for making financial trades from their oversight work. the stock act is an acronym for stock trading on congressional knowledge. it's a scaled-back version of what was approved in the know is at though it will improve transparency. the house streamlined the legislation. as house majority leader eric cantor admired that the political intense provision was broadly worded and that it should instead be studied. the house removed anti-corruption language? does this go far enough now? >> i think it does. frankly it was already illegal to do that. it was somewhat of a mead why created sort of 60 minutes' piece of legislation. what you own, what you trade, what you do is already required on an annual basis and it's reported this makes it monthly and that's fine if that's what people want to do, having been in congress for nine years, i have to tell you i've been in a lot of meetings and i never saw

anything that was remotely helpful in picking a stock. it was this kind of knowledge doesn't exist and most members don't have the time and honestly don't have the inclination to do anything like that, but reassuring the public i think is an important act and important thing to do and i voted for the legislation and somebody's done something wrong, believe me, congress is subject to the same laws and more scout me and more investigation than most people. it ought to be and people will pay the consequences, but so far as i know nobody's been charged with anything, nobody's done anything and this helps the appropriate authorities find something good and well. >> let's get one last call here for congressman coal, richard, republican here in washington, d.c. >> good morning, c-span and mr. cole. i applaud you for your public service you can do as well or better outside without all of the scrutiny as the previous call reflected and all of the aggravation, but i applaud you and hope you continue on for

many years. i want to ask you about foreign aid. foreign aid like friends like israel that need it for their defense and to bring endangered jews home from around the world as we've seen from the terrible incident in france a few days ago. i've been sending foreign aid to nations that basically are allied to terrorist groups. it's sad, but we've provided perhaps $2 billion on average to egypt for 32 years, plus the $64 billion question is if that continues to be military aid and not humanitarian aid to help the poor of that country, for example, are we not in danger of arming the the potential enemy of israel and that goes for lebanon whose government is. led by hezbollah. >> let's leave it there so we can get a response. we only have a few moments left. >> thank you for the kind words. we do send foreign aid to egypt

and it's the second largest recipient of foreign aid. they see this as helpful to them. egypt has been a good friend and ally of the united states and he's been an honest broker and helped maintain peace and that's good for the budget in the house by 28% last yore. >> they recognize they need to be some trimming, but these are tools leak he is going through an extraordinary transition and it was something like the french revolution or the fall of the berlin wall. it's enormously important. one of the best relationships that we have is with the egyptian military. it's happened within the transition of change ask again, maintaining stability in the area has been a good thing for

the united states and something that we're proud to be associated with. it's easy to demagogue it. it's a part of the budget and $50 billion with the $3.5 trillion budget and it's pretty minor and less than 1% of the total budget is spent there and spent with american interests in mind. it's interesting that as administrations come and go, the basic thrust of policy in this area doesn't change a lot. so i would argue in the case of egypt it's one that we ought to continue. >> on monday the supreme court starts three days of hearings on the constitutionality of the new health care law. hear the oral argument for yourself and its entirety as the court releases audio at about 1:00 p.m. eastern each day with coverage on c-span3 and c-span radio and at c-span.org, listen and add your comments. our coverage starts monday morning live on c-span with "washington journal" and

continues through the day from the supreme court, and then the oral argument on c-span3. this is c-span3 with politics and public affairs programming throughout the league and 48 hours of people and events telling the american story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs on our websites and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> next, a panel of u.s. ambassadors discussing the economies of saudi arabia, qatar, kuwait and other arab countries. the speakers include ambassador james smith who describes saudi arabia's efforts to move away from an economy dependent on oil exports. the national chamber of commerce hosts this 55-minute event. >> i would like to reconvene our forum at this time. as you know, we are still on our tight schedule with one hour remaining on our second panel. the same procedures would

pertain to questions from the floor so please begin sending them up as the panelists give their opening remarks. >> moderating our second panel is the honorable allen larsen whose biography you have in the event booklet. i'm sure all of you in the room and certainly we at the national u.s.-arab chamber remember his days in economics and his many years in the aba bureau where he was a champion for u.s. trade and international fair treatment for u.s. companies. so it's a particul call on ambassador larson to moderate this panel. >> thank you very much, good afternoon everyone. we're looking forward very much to this panel. we're going to be considering a set of challenges that perhaps paradoxically are just as difficult and daunting in many ways as those of the economies in transition which we just heard discussed in the previous

panel. experience around the world has shown sadly that ample endowments of match rl resources which should be a blessing for national economic development can, on occasion, be a curse. nations that are rich in natural resources need to figure out ways how to translate that potential wealth under the ground into enduring forms of wealth above ground that can create high and rising standards of living. doing this, experience has shown, requires serious effort to avoid the temptations of overconsumption, the temptations of poor investments in white elephant projects and sometimes as plain corruption. more affirmatively, making this transition from hydrocarbons to a broader and more diversified

economy requires an effort to make sensible, thoughtful investments in infrastructure in education and in the creation of an entrepreneurial culture and in the statement of a sound regulatory environment for business. i think this should be an interesting set of discussions, and i think what we would like to do is begin as we did last time with the far end of the panel with remarks by ambassador corbin. >> thank you very much. my name is michael corbin. i've been in the uae almost seven months and business has been my top proi orit. what i would like to do is start this panel by saying that the uae is very much open for business. i would like to say that this is for two reasons. one, the uae has benefited to a certain extent from the problems in the other arab countries as people are moving there, as businesses are moving there, as

tourism is going there, but i would also argue that it's because the uae has positioned itself as a transit hub with the two major airlines, with dubai's ports and airports and abu dhabi coming online, the new sub-saharan african market is developing the market and the stands are developing, but i would leak to focus on the subject of this panel while the traditional areas of business, aviation, defense e infrastructure are moving ahead in uae, was there a pause, but now they are moving ahead and they are continuing in those years. the world future energy summit earlier this year provides an opportunity for u.s. companies to enter into a country where there is planning for the future, and what i see is the uae is a place where we can do real competition with the indians, the chinese and the turks in areas such as alternative energy and i would also point out health care.

ils also point out education, the u.s. brand is still very popular. >> what we're look of the cost when you look at our sers, when you like at china, india, turkey and other competitors and what i see in the united states countries who are willing to go to the united arab emirates are pursuing the potential with its young dynamic leadership for the region. as i said last year there was a slowdown in projects but i think the world future energy summit and moving beyond traditional oil and gas into areas such as solar and other areas, offer a great potential for u.s. business. i see u.s. businesses small and medium companies coming to the uae and finding an atmosphere there that is very conducive to build business for the region and beyond, as i said the

transit hub. >> we don't have room there are ready. we. >> we need to encourage for battle with the endias, the turkeys and china as of the world. the so por lar, still, if we can beat our competition like price and we can and our reputation and the way that we do business, and i'll run there so we don't run into too many ambassadors stalking for too long and i'll leave it up for questions and we're very much open for business and alternative area is one i can address more. thank you. >> thank you for that overview. saudi arabia, certainly the largest economy in the bellwether and we look forward to your comments, you know that sonny rabey is open for business

and he's had a interesting ton of years. this last year ween cross your in the exports and there's been been -- we increased 103% in the last year. so the big, big shift in the last two years we've had 20 8 companies that have exported to saudi arabia for the very first time. 80% of those small, medium enterprises. so those of you who still are leaning on the sidelines, not in touch, we'll connect you up. the focus today was diversifying away from hydrocarbon, and i will leave you with three areas to consider because you will see a shift in that.

the first issue is domestic consumpti consumption. i make it a matter of policy to never do math in public, but saudi arabia uses domestically about 20% of their oil in the wintertime, 30% in the summertime. their domestic -- energy consumption is increasing 10% a yore and saying you'll do that for 20 years, you've got a problem. so that's the first issue they've got to deal with. because you didn't go from being part of opec to the organization of petroleum, non-exporting countries. that's not where you want to be. second issue is opportunity cost because if you consider the value of a barrel of petroleum, you realize that the current method of dealing with

hydrocarbons as an exporter doesn't make a lot of sense. if you drill a hole in the ground, pump out oil and sell it to somebody the value is about $100 a barrel. it creates three times the number of jobs that upstream does and it's been incredibly successful in the downstream, but at the end of the day you're putting the natural resources in there and sending it half way around the world, and if you can take derivatives and turn it into products and it is worth about their 1,000 a barrel to you and creates ten times the number of jobs than upstream does. if the problem is jobs, jobs, jobs. 3 million people entering the workforce in the last decade, then we've got to consider diversification of your economy because it makes no sense than to use that oil and dump it into

furnaces and charge people for their electric bill and 60 cents a gallon of gas when you could be using it more productively and something else. and the opportunity costs and i remember saying about how quickly they're going to move because the debate is cost per kilowatt hour. it's the opportunity costs here of using your hydrocarbons for something that doesn't make sense. and the third is the global market and where the global market is going, and i say that because i don't know where it's going. i refuse to predict, but it was probably wrong and everybody was talking about peak oil. today nobody is talking about peak oil. over the united states, the state has shown a significant

reduction and single digit and flat lined to reduction in consumption. if that continues at that pace, say over a decade, we put a dent into the u.s. consumption and use that as a model for other people then you have significantly changed the view of the global demand. if you add to that the improvement of the hydrocarbon wind, solar and nuclear, because the current projects still only account for 15% of the global energy to be renewable by 2035. if that curve changes, then it makes a huge impact and the third, which is again, an issue nobody talked about five years

ago, but everybody's talking about today shale oil and shale gas. and that if, in fact, our reserves are what some people are projecting and if you can overcome theec it nick allen viernmental challenges and you can move to shift some of our economy away from oil into natural gas for any number of reasons, those three things together fundamentally shift the global demand curve and i would argue that if they come together with the kind of technological innovation that is possible we could be having a very different

that are interested. >> thank you very much. as my two colleagues from saudi arabia and from the united arab emirates have said, the same thing is true for qatar, we are open for business and we are open for business with a great interest on u.s. products, u.s. services and u.s. technical know how and opportunities for joint ventures and investments both in qatar and investments in other parts of the world or the united states. qatar is the world's richest state per capita. it has the highest gdp in the world. it is also the world's leading supplier of liquefied natural gas. in 2011 alone qatar's gdp rose 20%. and it is estimated in 2012 to

rise at a slower rate, but still 6% to 12% which is a healthy rate in any standard, but particularly in these economic times and a lot of the drive on this has been due to the amir of qatar, sheikh khalid who has developed a vision for his country over the last 15 years and has put forward a vision for 2030 with the development and a whole array of areas of human development, economic development and economic diversity and diversification and social development and as part of his vision for 2030, a good part of that is also the infrastructural development in the country and the diversification of the economy that moves away from the simple upstream energy production that has been really the growth engine of the country.

now it's true in the last five to seven years in the addition of new mega trains that have been developed in qatar, a lot of which has been joint production in exxon mobil and exxon mobil in particular over the last few years has invested over $16 billion in qatar in the gas sector alone has fueled a lot of the wealth for the country, but the leadership in the country understand that the wealth in gas needs to be diversified from upstream to downstream products. there's been a tremendous emphasis on the development of petrochemicals and other kinds of related industries in the carbon sector. in pack while qatar has been producing 9.5 million per year in the petrol chemical sector. it hopes to reach 23 million tons by 2020. that's its goal. so, again, while not totally moving away from the hydrocarbon

sector, but making sure that they are producing downstream products that increases the value chain for production and also diversifies uses within their country and markets outside of qatar. now linked to that is a way of looking at the country away from the carbon sector ask how to make themselves a center through education and for the education where i'm proud to say education city hosts six major united states universities there with branch campuses providing education not just for qatar and the university's education, but for people of the region. >> each though we don't always think of education as an export, actually in qatar it is and it's a big export and it's contributing to the development of the next generation of students and workers. they are looking to the area of sports. they hosted the asian games in 2006. they just recently hosted the arab games this past december

and january and as many of you know they have won the bid for the fifa world cup in 2022. this has meant that all of their infrastructural development that was onboard for the vision between the 30 has now been moved up by eight years to the year 2022. so let me just give you a little bit of the overview of the major projects being undertaken in this regard because this is an area in infrastructure where we as a country have tremendous capability and we have tremendous breadth, not just in program management and also in the development of design and building an infrastructure, training and maintenance. the highlights of this are the airport that is being built. it is a $15 billion international airport. it has had the program management of this and it's due to be completed in 12/12/12

which is when the opening is going to be and there will be ancillary parts to the airport that will be built after the new international airport is built. this is area right for u.s. businesses and expertise. there is deep water sea port, 7 billion, part of that now is being developed by the company. i believe it's e com as part of the project management and there will be more bids in to go in terms of the construction and all of the management of that project. 35 billion in rail project and that's right light rail, trains, that's people movers and metros and all of this needs to be constructed between now and 2020 to be able to accommodate all of the people coming in for the world cup and to be able to promote the business and transportation that is needed. and the road networks, they're

currently on tap, 30 projects for roads that are going to be bid. american companies so far have done well on a lot of these projects from kbr, parse orngs parsons and brinkerhoff, et cetera, but this new project that will be built 20 billion in the next few years. >> a lot of work in that and then in the water and electricity segment that needs to be expanded another 3 billion in the next six years. this is not even to mention all of the work they're doing in renewables as ambassador smith rightly pointed out on the issue of shale gas is going to revolutionize the whole region and qatar is the leading export of lng and continuing to develop its capability is increasingly shifting its markets away from the u.s. and still exporting to europe. i might add, the uk is singularly dependent upon lng from qatar, but now in shifting

its vision toward the east, india, china, after the catastrophe that took place in japan recently. japan has now emerged as one of the top importers of lng. so again, more markets going to the east and no end in sight in terms of the demand for their product. so they are expanding in all areas, diversifying in science, technology, renewables and making a mark for themselves as a diversified economy with much more than just the energy sector as their focus. thank you. >> thank you, ambassador. next, i would like to hear from ambassador schmere from amman. >> let me just start by saying that just like our neighbors in the gulf, we also have a country which has a growing economy. it has, it's very welcoming to international business and particularly to the united states business. it has a lot of needs.

it has a young population and so they're really looking to do exactly what the title of our session here is called and that is diversify their economy to ensure that beyond the area of hydrocarbons they will have a well-structured and well diversified economy. when we look at oman let me conceptually divide the commercial opportunities into two elements. one is oman as a market and the second is oman as a platform and i think that's a very important way for businesses looking to engage in the region and should look at oman as a market, oman does need a lot of things and is doing a lot of things and they've been very successful in not only maintaining and expanding the hydrocarbon production and where they had reductions and had declined for a period and they've turned that around and now are generating

revenues and are using those revenues wisely to invest in the future and one aspect which again is another example of where american companies can play a very important role and it is probably the single greatest contributor to oman's ability to turn around its previously declining petroleum production it was when occidental petroleum, and it revitalized one of the main oilfields and increased production there by over tenfold and that turned around oman's declining production. so that's a very good example of an american company bringing in its technology and working closely with the omanis. it's run largely by omanis and is a success in terms of american technology with omani openness to such investments. the areas domestically for oman

is not a lot of population that's about 2 million omanis and they're looking to expand in a number of areas and tourism is their highest priority and they're also looking at services. and it's certainly training, franchising which has been mentioned and consultants and they're very much looking for consultants and good consultants to support the projects that are under way there. in terms of the structure of the market they have a couple of specific advantages and one is a free trade agreement with oman and more and more companies are leveraging that in order to be able to face production there for the oman market because of the advantages that accrue two of the free trade agreement and that leads to the second element of oman's attractiveness and that is oman as a platform.

if you look at the map very quickly, one sees it has the great advantage of lying outside the gulf and outside the strait of hormuz and oman i think is consciously leveraging that geographic location in order to make itself the preferred location for companies that are producing and marketing into the gulf, and so they're building ports, they're expanding the northern port of sohar, building a new port in the middle of the country and expanding their shipment hub in sola la. they're building exports and they'll be tying into the rail line that susan mentioned. so they're setting themselves up as a location where companies that want to produce or market anywhere into the gulf can do so very conveniently and very safely by bringing their goods into or out of a port in oman and avoid having to go into the gulf itself. they set up free zones with all of these locations so that you canc