to this aspect? i would ask both of to you respond. >> thank you. i want to say sorry to have disappointed in you the task force so far and hope we can redeem ourselves going forward. >> it's a focused criticism. >> fair point. thank you. two. i want to be sure i say our goal, especially in the most recently frequently asked questions document, was to make very, very clear there is no student on a college campus whom the college title 9 obligations do not extend to. it was our goal not to take away from that overarching message that title 9 obligations extend to every student of every type on every campus so that the schools will make them all safe. i had some worry if we disaggregated any particular type of student we would undermine that message. i would be very pleased to work with your office as we go forward about ways to make sure we are sending a clear message also about the rotc students. i want to assure you we have

been in our investigative space working specifically with rotc students. one complaint in the k-12 space, a young woman came with a complaint she had not been able to be promoted to commander in her army rotc. we investigated and found harrowing facts about the way she was being treated and the rotc lead talked to her in sexually discriminatory ways in that school. her mom thanked us at the end of the resolution to let us know she was the first young one ever to be promoted on that camp. we are working in this space. we are trying to send a clear message. specifically to your question about the ways we work with the armed force defense, we work hand in hand with them. the president directed us and reminded us repeatedly he expects an annual report with new progress each time going forward. there will be further steps. >> thank you. >> senator baldwin, i want to thank you for your work on the

defense aspect of this. i think one of my take aways from the fine work you all did was that you have to have meaningful punishments for sexual assaults if you are going to change the culture. one thing i can assure you of is in our work we look at institutions across the board. we are looking at crimes that occur on campus regardless of where they occur. one of the important changes under the vawa amendments again is we are going to start to look more closely at issues of culture, climate, damaging traditions. there's lots of that in the military we see. especially along the lines of hazing. when you create that culture where these things are allowed to occur, next thing you get is sexual assault happening in high number without any proper law enforcement response or disciplinary response. this is something we would definitely like to work with you on going forward. and to also look beyond rotc to the very enduring problems we

see in athletic programs, fraternities and sororities and other organizations on campus. >> thank you, senator baldwin. senator murphy. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you both for being here. i wanted to follow up on question senator murray asked. she was asking about best practices with respect to prevention. i wanted to turn to the investigation and disciplinary process in a publicized case, columbia. students feel a second victimization when they go through the process of reporting and testifying to the abuse. she tells the story of being asked some incredibly insensitive and irrelevant question questions in the process of trying to gain justice.

speaks broader about an uninformed, undertrained set of investigators and people overseeing the disciplinary process. what have we learned what happened at columbia and what are the recommendations you are making to schools so we don't have a reputation of revictimization happening when someone has the courage to report and bring it to a disciplinary board. >> thank you. it's critically important. we've seen all too often the investigative process at a school can be so invasive, so unpleasant and so ill-handled students elect not to use it which sends its own message that it's just not worth coming forward and not safe. that's one of the key things we want to see campuses thing that they need to be sending a message to students that the process will be fair, that it will be effective and will be impartial. it will not involve inappropriate questions about students' backgrounds. it will not further victimize

people who have the courage to come forward. we try to put information specifically about the conduct of investigations in the frequently asked questions documents we released this spring. we are making our investigation results more public so schools can see the kinds of things we find unacceptable when we investigate and going back to the example that specific set of concerns is exactly what we saw with tufts and virginia military institute. it's exactly what we saw with cindy, frankly. we have been able to jai-lai what we thought was wrong with the investigations conducted and highlight what the universities agreed they will do to change that going forward and monitoring those changes to make sure they are lived reality for students. >> how do you monitor these processes? these happen behind closed doors. you don't get data about the kind of questions being asked, i can't imagine. how do we track whether this is getting better or worse for students other than hoping there is a handful of students who go

through an experience that is unpleasant and report it back through a chain that ends up in your hands? >> we do get to see the ways they investigate. that is a very important piece of data and it's an important component of getting to a place where we can say this school is behaving in an appropriate manner we do not keep monitoring. we will see the ways that the schools investigate what it is they do, the degree which they comply with their policy, which says they can't do those things going forward and the degree which they satisfy their obligation for the students. >> senator murphy, this is a very key point. whatever number you look at, whether it's 1-5, 1-6, if it's something else, what we know is campus sexual assaults are vastly underreported. one of the main reasons is there is not a good part for redress.

the criminal justice system is often revictimizing and these campus judicial systems, if they are not well formulated can be even more so. one of the things we did in these new rules is we tried to fix some of the procedural elements around these hearings. for instance, now there is a notice requirement. there have been students who have shown with documentation they were given an hour, two hours to prepare for a hearing or evidence that is supposed to be provided to both sides was given as they entered the door, no opportunity to review it. both the accused and accusers now have an advocate with them, an adviser of choice. one thing that maybe valuable in the future is a relevancy rule in these hearings. having reviewed documents for

many of these hearings, the kinds of information you can't call it evidence, that is submitted and considered by these boards of undertrained people very often is frightening. i have seen things where people take things off facebook and have it submitted as evidence as if it's a dispositive of something. this is something we might want to look at going forward. a basic relevancy rule that says only relevant evidence should be admitted and relevant evidence should be excluded if it has a substantial risk of unfair prejudice. >> makes sense to me. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator whitehouse. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you both for being here. it strikes me that the relationship between the college or university and the local police department is very important. and missteps with that relationship are fraught with

danger both for the alleged victim and the alleged perpetrator, including loss of opportunity to gather necessary evidence if the police aren't brought in quickly enough. interference by the university off college in an ongoing criminal investigation. there is a public safety value to making sure these offenses are reported. there is a potential liability to university if it keeps one student's confidence and that causes another student to be attacked by the individual about whom they had not brought that information to the police. that is a doctrine so long standing that it's a common law crime to commit concealment of a felo felony. of course, investigation is not a court expertise of a college

or university that we expect. my sense is that the hand-off between the university and local law enforcement authorities is not very well managed in a lot of places. and there are very simple things that could make a big difference. it's probably a very big difference if the victim is or the alleged victim is in having her conversation with the university saying you should consider reporting this to the police and they're downtown. we may give you cab fare. as a student, you are going off into the unknown, waiting in line in the police station, not knowing who you are going to talk to, versus we have a very good relationship with the local police department. officer jones is right outside. she works all these cases. we know her very well. you really should let her into

this conversation because you'll be making choices now that will really change the way you can pursue this down the road if you don't have her or him in this conversation. that seems to be an area that isn't getting the attention it deserves. my question is, have you identified colleges and universities, which you consider to be a model relationship with their local police department in terms of making sure that that hand-off between the two isn't mishandled from the perspective of the students have their interest involved? >> yes, we have. i want to say how strongly i agree with you about the concern. from some of the perspectives you raise but also the colleges and university staff i heard from where they say there isn't even a local law enforcement agency nearby that has the capacity to take a rape kit as

one example. there is certainly the dimension of the problem you described which the connect isn't good between the school and place they could go. there is the disconnect where there isn't a place to send students in the first place. >> what are your model relationships between a university and a police department? i don't expect you have them at the top of your head here. i would like as a response for the record, to have each of you identify where you think model relationships exist between campuses and the local police department, and what you think the elements are in that relationship that make them a model relationship. i was a u.s. attorney, i was attorney general. i come at this from a different perspective. it's a little bit alarming to hear how much completely untrained, completely inexperienced, completely

unauthorized people are meddling around in a manner in which a felony has been alleged. >> yes. >> if you don't bring people in who have the proper authority, know what they are doing and who have the process in place to make sure that evidence is gathered, which degrades rapidly in some cases, then you've created a real problem. similarly, if you forced the college to go and maintain an investigation and produce a report at a time when the police are saying, for god's sake, we are investigating this, knock it off. we are trying to interview these witnesses. we can't have you running around interviewing witnesses. this is interference with a criminal investigation. that seems to be a pretty serious challenge, as well. >> so if i could, jim and i have been working together and also with the department of justice to create a model and memorandum of understanding that colleges and universities could have together with local police departments. that we hope will be out in the

world in a few weeks. we should be able to give you those points. >> my time is up. i should ask you to follow up for the record. >> okay. >> i know our police departments and universities would welcome that. >> thank you. >> i know we want to get to the second panel. i want to clear up a misunderstanding i had with ms. lhamon here. the next panel there will be a witness. i read it last night she said the disproportionate and practical nation of the only sanctions are efforts at an enforcement. ocr should be given the latitude to design smaller and flexible sanctions appropriate to the violations. not everything rises to the level, i would say to my friend, to the level of a felony. additionally, rather than simply imposing fines of varying sizes, ocr should be empowered to impose signs to forced budgetary reallocations to push goals into compliance.

when we were talking earlier, i think you may have thought i was trying to say we should take away the nuclear option. that's fine. if that's the only thing you have in your arsenal then it makes it very hard to respond to incidents that may not rise to the level of a felony, but still are egregious actions on the part of one student to another student. i just wanted to make that clear. i thought you were basically saying, no, you don't need anything other than the nuclear option. >> so if i may, i just want to say i think it is really useful to us to have the nuclear option in our back pocket. i didn't hear you saying you would take it away. i have a worry if we have a lesser tool, it would make it harder for colleges and universities to expect us to use the nuclear option and that is a very variable tool for us. >> i see now -- secondly. campus.

again i say to senator whitehouse, i've been involved in some of the past when my wife was a prosecuting attorney. a lot of times students who are a victim of this just need to know what to do. they need to have somebody they can trust to go to. like an ombudsman on a campus that has been trained, that has the qualifications to at least initially be on the side of the person who has been victimized to give them the kind of information about where they should go. how many colleges have that kind of ombudsman? do they have them or not? >> title nine coordinator can function as an ombudsman. every campus is supposed to have a title nine coordinator. >> the title nine person is sort of like in the hierarchy of the school. that's the problem. that's the problem. >> yes. >> need somebody not in that

hierarchy of the school. okay. got that. are military academies exempt from title nine? i'm told they are. i just found that out. do we know? senator warren, do you know? >> i think the answer is yes. >> i'm talking about our military. i'm informed they are exempt from title nine. well, no one seems to know. >> does that mean they're not reporting data either? >> senator, the military academies are exempt from the clear yet. >> you collect no data from the military academies? >> they don't have to report. >> it's something that probably should be corrected, but because of the way the title 4 financial aid rules -- >> you think? >> the rules say if you don't receive funds from our programs, you don't have to comply with the clery act.

the clery act simply doesn't apply to those institutions. >> wait a second. i thought that applied to any school that received federal funds. >> not the clery act because it's only title 4. >> on that topic, looking into this and i asked the earlier question about the rotc programs, when the congress did take sort of some new steps on combatting military sexual assaults in the defense authorization budget, we did include the military academies under those provisions. yet rotc was not included, which is why i feel like we have to focus some attention on the training of our many of our future officers. you're accurate about the title nine. >> so they don't have to report under the clery act like other colleges.

i didn't know that. thank you very much, panel. we appreciate it very much. we'll call our second panel. we have votes at 11:45. emily renda, john kelly and jane stapleton. >> mr. chairman, while the next panel is assembling itself, let me say that i understand that there are circumstances that come through the sexual assault reporting mechanism at these universities that amount to less than criminal activity. my point is that unless you have somebody in the room who understands what felony sexual assault is and an ombudsman is not nearly as expert as a prosecutor or police officer, and if the institution can't support connecting with the police department in a way that is easy and supportive for the

alleged victim, then you have real problems down the road. because by the time they do figure it out, it could easily be too late to gather the appropriate evidence. all sorts of statements have been made that fouled up criminal prosecution. you've really put the individual at risk in terms of defending her rights as a victim through the law enforcement process. >> i got that. i think we'll hear from someone on this panel that maybe a victim doesn't, they get caught up and get pushed into a felony accusation, and that takes on a life of its own. maybe that is really not what they were seeking. maybe they get over reticent to go down that pathway. >> if a person is a, presents the risk of being a serial offender, there are very good reasons why the law enforcement process goes forward even with uncooperative victim. we do it in violence against women prosecutions.

the woman recants, but you milwaukee the prosecution because of the statisticalhood of reoffending. emily renda, completed a thesis of sociology under title nine, sexual assault reporting rates. she completed resource of sexual assault reutilization. she works at the university of virginia to help with title nine compliance efforts. next mr. john kelly, rising senior at tufts university where he studies religion. he is a survivor of an intimate partner violence and rape on a college student. he is the special projects organizer for know your nine, campaigned to educate all college students about their rights under title nine.

we are grateful that you are here. then jane stapleton, a co-director of the university of new hampshire prevention innovations, research and practices for ending violence against women. as extensive experience working to end violence against women in college and university settings, she is a lead developer and evaluator of the know your power by standard social marketing campaign and trains colleges, universities and community organizations how to facilitate and implement comprehensive strategies to end this kind of violence. with that, your statements are in the record in their entirety. miss renda, could you start and maybe sum up in five minutes the essence of yours? hopefully we'll have time for some questions and answers. welcome, miss renda. >> thank you, senator harkin and other members of the committee present today for the opportunity to speak. my name is emily renda, a recent graduate of the university of

virginia. in my experience as a survivor and in the course of my work as advocate and activist, i learned a great deal about the dynamics around campus and sexual assault and hope will be informative of the committee today. i want to lay out several observations about the challengers survivors face and the way federal law and regulations could influence those challenges. as requirements under title nine amendments expand the mandate for education outreach, it is critical we ensure colleges are providing education about peer support to students. self-blame and victim blame are among the primary factors that deter victims reporting. personal feelings for responsibility of attack reenforced by pierce, undermine the sense it is his or her right to seek justice. one survivor did not report her gang rape until a year later. she confided in peers who did not believe her and told her she was wrong because those were all great guys. her friends' response took aware

her confidence to seek help. those five young men remain unopinionished and remained a threat throughout the year. education supporting a survivor cam prevent revictimizing responses from peers. though the current national media spotlights limb exclusively focused on the lack of punitive sanctions for students found responsible in sexual assault cases, we must maintain a range for colleges to employee to respect various needs and wants. especially where the perpetrator is known or relationship abuse. many survivors i have known were initially scared to report because they did not want to ruin his life or get him into trouble. in a case of one young woman in an abusive relationship, the dean of students was only able to convince her to take disciplinary action reassuring her the disciplinary process to get him help. that got her in the door. mandatory expulsion been the only option, she would have waited longer to report if she ever came forward at all. a range of sanctions is getting survivors in the door with

respect to their agency and shifting needs. getting more survivors in the door gives universities a better chance to be fully aware and combat hostile environments. also as title nine investigations shed light on the way cases are mishandled on universities, it may discourage future survivors coming forward out of mistrust of their universities. with that chilling check, resolution agreements should incorporate recommendations and requirements to form working committees of students and administrators to help keep students informed and involved in steps that it is taking to rectify from that public complaint a top down communications approach of university to student does not ameliorate fears and concerns about mistreatment as much as student to student communication, about what the administration and students are working on together. the knowledge of and opportunity for input is certain to reassure students that the administration is transparent about the way it handles cases and will handle in

the future. including formal requirements for working groups, resolution agreements can help address some of the fears raised by publicized complaints so survivors can feel safe and supportive when they seek help from those best suited to help them. in additionally in order to address concerns about equity commonly being raised, it may be helpful to define requirements and procedures for sexual assault on campus. specifically codifying some of the recommendations they may clarify concerns colleges have how to appropriately adjudicate. this may contribute to schools insufficiently sanctioning in cases with hostile environment exists. statutory clarification how procedures ought to look based on recommendations may distinguish the process from criminal proceedings and draw distinct boundaries between the two so they have a clear sense how to proceed and address

hostile environment without fear of civil action from accused students. when it comes to ocr's an enforcement, it hinders to what you spoke to before. the only stick for an enforcement is a tree trunk. it should be given latitude to design smaller and more flexible sanctions. rather than imposing fines of varying size, ocr should be empowered to impose fines in the form of allocations to push schools into compliance. rather than a purely punitive financial sanction which may take resources away from students, it could force schools to appropriate resources to students to improve its title nine efforts. friction, a sanction could mandate a school must allocate $50,000 a year per year four years to fund trauma specific counseling position at the student health center. finally, while it may fall outside the scope of today's hearings, it's important to note while the use of title nine to address sexual assault and sexual discrimination is one

tool but a more common approach would be potential reforms to state and criminal federal law. we would not have to rely so heavily on colleges to address the problems of sexual violence. colleges may be more effective and offenders would be addressed outside the college context much more meaningfulfully. options for criminal reform may make it better to address this problem more holistically. thank you for the opportunity to speak and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> mr. kelly, welcome. please proceed. >> thank you, mr. senator. when i was an 18-year-old college freshman i entered into what would soon become an abusive relationship. on the last night of my freshman year he raped me, physically grabbed and retrained me, not letting him leave his room until i told him i loved him. three months later my first week back in school he raped me again. since then, i've become an advocate for the rights of student survivors, especially

those often looked, in this case the queer community, my community. thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify on sexual assault on college campuses. i come with a number of policy i hope to address. congress must give the department of education office for civil rights the power to levee substantial finds against schools out of compliance with title nine. the only recompense available to ocr is full removal of federal funds something that would hurt the group of students this law is intended to protect. schools out of compliance must be punished to signal the seriousness and prevent schools becoming repeat offenders. these fines can subsidize ocr's cost or directly to victim services. top universities were found out of compliance. no fines were levied. congress must compel the

department of education to continuously release a list of schools under investigation for title nine complaints. without this information, compliantants may be derived of information and perspective students cannot possibly make informed decision regarding their choice of college. tufts university was under investigation when i was applying to schools. i made the choice to attend tufts without this information. when i was raped, tufts was still under investigation. i still didn't know. had i known, i can only hope i would have chosen another school to begin with. perhaps i would have attended tufts all the same, but it's not within the purview of the department of education to deny students to make educated decisions for themselves. i only wish i had known tufts was under investigation when i began going through my campus' traumatizing judicial process to have a modicum of information for the humiliation i would endure at the hands of administrators entrusted to protect me. they didn't protect me. i was thrilled to see ocr under the leadership of katherine

lhamon released a list of schools currently under investigation. please compel ocr to continuously and publically release the name of schools under investigation so that my experience can soon become an outlier and not stay the norm. my partner didn't use physical force at first. indeed, he didn't use physical force until the last day of our relationship, but in the months and weeks leading up to that fearful moment, he utilized scl psychological abuse. a controlled move here, outburst here, insult there, putdown here. most of it starts like this with emotional and psychological abuse. these are by no means little. their effects are as deleterious as any bruise or broken bone. 99% of survivors of domestic survivors experience economic abuse. the department of education and its rule makers agreed we did not have the authority to expand the definitions of dating and domestic violence to include emotional, psychological and

economic abuse without the statute stating as much. please state as much. policies inform expectations and culture. the expectations should not be to wait until you have a hospitalization under your belt to report your abuser and receive justice. my self identity as a rape survivor is not contingent on the state or territory where i currently live, neither should my ability to receive justice. it is time for considered to standardize the definitions of sexual assault and rape so they apply equally to male survivors and survivors in the greater queer community. estimate of lifetime sexual assault for gay or bisexual men is 30%. for women it is 43%. in addition about 1/3 of same-sex relationships involve domestic violence. about 1/2 of all trans people experience sexual violence in their lifetime. the queer community experience sexual violence at staggering rates. the local policies fail to address this. this not only perpetuates the

silens of queer survivors, but queer college students to fully access their civil right to education. please, make consistent and inclusive definitions so this ceases to be an issue. all students have a right to education and policies that discriminate or ignore certain marginalized identities fail to provide us that right. senators, thank you for including me in this opportunity to provide testimony. in summary, transparent, trauma sensitive and inclusive policies are a must for institutions of higher education and for the federal government. thank you. >> thank you, mr. kelly for being here and being so forthright in your testimony. appreciate it very much. miss stapleton, please proceed. >> good morning. thank you, chairman harkin, ranking chairman alexander and committee members. my name is jane stapleton from the university of new hampshire. i am the co-director of prechgs innovations research and

practices for ending violence against women. it is an honor to be asked to testify before the help committee on an issue that's been an important part of both my personal and professional lives for the past 30 years. prevention innovation is made up of practitioners who work together to create, evaluate, disseminate evidence-based prevention. we are invested in building practitioners' capacities to respond to survivors, measure climate and incidents, prevent violence and comply with recent federal laws and mandates. we believe that to truly end sexual and relationship violence on campus, we must understand what works in prevention and response. evaluate effectiveness, document climate incidents and readiness to change, and implement evidence base best practices. during my career, i've had the

opportunity to witness a dramatic shift in prevention approaches. in the early days, we attempted to end the problem of sexual assault on campus by educating people about the facts and risk reduction. talking to women on how they can stay safe and asking men, please don't rape. bistandard intervention is a different approach. women are not approached as victims or potential victims and men are not approached as perpetrators or potential perpetrators. we utilize a community approach to prevention where everyone has a role to play ending sexual violation and stalking. together, my colleagues and i have developed, evaluated and implemented bistandard intervention prevention strategies, where we teach college students, faculty staff and administrators to safely intervene before, during and after instances of sexual and

relationship violence and stalking. prevention innovations, evidence-based by standard intervention preferential strategies include bringing in the bystander, in-person prevention program, and know your power. a bystander intervention social marketing campaign. both have been proven to reduce participants rape acceptance, increased knowledge of the problems of sexual and relationship violence and stalking, and bystander behaviors, invees people's willingness to interveeng before, during and after. increase people's self reported bystander behaviors. our prevention strategies have been developed with considerable input with student, staff and faculty representing a diversity of backgrounds and have been adopted by colleges and universities across the country and adapted for the u.s. army. several members of prevention innovations have administered

unwanted sexual experience study every five years at the university of new hampshire since 1988. the campus-wide survey measures our male and female undergraduate students' experiences of unwanted sexual intercourse and sexual contact. in 2012, the survey incorporated questions related to relationship violence and stalking. and included participants from eight new england colleges and universities. additionally, my colleagues have developed and evaluated a community readiness to engage survey. for campuses to measure their community's readiness to change behaviors, social norms, policies and practices to prevent sexual relationship violence and stalking. we just launched the prevention consortium as they work to meet legislative requirements to reduce campus sexual and relationship violence. finally, prevention innovations

has been asked by the white house task force to protect students from sexual assault on campus to conduct a study on sexual assault policy education for first-year students. i'm delighted to see the extent to which the u.s. department of education through title nine in the clery act have prioritized campus safety. not only related to sexual assault but dating and domestic violence and stalking. when we discussed these important reforms, it is important for us to remember the multiple forms of violence, not just focus on sexual assault. as well as acknowledge a diversity of survivors. the recent mandates for campuses to ensure swift and effective responses to reports of sexual and relationship violence and stalking, sensitive and confidential support services for survivors and prevention education are essential to stopping these preventible offenses. all with the recent federal

mandates hold colleges and universities accountable for ensuring safety and accountability on campus. for some campuses, these build upon work, service and policies that they've already begun to develop and implement. for many campuses, however, these mandates provide an opportunity to begin this work in formal ways for the first time. in thinking about how federal law needs to be reformed and strengthened to better address these issues, i suggest that federal regulations provide guidance and requirements for colleges and universities to build comprehensive prevention strategies and responses that focus on a continuum of violence that include date e and domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. conduct communitiwide prevention that engages all members of the campus community, including undergraduate and graduate students, staff, be faculty, administrators, parents, community members, businesses and alumni.

conduct regular climate studies that measure the extent and nature of the problems of sexual and relationship violence and stalking. climate study results should be made public both in academic journals and campus websites. they must and they can utilize uniform questions. utilize prevention strategies that are scientifically evaluated, an evidence-based research informed. too many none research based quick solutions are popping up everywhere. for-profit companies with no subject experts are seizing the opportunity to make money off recent federal mandates. a number of these solutions to recent mandates are not research informed or evidence based. this is problematic. we must assess campus readiness to change. we must create confident support

services. campuses need to identify and advertise on campus confidential support and partner with community-based crisis centers to provide support for survivors and evidence-based research inform prevention. most importantly, everything and everyone needs to keep survivors in the center of all prevention response and compliance strategies. i would echo the discussion on the need for the department of education to identify a grants program focused on dating and domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. thank you very everyone for inviting me here. i'm happy to answer your questions. >> we'll try to do a quick round. i have one question because we have votes starting 11:45. we've got about 15 more minutes. let me just ask you, miss stapleton, do we have any information, data on college

orientation? do colleges have sessions on sexual assault, other forms of violence you point out which is not just sexual assault, other forms of violence? it could be stalking, it could be intimidation mr. kelly spoke about in terms of that type of intimidation of students? >> we don't have any data. the amendments to cleary do outline as mr. moore did talk about preliminariry prevention programs for dating and domestic violence programs and stalking. we have no data. that's what we've been asked to do a study for the white house as a task form on. >> when will that be done by? >> campuswide study we are conducting in september and we will report to the white house in january.

>> miss renda, you are also a survivor of assault. i read your testimony last night and it seems to me we have a little bit of a difference here with miss lh afrlhaon. you are advocating we have different levels of sanctions and -- yeah, maintain a range of sanctions so as not to deter survivors from reporting a respective resolutions survivors seek. that gets into what senator whitehouse and i were talking about. do all these rise to the level of felonies? maybe the survivor doesn't want to push it that far. i'm confused myself. i agree you don't want to permit a perpetrator guilty of a felony

and who may be a serial perpetrator from escape iing th provisions of law pertaining to felony assault. you are saying there ought to be other approaches also. can you help me think this through? >> i think a clear point of distinction is maintaining a range of sanctions is being able to offer survivors on the front end a range of different outcomes and to be able to say we can use this to mandate you get counseling. that is not to say once the disciplinary proceeding begins the survivor maintains the same goals or wishes. a lot of times the recovery process causes you to change your intentions over time. many victims feel self-blame that prevents them wanting to report in a punitive way. that changes the more that involvement on a school's part becomes available. that range of sanctions is a comfort in some ways. also allows the school to act. once a school has initiated its formal disciplinary proceeding,

it is entirely possible to determine a hostile environment exists regardless of exactly what the survivor wants and would be able to work with that person to say, i know you didn't want to see this person expelled, but we believe they pose a threat to other students so we have to take that action. it's a way of cooperating with survivors on their needs and with and throughout that process. that still allows the school to evaluate a hostile environment and make choices best for the safety of a campus at whole. it's a risk that prevents that whole process from taking place. >> mr. kelly, again, and perhaps ms. renda also, the office and

sanctions of the office of civil rights what they can levy against institutions out of compliance, inform me about how you might see this rather than just this big nuclear option to threaten to take away your funds or go to the police to have this person prosecuted as a criminal, are there other things that we need to be looking at here in approaches on this? especially as it pertains to the gay and lesbian community? >> thank you for your question, senator harkin. i think in the testimony i provided, i think what makes the most sense is to provide the office of civil rights with numerous avenues for compliance and for the punishment of noncompliance. if the school is found out of compliance, right now the only option is either the full removal of federal funding or no fines.

there needs to be some middle ground here. what's been happening recently is students have been using the clery act more and more because they levy some fines. the clery act fines are not tied to a campus' endowment or yeary earnings. it's one standard set fine that is pretty low and doesn't have any effect on schools with hundreds of millions of dollars in their endowment. what makes the most sense is to have fines tied to a school's yearly operating budget or schools funds in some way. that way you see fines that are not unduly affecting the small campuses jim moore was talking about earlier. the small for-profit schools that have 12 students. also if you have school like university of michigan or university of tennessee, something like that where you have hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more, at their disposal. you have a fine that does have

some effect. i think that's really important. >> miss renda, do you agree with that? >> i absolutely agree. the key issue is that idea of budgetary reallocation that can be flexible, can cooperate with the current resolution agreements, may say provide by standard education. they could mandate they provide $5,000 a year to fund those programs for a certain number of years as part of that agreement. that would really push compliance in a way that it's voluntary and in good faith now but would have a lot more teeth to it if if it was forced. >> what do you think of that, ms. stapleton? >> i would like to see the discussion focused on prevention, as well. >> okay. i got that. >> if we are really truly looking to stop the problems, of course we want to have responses to survivors and ajudication.

>> they need structures in place that informs student what violence is, campus violence, sexual violence, stalking, intimidation is. >> absolutely. i think an important piece of the clery statistics, the clery statistics get reported to formal structures. >> say that again? >> the clery statistics are reports that come through the university through formal structure. in many campus it's the campus police or dean of students office. what we found in our climate studies, unwanted sexual experience study that we do, is that actually a very small percentage of students who report their sexual assault experiences actually report to those formal structures. students are most likely to report to a friend or their roommate. so that's why i think bystander intervention is so important.

also it's so important to release the findings of those climate studies so that when a perspective student and their family look at the clery statistics and say this is really low, it's not necessaril of what's happening on the campus. a climate study would give them much more comprehensive view of what's happening on that campus. >> thank you. senator baldwin. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to start by thanking this panel for your testimony, particularly those of you survivors who have taken something horrible and turned it into very positive advocacy and support for others. i want to continue to highlight one aspect of the issue of campus sexual assault, the one that mr. kelly spoke to in his testimony, namely how it may uniquely impact lesbian, gay,

bisexual and queer people. sexual violence has not always been taken seriously by law enforcement and social stigma and discrimination still mean many in the lgbt community are reluctant to report they are victims of crime. furthermore while title 9 prohibits all forms of discrimination based on stereotypes and the cleary act requires reporting of campus hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity there are no fed -- there's no fed law that specifically addresses discrimination education based on sexual orientation and gender identity. as you heard earlier today, with senator murray's questioning, that she and i and other colleagues have introduced legislation called the higher

education anti-harassment act which requires colleges and universities to address harassment including cyber bullying. this legislation would add to the important protections that we're already discussing today and that are already on the books and ensure that colleges and universities take steps to avoid and to address harassment in all of its forms. i would like to hear from the panel, but mr. kelly, i would love to start with you and i know you outlined some very specific things in your written testimony but are there other ways of which the congress and the administration can better ensure that our response to campus sexual assault and other forms of campus violence is truly inclusive of the lgbt community. >> thank you so much for your questions, senator baldwin, and thank you for your work. the legislation that you were speaking about. i think it's so incredibly important. i think that when we're talking

about the harassment that queer students have occur to them, in the similar way that we talk about sex trimation under tilt 9 including sexual harassment and sexual violence we can be talking about sexual discrimination that queer students face. hate crimes still happen on campus. and the unfortunate reality is sexual violence within the queer community is rampant. making sure that policies cater specifically to those who have been most often hurt by it is the best place to start. you know, i know there's a lot of talk about the place of the criminal justice system here. i tried to go to the criminal justice system but i have an unwinnable case because i'm a male so i could never prosecute against my assailant. we need to talk about how better to have state legislation, how better to have, you know, local legislation. that expands definition of

sexual violence to include, you know, male survivors and survivors of same sex sexual assaults. some of the states that senators on the help committee are from even have long been discriminatory on the books. i was doing a quick search. you see male pronouns when we talk about assailants and female pronouns when we talk about survivors. things like that need be eradicated from the law top down. i appreciate all the work that you've done on this topic and, you know, it's one we have to keep talking about and keep legislating. thank you. >> i would reiterate that point about language. something as simple as it's called the violence against women act or the office of violence against women and it paint a very clear picture of who violence happens to and who perpetrates violence and leaves those people out. something to be mindful of as well we're requiring colleges now to consider doing climate

surveys and you might speak better to this than i those are made sure to have language that's inclusive that measures incidents across groups and don't presume opposite sex partners or opposite sex assailants. >> i would agree with my two panelists and say that i know that we work very hard to build prevention strategies that are very inclusive as well and again we need evidence to know what works. >> thank you. the vote has started. i have just one pointed thing i want to bring up and get your thoughts on. the department publish ad proposed rule to the violence against women act to the cleary act. one of the provisions gaining a great deal of attention is the new provision clarifying both parties may have others present during an institutional disciplinary proceeding,

including an adviser of their choice. now on the one handsome argue this erodes an institution's ability to control its own proceedings, that it chips away at the institution as ability to marshal its students and community members to police their own. others indicate this offers both parties the right to have someone accompany them and offer advice to what could amount to a traumatic proceeding on either side. okay. what are your thoughts on that? >> i would say, i think both points are very salient in terms of it's important and especially for a survivor to have someone present during that hearing as someone just to sit next to you or consult with you recess or make sure you're managing your expectations. accused students also deserve that right. the risk i believe comes with lawyers, and advisory counsel and inequity could occur if one student can afford a lawyer and

one cannot and the types of advice that would be given that would be privileged in one sense to one side of the investigation, but then not available because the other student can't afford it. that's where that advisory role presents a very serious problem. >> very good point. one student might have the financial resources to have all kinds of lawyer, legal and the other person may not. mr. kelly any thoughts on that too? >> what i think is important to note it doesn't limit who the adviser can be but gives the school leeway what the adviser can do. the school has the ability to limit the adviser to only be present in the room and not speak. i think that's important because oftentimes schools especially smaller schools don't have victim resources. i'm talking about rape crisis counselors, domestic violence advocates whereas a outside crisis counselling center would have those resources. so to be able to limit who the

ad voiviser could be could be problematic because you can leave survivors with no one who has training how best to support a survivor in a difficult time. i do understand the difficulty with having attorneys present and things like that but, again, if you're limiting what is able to be said in these meetings by advisers, limiting the role of the adviser, as long as you have the ability to have somebody present is what's important. >> miss stapleton. >> i think it's essential to allow survivors to have outside support people because i think sometimes and i've seen it happen, colleges and universities do not provide survivors with the most informed and supportive people so i would advocate heavily to have survivors have outside people and i agree with john on schools can limit what those advisers do. >> again, i just raise this that

center whitehouse said this. and i raise the issue of ombudsman somebody that's not in the school hierarchy. >> especially if that person can have confidential communications through a health center or advocate provision is the way to go. >> but they may not be trained legally to know the legal nuances. >> victim advocates are. >> i was about to say so most district attorneys office have victim witness advocates who operate basically to provide victims of crimes of a variety of crimes with all the resources at their disposal and accompany them through the legal process to have victim witness advocate liaison to a specific campus i think would be a good solution to that problem. >> i got two minutes left they tell me to get over there. first i want to thank all our

witnesses. i particularly want to thank the survivors who are with us today and for your personal courage in coming forward and speaking with us. i must say that when i hear you, i put a lot of weight on what you are suggesting rather than perhaps others. i give a lot of weight to that. and that goes to that issue of having sliding scales and things like that that i seem to have a disagreement with the department on. so i just want to thank you for that. especially miss stapleton thank you for all the wonderful research you have done. perhaps you're right i'm the father of prevention and health and everything else and we are to do a better job of having structures in our schools that inform students, set up preventative type measures. yes. that's the first. >> thank you for all your work. >> we got to do that. again we have to do something also to respond to the assault

victims that are there and we know it's under reported. >> absolutely. >> secondly, i want to say, i just found out that the academy, military academies don't have to report under the leary act. that needs to be fixed too. i thank all of you. i thank my colleagues. i especially want to thank senator alexander for his partnership on this hearing. he had to go vote. i know he had a plane to catch. but i want to thank the committee's efforts to examine this very, very critical issue. it will be a part of our higher education act re-authorization. exactly how it's going to do well that's why we're having this hearing to inform us as to what to do. i request the record remain open until july 10th for members to submit questions and additional information for the record. this committee is adjourned. thank you very much. >> thank you.

>> the supreme court released two more today. two in particular. national labor relations board

versus noel kenny justices unanimously ruled president obama's recess appointments to the nation labor relations board are not valid. this decision narrows the president's recess powers. the court agreed the president can't make recess. appointments during the senate's proforma recess. mccullen versus cockily the supreme court ruled a massachusetts law that creates buffer zones around abortion clinics violates the first amendment. the ruling makes clear states can pass laws to ensure access to clinics but can't prohibit speech on public streets and sidewalks. chief justice roberts wrote that decision for the court. president obama is traveling today in minneapolis hosting a town hall meeting. we'll have live coverage for that starting for you guys at 3:10 eastern here on c-span 3. earlier this week the u.s. supreme court ruled that

internet streaming company aereo is violating copyright laws. on this week's communicators program we had a chance to ask the head of the national association of broadcasters about that ruling. >> what's your reaction? >> i'm smiling, peter. i'm gratified that the supreme court stood by a principle which is as old as the constitution, which is that copyright material has a value and those who own a copy right should be free to negotiate for its value. and i think they came down on the right side of the law and history. >> injustice breyer's opinion he compared aereo quite a bit to a cable company. is that a fair comparison in your view? >> of course it is because you

had broadcast tv and then satellite. what if satellite said we're different than cable. so we'll take that and not consider ourselves to be what is in law called an mbdv. satellite didn't do that. so why should aereo do that come up with a different technology and say we don't have to negotiate for copyrighted material. we've said from the beginning this isn't about being opposed to technology. there's still technology there in aereo and maybe there's a business model for it but that doesn't mean you evade the law to run a business. >> what's the business model that you could foresee? >> they could do what cable and satellite does. they could deal with us on copyrighted material and so it's a technology that may have a place in the market, but they now have to obey the rules of

the road that everyone else out there on the highway has to obey. >> so you could see the nab or broadcasters dealing with aereo like they do with cable companies, transmission cost, et cetera. >> these are business decisions. my job as the nab president is advocate for laws and policies to allow my members to stay in the business. aereo was a direct threat to that. and i would imagine that this does not go away and that there will be discussions with aereo and broadcasters but that's beyond my responsibility. >> joining our conversation is monty talo. >> aereo, it's suggest does it suggest broadcasters should be doing something differently to take those customers?

>> i mean this is the thing about broadcasting. they were doing what we were doing with antenna, but they were charging people for stuff going free over the air waves and that's what triggered copyright law. i mean, my own sense is we're interested in every viewer having access to our content as long as it's done lawfully. >> it's been suggested to me by a few people aereo could respond to this by going to congress and lobbying. i know the house judiciary chair said the decision highlights how they should look at the copyright laws again. how would nab react to that? do you have a plan for a congressional battle over these rules? >> absolutely. look, i'm not suggesting that copyright laws shouldn't be visited, but copyright law, from my experience as a u.s. senator is extremely difficult to do because it's essentially about picking winners and losers.

and it's hard for congress to make those judgments. but, that said, i believe we will be very cooperative and highly engaged in the development of an updated copyright law and already are. >> senator smith, i want to read from justice scalia dissent. on remand justice scalia writes one of the first questions the lower courts will face is whether aereo's record function which allows subscribers to save a program while it's airing and watch it later infringes on the network's right. >> that's something for the courts to decide. it will be remanded. what was upheld today was the fundamental constitutional principle that you can't take someone else's copyrighted intellectual property and resell it without dealing with the owner of that copyright.

so, you know, however future cases develop, that principle was divisively established and settled by the supreme court today. what i have right here is a partially processed plant that i have cut down into sections that are the right length for hanging and i take off all the big fan leaves and those are sent to the kitchens to make edibles. they have a small amount of thc. these little leaves here are the tight trim and dried and made into joint or be sent to the places that make extractions and made into hash and that sort of thing. then right here, we have finished bud and this is sent over to cure and hang to dry and then cured in buckets for a couple of weeks before they sell it in the dispensary. >> washington journal looks at the legal sale of marijuana in colorado with guests from denver and your phone calls live friday

morning 7:00 to 10:00 eastern on c-span. the ceos of at&t and directv testified on capitol hill tuesday on a proposed merger. members of the house subcommittee examined the potential impact of the merger on competition and consumers. they also heard from two other witnesses from the american cable association and public knowledge about their concerns about the potential merger. the house judiciary subcommittee on regulatory reform commercial antitrust law hosts this two hour event. the hearing will come to order. with that objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. i recognize myself from all of the next statement. we are here today to examine the proposed merger of at&t and direct tv.

as i reminded everyone that today's procedure will not determine whether it will approved but this hearing provides an open forum to discuss the potential implications of this merger and allows public representatives an opportunity to pose questions to the leaders of the respective companies and hear a variety of view points on the proposed transaction. the record created by today's hearing will assist the committee in it's ongoing oversight on the antitrust enforcement agencies and our nation's antitrust law. the proposed merger comes at a time when the telecommunications industry is undergoing a rapid transformation in a relatively short period. the proposed merger between

comcast and time warner has already been announced and there are reports of other potential mergers and acquisitions. the business of telecommunications increasingly requires significant investment to construct and update essential infrastructure and to provide innovative products and services to consumers. merge companies may be able to achieve economies of scale and have better access -- ability to access the large amounts of capital needed to build out systems. however, consolidation in the industry also raises issues of market power and the possibility for a firm's abuse of dominant competitive uses. for the most part, the company before us today engage in very different businesses. at&t is primarily a provider of voice and internet services.

directv is almost exclusively a video service provider. at&t recently has begun offering a video service referred to as u-verse which is a competitor to directv in certain parts of the country. in addition to its video services, directv owns and manages a few regional sports networks in the pittsburgh, denver and seattle areas. today's meeting will examine the impact of their ability to plow provide video and internet services to consumers following the proposed merger. and the potential for vertical integration issues related to directv's ownership of certain sports networks. at&t and direct have submitted a public interest statement to the federal communications commission arguing that this merger will allow the combined company to offer a bundle product that would enhance consumer choice by increasing competition in the market.

in addition they contend that the cost savings resulting from the merger would allow additional resources to be deployed to expanding broad band access, particularly in rural communities. we have the chairman of both at&t an directv with us today to answer any questions arising from the public interest filing. with that i look forward to the testimony of our panel of esteemed panel on this and the proposed merger. i now turn to ranking member mr. johnson for his opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. today's hearing concerns the proposed merger of at&t, a global telecommunications key with approximately 11 million broadband subscribers, 5.6 million video subscribers and 246,700 employees with

directv, the nation's second largest video provider serving approximately 50 million customers. the core question at the heart of this merger is whether creating an integrated bundle of at&t's broadband services and infrastructure with directv's popular video programming would serve the public interest without substantially lessening competitio competition. according to a survey conducted by "consumer reports" last year, consumers are overwhelmingly a one stop shopper and prefer to bundle phone, internet and broadband internet into one package. not only does bundling services save consumers money at a time of increasing cable costs, but it also avoids the problems associated with multiple installation visits, service calls and phone calls to resolve disputes.

as a new entrant into the video marketplace with only 5.6 million subscribers there's little to suggest that at&t offers serious direct competition with directv's video services. instead the bulk of the evidence demonstrates that each company primarily serves different markets with different services. although the proposed merger represents a concerning trend towards industry consolidation, there is example evident that this transaction would create considerable public interests benefits. at&t argues that the improved bundle and cost savings generated by the merger will fundamentally and permanently improve the economics of at&t's investment in broadband. end quote. specifically at&t plans to

deploy its fiber network to 2 million homes with speeds up to one gigabyte per second and deploy high-speed broadband internet over a fixed wireless local loop to 13 million homes in largely rural areas with average speeds between 15 and 20 migabytes per second. for millions of homes, this internet service will be the fastest ever-improving high speed access for millions while indirectly benefitting other competitors by bringing these homes online. as a strong advocate of digital inclusion, i commend this commitment to close the digital divide by bringing us to the universal adoption of affordable high speed internet. it is critical people of color remain competitive in the

internet economy which starts with a fast and affordable internet connection. additionally this merger would benefit by expanding at&t's industry leading standards for labor and corporate diversity to directv's employees and suppliers. given the television industry's reputation for opposing organized labor this merger would have transformational benefit for thousands of employees in this industry giving labor a strong foot hold in the industry. i urge the federal communication's commission and the department of justice to view this merger in light of these public benefits and to strongly hold the merged company to these commitments. lastly, several cities for its ultrafast fiber network, i call

on at&t to deploy this advanced service in atlanta, georgia, which encompasses much of the district that i represent. atlanta is swiftly becoming an innovation economy driven to create tanker and improve products and design. deploying an all fiber network in atlanta would benefit any start ups as well as untold entrepreneurs, app developers and other innovators still emerging. as a former county commissioner who understands the power of big ideas, i stand ready to work with at&t and local government to make this happen. i thank the chair for holding this important oversight hearing and i look forward to today's testimony. with that, i will yield back. >> thank you very much. thank you very much,.mr. johnson. at this time, i recognize the

chairman of the committee. >> thank you mr. chairman. robert bork famously said the only legitimate goal of antitrust is the maximumization of consumer welfare. depending on the enforcement, the telecommunication's industry may experience significant change over the next year as the committee and relative government agencies examine the potential issues associated with multiple proposed telecommunication merger we should be mindful that ensuring the best interest of the consumers is the ultimate goal. it has been demonstrated repeatedly that a free and competitive market price yields lower prices, greater innovation and increased investment and better services. we should strife to ensure proposed transactions result in

marketplaces. today's hearing allows a public forum to discuss the potential competitive impact of the proposed merger between at&t and directv. the leaders of both companies are before us today to explain how the proposed transaction will benefit consumers. we also have witnesses who will raise concerns about the merger. through a fair and objective inquiry by the committee, a record will be produced that will provide an important measure of transparency and thoughtfulness to the review of this proposed merger. i look forward to hearing the witnesses regarding their views on the proposed merger of at&t and directv. thank you, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> thank you. at this time i recognize the ranking member and former chairman of this committee, mr. conyers. >> top of the morning, mr.

chairman, our colleagues and our witnesses and our visitors that are here covering this potential transaction. now, last month in may, we had a hearing that covered time, warner and comcast. now this month we're looking at direct tv and at&t. may be even next month, depending on what happens in the intervening time, we may be looking at sprint and t-mobile. question, where does this end? i am looking at a transaction

that highlights the concern that there may be too much and too rapid a consolidation in telecommunications, especially when viewed in the light of a flurry of deals even if they are rumored. one rationale in favor of the merger is that it would create a stronger competitor to large cable companies, may in fact spur further consolidation in the telecommunications industry as part of what might be viewed as a race to the bottom. the merger proposed may result in reduced competition for paid television services in many of our nation's largest markets. the sheer size of a combined

at&t/directv entity could raise content prices for smaller video providers, potentially driving some of them maybe out of business. finally, there is a need to focus on whether behavioral remedies are in practice, effective. so while neither we nor the competition enforcement agencies should prejudge this deal, there are several concerns that i want the witnesses to address as well as the feelings that i've already expressed. that's the fact that we're concerned that there may be too

much and too rapid consolidation in the telecommunications industry. while i fully appreciate the goal of antitrust laws to protect competition and not competitors per se, this ongoing wave of consolidation will, without question, result in fewer firms and may harm soorms --sume -- consumers by limiting choice and also raising prices. after all, it's the very threat of losing business in the face of high prices or low quality products and services that drive competitive business practices. now, one rationale in favor of the merger is that it would create a stronger competitor to large cable companies.

now, that may, in fact, spur further consolidation in the telecommunications industry. i don't doubt that merged entities that are under consideration could be large enough to effectively compete against large cable companies, but what's to stop competitors from using the same argument to justify even further consolidation? so i will be looking and listening to make sure that we're not moving in the wrong direction. i wanted to put my feelings out in front of you so that any of you could feel free to give me any consolation that you want

about the concerns that i have. i will put the rest of my statement in the record and thank the chairman. >> thank you, mr. conyers. at this time, i'd like to introduce our witnesses. we have a very esteemed and qualified panel of witnesses. let me start by introducing mr. mike white. he is president, chairman and ceo. that pretty much covers everything of directv. one of the world's leading providers of digital television entertainment services with more than 20 million customers in the united states and more than 15 million customers in latin america. i'm not sure that we realize that there are that many customers also in latin america. mr. white joined directv in january 2010 and also serves as the chairman of the company's

board of directors. in addition, he also serves on whirlpool's board of directors. before joining, he was the ceo and vice chairman of pepsico international from 2003 to 2009. prior to that role he served as president and ceo of frito lay euro and african and middle east division. that was part of pepsi at the time. did they spin it out at some time, they did he? je also served as the ceo of general mills international. before joining pepsico mr. white was senior management and consultant for avon products. and also worked for arthur anderson and company.

mr. white holds a masters degree in international relations from johns hopkins university and a bachelor's degree from boston college. we also have mr. leeberman as a graduate of johns hopkins. mr. white is a ford foundation fellow from st. petersburg, russia. i say on a personal nature, many of my constituents are very loyal customers of direct. our next witness is -- we're glad to have you -- mr. stephens and mr. randall stephenson is chairman, ceo, and president of at&t. mr. stephenson, let me say this. at&t is one of the world's largest telecommunications companies are merely $129 billion in revenues last year. i note that over the past six

years, at&t hais invested more capitol into the united states economy than any other public company and more than $140 billion invested in wireless and spectrum wireless operations combined. that's a the record be proud of and i commend you on that. prior to becoming ceo he served as at&t's senior vice president and chief financial officer from 2001 to 2004. as the company's chief financial officer from 2004 to 2007, mr. stephenson was appointed to at&t's board of directors in 2005. he began his long career in telecommunications in 1982 with southwestern bell telephone in oklahoma. in addition to his leadership at at&t, he is chairman of the business round table. he is also a member of the board

of directors at emerson electric of directors, a member of pga tour, he received his bs in accounting from the university of oklahoma. and master from the university of oklahoma. we welcome you. i think from that record you're obviously plugged into rural consumers, too with your background there in oklahoma. mr. john bergmire. we welcome you. bergmire, is that right? he specializes in telecommunications, internet and intellectual property issues. he advocates for public interests before courts and policymakers and works to make sure all stakeholders including ordinary citizens, artists and innovators have a say in shaping emerging digital policies. he received his b.a. in english

literature from colorado state university and his j.d. from university of colorado law school and was elected to the order of cof. you tell, i wasn't in the order of cof. so our final witness is mr. ross leiberman. he is the senior vice president of governmental affairs at the american cable association which represents 850 independent cable and broadband and phone operators serving small markets it and rural areas. he manages the formation and implementation of the group's initiatives on capitol hill and federal agencies including the fcc. prior to joining them he handled government relations for echo

star communications corporation where he oversaw their filings with the fcc for the 2004 satellite home viewer extension and re-authorization act. he received his b.a. in political science from johns hopkins university. and his j.d. from american university, washington college of law. we welcome you. each of the witness's written statements will be entered into the record in their entirety. at this time we will ask each of the witnesses to summarize his testimony in five minutes or less. so with that now we proceed to hear from our witnesses. mr. white. you go first. we will go from my left to right. >> good morning.

thank you, chairman bachus, ranking member johnson and members of the subcommittee. my name is mike white. i'm ceo of directv. thank you for inviting me to testify on at&t's proposed acquisition of directv. for any business to succeed in the long term it must satisfy his customers needs better than the competition day in and day out. this transaction will help directv and at&t to do exactly that. by combining complementary assets and products, we'll be able to offer new services to customers at a better value. we will help consumers watch the video when they want and on the devices of their choice and we'll be well positioned to compete well into the future. i would like to briefly describe directv's perspective on the transaction. historically directv is a remarkable american success story. we've competed aggressively by

delivering more high-definition channels, clearer picture, more advanced equipment and better customer service than cable. congress has had a lot to do with our success, making sure in the early years that we could acquire the program our subscribers demanded. in recent years, however, broadband is changing everything. if we want to continue to compete effectively in today's internet driven economy, we must adapt. we must provide an integrated bundle of services because consumers are demanding better bundles of video and broadband and broadband is the more important element of the two for many. second as we think about the future we must serve those customers who want over the top video offerings. young subscribers in particular want services like youtube, netflix and hulu and we need a broadband platform if we are to need their need.

third, as technology changes we must continue to optimize our own video service. cable's two way infrastructure let's it offer features like remote dvrs, video programming stored in the cloud and soon cable will offer cloud base features. cable operators are leveraging the cloud to improve their service more quickly and easily. we too, will need to do all of that if we want to keep up and continue to compete successfully. fourth, and finally we'll have to continue to effectively manage content cost increases. now rising content cost challenge all video providers. yet bundled competitors can handle it somewhat better because they earn revenue from multiple sources. historically directv has attempted to remain competitive by offering what we call synthetic bundled which the video and broadband are provided by second companies but marketed together.

synthetic bundles make for a bad customer experience. i hear it from customers all the time, customers have to talk to two sales representatives, wait for two different installers to arrive on two different appointment, pay two separate bills and make a call every time they have a problem. synthetics bundles tend to be more expensive as they tend to be more expensive for consumers. this transaction will help us meet all of those challenges head on. it combines directv's premier video assets with at&t's wireless assets. it means better bundles and more internet in rural areas, better video, and lower content cost because the additional value we can offer programmers and it means better broadband to more locations in new rural areas and more innovation particularly combining our expertise in video

with at&t's expertise and capabilities in wireless. if you put it all together you get a transaction that helps us serve our customers and sustains our long term competitiveness. a transaction that opens up a new world for subscribers. thank you for allowing me to speak today. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. mr. stephenson. i welcome you. >> thank you and ranking members of the committee. i'm randall stephenson ceo of at&t. i appreciate the opportunity to visit with you about what we think are the significant consumer and strategic benefits of this transaction. this transaction is unlike most mergers because it primarily combines companies with complementary products and capabilities. directv's premier paid tv

service and at&t's broadband service. the rationale about us coming together is simple, it's about meeting consumer demand. customers are looking for bundles that combine tv and broadband service. that's something that they can get from the cable providers today. as mike said, directv has the premier paid tv service in the u.s. but it does not have a broadband product. to effectively compete against cable, at&t markets bundle of services. even though our video service is not profitable. in fact fewer than 140,000 of our tv customers, less than 2% purchase tv on a stand alone basis. we don't actively market stand alone tv service because we don't make money on it. today 60 cents of every video dollar we earn go straight to the programmers. in addition we can only offer

video in a small portion of the country, less than a quarter of u.s. households and we don't even cover all of our broadband footprint with video because of economic limitations. as a result, there is no significant competitive overlap between at&t and directv which is what consumers are commanding which is a competitive broadband bundle. being able to offer direct tv nation wide is a game changer. it will allow us to expand and to enhance broadband service to at least 15 million locations across 48 different states. those are mostly in underserved rural areas. this is in addition to the broadband expansion plans that we have already announced and directlile results from the synergies created by the transaction. this new broadband commitment includes 13 million locations,

85% of which are outside our traditional wireline footprint. we think this is big news for rural america. we estimate that nearly 20% of these consumers today have no access to broadband service and that 27% are hostage to only one provider. to many of these at&t service will be the fastest available for some it will be their first chance for truly high speed broadband. the transaction also allows us to expand our one gigabyte service to 2 million additional locations. is we can serve 70 million location with broadband. this transaction will allow us to price more competitively and provide consumers a higher quality service which results in cable companies pricing more competitively and that includes all of their products and services.

we'll be able to accelerate our over the top video services offered by at&t as those offered by netflix and amazon and hulu. we can deliver them to any phone, tablet or car or airplanes. we operate in a competitive environment that's becoming more competitive. the cable companies already dominate broadband and video today and google fiber, netflix and ever faster wireless services are really transforming competition daily. this transaction gives at&t the capabilities to be a more effective competitor to cable and i want to assure you and i want to assure our customers that we'll do all these things while meeting or exceeding the fcc's net neutrality standards and exceeding our best in class diversity and labor practices to the employees and suppliers of

the combined company. thank you for the opportunity. i look forward to your questions as well. >> i thank you. mr. bergmire. >> good morning. thank you for the opportunity to participate in today's hearing. today i'll describe how at&t's proposed merger with direct tv could harm the public. it may substantially reduce competition in any market. second the fcc cannot allow this merger to proceed unless at&t can show it would benefit the public. based on the record so far at&t has not met its burden. additionally policymakers should be aware of other dangers. as a result of this merger at&t may leave rural americans behind by providing them a wireless product that's not of the same quality. at&t may plan to use the acquisition of directv to jump start an online video service. at&t unfortunate offer any service in a nondiscriminatory

way. this would reduce competition. at&t and directv compete head-to-head in more than 60 local tv markets. if at&t purchases direct tv, tv viewers in these markets will lose a competitive choice. in many of these markets the level of market concentration would exceed the department of justice's guidelines. that means higher prices and worse service for millions of viewers. at&t's proposal to fix this doesn't do enough. it only promises to keep directv prices in markets where they have u-verse tv for three years. this does not address the structural problems at&t would cause if it removes a competitor from the market place. at&t's public isn't it less than meets the eye. in the first place at&t has a spotty record with regard to past merger commitments. for example, at&t now claims that there are residents that

have no broadband. is it a good policy to allow at&t to make the same kind of promise this time. at&t has a history of using already planned build out as a merger promise. at&t promised a certain level of l.e.d. coverage if it was allowed to buy t-mobile. after that merger was blocked their plans did not change. when you strip away previously announced plans even at&t's best case for this merger is less than it appears. at&t is simply stating it will upgrade portions of its network. that's not much. adding a new kind of home wireless service is not as significant investment as an initial wireless build out. there are further public interest harms. or universal service laws state consumers in all regions of the nation including in the house rural areas should have access to temperaturation services that are reasonable comparable to those services provided in urban

areas. at&t has not shown its wireless home product is comparable. for example it's u-verse fiber product. policymakers should be concerned about this shift away from universal service. finally, at&t plans to create a new online video service. at&t should be free to enter this market but it cannot take advantage of its position as an internet service provider to favor its own services at the expense of competition. at&t has agreed to comply with the 2010 order. thank you. my testimony contains more detailed analysis of these points and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. mr. lieberman. >> thank you. unprecedented wave of consolidation is occurring within the video programming and distribution industries that will transform the competitive market and consumer experience. this is cause for concern.

congress and regulators, therefore, must not only review the pending deals, it must also examine and act to address the underlying market problems fueling them. focusing on at&t's deal, it's important to realize directv is not only a nationwide provider of paid tv service it's also a programmer with interests in three regional sports networks and national programming. this gives directv an economic incentive and ability to charge its rivals higher fees for its programming, especially its regional sports networks. smaller cable operators are concerned that this deal will lead directv's programmers to hold out for even higher rates. with 26 million subscribers, at&t and directv combined will command better programming deals than directv would alone. this means higher video profits

for both directv and u-verse services. regulators have accepted that as the per video subscriber profits of a vertically integrated paid tv rise so does its interest in boosting its rival's cost for programming. accordingly paid tv providers will feel the pinch when negotiate i want aing for directv's programming and their customers will pay. regulators should not approve the merger without addressing this matter. while directv remains subject to program access rules as an fcc condition from a prior deal, it is no longer subject to an arbitration condition. however, re-adopting this arbitration condition is not enough. it has design flaws that left smaller cable providers under protected to shield these providers fully these defects must be eliminated. congress must look at the bigger picture by reviewing existing

rules to ensure industry wide problems particularly those driving consolidation are addressed. this will ensure consumers continue to benefit from a competitive paid competitive pt that includes smaller operators. aca members have long raised alarms about large broadcasters and programmers increasing rates and charge demands and their discriminatory pricing practices. the programming costs for a smaller provider is significantly higher than for a larger provider. the spread, said to average around 30%, puts my members at a substantial disadvantage to big competitors. at&t's desire to acquire at&t does not surprise smaller cable operators. even though at&t's subscriber base nearly exceeds that of all other cable operators combined,

its motives for buying directv point to it facing similar market problems, like aca's members, at&t also understandsist competitive standing is likely to worsen in the comcast time-warner cable and comcast charter deals are approved. while at&t can lower its programming cost and better compete by purchasing directv, smaller cable operators cannot because they lack at&t's financial resources. unable to spend their way out of trouble, these video providers will struggle to remain viable. some critics of at&t's deal raise concerns about the number of providers decreasing from four to three in u-verse territories. in rural areas where three providers exist, program costs have caused some small cable

operators to close systems leaving consumers with only two satellite tv providers. although the slow lew steady decrease in competition in rural areas hasn't generated much concern from washington, it should, because it's harmful to rural america and often signals wider market problems. these trends are not irreversible. congress and regulators can take action to prevent my members and their customers from simply being unreasonably disadvantaged compared to larger competitors. in conclusion there are three areas where oversight and action would be meaningful. first, by examining and addressing programmers discriminatory pricing practices against smaller pay tv providers. second, by modernizing program access rules, by updating fcc definition of buying group. third, by updating fcc's outdated regulatory fee categories so all pay tv

providers, including directv and dish pay their fair share. thank you and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, mr. lieberman. at this time i recognize chairman of the committee for five minutes for the purposes of questioning the witnesses. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for your testimony. mr. stephenson, i noted you taking some notes during mr.berg meyer's testimony and maybe mr. lieberman's. i don't have a lot of time here but are there one or two points you want to take in response to criticism of the merger. >> it wasn't a criticism of a merger, he was citeing a blog where the gentleman wrote where the blogger stated we had not met conditions. that blog was patently inaccurate, the data was false. we fully complied with every single condition imposed in that

merger. in fact, what that merger required was that we provide 100% coverage of broadband. 85% with fixed line broadband services. what one has to remember is at that time -- >>-of- limited amount of time. i get your response to that point. let me go on to my main -- >> we've all been blogged before. we understand that. let me go onto my opening statement what happens to the consumer. let me talk about my consumers in my district in my hometown roanoke, virginia the bundle package you refer to right now is available for verizon customers with directv, so i and others can get that package that you refer to. what will happen to that package that i have or someone else might have when verizon and directv under this merger? >> my expectation is nothing

should change. >> what about at&t? do you offer those kinds of packages right now as well in other parts of the country? >> yes, we do. referred to those as synthetic bundles. >> why is it necessary to acquire at&t to have that bundle you're referring to that we already enjoy. >> if you're okay with it, i'd like mike to address that, doing this in the marketplace and has some very good data. >> congressman if we measure customer satisfaction out of everything we do, and when we measure the satisfaction of a bundle experience versus someone just buying directv sole okay, it is dramatically poorer and two calls on two different days, two different installations, two bills. >> how does verizon solve that problem? do they acquire dish? is that what we're talking about here? i'm not sure what i have

available with at&t and i know what's available with verizon and that does not solve the complaint you outlined with regard to verizon. although i'm not familiar with the complaints. we like the service we get. i'm not sure why one of the two companies should own directv and the other should continue to have the bundle experience as referred to. >> the only way for us to get a seamless integrated bundle, we've had discussions for years to try to find a way to have a better value tore customers. you've got two companies chasing margin as opposed to one integrated company that can spread the cost over that one install. for us every time we sign up a new customer we spend $850. we could reduce one call, one truck roll, build the router into the set top box. >> is that savings going to get onto the consumer. >> we expect -- we've had

economists study. the bundles would be a better value for consumers. absolutely. >> since my time is limited, let me ask you about another issue related to this. directv does not provide local harrisonberg, virginia, northern part of my district, abc, doesn't provide that local channel in page county, virginia despite being legally able to do so, they beam in from washington, d.c. many hours from my district. can you explain why directv has opted to not provide this valuable local content to my constituents and can you commit to resolving this situation so my constituents can receive local content rather than washington, d.c. content? >> nothing against the place we work. my folks back home they live in a different world back here and they want to watch that world on tv. >> we've been working on our

system many years. we serve 99.4% of american households with their local channels. we still have a few gaps and you've pointed out one of them. >> they are more. i've heard from other members of congress who have other gaps in other parts of the country. >> there are. we're continuing to build out as we get satellite capacity. we've got two more satellites going up in the next 12 months. charlottesville, virginia is on the list for later this year. the others would be on the list as well. in addition to that, there are orphan counties. we'd certainly be happy to work with you on coverage of orphan counties provided we don't pay transmission fees twice. comes back to the rules to abide by relative to broadcasters, assuming the spot from the satellite can reach rural areas. >> thank you. my team is expired, mr. chairman. >> at this time i recognize ranking member of the subcommittee. >> thank you, mr. chairman. as i noted in my opening

statement, this transaction presents substantial opportunities for transforming labor standards in the telecommunications industry. the communications workers of america noted in a letter that at&t has the largest fulltime union workforce of any company in america. i know everybody agree that that is something that is worthy but i think it's very worthwhile. with that i would ask unanimous consent to to make part of a record a letter from the communication workers of america in support of this merger. >> you're offering without objection. i'm sorry. >> thank you. mr. stephenson, many of your employees, including workers in

union positions in my district enjoy great benefits. how would at&t plan to extend this industry leading respect for the rights of employees to directv as a result of the proposed merger? >> as you mentioned, congressman, we have the largest full time union in the united states. we have a long history of working with our union members and doing collective bargaining. we have always been open to car check neutrality and allowed employees to make that choice whether they wanted to be part of collective bargaining or not. with directv you should say directv employees will be offered that same option, to collectively bargain or not. it will be their choice. >> thank you. mr. wade. >> i agree we certainly welcome the