ambassador verveer's comments mean there really isn't a grave threat to the internet and that there aren't these serious threats on the table. would you characterize, would you agree? >> i am still very nervous, mr. chairman, about this process. i will make one observation, that it is not just a matter of the voting question and the one nation, one vote. this substance of the changes or additions to the treaty are critical, and here we have somewhat more leverage i think. those are not necessarily just a matter of voting. i think ambassador gross probably amplify on this, but the negotiations for the actual language probably gives more leverage to us than the actual voting process does. but i have to say, mr. chairman, that there is a notion in what's

calmed chaos theory called the butterfly effect. the butterfly waves its wings in indonesia and we have a tsunami some else. i do worry that small changes can be used and interpreted in ways that could be quite deleterious to the utility of the internet. >> ambassador gross, what strategies did you employ when you had the honor and opportunity to fend off international regulation of the internet that the u.s. government should follow now? >> thank you very much. and if i may, before addressing that i just want to echo exactly what vint cerf just said. this is not a discussion at the wict about broad policies that happens at conferences on a regular basis and are very important. something that this chamber can particularly appreciate, the negotiations over our treaty text, language. language is important. language has impact. and so what will be a real test for our negotiators and for all of us is to be careful as to the language. so that the language doesn't come forward and mean something today and mean something very different in the way in which, for example, commissioner mcdowell talked about where it morphs into something very difficult and something very dangerous. this is not an issue of the itu secretariat, an issue for member states to negotiate and be very, very cognizant about. with regard to strategies, strategies already some adopted

by the current group. that is, it's very important to be clear. one of the problems and one of the opportunities you always have in international negotiations is to find fuzzy language to cover up. one of the keys here, because of the importance of the issue, and because of the implications of the issue for the over 2 billion users of the internet worldwide is to be very clear as to what it is the u.s. is interested and willing to discuss and to negotiate, of which there are many things, and those areas which are red lines. things for which we will not agree. and it's not a question of finding precise language. it is, yes. it is, no. it is very, very binary in that sense. i they will be very clear and the building of coalitions as was discussed in the first panel i think is obvious and important and i'm confident we'll be able to do that. >> i appreciate your answer to my questions. all the panelists. we'll go to the gentleman from massachusetts. mr. markey, for five minutes. >> thank you, from chairman, very much. so mr. cerf, which countries are you most concerned about in terms of their agenda? >> as we heard earlier, the ones i'm most concerned about, in my view, russia and china who have their names on a number of professors but others have come forward, surprising ones. brazil, for example and india surprise immediate with their interest in intervening and obtaining further control. the others are the ones that you would normally expect. we hear from syria. we hear from other repressive regimes. even those in saudi arabia, for

example. those who are threatened by openness and freedom of expression are the ones that are most interested in gaining control through this means. >> uh-huh. >> there are other motivations, however, that also drive this whole process. the developing world has historically generated through telecommunications services, i'm sure you're aware. the internet has become the alternative to much of what had been the telecommunications environment, and i see them looking for ways of adapting the earlier telecommunications settlement arrangements, interconnection arrangements and the like as a way of recovering revenue that they didn't have. so -- >> what's a -- what's a -- just give us, ambassador gross mentioned this, give us one red line subject that we should never entertain. >> i think two things in particular. i would never want to see any of the itu standards being mandatory. they should stay involuntary form. and, second, i think we should run away from any settlement arrangements on enforced interconnection rules interfere

wig the open and very private sector aspect of internet connectivity. today it's a voluntary system. it grows biologically and has benefitted from that. >> is there a, an analogy here to the satellite system that allowed running contrary to what should be the policy to ensure every citizen has real access to a phone network? >> this is an economic question of an engineer. i have a feeling you might deserve the answer. to be honest, i think that we see a great desire to take advantage of internet in ways that damage the freedom and openness and the permissions innovation which has allowed it to grow, to allow any rules that

sequester this innovation and inhibit others would damage the future of the internet dramatically. when you see new applications coming along, they come from virtually anywhere in the world. they don't all come from the united states. and it's important that we preserve that capability. >> thank you. no. but i appreciate the, kind of the global nature that you bring to it. the butterfly effect in indonesia here, creating a tsunami in another place. here in the united states, mrs. o'leary's cow that burns down america. that's too american. innovation can occur, disaster can emanate from and the impact on the global internet system but that's who you are and what this panel is really all about. ambassador gross, give us your one red line. do you awe agree with mr. cerf? >> i always agree with vint, but there are a number of red lines. >> give me one of them. we're going to go to ms. wentworth. >> i think the number one red line is there should be no top-down control of the internet, directly or

indirectly, associated with any international governmental institution, including the itu. >> okay. and ms. wentworth. do you have one? >> we would certainly agree with the comments of mr. cerf with respect to making voluntary standards mandatory. that would have considerable impact on the engineering architecture that goes into the internet. and we are also very focused on the definitions in the treaty, as we know definitions will give you the scope, and a number of the proposals to change the definitions would, in fact, clearly implicate the internet in the treaty. >> mr. cerf, give us your 30 seconds. what do you want this committee to remember, as we go forward over the next six months and over the next six years in terms of what we should be apprehensive about? >> so you've already started. this hearing is a wonderful beginning. the proposed legislation speaking to this problem in a -- bipartisan.

i'm thinking bilateral. >> it's so rarely used. you know, i know why it's hard too -- >> bipartisan. also voicing your concerns to the executive branch also extremely important and making this visible around the world is also very important. so i think you've started that process, and i'm deeply grateful for it. >> great. thank you. my time expired. i apologize. >> i recognize myself for five minutes. this is really -- i mean, i really enjoy this discussion, because when free nations give up their decision-making process to a world organization that is not totally defined to be free, then there's credible -- there should be credible concerns. and i think we're raising those today. and based upon -- i got to pull it up. it just went to sleep.

the -- you know, we debate this issue about the u.n. we get asked by our constituents all the time about the role of the u.n. should we be involved in the u.n.? should we fund the u.n.? and i've tried to keep a balanced view where i haven't voted to leave the u.n., but i have -- been skeptical about the role it plays. keep current funding. get reforms. some of the things the u.n. has done. cuba was vice president of the united nations human rights council and china, russia and saudi arabia also serve on that council. north korea and cuba serve as head of the conference on disarmament. mugabe was just named a u.n. leader for tourism by the u.n. world trade organization.

iran sits on the u.n. commission on the status of women, and formerly chaired the board of the u.n. development program and the u.n. population fund. saudi arabia is a member of the executive board of u.n. women. and so that's -- i'm not making this up. and you can't. but -- i mean that is a concern. and there's also been some international debate and discourse about having a world organization based upon shared values. democracy, freedom, rule of law. things that would make this process a little bit easier. than trying to negotiate with totalitarian regimes who do not have the best interests of free discourse and exchange of views and ideas and values. so i appreciate you coming.

i appreciate you raising this concern, and making sure that we're all in. and prepared to keep this great architecture. i took a picture of y'all when we started and i tweet like a lot of people, and, you know, kind of did the headline of the hearing. and i said, if it's not broken, don't fix it. that's the system. obviously, there's tinkering some of you agree must be done, or is there not? is it -- should we not touch it? or -- if there are tinkering -- if there's tinkering to be done, what should be done? mr. gross? >> thank you very much. the answer is there are always opportunities to improve anything. except for my wife, who's sitting behind me, of course. but instead i think the key here

is, who does the tinkering and what the mechanism is. i think the genius of the internet has been, not only its decentralize nature but multi-stakeholder processes for making decisions. bringing those with the best and brightest ideas from wherever they are, no matter their positions to have a say and make those decisions in a voluntary bottom-up approach. that approach is the key. i think of the rug here as you've heard this morning and early this afternoon has been concern about a top-down governmental set of ways of dealing with what are undoubtedly real issues for real people around the world. whether it's security, fraud, a variety of things that you know there are many issues that need to be addressed. who does the addressing what those mechanisms turn out to be, i believe, really is the key to success and the way to deal with these issues. >> let me just -- i was going to ask all three. i want to get a different question to mr. cerf. any tinkering, no matter how

well-intentioned could, it be flexible enough to keep the process moving forward or will tinkering itself really mess up the stakeholder involvement in the system we have today? >> so i think several observations might be relevant here. the first one is that we can't run away from the united nations because it's too important a body for us to ignore. so we have to participate in its processes. but we have another opportunity which i think we should emphasize that is to encourage

more involvement, more international involvement among the various nation states in the multistake holder processes that are open and available to them that includes is the internet governments forum, the international task force and all the multi-stake holder processes. if we make those increasingly attractive this could be a counterbalance and alternative to the focus of attention which is leaning in the direction of u.n. based activity. this would re-enforce what we discovered over the last 15 years is a multi-stake holder process. they do bring many point of views to the table and they result in better policy. >> thank you. i appreciate it. i don't have time to ask my follow up question. thank you for your testimony. i'd like to recognize the ranking member of the full committee, mr. waxman. >> thank you very much. earlier today the ambassador stated that the u.s. is advocating for the conference report to be made available to the public in addition to this proposal for increased transparency. what other specific measures can be taken to shine more light

into the processes? >> the obvious possibility would be to open this process up to other stake holders which is not a typical conclusion one reaches in international agreements. it strikes me reflecting back on our written successes with mull stake holder processes that transparency and openness produces much better results. whether anyone in the current governmental world could be persuaded of that i don't know. but i'm a great advocate of trying to include civil society and the private sector in matters that will have a direct effect on them. publications of proposals and involvement of over stake holders would be very attributive. >> i would think it's critical for the countries that have seen the impact of the internet on the economy to highlight the potential negative consequences of the regulation of the internet and the world's economy. but what would be the role for the private sector in this process? how would they participate? >> the private sector actually operates most of the internet. i don't know what the numbers are. it probably exceeds 90%. in some sense no matter what we do. no matter what anyone say it's the private sector that operates

this entity and its actions determine what kind of internet we all have. so my belief is that we have an opportunity here to empower the private sector to engage in policymaking, which does not have an avenue to do today at least not very effectively. you'll hear them say you can be a sector member. miss wentworth might agree with me that even as a sector member having paid your dues you don't always either get to participate or even have current information about what's under debate. once again, i think openness is going to be our friend here. but we have to advocate strongly and loudly for it. >> miss wentworth, mr. gross, do you have additional comments to increase the transparency of the itu process? >> the internet society has certainly been an advocate of opening up this process. in general the internet policy

related discussions that are happening within the united nations more broadly. we think that the discussions can only benefit from more transparency. we come from the technical community and we look at some of these proposals and think there's a lot that could be said about the technical implications of what's being proposed. how do networks actually work? would those proposals be consistent with the architecture that we're trying to keep in place and the answer is no in many cases. but that voice is not heard in the current process. we speak up when we can. but we have even as a sector member very limited opportunities to engage. >> mr. gross. >> i think there are two direct things. one is we should to continue to advocate for other members,

governments, to open up their domestic processes to allow for greater participation. the u.s. has greatly benefitted in terms of our negotiation but decision making by the openness that we have always traditionally had and want to encourage that of others. at its core the problem here is that the itu is by definition an intergovernmental organization. they are -- only governments that have votes. ultimately part of the question is this issue is not a big issue when you deal with certain sets of issues. when you deal with internet issues, for example, that at their core are about over two billion people in their access to information, those are the ones that sort of call for the question not only of transparency, but also whether or not where the lines are about what the itu should be focussing on. that's where a lot of the issues can get resolved. >> thank you very much. i yield back my time. >> he yields back his time.

the chair recognizes ms. christensen for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for your testimony and for your answers. mr. gross, in the ambassador's testimony he stated and all of us -- all of your voices and concern that allowing governments to monitor and restrict content or impose economic cost on international data traffic are of particular concern to the united states. we've talked a lot about the monitoring and restricting of content. but could you talk, share with us your coalition's views on the proposals regarding imposing economic costs on international data traffic. >> sure. i think it will come as no surprise to anyone that those are critically important issues. there are a number of different pieces to that. it's not just about the fact

that it may change from a system in which there is voluntary market driven decisions, contractual decisions made to exchange traffic into one with some proposals to have some top down regulatory regime to the old settlements and accounting systems of old telephone system. that's certainly a substantial concern and should be a substantial concern to everyone. it extends to the issue of economic regulation and control about the issue of innovation generally throughout the internet ecosystem. the ability has been talked about of innovations and changes and new technologies and new applications coming from anywhere, from anyone and the ability for all of us to benefit from that. and ultimately all of that often boils down to one of i think the great core issues for all of us which is the seamless flow of information, the ability of

information whether it's commercial, political, economic, social to be able to flow seamlessly across the networks in ways that benefit the global community. >> thank you. >> i'm wondering if i could am on this just if you would permit, there's this notion of nontariff trade barrier, and i'm sure you're very familiar with that. what i worriy about is that the insidious effect of putting in detailed rules that amplify former telephone notion practices in projecting those into the internet destroys -- it has the potential to destroy this sort of per missionless innovation but it also has the possibility of destroying potential markets. this is not just an american issue. we care about it because at googal we're a global operation and we want to reach everybody with our products and services but the inverse is true. everyone in the world should be able to reach anyone else in the world with a new product and a new service. countries that choose to go away

from that kind of openness are actually harming themselves and their own opportunities to exploit the internet for improved gdp growth. and i worry greatly about that. >> thank you. well, just to continue with that mr. cerf, many countries struggle to bringing broadband access to their citizens and look to the telecommunications union for solutions to this problem. we talked about this earlier. how should we respond to the legitimate concerns, what can the u.s. government do and what can private parties do? >> so this is a wonderful question. thank you so much for asking it. two observations. first of all, the itu through its development organization has actually contributed to the growth of the net. i'm a member of the broadband commission that seek to find ways to expanding broadband access to the internet all around the world. and in that sense, a tip of the hat to itu-d for that work.

at google we found many opportunities in the private sector to help expand access around the world. we take our equipment which we don't need and we donate it to organizations like the network start-up resources center at the university of oregon. they repurpose that equipment and deliver it to people especially in the southern hemisphere, then they train them and get books and documentation from tim o'reilly's publications and they set them up to actually build and operate pieces of the internet, which now get connected together to the rest of the global system. there are endless opportunities here for the private sector to engage. anything that you and the committee can do to help make that easier to do would be most helpful. legislation that makes it easier for us to repurpose equipment and to do training overseas would be very, very helpful. just to advocate for that would be a good thing. >> thank you. i'm out of time.

>> we want to thank you for appearing. i would just end by saying total therien regimes may not care if they have systems that work, and so as you have totalitarian regimes involved in international negotiation, they may want a system that doesn't work or cross international lines and stuff. just a cautionary note on my part. also, i need to say that the record will remain open for ten days. you may get additional questions submitted to you by members of the committee. if you could reply to those if they come, we would appreciate that. again, we appreciate your time being here and this hearing is now adjourned.

you can learn more about the members of the house energy and commerce committee and all the subcommittee members in the c-span 2012 congressional directory. it's a complete guide to the 112th congress. inside there are details of each member of the u.s. house and senate including contact information and district map. with more about the supreme court and the nation's governors. you can order one online for $12.95 plus shipping and handing at c-span.org/shop. this morning the senate finance committee holds a hearing on anti-poverty programs. looking specifically at temporary assistance for needy families. that program expires on september 30th. it's a block grant to states that replaced direct federal aid to those on welfare.

witnesses include ron haskins of the brookings institution, who helped bring the program into existence as a house republican staff director. join us live at 10:00 eastern here on c-span3. both chambers of congress return to session this week. the house is completing work on 2013 spending for the energy department and federal water projects. also possible more spending bills relating to the homeland security department and the legislative branch. and the senate began debate yesterday on a bill aimed at combating gender-based wage discrimination. to hear more about this legislation we spoke with a capitol hill reporter. >> niels lesniewski is congressional quarterly editor. harry reid has scheduled a procedural vote dealing with gender-based pay discrimination. what would the bill do and what can we expect as outcome as the lawmakers go to vote?

>> the bill, broadly speaking, would provide new tools for women who believe that they've been victims of gender-based pay discrimination. one of the specific components of the measure, which could affect a lot of people is that it would prohibit employers generally from penalizing employees who disclose information about their salaries or perhaps inquire about the salaries of their co-workers. as for the vote itself, it's not expected to prevail. it's a procedural vote on taking up the bill that it seems on both sides that it's not going to get to the 60 votes that are needed on tuesday. >> so if we expect the vote to fail, why is senator reid pushing forward with it? >> well, from the sort of push that's been put on by the white house and senate leadership, it

looks like this is largely an election year item, and we have seen that there are people calling on governor romney, the presumptive republican nominee, to take a stand on the issue, and they also want to put sh democrat -- the democrats want to put some republicans who are in vulnerable states up for -- who are up for re-election in a tough spot with this vote. >> so who's supporting this bill and why are they saying it's necessary? >> the supporters are senate democrats led in this case by barbara mikulski, senator from maryland, who is the longest serving woman in the senate. and they say that the willy ledbetter act which is one of the first items of legislation that became law under president obama only really addressed a narrow legal question about the statute of limitations for

gender-based pay discrimination and that broader measures are needed to bring the rate of pay up to where men are. >> and who's opposed to the measure and can you briefly tell us what their reasons might be? >> well, one of the issues that the business community has is that there are several provisions of the measure that they seem to say go far beyond where you would necessarily think you would need to go to get it so that men and women earn the same amount of money. there's some concerns about possible litigation costs that could rise as a result of this as well. >> senate republicans say they have their own bill. how does it differ from the democrats' measure? >> we haven't honestly seen all that many details on what the republican counterproposal might be, partly because we don't expect that because this is a procedural vote on tuesday, we don't expect that they will actually be able to bring a

counterproposal to the floor. >> so what impact might this issue have as the campaign season gets into full swing? >> well, we've been seeing democrats for the last couple of months really promoting a narrative about a war on women, trying to ensure that the female vote, which traditionally votes democratic continues to and sort of boxing governor romney and others sort of in on that issue and that this is another step in that process. and i would not be be surprised to see more of those as the year progresses. >> thanks. niels lesniewski is congressional quarterly senate watch editor. you can read him at cq.com. finally on a personal note, michelle and i are grateful to the entire bush family for their guidance and their example during our own transit