and i believe we'll be successful in getting it done. >> are you going to change it? >> will xavier win? >> osu or uc? [ inaudible ] this is the center for strategic and international studies in washington, where in just a few minutes, dr. to him cast frieden, the director of the centers for disease control and prevention, will be outlining the current status of

the hiv/aids pandemic and how u.s. contributions to global hiv/aids efforts, tied together with u.s. domestic response, with only four months until the aids 2012 conference here in washington. we also expect dr. frieden to talk about the value of the international aids conference, and what he hopes will be accomplished there. it should get under way shortly here on c-span 3. on capitol hill today, the house and senate wrapped up work for the week. the house passing a bill that would repeal part of the health care law. the independent payment advisory board and places caps on some medical malpractice awards. the senate today voted to add regulations to a bill to give small businesses morely way in raising funds in initial public offerings, and then sent that bill back to the house. the senate also sent to the president a bill that would end insider trading. stock trading by members of congress and their staff using information that they learned through their jobs. the house and senate back next

week for more legislative work. live coverage here for the center for strategic and international studies on c-span 3.

here on c-span 3, waiting to hear from dr. thomas frieden, the director of the centers for disease control and prevention. he'll be talking about hiv/aids. it's expected to get under way shortly. later on c-span 3, tonight at 7:00 eastern, we'll bring you a hearing from earlier today. environmental protection agency director lisa jackson spoke before a congressional committee, talking about her 2013 -- the epa's 2013 budget. that's at 7:00 eastern. that will be here on c-span 3. and leading off prime time tonight at 8:00 on c-span, a senate armed services committee hearing on afghanistan with

major -- marine general john allen, the afghanistan commander. he said in his testimony the u.s. will still need, quote, significant combat power in the country in 2013, despite the call for reducing the force. all of that hearing tonight, again, at 8:00 on c-span.

looks like it will be a few minutes before we hear from the director of the cdc, dr. thomas frieden. so while we wait for that, we'll bring you conversation from this morning's "washington journal," the president with his two-day, four-state energy tour wrapping up today. today he was in keystone in curbing, oklahoma talking about the keystone pipeline and wrapping up at ohio university. all of it focusing on energy. we asked our viewers about it this morning on "washington journal." >> and we're back. for the remainder of today's "washington journal," want to get your take on president obama's energy strategy. yesterday he started out on a four-day tour to tout what he plans to do on gasoline prices and other aspects of his energy strategy. he was in it nevada yesterday at a solar panel company. here's what he had to say.

>> but an energy strategy that focuses only on drilling and not on an energy strategy that will free ourselves from our dependence on foreign oil, that's a losing strategy. that's not a strategy i'm going to pursue. america uses 20% of the world's oil, and we've got 2% of the world's oil reserves. think about -- i wasn't a math major, but i just want -- if you're using 20, you've only got 2, that means you've got to bring in the rest from someplace else. why wouldn't we want to start finding alternatives that make us less reliant, less dependent, on what's going on in the middle east? >> president obama will travel to curbing, oklahoma today to talk about a section of the keystone xcel pipeline he wants to approve. here is the oklahoma paper, "the oklahoman" this morning. and it says that president barack obama will announce in oklahoma thursday that he is

directing federal agencies to make the curbing to texas pipeline a top priority under a new executive order aimed at streamlining permits for construction projects. the president's announcement is expected to be made at a pipe yard near curbing owned by a pipeline in canada which wants to build from the oil hub there to the texas gulf coast to relieve the excess of crude build up from domestic production. and inside "usa today," front page, below the fold, they have this story. gas prices vary based on oil locale. it says apun can't oil from north carolina and canada has yielded the largest disparities for several years, pushing per gallon prices in the rockies and parts of the midwest nearly a dollar lower than high-cost states such as california. crude oil production has been rising briskly in north dakota and canada, but there aren't enough pipelines to transport it to the gulf coast refineries. that leaves surpluses that have

prices, benefitting mid continent states that could more easily use the oil becaer. two pennsylvania refineries recently closed, driving up east coast gas prices. but pipeline construction hasn't kept pace with the oil bounty. forcing some oil companies to ship by rail. new pipelines could arrive in two to three years. the frustration has been the delays and the uncertainty, says harold ham, chief executive of continental resources, north dakota's top oil producer. a separate pipeline shortage is slowing deliveries from hubs in curbing, oklahoma to the gulf. that's creating a surplus that's cutting the price of the benchmark oil. west texas intermediate and usa's mid section, but constraining supplies and raising prices elsewhere. the result, a hodgepodge of prices across the u.s. with wti trading at prices 14% below east coast oil and north dakota crude 14wti. transcanada's key spoken pipeline would help the dakota

bottleneck, but president obama has temporarily halted it on environmental gop criticism. obama is to speak in curbing today, where a related pipeline project is expected to ease some congestion there. also, jc watts, republican congressman from oklahoma, he writes in "the washington times" today about president obama's decision on expanding the entire keystone pipeline. he says this, pipeline ruling is filled with politics that the white house sided with the epa against the state department. the epa's decision to intervene in this raises some very serious questions about how and why the agency thought it had the muscle to tell the state department it hadn't done its job correctly. i was glad to see the institute for energy research submit a freedom of information act request to the epa to turn over documents related to this decision. we have every reason to demand to know why the epa sided with radical environmentalists over jobs. and jc watts says, the keystone xcel pipeline would move 700,000

barrels from canada to the u.s. part of the pipeline would pass through curbing, oklahoma where there is a glut of oil, because we don't have enough pipe to move it. so that's the background on president obama's visit to curbing, oklahoma from both sides. we turn to you outside of washington to get your take on this. new york, noel, a republican, what do you think? >> caller: well, i think he has no policy whatsoever. i think what he's doing right now is just totally political. he's trying to get re-elected. and he is not doing a very good job of it, actually. i think this it guy is berest of any kind of policy whatsoever with regards to energy. thank you. >> knoll, before you go -- hey, noel -- we lost noel. we'll go to ohio. al, democratic caller. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i agree with the last caller. he's a little late on the pipeline. he had, you know -- he got the speculators that he's the one

that got all the gas. i'm a democrat, and i know he's doing wrong. first of all, that pipeline, he should have agreed with that right off the bat, because they studied that for three years. so, you know, that right there got the speculators. and now he's trying to executive order the pipeline? that's strictly for election. and now when iran said they were going to close the strait of that muz off, he did nothing. he should have told them and said nationally that they were going to put some battle ships in there, and a couple carriers and tell iran, that's international waters, and the u.s. is not going to allow it. then get the speculators to do it. so he put us in this position and now he's doing everything he can to get out of it. he's got nine months. >> all right. the president is going to be talking in curbing, oklahoma, close to 11:00 a.m. this morning. go to c-span.org for more information. let's go to bob next -- >> watch all of "washington journal" any time in the video

library at c-span.org. we'll take you live now to the center for strategic and international studies in washington. dr. thomas frieden, head of the cdc, will be talking about hiv/aids. just getting under way, live here on c-span 3. >> for all of their assistance in pulling this together. from staff here at csis, there is a lot of effort in this. suzanne brundige, carolyn this route, and alicia cramer, among others. seth began. we are bringing you together to look at hiv/aids and look at the accomplishments up to now, and it's a bit of a look backward and up to the present as to what's happened in this period in terms of the epidemic and efforts to bring that under control and change the arc of

that. and to really focus both on where things stand today in the united states, as well as globally. and how -- and we'll hear more from dr. frieden, how to unpack the buzz and the excitement that we see today around the new science of prevention and hiv/aids. and this really is a very remarkable period. it's remarkable that we would find ourselves in a situation when the secretary of state, hillary clinton, comes before a scientific audience here in the united states in november of last year to talk about -- with a very public health-based address about an aids-free generation. and when shortly thereafter the president of the united states on world aids day spoke in considerable detail on the high risk and difficult to reach marginalized populations in the united states. and that unfinished business and the challenge that is there, as well as the challenge of moving globally from $4 million to $6 million, a very ambitious goal.

persons on u.s.-supported treatment, and in a fairly short period of time on existing budget levels. we're also going to be looking forward today -- particularly with respect to the aids 2012 international aids conference to be here in washington july 22nd to 27th. and dr. frieden will tell us a bit about that and what we might expect as coming out of that unique event that's returned to u.s. soil after a 22-year absence or hiatus, which will be a dramatic -- a dramatic and very promising event. cdc brings a unique set of assets. we're all familiar with dr. frieden's exceptional leadership in public health. his role in leading the tb effort in new york city from '92 to '96, his continuation in those efforts in india for five-year period.

thereafter returning to new york city, where he led a remarkable period of innovation in new york city from 2002 to 2009, spanning anti smoking efforts, controls in transfats and greater disclosure around calorieic and other food content, electronic records and many other very distinguished accomplishments. we also know that cdc itself brings very special strengths in its evidence-base, in its public health lens and in the cross fertilization we'll hear about today in terms of innovation and programmatic and training efforts at home and abroad. it's really remarkable, also looking back, how much the hiv/aids epidemic itself has changed cdc. just ten years ago, when we first started interacting closely with cdc, the international programs were really in their earliest stages, and it was really a small and

exceptional component part of what cdc did at that time as an institution. now it's become very much embedded as part of the institutional dna of this organization. and i think we'll hear much of that reflected today. i want to draw your attention to the fact that next week we will be convening here on march 28th in the middle of the day for an event. we've passed out a flier from that that continues this series of activities looking forward to aids 2012. my colleague, kathryn bliss, is going to be publishing next week a study that she's been working on for two years now, a historical analysis of the international aids conferences. an excellent piece of work. and she'll be joined by anthony fauci, ellie caughtbari, president of the international aids society and co chair of the

aids 2012 effort. david munar president of the aids foundation in chicago. and the co chair will moderate the discussion that will be looking at the history of the international aids conferences and what we can expect as we look forward. so we'll continue that conversation next week. and i hope you can all join us. that will be web cast live at midday. and we expect a strong turnout here as well. and i want to thank everyone who is joining us online. we have 100 persons joining us online for this event today. and i want to welcome them. and we're very fortunate also that c-span 3 has chosen to come and be with us today. and we're grateful for that. so please join me in introducing our guest of honor, dr. thomas frieden. thanks very much, steven. thanks to everyone at csis for really excellent cutting-edge

work that you've done in global health on a wide variety of issues. and also i want to thank all of the nongovernmental organizations and fakinith-base organizations and individual advocates who have helped us get to where we are today in hiv. we're all committed to making further progress, but i think we also can take a moment to look back and see how far we've come. i'm very honored to be here, and delighted to share with you some reflections and some data on the hiv epidemic, and where it fits in global health, where it fits in policy, and where it fits also in the u.s. health care system. it's possible, i think, to forget just how bad the hiv epidemic has been. hiv has already killed, in this country, as many people as have died in all wars since the civil war. hiv continues to be, but was a

much worse blight on countries that were already struggling with basic health issues. and yet we have remarkable hope and progress to celebrate, as well. when i think of that, i remember a woman i met in nigeria a couple of years ago who was carrying twins. and she said to me, i'm hiv positive. but i'm on treatment. and i feel great. and my twins are hiv negative. they're going to grow up without aids, because of pepfar and because of the american people. so please go back and tell people how much we appreciate this support. because it is our lives, and the lives of our children. so we've come a long way, but i think in terms of our response to the epidemic, not the epidemiology, but our response to the epidemic, 2012 is truly a

tipping point. and i would point to three key trends in this area. we're seei increasing coverage and decre e decreasing unit costs. so, we are able to treat more people for the same amount of money. second, there is increasing recognition of global shared responsibility and accountability. that this is an issue that the world has to take responsibility for, not only the u.s., not only the countries in which the up devic is hitting hardest, but countries throughout the world that can do more to address hiv. and third, new evidence that we can make a huge difference, that treatment is prevention. for so many years, we had this fight, treatment or prevention. now we know that treatment is prevention. and it's a critical part of combination prevention and effective prevention.

we know that prevention of mother to child transmission and voluntary male medical circumcision can be scaled up and have population reach and impact. and we know that infection rates and deaths can be driven down. and this is crucially important and i think informs and forms our response. i want to take a moment to describe to you the diverse work that cdc does all over the world. we're fortunate to have fantastic staff in atlanta and around the world. we have nearly 2,000 people working for cdc around the world and we have another 10,000 people-plus in atlanta who can backstop these individuals in any area, where we need expertise. we recognition that there are huge challenges and other the past year, i've had the privilege of visiting with our staff and seeing some of the

programs in a ride range of area. in haiti, where we've been able to improve the ability of the government and of local institutions, to respond to a cholera epidemic. we've prevented more than 9,000 deaths from cholera. much more needs to be done, and we're lacking in resources to improve water and sanitation the way that all of us would want to have happen. but we've made tremendous progress there. i just returned from nigeria, where it is obering to remember that there are an estimated hundred million cases of malaria each year and 300,000 deaths from malaria each year, where prevention of maternal to child trans mission is not scaling up as rapid lip as we'd like and where polio is continuing to be a major problem, but with new commitment from the government of nigeria and the state governments of nigeria and i'm optimistic that we'll see significant progress there.

from kenya, where we've seen terrific examples of scale-up. more than two-thirds of all tb patients in ten kenya are now b tested for hiv and if found positive, being put on an tre retro viral treatment. a very rapid scale-up accounting for 1 out of 6 new starts of arvs. so, showing there can be effective scale-up. in russia, where we've worked on immunization issues and vaccination issues. in china, where we have helped the country open up and look at things like influenza and become a global collaborating center where they are hosting on the internet every single week the strains of flu that they're finding in laboratories that we helped them to develop with their own resources, so that the whole world benefits from that information. in brazil, where we've helped

the country design a remarkable intervention that's going to try to scale-up physical activity in an effort that i think is unparalleled in the world. they are going to spend of their own money $700 million to see if it's possible to get people moving on a mass basis. in vietnam, where we've helped support development o public health infrastructure, studied and tried to stop drug-resistant malaria. seeing their progress and helped them in areas like motorcycle hall melts where they've seen a dramatic drop in injuries. in india, where we've been able to work with the world health organization and the government of india to make remarkable progress on polio. india's gone 14 months without a case of polio. and that's with excellent monitoring. a result of enormous social

activism, enormous focus and accountability and a billion dollar investment by the government of india for polio irradication. but hiv remains the leading global cause of -- the leading global challenge in terms of infectious diseases. and before i get there, i'll just give you a sense of the scope of our activities. we have global disease detection activities around the world. we have immunization assignees helping to ensure that countries are effective immunization policies and programs. we have influenza assignees, tracking it so we can have an early warning system to know what is happening and prepare for what could be a terrible pandemic. we have malaria assignees, providing technical assistant with ministries of health and with governments and programs to ensure that the programs have

high impact and are documented. our field training programs have turned out more than 2,500 highly trained people in recent years, about 80% of whom stay in their host countries, doing important work to document the spread of disease, design programs, implement programs and see if those programs are working. and we work with the department of defense in strategic areas. and, of course, with the global aids program and pepfar. we are seeing, now, signs of progress. hiv remaining the biggest infectious disease challenge of the world. there have been 65 million hiv infections and 30 million deaths since this epidemic started. in 2010 alone there were 2.7 million deaths -- sorry, 2.7

million new infections and 1.8 million deaths. so, the number of people infected continues to grow from 34 million and up. but the graph you see here shows about a 20% reduction in hiv incidents and a slightly larger reduction, about 27% reduction in incidents in africa. to achieve this, partnerships are absolutely essential and learning lessons from around the world around applying them wherever they can be applied is crucially important. hiv-related mortality is also declining. and one of the things that bill has taught us is that public health is at its best when we see and help others see the faces and the lives behind the numbers. these numbers are coming down,

but they're still shockingly league. at the peak of the aids epidemic in africa, hiv accounted for two-thirds of all adult deaths. can you imagine what that would be like in our own village? our own community? there were communities in which the only business that was increasing was the funeral business. there were communities in which the hope that there could be progress was dissipating. the number of health care workers who could care for patients with hiv was declining because of hiv thinning their own ranks. and the possibility for progress seemed remote. we now have the ability to make big change and significant progress. the u.s. government has called for an aids-free generation. meaning that virtually no child

will be born with hiv infection. that adults living with hiv don't progress to aids. that there is a rapid decline in hiv incidence. that combination prevention can turn the tide on the hiv epidem epidemic, just as combination anti- r antiretroviral treatment can turn the tide on infection in an individual. anti-retro viral treatment, prevention of mother to child tran mission, voluntary medical mail kir sum cushion and correct and current condom use. what we're seeing in this call for an aids-free generation is the translation of evidence into policy and policy into action. we're hoping for more progress towards an hiv