratic national committee tilts the deck against the independent, that's a scandal. think about his father on the republican side. you have republicans -- center, people with national security experience, one policy experience.

how was the selection process done for who should up on the main stage for the debate? eye-popping opinion polls, the media ran. the party has no control over any of that. i think one of the things i'm suggesting that won't happen but that we think about legitimating agreeable for the party in participating in the process of narrowing the field, selecting nominees who run under the party label, as was the case for most of american history until the 1970s. >> let me ask the question which can link to a panel later this afternoon, you've all talk a lot about raising money and the candidates getting money and the parties having money, or not having money as the case may be. is money as important to campaigns when advertising seems to be eclipsed by communications

through twitter? >> so i'm not sure i totally agree with this. there was a pass any program at stanford on friday, which among other things that trump campaign said they spent an equal amount of money on digital communications as broadcast communications. so i'm not sure that the message being driven so much by those independent sites as much as campaigns slowly shifting to actually spending the money on digital which, of course, the media hasn't really figured out how to track so those spending numbers are not immediately visible to anyone. mother is change in communicationcommunication, andy campaigns are communicating just not sure i believe it is still being driven either campaigns. >> some money still matters? >> money still matters.

>> it still matters but it is definitely not the only thing. jeb bush had the most money initially, what did he get get,r delegates? i think he said a new record on spending per delegate. so money can help deliver a message but people don't like the message or don't agree with it, you are not good to be able to spend tons of money and buy an election basically. but you have to also give donald trump credit. he knew how to get an enormous amount of earned media, obviously not all of it was good, but when you look early on there was a very interesting study that was done on the valley of the media and the amount that trump had from so-called earned media dwarfed all the other candidates. >> and he spent relatively little money during the nominating process. >> right. >> this election shows that candidates matter more than

money but money still matters. you have to have money to reach a threshold. >> very good. does public financing of parties present first amendment issues? because the government is supporting these two specific viewpoints, or whatever comes from the campaign. >> i don't think it raises a first amendment issue. there are concerns i can imagie having about it, but presumably the way the money would be allocated would be based on some formula that has to do with the percentage of votes that party got in the prior election. we had public financing for the presidential election for many years until our friend, president obama, not all of our friend -- [laughter] >> it was a useful exercise. >> blew that system up by

deciding to go outside of it. there was no first and in issue about providing funds to the two major parties. there are rules about access to the political parties based on their needing to get over 5% in the previous governors election and the like. that's how the formulas would work. there are difficulties in making a system like that work. i do want to understate them, but first amendment issues i think are are not one of them. >> i think you are wrong about that. [laughter] i think the art series first amendment problems. and, obviously, a lot will depend on how it is designed. the whole idea that the two political parties can basically get the u.s. government funds to subsidize their operation peer what about the parties that are trying to emerge? but how do you write a rule for that? to me that's very difficult to start with. but to me even a more fundamental problem is how do

you handle the enforcement process? people don't like all this campaign finance regulation, i don't think anyone has a good answer for how to enforce these laws. the least bad system that has been developed is the federal election commission where no political party can control the enforcement process. and a lot of people don't think that works particularly well. but if you look at what happened in the irs where there was clearly ideologically-based decisions made about tax-exempt applications, how do we build and enforcement process that can't be captured by one party to tilt elections? it's not a matter of how much money the parties get. and much more effective way to undercut a party is to come out with a last-minute scandal or a last-minute enforcement action

saying one party cheated. i mean, the the clinton campaign thinks the fbi director cost her the election. and that was, she was never even indicted, but the mere fact that an enforcement person said something new about her emails 10 days out from the campaign, a lot of people think that was the reason why she lost. to me that's an important first amendment issues. >> these critiques are about any system for enforcing any campaign finance law. this isn't a criticism that specific to public financing. it applies to whatever regulations you have, whether -- >> that's my point. >> that's an argument for not having -- >> there should be a lot fewer of these regulations in the first place. but nevertheless, that's part of designing the systems in a first

amendment way. and most of the people who have proposed these type assistance want a very strong figure making the enforcement decisions. but how do you ensure that person isn't going to tilt it in some way? it's a very difficult problem to solve. i don't pick anyone solve the. >> look, we will see what happens. this kind of reform always takes place first at the state level. it's always been the history, most kinds of reforms of the political process. there are more and more states that are moving to public financing system. we will see what kind of record of experience we have with that so far. the enforcement problems you're raising a not been issued issue at the state level. >> but look at what happened in wisconsin. >> wait a second. >> in wisconsin we had a campaign finance law that a prosecutor, this john doe process. he conducted predawn raids on

essentially every important conservative group and activist in the state. shut down the entire critique from the conservative side, or support for the -- >> but again that is in a public financing system. that's an ordinary system that we have in the federal system and in most states. >> look at the new york mayoral race and what happened in that race. a lot of people think build up lazio won because of the enforcement process. >> you will have more enforcement which leads to the problem. and the states that are put in put in public financing have overwhelmingly blue tent to them. so just while we're looking for solutions to the party problem -- >> i don't think that's true of arizona. >> it is getting peeled back and networking about was the bind large of the comment. but i think the chances of what

amounts to the food stamps for politicians going in on a federal level is like slim and nail. so if you want a solution for strengthening parties, you need to look beyond the notion that government handouts are going to help your favorite politician who we've all been saying are not held in particularly high regard by the public anyway. >> that's why we won't get bipartisan support for public financing at the federal level. >> on a contentious note i need to say that our time has expired for the spell. i think the done a terrific job. very informative. let's give them a round of applause. [applause] >> vice president joe biden was the keynote speaker at the nyu forum on american politics. he was introduced by former white house counsel. >> ladies and gentlemen, the

vice president of united states, joe biden, and former white house counsel and nyu law professor bob bauer. [applause] >> when i was 20 years old and i can 72 i interned at the democratic senatorial campaign committee and first heard the name joe biden as a longshot candidate for the senate. the staff was skeptical he could win, are wildly executive director was competent he wanted and he did. he was elected six times to the united states senate and to the vice presidency of the united states in 2008 and 2012. but he won over that period of time the biggest collection of them all. he won the admiration, the gratitude and the affection of all americans.

and it's truly bipartisan this response is a but who observed the treatment just yesterday in the united states well knows. so it is with that but that introduce to you the vice president of united states, joe biden. [applause] >> thank you all very, very much. thank you all very much. i want to make it clear the main reason i am here is bob bauer told me to be. [laughter] and i'm delighted to be here. is a great friend and his advice is only exceeded in its wisdom by his wife, who is been advising me for a long time as well. i think bob is one of the more great legal minds as well. this is a man to every piece of legal advice he's given me, i am sure is consistent with what i decided when i got elected as a 29 year old kid. i remember sitting with my legal advisors and then sitting with,

either dubious distinction when i fly on my campaign finance disclosure as vic vice presiden, delete paragraph in the "washington post" and the front page and my wife, the professor was saying can google it because it is probable no minutes have assumed the office of vice president with fewer assets than joe biden. [laughter] i assumed they were talking financial and not intellectual. [laughter] but i would say to the guys helped me with my tax return. just make sure if it fell like a year, make sure you make me keep at least two feet behind the foul line. bob has kept me behind the file one. i trust his judgment implicitly. when you asked me to join you all here today, i was really, really happy to say yes and i wish i could tend the whole day. you are addressing some of the most interesting and emerging issues of modern-day politics, you know, from the role of big

money, which i find corrupted in our political system. i'm the first person to ever introduce legislation as a a 30 -year-old kid who publicly financed our elections. if you want to change overnight, instantaneously, the electoral process in america and the way we handle issues, have public financing. i guarantee you it would change overnight. i remember seeking the nomination in 2008, and i was in new york at a very high and the fundraiser event for me which was rare, and we were up in the east \80{l1}s{l0}\'80{l1}s{l0} of edgar is home. the lead of the democratic party in new york with her. one fellow asked me, i will not not mention his name. he said well, mr. chairman, do you talk to ordinary people? and i said, do you think i would be here with you if i didn't need your money?

which i been a great fundraiser. it helped me a lot. ted kaufman, sandra kaufman just about collapse of the time. but the point is that i hope you spend sometime in some eu students focus on focus on the role of money in the electoral process. and you know, you're also going to be talking about how the nature of come in my generation rod used to say than medium is the message. the median is changed drastically in terms of how we communicate and how we absorb news and how we seek news. and i don't think, i know the baby boom generation hasn't caught up with an quite frankly i don't think the minors had either. there is no editorial filter that exists at all. that's both good and bad. it's going to determine an awful lot about news is absorbed.

we kind of self selected these days we watch what we agree with. folks who are conservative republicans i doubt that watch much of cnn, or msnbc. liberal democrats don't watch a whole lot of fox news except for self-defense. but unserious. think about it. think about how cap and our -- cabined our consumption of news is. and think about the fact that four years ago more people got their news under the age of 40 from john stuart than any other single medium in the country. and so it's neither good nor bad but it is a change. it's the change in the way we can generate, how to generate consensus in american politics. and also this has been a very tough election. it's been ugly. it's been divisive. it's been course. it's been dispiriting.

and with more battle of personalities that it was ideas, in my view. as vice president i have traveled over 1 million, 200 miles, 200,000 miles traveling to meet with virtually every major head of state in the world. i've been doing this a long time. i know i've met every single one. i think every major head of state in the last 3 35 years. not because i'm important. i just happen to be the jobs i had at the moment. i find myself embarrassed by the nature of the way in which this campaign was conducted. and so much for the shining city on the hill. but the fact is that, i know there's a sense in the country that maybe things are worse off than they really are. there's a sense that the country, that our institutions are not working and maybe we can never get them to work.

for a lot of folks it feels as if we are more divided than we've ever been in our history. and that the election brought out the worst in the political system. but you know, i think this is a time to bring a little perspective. i would really think i can to having a rent as long as i have is to try to bring some perspective to the moment. i had a chance to reflect on a number of these issues when i was asked, great honor, my only political hero i ever had in my career, and i mean i mean this without exception, was robert kennedy. he was the only person, i've respected a lot of people, the only person who was a hero of mine when i was in college and when i was in law school. i had the great honor of receiving the ripple hope award from ethel kennedy and robert kennedy at the robert kennedy human rights center dinner on tuesdayht