to communities, some advantage. we made beautiful rhyme to get food and to some supply. they don't have any place to run away. we must think of after that. so they must operation in their community, but the other half in the governoring process, such a community structure sometimes has a disadvantage, too. they're not peer pressure. that prevents people from -- and challenge.

people aboard discussing each other. this is not only to the program, but also it is a nationwide program in japan. i think u.s. does a good job on making lesson out of programs. like the business school -- and they broke the fastest study on how to gather information in early 1990s. i hope u.s. and japan can corroborate in the project for the sake of japan and all of country in the world. this would help me to guess what natural disaster and nuclear program. i think the population project has especially too early. making 50 nuclear safety standards and information sharing. thank you very much.

>> okay, now we're going to have the q and a. thank you to all of our speakers. i would ask you, we are on espn live, so if you have a question, wait -- not espn. cspan. espn would be more fun. but please make sure you've got the microphone in your hand before you start the question so they can hear the whole question. what i, we have one right there, so i will hold my -- let you guys get started. please stand up, identify yourself. >> dave fitzgerald, private consultant. i have a question about mitigation, which i didn't see in this report.

mentioned specifically, but it involves a lot of money. a lot of money spent by local governments presumably. it all is based on the idea that people are living, some people, some communities are located in the wrong place. they know from experience it floods, earthquakes. it's a bad place to be living. you've got to move the community. that's a huge economic cost. it's a huge political, psychological cost. how does any government really do that? we have a problem now in tokyo where they talk about the land filled areas and liquefaction. you've got problems all the time in the gulf with you know, bailing out new orleans or other places that are -- let's let the panel comment. >> anyone would like to go first? >> sure. i'll it first.

a great question and mitigation is essential. mitigation actually has a high return investment and just so you know, say you're spending money now to reduce expenses later and some studies suggest if you spend a dollar now in mitigation, you'll save $4 on the response base, so it's a good investment. so problem is, you have to actually spend that dollar and it can be very, very expense sieve. hundreds of millions of dollars to move a community away from a very at-risk along the shore. so from financial terms, you'd have to potentially invest a lot to save some done the road. two, there are huge social costs, too. you can do other measures. raise homes on stilts. you can harden them for different times like

earthquakes. it does require a large up front cost. >> any other panel members like to comment on that one? okay. we have a question right down here in the front. >> good afternoon. my name is david trujilo. the question about data flows in the middle of a crisis. in the bush white house, the bush administration, that was a big challenge with katrina. you have bits of information, sometimes it's not accurate. but massive poamounts of information. i'm curious for the panel to cleez comment on how you observed the japanese government and society to handle that and if there are in contrasts you mikt draw between katrina and the japanese experience between the data flows. thank you.

>> would you like to go first on that? >> i think there are many different discussions and good and bad reputations.

speaking for my industry, i think nit was very open to give information to the public and regarding the nuclear accident, i think that the japan itself was in panic situation at the time and also, that we had not had such a difficult time from the nuclear accident and also any other disasters to compare to, so i think we were not prepared to give information and also share information. so i want point out, also, i want to think that we did not hide the information, that we did not have any examples to follow on how to share the information. >> just offer from my perspective after three mile island, commune cases on the

site between the operator and the operators responding to the emergency in connection and conjunction with state and local responders prove to be absolutely essential and many additional privileges remain in the aftermath of -- linked to the regulatory agency of bethesda, so that is something we have in the united states and from the accounts that i read about the accident fukushima, the communications hinders the efficient and effective accident response at the sight. >> i would say that katrina, we had in the gulf area, a complete destruction of infrastructure. we hear the term inoperaablety, there was none.

no cell towers, land lines, nothing. and so, the situational awareness on the ground was very poor. we did not know what was going on on the ground. and so, i remember sitting specifically at the white house and watching on tv, trying to figure out what's going on on the ground and we had so much conflicting information. you never know which information to trust and which not to trust. in the case of katrina, we did not have any official channels of information. we didn't hear anything through the local emergency managers, the state emergency managers because they did not have power and communications. so that was a major challenge and something that's been resolved. sounds like both in japan and the united states with several technology means like satellite phones. then you have communications capabilities, but two, in addition to the media and what made the two disasters

different, what's changed from 2005 to 2011. we also have social media. that made a huge difference. the social media, for better or worse, provided realtime information to everybody at the same time. the government found out at the same time the public did, but the good news is at least they had the information. >> i'll just throw a comment on. even elements like the national guard that you know, people are looking for ways to get communications back up and will come in in temporary cell towers antd some way to get connectivity out there. everybody understands how valuable the communications can be. even if it's a situation of katrina where everything is gone, so there's lots of effort in trying to fix that problem so

the next time one of our countries has an accident like this, we've got to means to get back in there and jump in as quickly as possible. i'm sorry. >> social media of private sector internet helps so much. especially back from company to my home or we can get food on the way. we can use -- where we can stay and also, just as i mentioned, i was in business of elected government and comparing to u.s. elected government and those japanese government. longest i know, especially we should need, they should need i.d. we are so behind. many japanese companies, related to government, a commission sharing company is running an

government. >> okay. gentleman right there. back row. >> i recently asked an assistant to the governor of japan who was here recently, this question and it kind of surprised me. i've always seen japan as a common sense culture and i think this picks up on all the points you've made. i asked him is there any discussion in the media on underground shelters. seems like if a tsunami's going to hit the shore within 15 to 20 minutes, maybe, that people would need an underground shelter as at least an option to get to and he said there was no discussion about that. so can any of you pick up on that point?

>> so i want to make one point that japan is very prone to natural disasters, so i think japanese people have high

resiliency in their mind, but we lacked in the preparation for this particular disaster, which was a one-time thing in 1,000 years, but as mentioned from the other panelists, i would like to agree with how education is important for the preparation, not necessarily about having physical facilities to evacuate to. for example, i showed some pictures from iwate prefecture, so there are some elementary school students, some of them more back at their houses and then they were much suffered in the disaster, but those students who stayed in school, they survived the disaster. because they knew how to evacuate or how to behave in such emergenciy because they ha implemented monthly drills, how they can prepare and how they need to behave in such emergency time.

>> i would just add a point for in terms of the nuclear plant safety accident. prevention. there's obviously you move your essential equipment through responding to a natural disaster either to higher ground or you have to protect it in leak tight compartments. in many cases, some of the essential equipment was protected. that essential equipment like pumps, the sea pumps, generators could be protected in leak tight compartments. >> okay. another question. let me see if there's anybody else first. >> okay, sir, you can have it. >> i'm sorry. is there specific discussion in japan on underground shelters?

we call them storm cellars, that people can get to quickly, you know, rather than running up the hills. >> i do not think so. i do not think there is a discussion about building an understood ground shelter. i think that those underground shelters are very effective for tornados and such and i don't, we do not have many of those in japan, so i would have to think about how effective those underground facilities would be in japan and i also want to

point out that this nuclear accident in fukushima was so unexpected. >> i second what the minister said, for tornados, it's great, but in an earthquake, the last place you'd want to be is understood ground, so i'm not sure i understand the question. >> i'm going to use my prerogative and ask a question. i'd like vice director general and dr. ucoi to comment, but then ed and dan, if you could see what america could learn from it. but what do you see as the power of combining a very cohesive and disciplined traditional culture like you have in japan with a very highly developed and technological society which you also have in addressing this type of disaster. it was horrible you had the disaster within a disaster within a zdisaster, but i'm not

sure too many other cultures wolf done quite as well even as you did if you had not had those two. but i'd like to hear your opinions on it, then you guys could say what america could learn from that. >> i think the disaster shows how much beautiful traditional we have. and to help each other. and we showed -- weak point to recover to -- so but i think,

this is my belief. i think there's responsibility to make -- to go to make peaceful using technology so that i believe this disaster help promote japanese new technology coming soon to help all of country. >> another comment -- would you like to --

>> this is such a complex question. but i can point out that people in the tohoku regions are more traditional and they're very polite and also respectful people in japan. so i think some of you pointed out that there was no panic in terms of people receiving goods and food after the earthquake and tsunami happened. so i think those people in tohoku, their culture and also their characteristic mitigated so much of panic in such an awful disaster.

but you will be questionable if there such a larger scale disaster in a metropolitan area such as tokyo or osaka. i'm not sure if people would behave in the same manner. and so i think we can definitely utilize some technological advancements to mitigate some panic and also risk damages to the people. and i think information technology is such a critical issue that we have to continue to work on and also discuss. and i think if we -- if people are given an accurate and fair

information, i believe that people would eventually reach to a right answer or a right decision. so as a fact, we temporarily lost all the communication resources and devices and infrastructure right after the disaster. so i think that we have to take this as a lesson, important lessons to learn for future disasters. and i think as other panelists mentioned, information sharing is a critical thing to be prepared for and also execute it correctly. >> my comment, again, directed at nuclear power plant safety

and operations. you asked a question, what americans can learn from this occurrence. and the word "earthquake" strikes me as a uniquely unique american word. but we've learned so much from the japanese scientists and engineers in terms of understanding seismic and earthquake events and how to protect facilities like nuclear plants from these type of occurrences, earthquake. the word "tsunami" is japanese, distinctly japanese. and i have no doubt that with less than ten years, we'll be learning from the japanese how to adequately protect our nuclear plants in terms of flood protection and tsunami protection. no doubt about it. >> japan and the united states are very similar. we're both advanced countries, technologically so as well as our population. we're an educated population. we talked about public

education. and i would say we're different in the sense that the united states is much more diverse geographically, and we face a much broader variety of threats, whether it be earthquakes on the west coast or hurricanes onst a in the midwest. it makes it more challenging in the united states because it's almoby state as opposed to countrywide. i will say there are definitely some best practices in japan. and mitigation would be a great example where the buildings are built to withstand earthquakes in japan. and the devastation would be far greater had they not been built to withstand earthquakes. luckily we also do the same thing in california and other states that are prone to earthquakes. the building code is much stronger, no pun, stronger in california than it is in new york for earthquakes. we remain very vulnerable, however, to the black swan or

the low possibility events, for example in new york because there are not many mitigation strategies in place. those buildings cannot withstand a major earthquake. a major metropolitan area like new york would be devastating. it would be devastating on the scale of almost like a third world country, where third world countries have far greater damage and casualties as a result of natural disasters because they don't have things like strong building codes that you would see in countries that can afford to invest in mitigation. >> okay. well, i'm afraid our time is up. i'd like you to join me in thanking the panel for this very interesting discussion. [ applause ] and my apology foss c-span for calling them espn. and thank you very much and have a wonderful afternoon.

live coverage here on c-span 3 of several senate hearings on tuesday. at 10:00 a.m. eastern, the senate subcommittee on primary health and aging. we'll hear testimony about efforts to reward innovation and develop incentives for sharing hiv/aids research. then at 1:00, the senate subcommittee on human rights will hold a hearing on the developments in the chen guangcheng case, the blind human rights activist seeking asylum

in the united states after he and his family were detained without charge for 19 months. mr. chen is currently awaiting travel documents to come to the u.s. over the past year, c-span's local content vehicles cities tour has taken book tv and american history telephone on the road. from tampa to savannah, charleston to knoxville, birmingham and baton rouge, and last month in oklahoma city. the lcv crews have visited the places that define a city's literary and heritage life. watch for programming from wichita, kansas on book tv and american history tv on c-span 2 and 3. saturdays this month, c-span radio is airing more from the nixon tapes, secretly recorded phone conversations from 1971 to 1973. this saturday at 6:00 p.m. eastern, hear conversations between president nixon and white house special counsel and key adviser chuck colson, who passed away last month as they

talk about the democratic presidential nominee, george mcgovern. >> he doesn't have the stuff, mr. president. he really doesn't. >> you really think so? >> no. and he is on the verge of an impending -- >> disaster? >> disaster from his side. and everything he has done has gone wrong. >> in washington, d.c. listen at 90.1 f.m. nationwide on xm channel 119. and streaming at c-spanradio.org. the u.s. house on wednesday will take up a bill setting out defense programs and policies for 2013. the legislation currently authorizes more than $642 billion, including $88 billion for the war in afghanistan and other overseas contingency activities. it also includes about $10 billion for the f-35 joint strike fighter. last week the house armed services committee met for almost seven hours to mark up the legislation, eventually passing it through committee by a vote of 56-5. we'll show you the afternoon

session of that markup, which runs a little over three hours. committee will come to order. committee will now receive the report of the subcommittee on tactical error and land forces. the chair recognizes the chairman of the subcommittee, mr. bartlett for my comments he would like to make. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would first like to thank my good friend mr. reyes for all of his help and thank you to a first class staff. thank you so much. the tactical air and land forces committee as a subdivision of this subcommittee, the mark gives first priority to the war fighter by providing equipment needed to support our forces in combat, active guard and reserve. over $2 billion in the president's budget request is recommended to be authorized to address urgent operational needs fo