wind and solar. and also wanting new nuclear power plants at a time we don't know how to get rid of the very substantial waste that we have right now. to answer my friend senator alexander, moimy hope is that over a period of time we will phase out nuclear electricity -- powered electricity in this country. >> thank you, madam chair. >> i do think that this will be part of the bigger and broader debate that we will be able to have when the measure reaches the floor. it's my hope we will be able to move the out of committee very shortly here. but the questions that are presented about the future of nuclear, the future of our energy systems, are what this process should be generating is full, good discussion on that. i will be opposing senator sanders' amendment in anticipation of the upcoming debate on the floor. as has been pointed out here, the measure that's in front of

us is the authorization of construction of pipeline infrastructure, the keystone xl, a project that in my view -- and i think the view of certainly all on this side and several others on the other side -- is important to our energy's infrastructure system and how we work to build that out. i don't think it's any breaking news here today, but i do believe that our climate is changing. i have said that. i don't agree that all the changes are necessarily due solely to human activity. i've come from a state where we can see the change. i'd welcome all of my colleagues one day to join me in alaska on a walking tour of what we call the permafrost tunnel, basically a tunnel bored straight back into the bank of a hill in

fairbanks, pretty much in the interior part of the state where it is truly a walk back in time 30,000 years, where through the ice lenses that you see that you can touch, that you can smell in this tunnel, in this cave, you can see what has happened over the course of thousands -- tens of thousands of years. and our climate changes. our climate clearly changes. and as the chair of the committee, i want to focus on what i consider to be those reasonable steps to address what

we're seeing with climate. and senator portman's initiative on energy efficiency again is one part of what you deal with. you use your energy resources responsibly, efficiently -- i want to have what i've referred to as a no-regrets policy here. i don't want to be in a situation where we are taxing our way out of our current energy supply. i come from a state where we pay some of the highest energy costs in the nation. alaska and hawaii. again, your noncontiguous states suffer mightily. the people in our states suffer a great deal because of our

energy costs. so i have no interest in doing anything that's going to increase our costs. but i do know that we can do better when it comes to efficiency, when it comes to a no-regrets policy, when it comes to providing a greater focus on a cleaner energy supply, and i look forward to that. and i think if we can focus on that, on making all forms of energy more affordable, we can find that common ground there. and i look forward to doing just that. i saw senator manchin -- i want to make sure because, senator manchin, you had an opportunity to take a point. i want to make sure there's -- senator cantwell. >> i could say one thing just so the clarity of everybody -- and i think members know this, but the reason why we didn't encourage members to have a full mark-up process here today is, first of all, we weren't sure we'd finish before the 5:00 vote on monday when we're going to vote on the motion to proceed to the rule 14 version of this bill, and usually in committee debate you debate a bill and then you pass it out and hope and pray that you get time on the floor. in this case, we are going to

have time on the floor monday. so, anyway, just a point, if somebody thinks that -- why aren't we having more amendments, we are going to have lots of amendments on the floor. >> senator manchin. >> madam chairman, i'd like to amend the amendment. >> if you would like to speak to it. snild like to speak to it. basically, as i said, i agree child enticement change is real, climate change caws human activity, climate change has caused devastating problems throughout the world. i also believe it's imperative the united states invest in research and development for clean fossil technology, and that would like to be the replacement of the fourth art of the amendment to senator sanders placed and have a vote on it. >> senator sanders? >> i would make that the fifth one of the amendment but i would not -- if you want to make that the fifth one, joe, that would be good. but i think it's terribly important that we make the

statement right now that the united states lead the world, we transform our energy system, you're absolutely right, we need to invest. absolutely. want to make that the fifth one? >> no. i want to replace wit the fourth. >> well, i would certainly disagree with that. >> does the senator choose to withdraw his proposed amendment? >> i'd like to have a vote on it, ma'am. the amendment to the amendment. if i can have a vote on that. >> any chance those guys would go for an and/or? >> yeah. >> the important point is, if i may, madam chair. >> well, i want to -- i want to -- i want to make sure that we understand what senator manchin is doing.

we don't have anything -- we don't have anything in writing. just kind of speaking -- >> basically all i'm asking for in the fourth part of senator sanders' amendment says it is imperative that the united states transform its energy system away from fossil fuels and towards energy efficiency and sustainable energy. it's almost imperative that we do that. we -- the fact are, the eia or department of energy says we're going to be using fossil for quite some time. i want to use it in a much cleaner fashion. there's been very little money spent, $8 billion is sitting in the department of energy. i want that money invested. we're moving this direction, but we don't have the fuel of the >> i do not want to replace the fourth part nap's terribly important. i understand that. >> but if -- i understand senator manchin's amendment, it would be to strike the language in section four and replace with -- >> i can give him -- >> yeah. i'm not good with just having it on the fly. i want to make sure that members understand what we're dealing with. it would certainly be -- it's my recommendation that we not advance any of the amendments, whether it's senator sanders or your proposed substitute -- >> i'm just asking for a vote on the amendment to the amendment strictly as a vote since we're going to be voting on senator sanders' amendment. that's all i'm -- >> i believe i understand, but i believe -- i'm not prepared to have a vote on your amendment to his amendment until we see in

writing what it is that you -- >> madam chair -- >> it's very simple. >> madam chair, i'd like to offer that we table both amendments. again, we're going to have a robust discussion on the floor. let's have it there. and so i would move the we table both amendments. >> okay. there's a motion -- >> i would -- madam chair, i would second. i think this is an important conversation. i think we should have prepared amendments in writing and we should have this conversation on the floor and have the debate around what that right policy is on the floor. >> there is a motion to table and that motion is not

debatable. the question is on the motion to table.

all those in favor indicate by saying aye. >> aye. >> all those opposed. >> no. >> no. >> madam chair, i'd ask for a roll call vote on that. >> okay. there is a roll call vote. >> madam chair, can you clarify -- clarification if we may? if this roll call vote would pass, do i get a vote on my amendment? >> no. both amendments -- the amendment of -- >> i'm sorry. if we defeat this roll call vote, i'm sorry, at that point in time, the senators -- we will be voting on senator sanders'

amendment -- >> if senator hoven's motion to table is successful, there is no further discussion on either. >> correct. but if it's not tabled. >> if it is not tabled -- >> we both get a vote. >> further opportunity. >> okay. this is a motion to table the sanders amendment as well as senator manchin's amendment to the sanders amendment. >> ms. murkowski. >> aye. >> mr. barrasso. >> aye. >> mr. risch. >> aye. >> mr. collielee. >> aye. >> mr. flay. [ inaudible ]. >> mr. danes. >> aye. >> mr. cassidy. >> aye. >> mr. gardner. >> aye. >> mr. portman. >> mr. portman is aye by proxy. >> mr. hoven. >> aye. >> mr. alexander. >> aye. >> ms. cantwell. >> no. >> excuse me. miss capito. [ inaudible ].

>> aye by proxy. >> ms. cantwell. >> no. >> mr. widen. >> no by proxy. >> mr. sanders. >> no. >> ms. stamina. >> no. >> mr. franken. >> no. >> mr. manchin. >> no. >> mr. heimer. >> aye. >> ms. sorano. >> no. >> mr. king. >> no. >> ms. warren. >> no. >> mr. flay is aye by proxy. >> and mr. flake, aye by proxy. on this vote -- on this vote, -- on this vote, the ayes are 13 and the noes are 9.

>> so the motion to table is agreed to. >> right. the motion is agreed to. >> and we will have an opportunity obviously for further discussion on senator sanders' amendment and perhaps senator manchin's as well. senator sanders, did you have a second amendment that you wished to -- >> that's okay for now. thank you. >> okay. with that, there were no additional amendments that were filed last night. i would ask the members if there are any other amendments to be considered at this time. seeing none, i appreciate that. i know that that will not be the end of the amendments. i think we're just kind of setting the stage for what we will have in front of us next week. i look forward to that.

so we are now on the original bill. is there any further discussion? i know there were some members that still had not yet had an opportunity to speak. >> madam chair, will there be opportunity to speak after the vote? >> yes, there will. >> i see people packing up. >> there will be an opportunity for you, senator king, and others as well after the vote. >> thank you. >> so with no further discussion on it, the question is on reporting agenda item number 1, an original bill to approve the keystone xl pipeline. the clerk will call the roll. >> aye. >> mr. barrasso? >> aye. >> mr. rich? >> aye. >> mr. lee? >> aye. >> mr. flake? >> aye. >> mr. gaines? >> aye.

>> mr. cassidy? >> aye. >> mr. gardner? >> aye. >> mr. hovn? >> aye. >> mr. alexander. >> aye. >> aye by proxy. >> miss cameron? >> no. >> mr. wyden. >> no by proxy. >> mr. sanders. >> no. >> no, by proxy. >> mr. franken? >> no. >> mr. manchin? >> aye. >> mr. heinrich? >> no. >> mr. king? >> no. >> ms. warren? >> no. >> on this vote, the ayes are 13. and the nos are nine. >> the -- >> and the bill is reported. >> the bill is reported.

i thank members for that. i know that there are several of you who have not yet had an opportunity to speak and would like to welcome your comments at this point in time. and again, apologize that we don't have the full committee here to hear your comments but know that they are equally important and considered. >> madame chair, i just want to make the point, we will be filing minority reports to the bill. >> we intend to file minority views. >> minority -- >> we'll have three days with which to file them. >> i appreciate that. i think we left with, i believe it was senator heinrich, who is up next. >> thank you, madame chair. and let me start, as well, by saying congratulations. i think we proved at the end of the last congress that we can

get some things done around here. and i'm very much looking forward to working with you in this congress on a whole range of issues. i want to start by addressing, i guess, what i would call the issue of misplaced priorities here. and why a foreign tar sands project is the very first topic

that the senate will consider this year. now, we know from the eis this was -- >> senator? >> yes. >> in deference to you, i want to make sure that others are able to hear your comments. we've still got a lot of chatter in the back room. i would ask someone to tell everyone to pipe down. thank you. go ahead.

>> i would thank you for your concern. you know, we know from the eis that this pipeline will provide just 35 to 50 permanent jobs. well, possibly offsetting our own domestic oil production and jobs in oil-producing states like my own. the american people expect our focus right now to be aimed at creating new high-quality living wage jobs. our economy is finally growing. u.s. employers added 321,000 jobs in november, the best gain in almost three years. and while we argue about 35 to 50 permanent jobs, potentially generated from the keystone's tar sands pipeline, more than 18,000 new clean energy jobs were announced in the third quarter of 2014 alone. one transition line that will soon cross my state and senator flake's can produce as many permanent jobs as three keystone pipelines. my fear is that by making tar sands the linchpin of american energy policy, we are literally locking ourselves into a policy. that fully embraces energy imports and extremely high levels of relative carbon pollution for as long as 50 years. all at a time when we should have a national policy focused on domestic production and ever cleaner fuel sources. a vote to approve keystone sends the signal that carbon pollution and climate change are not serious economic concerns. the state department calculated that the incremental carbon pollution from the tar sands pipeline would be as much as putting up to 5.7 million additional cars on the road every year. for 50 years. a vote against the tar sands project sends the signal that our government is finally taking the science of climate change and risk analysis seriously. and that the smarter investments are on low carbon and sustainable fuels of the future.

we have a small and closing window to avoid economically disastrous climate impacts. my vote against this tar sands project reflects that reality. we can't afford to look back ward. but through american ingenuity, we can slow the impacts of climate change, and we can unleash the full potential of home grown clean energy while creating good american jobs. we have the technology, we have the resources. but we must ensure that our commitment matches the challenges that we face today. and i hope that this committee will begin to seize the opportunities that a forward-looking american energy policy can create. thank you, madame chair. >> thank you, senator heinrich. i look forward to working with you on different issues, as well. welcome to the committee. >> thank you very much, madame

chair. and ranking member. i want to thank you, madame chair for acknowledging the unique positions of both alaska and hawaii as noncontiguous states. and i'm looking forward to, excuse me, leadership from you and our ranking member in a multitasked, bipartisan way to pass legislation from this committee that will benefit the american people. so i'm very glad to be joining this committee. turning to the keystone pipeline bill today, each time that similar bills have been raised, i have opposed them, both as a member of the u.s. house and in the senate, just now. the keystone pipeline is a massive project. it would run all the way from canada through the u.s. to the gulf coast. that's nearly 900 miles across the very center of our country. along that route are hundreds of communities that are home to millions of people. these communities rely on the surrounding land for clean

water. they also rely on the land for grazing, cattle and other economic activities. approving this pipeline would change the way that many people along the route live permanently. the people and communities of nebraska share these concerns. that's why it is -- as it currently stands, there is no legally approved path through that state. we owe it to the people and communities in this region to follow the process that's been set in law to proceed. and that is the presidential review process. that way we can ensure that all of the concerns a project of this size can be addressed. this bill short circuits that process. and that's my first objection to this bill. my second objection concerns a substance of the keystone xl project, which allows for more development and extraction of tar sands. extracting oil this way is dirty and destructive. in fact, tar sands oil is one of the most carbon intensive energy sources known to man. why does this matter? because 97% of a scientific community is clear, climate

change is a threat, and pumping carbon into the atmosphere drives climate change. we are already pumping too much carbon into the atmosphere. the observatory has tracked carbon since 1958. this is the longest running carbon tracker in the world. in april of last year, the meter read over 400 parts per million. that is the highest carbon reading in history. climate change is impact inging -- the defense department's 2014 climate adaption road map lays out the stakes pretty clearly, and i quote from that report. among the future trends that will impact our national security is climate change. rising global temperatures,

changing precipitation patterns, climbing sea levels and more extreme weather events will intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict. likely lead to food and water shortages, pandemic diseases, disputes over refugees and resources and destruction by natural disasters and regions across the globe. end quote. the military's leading on addressing climate change by reducing its reliance on fossil fuels and investing in energy efficiency. and in doing so, the military is supporting new innovations and creating jobs. we should follow the military's lead. how to advance clean energy initiatives and innovations and create new jobs. not micromanaging one project for one company. this bill short circuits the presidential review process. development of the tar sands

will spew, will speed up climate change and impact jobs, it will spew carbon into our atmosphere. and our communities for the long-term. for these reasons, i will continue to oppose this bill. thank you, madame chair. >> senator king? >> thank you, madame chair, i look forward to working with you on a matter of issues. madame chair, i find this a peculiar bill. i don't know if i've ever recalled seeing a bill in any legislature that starts with the name of a particular company that's the beneficiary. transcanada keystone pipeline lp may construct, connect, operate and maintain the pipeline. i thought i was running for the united states senate, not the united states building planning board. this is a construction permit being issued to a private

company and a foreign one at that. i just find that a very strange procedure for the congress to do. we're supposed to be establishing policy here, not issuing building permits to individual companies, you know, why not write a bill to give money to apple computer. and let's talk about what this bill really does. there's a lot of talk about well, the tar sands are going to be extracted anyway. it's going to happen anyway. well, i'm not so sure about that.

particularly because the way the world has changed in the last six months in terms of the price of oil. the drastic fall in the price of oil raises questions about the economic viability of the extraction of this particular oil. and this bill is a $17 to $20 subsidy to the extraction of tar sands oil. that's how much cheaper it will make it to get that oil to market as opposed to other means, particularly rail. this is a bill that provides a -- doesn't provide a subsidy, it facilitates or allows what amounts to a transportation subsidy to a group of oil producers in a foreign country in order to extract some of the dirtiest oil in the world. what are the benefits of the bill? jobs. the estimate i understand is 4,000 construction jobs in order to do this project. and i don't sneeze at construction jobs. they're important everywhere in the country. but i think it needs to be put into context. in the last month, the month of november that we have records, this country added 20,000

construction jobs. we added 20,000 jobs just within the month of november and this project is talking about 4,000 jobs over the course of two years. they're important jobs, absolutely, but let's put them in the context of the overall national economy. permanent jobs, 35. i tell people that, and they just -- their jaw drops because of all of the talk about this project and all the jobs it's going to produce.

35 permanent jobs. a new mcdonald's in fargo, north dakota, would add more than 35 jobs. so let's not talk about this as some kind of massive job program for this country. the number of permanent jobs is very, very limited. american oil production has surged in the last five years. gas and renewables have surged. energy, we are very close to energy independence. in some so months we are. and some of the people supporting this bill are talking about another bill to allow oil exports.

we either need this oil desperately from canada for our energy security, or we have too much oil and we want to be allowed to export it. which is it? and i just think the argument about that. we have to have this oil for our energy security. doesn't pass a straight face test, particularly when the advocates for this bill are also advocating exporting oil from the united states. will this oil go to the united states? it seems to me it's a striking coincidence that the pipeline ends in a port. where is this oil going to go? and i'll have a chance to discuss this on the floor. will the proponents accept an amendment saying this can't be exported. if this is for u.s. national energy security, they ought to accept an amendment that says the oil has to stay in the united states. otherwise we're just a transit point for oil going offshore. climate change is real. i'll be glad to share it with my colleague from north dakota that talks about, it's climate change in a nutshell. for the last million years, carbon dioxide, the atmosphere has bounced between 170 and 300 parts per million. it's gone to 400. the last time it was at 400 was 3 million years ago and the oceans were 60 feet higher. and on the other side of the card is the relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature.

over the last million years. this is real! this is a serious problem that we're ignoring right now. and my problem with this bill is, i don't think it's going to destroy the environment, i also don't think it's going to boost the american economy. but it's symbolic and it's a turning point. it's an inflexion point. do we want -- and you started the hearing by saying the world is watching. and indeed, they are. and the world is going to say, is america serious about moving to different forms of energy? or are we just back in the same old fossil fuel economy? and i believe it has to be a transition. aner than oil. the great hymn from the 19th century. there comes a moment for every man and nation to decide. i believe the exact words are to every man and nation, this comes a moment to decide. and i think that's the moment we're at right now, and it's telling the world are we going to be talking about a transition to a cleaner energy future looking forward, or are we going to look back to a fossil fuel past? so i intend to vote no on this bill because i can't figure out where the benefit to the united states is. thank you. >> and i look forward to what i know we will have, a very spirited debate on the floor about these issues. and, again, this is what this committee is designed to do.

is to bring these points forward to debate them, to come to compromise where compromise is available. and otherwise to advance positions and we're setting out to do that today. i'd like to wrap up on this side with senator warren and then if senator hoeven you have any final comments you might want to add before the ranking member and i wrap up. senator warren. >> thank you very much, madame chairwoman. and also, congratulations on the new post. i'm very much looking forward to working with you on energy issues and with our ranking member cantwell. you know, we've heard a lot about -- today about some of the problems with the legislative proposal to force the construction of the keystone xl pipeline. i want to know why the pipeline

is the very first number one item on the agenda in the new congress. is this about jobs? the number of jobs is disputed. but most estimates put it at a few thousand or less. what if we focused on highways instead of pipelines. we urgently need to pass a permanent highway bill. the american association of state highway and transportation officials says it will create 8 million jobs over the next four years if we could pass a highway bill. we could put people to work in good jobs and fix crumbling roads and bridges. so is the pipeline about lowering america's energy costs? evidently not. even its supporters admit much of the oil in the pipeline would be exported for use outside the united states. it's not about jobs, it's not about energy. why is this bill so urgent? the answer is money. money and power. the pipeline might not do much for the american people, but it is worth a whole lot to the canadian oil industry. so much money industry wide is being spent that a political science professor at the university of kansas previously described the keystone xl bill

as, quote, a lobbyist support act. now transcanada wants what they paid for. means a whole lot to lobbyists and a whole lot to a giant foreign oil company. but we know that this pipeline runs terrible environmental risks. and it just won't do much to help the american people. i didn't come here to do favors for transcanada. republican leaders may disagree, but i'll be voting no on this.

>> senator hoeven? >> well, just several comments. we'll have opportunity to have this debate on the floor, which is great. that's the whole point. the issue was brought up, you know, why is this the first bill we're going to. not only because it is important infrastructure to move oil, transcanada's not an oil company, they're a transportation company, they'll move oil for a variety of companies. but that's the whole point. to have this debate and everybody gets to bring up the point, have the debate, get a vote. but that's the idea. it's not just this issue.

it's getting to what we call regular order, open amendment process and open debate. and i hope that can foster more bipartisanship on this measure and on other legislation. because we'll have this debate on the floor. people will have their opportunity to bring forward amendments. we'll debate those amendments, we'll vote on them if you get 60 votes, they pass and get included. and that's how it's supposed to work on the senate floor. so it is a bigger issue than just this bill. it is about returning to regular order and an open amendment process. and i want to thank our leadership, both senator mcconnell, our leaders, our leader on this energy committee, senator murkowski for their willingness to do that. i believe that's how the senate is supposed to work. and in terms of who do we work for? we work for the american people. and in poll after poll, 2/3 want this project done. so there's a lot of opportunities to try to, you

know, position this certain ways as to who it's for and so forth. but if you ask the american people, by a margin of 2-1 consistently over years, they've said they want it. and last i checked, that's who we work for. and as far as a turning point, i'm listening to some of these arguments, and they've got to be music to opec's ears. because they -- some of these arguments are going to guarantee that we continue to import oil from the middle east. and i'm pretty sure that's not what americans want. and any other alternative type of energy that any member of this committee or anyone else wants to bring up, go do it. this legislation doesn't stop one of those ideas. go do it. but the reality is, if you understand economics, economics come into play. and opec and other countries are going to continue to manage this oil price so that things work

for them, not us. so i believe we need to compete when it comes to oil and gas and we're doing it. and that's why prices are down at the pump. and the american consumer is benefitting to the tune of billions of dollars because of that right now. but we can't do it without the infrastructure. and the construction jobs that go into building this pipeline are good jobs just like the construction jobs in a highway bill. i don't know how you can say construction jobs on a highway bill aren't good, construction jobs are great jobs. and that's why virtually every labor union in the country supports this project. so i respect everybody's point of view. i look forward to the debate. i want to remind the members that the state department after six years of study continues to say it has no significant environmental impact. i understand they want to debate

other issues. that's fine, we can do that. and i'm sure that we will do that. but that's just the point. we're going to get that opportunity, aren't we? and it's long overdue. and so, again, my sincere thanks to the chairman and to the ranking member who has been helpful in this process. and i know we'll work on many other pieces of legislation, some in which we agree and some we don't. >> thank you, senator hoeven. and thank you, all. i do think it's important as we begin this new congress. the issue of the day, the week, perhaps, i don't know, maybe the month, i don't know. is energy. because when you think about our nation's economy, when you think about our ability to engage in commerce of any kind, when you recognize energy plays in making this all happen, it's basic stuff. energy 2020, the cover of this pamphlet is the world at night. the globe at night as seen from space. and when you look at the dark

parts on the globe, the places where there's no electricity where people are not only, not only living a lifestyle that is not something that we would enjoy, but really primitive conditions. it's because of their lack of energy. it's because of either the lack of access or affordability. and it is a subject that when people are sitting in their homes as they're talking with their families about those

issues, those concerns that worry them some of the most basic needs to keep warm. energy is pretty basic. and again, as i mentioned, i can distill it to one bumper sticker. energy is good. but how we responsibly access it, how we utilize it, how we develop it in a way that benefits all is part of our challenge. i think it is an exciting one to begin the new year. and i'm very pleased to be able to work with all of you in the areas that are so important to us. i would like to truly thank her for her willingness to work together to find common ground on some issues where i think we know that we have some perhaps disagreement, perhaps some fill is philosophical divide.

and i think it was a good barometer about some of the things we take up. and it makes our jobs more challenging. and how we ensure that members of our committee feel heard and feel that they have been a participant in this process. so i thank you, senator cantwell, and i'm looking forward to working together with you. >> well, thank you, senator murkowski. and i can say one thing. i'm sure you and i are never going to forget this week. and an opening of new energy committee effort. i will just close by saying, you know, when i first came to the united states senate in 2001, the very, very, very first piece of legislation that i had to deal with was new regulation on natural gas pipelines. because we had an explosion in washington that killed young children playing by the pipeline.

so i learned at that moment how important the citing process, the security issues, the maintenance of those pipelines and we're talking about something different, natural gas than the tar sands. but i learned how important all these issues are and the gaps in our regulatory. sometimes lost in the organizations that the public doesn't even know or understand. so to me, i think it's time for

the united states of america to update and make sure that we all understand whose responsibilities these are. and not paying into the oil spill trust fund, make sure the tar sands pays into the liability trust fund. but the bottom line is we are usurping a state authority here on a very important public interest security, safety and environmental issues.

and i think my colleagues said it best. we have no right as a congress to be trying to dictate for a private interest. the usurption of those rights to be decided in the state of nebraska. i'm sure we will continue this debate. i'm hoping for the energy committee overall that we get off of this very quickly and on to a larger discussion about a broad energy strategy that we can work on together. i really do have great deal of hope for your leadership in this committee and the fact that this committee, you know, while i do think we have very different committees, i mean, very different members on our side and very different members on your side, i think in general this committee has been about regional focuses and bringing those regional focuses. not so much r & d politics. hopefully we can move forward on a larger job producing energy bill and work together very soon. thank you very much and we'll look forward to this discussion on the floor. >> thank you. and before i gavel out. i thought it was appropriate today. it is of heritage, and senator cantwell will know, they are from the pacific northwest my grandfather received this from someone who had left canada to come to alaska settled. and this has been something that has been on my father's desk since the time that i can remember. and i'm not quite sure what they would have called it.

but i thought given the discussion today about transboundary issues that something of this descent should mark the beginning of this energy committee and hopefully a good and strong presence in the year. with that, we're adjourned. >> barbara boxer says she will not seek re-election. the 74-year-old boxer made the announcement in a video with her grandson. she was first elected to the house in 1982 and to the senate

one decade later. she has been a staunch supporter of apportion rights gun control and environmental protection. harry reid issued a statement that said barbara boxer is one of the finest publish officials that the state of california has seen. her efforts will be remembered long past her retirement. >> terry o'neil talks about the relationship between minimum wage and reproductive rights. she spoke at the annual meeting of law schools in washington d.c. this is just under an hour. >> i want to welcome you all to the 2015 annual meeting program

of the section on social economics. this is the luncheon. i have a few announcements and then it will be my pleasure to introduce our speaker. the sign-up sheet for the session is located at the rear of the room. if you signed this sheet the als will verify your attendance at this program for cle purposes. please refer to the sign up sheet for more details. we value your input. take a moment to look at the evaluation form and please leave wit a opportunity. a few discretionary announcements this is the 20th year of the section on

socio-economics. if you account the forum in 1996, we are dedicated to a set of principles at that time 120 120mented your guest speaker is a founding member of that. i'm not going to take a long time to describe soesh y'all economics but i can describe the essence in a couple of sentences. the second principle is good news to some. you cannot do economic analysis.

pauses such as those would be much more readily achievable and we are there is a fledgling organization called the society of social economists. you can get that by going to societyofsocioeconomists.org. membership is free, so i know you can afford it, and everybody is welcome. now, for our luncheon speaker, elected in 2009 and re-elected in 2013. she oversees those ambitious multiagenda program, including reproductive rights and justice, economic justice ending violence against women, ending racism and homophobia and

guaranteeing women's equality under the u.s. constitution. what a noble set of goals. before this she was an e an academic teaching at tulane university and before that, the university of california at davis. as i mentioned before, she is a founding member of the als section on socioeconomics. her title which is socioeconomics and feminism: what do reproductive rights have to do with dpsh excuse me, what does the minimum wage have to do with economic rites. in a way, her title is generic. one could say socioek no, ma'amishes and blank.

>> thank you rather than see it in the general form, you'll see it in the way that it has to do with exno, ma'amic rights. thank you very much. >> thank you so much, robert. as rob earth said my organization, the national organization for women has six core issuings, right, that we address.

and, so they are reproductive rights and justice for all women, ending racism, ending homophobia ending violence against women. economic justice for all women and getting women into the constitution the. the reason there's six issues at the core is because we have them intertwined and interrelated. if you just think about it this way, who are the candidates that we think would probably be opposed to same-sex marriage,

opposed to women's rights and reproductive health care opposed to serious funding of the violence against women act. it's the same crowd over and over and over again. so they get the interrelationship. the issues are intersectional. which is to say that if you take any one particular issue that comes up, let's say reproductive rights, access to reproductive health care looks very different for an immigrant woman in what we call down county in montgomery county, maryland, where i live. the suburb of washington, d.c. access to reproductive health care looks like one thing in

immigrant communities in my county versus looking like something in a wealthy predominantly white, middle class community. by having family members picked up a immigration and customs enforcement. so that plays out one way, where as access to reproductive health care in the african american community plays out in a very different way.

we have e we have a long and sordid tradition. that's an aspect of their reproductive health care that intersekts with both their reproductive function and their race. that's what i mean when i say it's intersecting. it's sort of a society in one group where others are kept in place. but the intersectional piece, i think, is harder to grasp unless you really think of it as the lived experience of the individual women who are impacted by these policies. all right. i said i was going to talk for 15 or 20 minutes and then

throw it open for q&a and i absolutely plan to do that. so that's what i wanted to talk about today. what does the minimum wage have to do with reproductive rights and justice. i think the easiest answer is, well, the mip mum wage is actually a women's issue. and reproductive rights and justice, that's really an economic justice issue. so i'll sort of unpack that a little bit and explain why we get to that point. on minimum wage well, two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women. in a progressive community, that has become the man tra. they've worked very hard to increase the minimum wage.

i know that my chapters in new jersey and actually it was activists from many parts of the country came to nm nj in 20 sp to help pass a minimum wage law at the state level. we didn't get barbara bono elected governor but we did get the minimum wage law passed. if 2014, we got a minimum wage law passed in arkansas and alaska even though those same voters voted for united states senators who actually don't support an increase in the min 34u78 wage.

we have 250 chapters around the country. they do grass roots lobbying to their senators and to their state-elected officials and local-elected officials. so why is it that now was so interested in the minimum wage as a women's issue. well, for one thing two-thirds of minimum wage issues, it is your honor e turns out, are women. the reason that two-thirds of minimum wage workers in the united states are women is because oaf 70% of tipped minimum wage workers are women. the federal minimum wage for tipped is $2.13 an hour. these are receivablerses in restaurants.

the vast majority of them are women. and they are very disproportionate disproportionately, women of color. so the minimum wage, actually, is a huge women's issue. if we were to increase the minimum wage for everyone -- and, by the way, $10 an hour is a poverty wage. it doesn't pay the bills. our dear friends on the hill pat themselves on the back for that but it is poverty level. it needs to be between $15-20 an

hour. all right, but if you bring it up from where it is right now to $15-20 an hour you will go a long way toward actually closing the gender wage gap. for african american women, it's roughly 64 cents to the dollar. that wage gap would not be eliminated, but it would be significantly narrowed if we simply raised the minimum wage to a living wage. that's why it's in that sense that it's a women's issue. it's also a reproductive justice issue. rock united, an organization based in new york city. and i want's run by saru saru jiaromich.

she teaches at berkeley now. she was astonished with her research. the women are not working at the high-end rest rants with the big, big bills and the big, big fips. they're working at the mall the ruby tuesday and so forth. their base pay is $2.13 an hour. that's not quite enough to pay their taxes. so 100% of the money they get to pay the babysitter and the rent and their food and so forth is paid by the customers. the restaurant industry is the only industry on the planet

where if owners of the company get the workers to be paid by the customers. jiesz. so as a result they have to put up with an astronomical amount of sexual harassment on the job. their bosses are always telling them, "the customer is always

right." never get in the face of the customer. the customer is always right. so, right there, you can begin to see how this plays in. in fact discrimination for women in employment begins to take a sexualized nature. and then you can see the reproductive rights and reproductive health 06 women. so that's one piece of it. i think the easiest way to enkapsen encapsulate that -- it was really given to me by a man who left me a voice mail years ago.

it was 2011 and 2012, in washington, d.c., there was this huge effort to shut down planned parent hood and to defund all the family planning clinics. most of which don't provide abortions. they provide screenings and birth control and so forth. but the effort was to defund planned parenthood entirely. in the mesidst of all of this i get a voice mall from a man who says i just want to thank you for all the work that you're doing to ensure that planned parenthood stays strong. he said, you know, i know birth control is really important for my wife's health. i get that.

but i've got to tell you u it's really about our family's finances. he said i got laid off six months ago and i'm having a really hard time finding another job. if she wasn't able to go to plned parenthood and get her birth control at an affordable price, i don't know what we would do. it seems to me was okay, a driver for ups had some boxes that were more than 20 pounds. so she works it out with her co-worker that she'll take the e

these boxes and her co-worker will take the heavy boxes. and the supervisor goes and looks through the e through all the hr documents. i think the supervisor woman looks through the hr documents, looks through the hr contract and says you don't fit any of our categories. you weren't picked up on drnk drive inging. we could accommodate for that. if you lost your license -- you're a driver -- if you lost your license for drunk driving, we could put you on desk duty. but you don't fit there. you're pregnant. that's not you. you don't fit within disabilities act or the discrimination act. you're looking for an accommodation.

accommodation is not spelled out how that might work under the pregnancy discrimination act. so you don't fit any of the categories that i have in my hr manual and we can't acome date you. >> she said fine, fine. whatever. i'll just keep working. >> the supervisor said no, now actually, that you told me that your doctor says you can't lift more than 20 pounds, i'm going to have to put you on unpaid leave. it caused her to lose her health insurance. now she and her husband had to dip into their own pockets to pay for pre-natal care and all of the child expenses. news flash where did we think the next generation of workers is coming from. right?

she's lucky. this woman was fortunate because she had a parter in. another adult bringing money into the household. most of the women -- i say most. a very large number of women who nas face pregnancy discrimination in the workplace are single moms. and they're the ones who can least afford to havenot have accommodations. the case is going up to the supreme court and there are places where women are nots e not alouded to have a bottle of waterer with them, although their doctors will sayydrated and

you'll be fine. so it's absolutely a problem of women's economic ability to get this. the final thought i want to leave you on is birth control. there's an on going effort in washington. and, around the states. but especially in washington, d.c., to remove birth control from the standard health insurance contract. so you know under the affordablecare act everybody has to provide a list of standard services. things that they can't weasel out of. it's heart disease and diabetes and surgery for broken legs. and it also includes about well over 50 or 60 preventive services chlts so screenings for

high brood high blood pressure and birth control. 99 ppt of sexually active women utilize birth control at some point. go into any catholic church. look and at the families. they've got two kids. what do we think they're doing? 98 ppt of women report using birth control at some point. and for a surprisingly large number of women use hormonal birth control. but, make no mistake, preventing pregnancy is key to women's health. unintended pregnancy is deadly.

unintended pregnancy is highly correlated with infant mortality and domestic violence homicide. nearly half of all pregnancies in the united states are unplanned. and a huge number of women, before the aca, had no consistent access because they worked where? in a minimum wage job that didn't provide health care.

the act doesn't cover all people in this country but it covers a great deal of women. here uf the income leader strip to take birth control out of the contract. so just so you know, my name is o'neil i know that the bishops are opposed to birth control. i get it. bishops, catholic church teaching, also considers vasectomy to be a sin. but you don't see them going up and down the halls of congress demanding criminalization of vasectomy.

but you do see them sitting down trying to criminalize getting health departmentcare for reproductive women. basic health care like basic birth control cannot be blocked. there is no constitutional right to be an employer. you have a constitutional right to be a mother superior. but you don't have a constitutional right to own and operate a nursing home. and if you do decide to own and operate a nursing home or a yumpbts or a hospital or even a church, not clergy, other people working in there, you must follow the law with respect to the health care that you provide your employeeings.

it is a basic number of economic survival. that's where we're at with these issues of reproductive services for women. i think this is a good point to stop and maybe take some questions. >> what does the landscape look like for the repeal of rowe versus wade in the next 2-4-6 years. >> and it's the repeal of rowev. wade in the next number of

years. the folks who would like to overturn it are expreemly well positioned right now. last year, at 20 weeks gestation, well before viability, significantly before, we think somewhere around 24 weeks and 26 weeks, and under planned parenthood, viable is the state. so the 20 week ban passed the house and was blocked in the senate. the senate is now under control of individuals who expressed support for a 20-week ban.

arizona is one. actually, as a facial matter. facially unconstitutional. didn't have to be attacked on an as-applied-basis because there was no set of circumstances. so it's been struck down in arizona, but not many other places. so, what you have, actually is a 20 week ban in place in a number of states, moving forward. not challenged. you have movement in congress to pass a 20-week ban.

i've seen some opinion out there that you can't draw a principled distinction. there's no principle distinction between 20 weeks and 18 weeks and 15 weeks and 12 weeks and 6 weeks. and the justification is fascinating. it is that fetuses feel pain, that's junk science. another justification is abortion is much more dangerous for women as the pregnancy proceeds. that's just an astonishing claim. you have to ask yourself, more dangerous than what? actually, it's still safer than childbirth, still. it depends to be traumatic and is always dangerous. so, yes, of course, as the pregnancy proceeds any

termination is more dangerous. e i think it has a chance of going all the way to the supreme court. >> one thing that i recall eve seen that i think has been really compelling for diane ravage is the influence of a billionaire boy's club of tight executives, finance executives, sort of coming in and saying to teachers, and edge cay xxs, generally, hey we know a lot more about you do about how to measure outcomes. and we really deponent care

about your professional autonomy. we want to sweep you aside. >> this's a great question. and the tech indis ri is a real problem. it's not just on gender, it's on race. rain bow push coalition did some really great research and got kboogle and facebook and then sort of tumble inging another tech industry to start revealing what their workers of color look like.

they're all kept down. we've actually been working with our friends in the teachers' unions to try and stop what we -- we've really taken a different -- we're concerned about a different set of things, but i think it plays into what you're talking about. we've seen real attacks on publicly-funded education. period. the best thing i ever saw was in the into graphic that said yeah you remember when it was the teachers of wisconsin who drove the economy off the cliff and then got a bailout? dot, dot, dot? yeah, me neither.

>> we know from our kids that no one can afford the other child anyway. i'm curious how that intersects with what you're talking about. >> the what? >> the falling fertility. all the projections are it will continue to fall. >> i think that's absolutely an economic thing. and, you and naomi have talked about the fact that you know, middle class ideology goes very deep into e into the population as well as into the upper reasons. and, on middle class ideology, people love marriage. they respected it. they think it is an important institution. they want to give it all the respect that it's due.

as a matter of fact, for this country to be able to complete compete economically, we rely on immigration. i don't have a problem with that. i think that the global village makes it less important for any one country to keep producing its own numbers. but that makes international vehicle code e trade agreements all the more important. we're not taking the lead bhi stretch. >> let me go around.

i think i saw hands up there, too. >> thank you for the inspiring and illuminateing comments that you made. i think it was cutting across divisions of gender and class and political ideology. it was potentially really unified and coalition building. so i was moved in thinking how effective it was as a political matter. but the last 15 or 20% was very potentially devicive, i would think. you asserted, very strongly, that there's no right -- employers have no constitutional

right and e or no moral right, you know no right, to have any say about what kinds of benefits are provided in connection with employment as it relates to health care and birth control. but, for many people in our society, it seems obamacare was a very compromised bill that nobody wanted right? but it would be just as responsive to say now is the reasons we've seen the problems that it is devicive.

so rather than digging in on obamacare and on employer mandates to use the division over employer mandates to pivot towards a true universal health care, i just want to know what you think about that as a political matter. >> i think that's a great point. but i don't think it's either or at all. my organization for 25 years has strongly supported single eel pair health care. we absolutely think that's what it has to be. but what we are concerned about with the whole religious exemptions debate that's going on, which is impacting employment rights for the l.g.b.t. community, as well as nondisnon-discrimination. what we're concerned about is embedding that kind of

religiously diversified in law. we're going to have this for many, many years. what kind of single payer do we want to inherit from the aca? one that assumes they don't get the right kind of health care because they've got the wrong anatomy? is that what they inherit from the aca? no. so we're very clear eyed that that is not going to happen any time soon. what we've got as-is, where-is, is the ability to stop this religious justification for what i call flat-out, gender bigotry. you're talking about birth control.

you're talking about 98% of women in this country. when you're attacking this, that's bigotry. we don't allow bigots to justify racism racism. and we shouldn't allow bigots to justify sexual discrimination. that's where we're coming. okay, i see there and then nina had her hand up too, and then i'll come back. >> you're losing. you're one supreme court decision away from losing rowev. wade and, yet, the polls show you shouldn't be losing. so what's wrong? why are you losing and what do you you will do to turn that around?

one is at the feet of the women's movement. the other is not at our feet. so what's at our feet. this is not to comfort those of us who feel that we're part of the progressive movement. but it's not just the women's rights. opposition to the death penalty is not going anywhere. we are losing the environmental fights. we are losing those hand over fist. aspect after aspect after aspect is losing right now. the only place that wu we're winning is in the l.g.b.t.q. fight. we're not winning on adoption, we're not winning on family formation entirely, yet. we are winning on marriage equality, which is huge.

but that's not the aspect. we didn't go to the states early, we don't have the resources to go to the states. and we keep thinking if we just hack in hang in in washington d.c., we could get federal law that will stop these silly states from passing all of these laws that are bad for women. and that's not working. my organization is the grass roots arm of the women's movement. we had 250 chapters around the country, woe should have a thousand given the threats that are there. right? we should have really

well-trained lob e lobbyists in all 50 states and we don't. before i became president i served as national director of the women's council for women's organizations. so my board was nine ceos of women's organizations. all across the board struck e struggling for resources. there's a fabulous report that was put out in 2006. where's the money for women's rights. and it traces globally. how there has really been a restriction in funding for women's rights work. a lot of reasons for that. it has to do with the growth of religious extremism in the global south and global east. so the global north and global west funders gandhi verting resources to those stressed

communities where women and girls were not getting basic health care at all. and, you know, not getting waterer in their communities and so forth. so there's a shift in resources. i really think that the entire progressive movement has really been hurt by inequality. again, it's a question of resources. the folks who are -- i think thomas piquetti in his work, he really points out so it's a spirl going exactly in the wrong way which makes all of us

non-profits weaker and weeker. we don't have the infrastructure at the state level. we have to stop it. we're working on it. and, so, we're -- we're absolutely far from where we need to be. yes, nina? >> one of our goals is to raise the visibility of these issues. i'm wondering if you could blow out a little bit the scope of what you just talked about and share your thoughts on one of the most persuasive narratives and access to reproductive

health care? and i can give you more resources. one in three of us will have an abortion by the age of 45. it is a common and necessary as pekt of women's reproductive health care. if we have to dip into our own pockets to provide that women's health care for us that's that much more money we don't have to set aside for college for our kids, for a down payment for a house or for our own retirement. in fact, when you look at what's going on for women economically, low-wage work, women clustered in the low-wage occupations that don't have benefits, increasingly they will but what you see is women have less money coming in the door just because they're women and more money going out the door just because they're moms.

the single most important factor is whether or not she had children. that's the most important thing, economic justice right there. now, if women can't access which has been true for a very long time many women not being able to access birth control and not having to pay out of pocket.

the more we learn about stress illnesses, the more we see how completely connected that is to health disease and high blood pressure and diabetes. so, again, reproductive health is absolutely essential to make e maintaining the kind of healthy body generally, that allows you to go to work every day and get your damn 77 credibility ecents, right? i hope that is a start. yes? >> you were saying problems at the state level. i wonder if you are considering trying to get more women elected as governors, number one. and, number two, exploiting that in the national governor's association, the re3ubly can government e governors often break with a national strategy and are more progrezive and listening closer to home. i mean it seems that some real

leadership in the national governor's association could -- are you exploiting that enough? >> not enough. it is trying to get more women elected to the governor ships, but also to congress. they're really stuck at the state executive and then u.s. congress. my organization worked very hard to beat joni en e rnst. she won. we lost.

there are only organizations that only endorsz men. we support women who support our issues. but that doesn't mean that after the election, we don't work with other officials. even when they don't support oufr e our issues, there needs to be a lot more research. you will but if you compare a self-identified female politician to a self-identified male politician the women will vote for issues that support women more than a conservative man will. if you look at moderates the woman moderate will more often vote the way i would want her to than e then the man. and fef eeven if you look at the

self-identified progressives, the woman progressive would vote the way i wanted her to. >> the luncheon is hereby adjourned. we look forward to a wonderful afternoon. we thank president terry o'neil for her inspiring speech and offer her any help that we can in the future. thank you very much.

>> here are a few of the comments we received on the 114th congress. >> my comment is nothing is going to change in washington, d.c. some of these senators have been there too long. let them go. this country is on the wrong path. we're not going to get anywhere. as long as these senators stay in that same position. john mccain, they've been down there. it's the same old thing. it's time for changes. people are working too hard in this country. working two and three jobs to take care of their family and still not getting anywhere. something's got to give.

>> the last three or four moments, the congress, the government is so huge what can they do when they go in there today? they could be like the leaders they should have been. they could have said these are our children. these are our young men. and these are our daughters. what can you do in a realistic way? guys, we live a pretty good life here. let's quit playing games.

>> my question for the 114 et congress is that it's going to do nothing for the american people. when they go to washington the lies, the propaganda, it just seems disturbing to me that everything president obama does is wrong. and i'm a pastor. i heard these people come on your colleague came on and said he was a christian. what jesus said if you do this to the least of them, you've also done it to me. >> call us at 202-626-3400. >> on tuesday border patrol

chief michael fisher discussed transnational criminal networks. he also answered questions on the number of migration deaths on the border and pushing better relations on the texas-mexico border. international studies hosted this discussion. it's about 1:15. >> good morning. welcome to all of you who have braved the lmts. until recently, i was the acting director of homeland security and counter terrorism program. we were joking earlier,er time we have a security event, we have a weather event that same day.

so i'll let paul know that i'm please to say that our record is still stellar. if i could ask you to make sure that your electronic devices are set to silent or stun, i would appreciate that. as you know u.s. citizens and their elected representatives have long e long emphasized their importance of border security as a national security priority. the new 114th congress promises to continue over a range of much-needed border security and immigration reforms. these reforms will take the shape both of policy shifts and program implementation. here, at c.s.i.s. we've been plaezed to be part of that discussion.

vrjts these men and women have experienced first-hand our nation's borders covering almost 6,000 miles of canadian and international land borders. this evolution is fast, based in part on an adapting set of risks. there is now a potential organization. they have adapted strategies and capableties. it's quantity if i believe and fiebl and quantitative measurements instead of sitly tracking investments. today, we will hear from two outstanding public servants.

chief fisher entered on duty in june 19 t 7, and is held a number of operational and leadership posts. he was named acting chief of the border patrol. we count him as a real friend in our counter security and terrorism program and is a real thought leader for our nation's security. we'll then hear from robert schroeder who is hol e holding the line in the 21est century. the three articles that were featured for which they are happen e hard copied is done another the rej sfrags table. one of the articles focuses on the strategic revolution one on metrics and risk indicators. currently, agent schroeder is on capitol hill where his colleagues surely benefit from his years of experience.

he he's also commanded near the international border. after our two guests speak, i plan to ask a kwuquestions and then ask for questions from the audience. thank you for agreeing to share your thoughts today. and i look forward to hearing you speak. >> thank you, stephanie. this is, indeed, a unique opportunity for me. but, first and foremost, to you, your dedication to mission and the fact that you are actually here given this weather, does wonders for my heart. so thank you very much.

mplts i'm going to take you back to may, 2010. generally, when you're new i was, first week as the chief getting a call to go to the commissioner's office is problem li not a good thing to do. so i figure, this is it. they made a mistake. i'm not the guy. he walks up and has in his hand a badge. he whispers to me i expect you to take the border patrol toet next level. your expressions were about the same as mine. i didn't know what to say. yes, sir. and then i was immediately dismissed. a couple things struck me at that point. one, i had no idea what i just committed to. and i had a very short turn around time to figure it out.

i did what prapgs many of you would do, i gathered start e smart staff to try to figure this out. we had a very quick meeting. after about 30 minutes, three things were apparent to all of us which is very rare we can't figure out most of the time where to go to eat. but here. but here's the thing. our capableties of e as an organization have clanged. three equally important were tluz e there was this convergence. we need to figure out how we were going to prepare against these shifts. so, as you probably saw, we

published the strategy in the spring of 2012 and moved quickly to implementation. ingle actually one of the for implementation, they don't have a plan for implementation. what was happening was we were changing our operations as we were developing the strategy. we were going to weigh it as a procedure or a process, but we wanted to move forward very quickly, and as we were learning about our strategic shift, we were making operational adjustments on the fly. we did that throughout. we didn't stop and have an 18-month planning session to do another 18 months of implementation. it was about that time in 2013, towards the end of 2013, we felt that we were off to what we thought at the time was a good start of what we thought this strategy was going to look like. we had set, at least in our minds, the metrics that we

believed made sense to us beyond the traditional apprehensions, for instance, about how we were going to assess the extent to which we thought we were successful in this endeavor. so our baseline numbers were gathering in 2013 kind of it taken a pause. the discussion through this whole process, from 2010 to 2013, and as it turns out, into '14, really hadn't changed. i still get the question, chief, is the border secure or not? we look at each other as if we all understand what that means. as we were looking to understand members on the hill and people in the department and what they thought the end state should look like, we couldn't wait. so as we were quickly devising the strategy of implementation, we came up with it. i'm just suggesting we had to set an end state and some objectives to get this thing started. as some of you may have heard, if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. and so in 2013, it also occurred to me that we have not done a very good job articulating the

narrative about what we just did. to have those discussions. and so at that time i had the opportunity on staff, assistant chief robert schroder, i had read some of his work before, he happened to be assigned to headquarters, and i gave him very little instruction. i said, robert, i've read some of the stuff you've published and i have a favor to ask. by the way, he wasn't going to be pulled from his other assignments, so don't let the stuff you're supposed to do slip, but what i need you to do is tell our story. and he said, okay. he said, who is the audience? i'll make it easy. it's for everybody. it's for internal consumption within the first line supervisors to the border patrol agents that are just graduating from the academy to the chief patrol agents that are out there in the largest sectors that we have. it's for the people on the hill. it's for anybody that's interested in understanding what we're doing.

he kind of gave me a stare. he said, that's very difficult to do. i said, by the way, we want it short. so that's the old mark twain, chief, i would have made this longer but i didn't have enough time, right? so he had a very somewhat truncated schedule, to come up with things he had indicated and try to tell our story. it doesn't suggest in that article anywhere that the border is more secure than it's ever been, right? what it is is to start a discussion, perhaps a different narrative than we've had in the past about what it means to secure the border. it's from our perspective and it's told by robert, and at this point i would like to have him explain how he went about doing this. robert? >> chief, thanks for the introduction. thank you all for coming. i appreciate you braving the weather, especially the congressional staff that made it

today. i know this is one of the first days and one of the busiest days for you in the 114th congress. i appreciate your time. the chief said we had to tell our story. we had to tell why we changed, how we changed and how we ultimately measured that over a period of time. i'm prepared to read for you. it includes a series of three articles, a review of border patrol long journey and gradual evolution to our current risk-based strategy and to illustrate why a new strategy was necessary. they were written for both internal and external audiences, as the chief has pointed out. everyone. these articles touched on numerous events and relevance to our evolution but significant things have changed in the border patrol's rich history which began with the release of the 2014 border patrol plan officially began. as you noted, it really began before that, the thought process and the planning. historically, activity levels coupled with the ever-increasing deployment of resources guided our deployment and planning

activity. today resource deployment planning activities are guided by a much more realistic view of border security and border security environment, one in which there is a greater concentration on intelligence against individuals and networks responsible for the crime in a given area. instead of just reactively plugging holes into the border, we started looking at ways to work with inter-agency partners to combat the risk to border security. while the 2014 plan was to effectively transition to a more comprehensive planning approach, here is a statement on homeland security which paved the way for creation and adaptation of the new approach. it was a tipping point of sorts. and throughout our history, i'm sure we'll look back at that

point as a point which has started to change for us. during the hearing, border patrol leaders testified that u.s. border patrol spent $3.5 billion on border security for the force of entry alone. to give you a perspective of what that would have looked like under a resource-based strategy, that means we would have needed 77,000 border patrol agents or a budget in excess of $100 billion. today we have a little over $120 billion. the border patrol was either once severely underfunded or they needed a better way to communicate. i knew that the 3% number we reported didn't relay the good work that the border patrol agents were doing for the american people. the three articles we discuss

here today should convey some of what was happening inside the border. each cover a different segment of the border patrol's history. writing on them, i wanted to draw on real examples that illustrated not only what we were doing not only made sense but it worked in the past in public and private industries. the first article in the series was designed to provide information on the border patrol's simple and humble beginnings and why it was inevitable given the complexity of the border environment. the border patrol in 1995, and later in 2004, was the step in the right direction. lessons learned from these strategies included a realization that in order to truly address the complexities of border security, the border had to examine current threats and proactively address them. within the first article, lessons learned in the military

and by nasa when designing and developing and deploying the international space station were examined to draw parallels between critical elements of our risk-based strategy and risk management approaches taken by other government agencies. the second article in the series, the risk-based strategy was written to show how the u.s. border patrol made that shift, specifically how they leveraged the department of defense, intelligence community and other inter-agency partners to develop planning tools to effectively preliminary meant this strategy. the first of these tools was a threat to targets and operational assessment. this was designed to address the capabilities of both the adversary and our own capabilities. they help identify a potential action to mitigate those gaps. the intelligence operation was

heavily borrowed from the joint publication. it also addresses the course of action adversaries are likely to take in the future. they were heavily influenced by the department of defense. and finally, bp 3 was developed to help leaders identify objectives and specific problems within their areas of responsibility and to develop appropriate courses of action to achieve those goals. historically border patrol operations were predominantly based on activity levels and tactical intelligence garnered from arrest. we were plugging holes in fences. if it was busy, we put agents there. the border patrol helped planners conduct a more thorough

office and conduct a more practical approach to operations. the third article in the series, measuring security, answers the question as to how we know we're winning, if, indeed, we are winning and measuring progress toward that end. in the end a secure border is one of low risk. the border patrol considers an area to have low risk when we have the confidence in our situational awareness and understanding of imminent and emergent threats and competence in our abilities to address those threats. while we had a way to generally define low risk, we still needed a way to measure a progress toward that end. we needed a way to measure outcomes of operations and cam plain plans. it wouldn't be on the specific assets seized and detained. recognizing the metric is to be taken individually can prove success. we developed a preliminary set of risk indicators to analyze elements of risk along our border and evaluate the progress we are making in relation to our bills. if you asked a border patrol agent if we were winning, he would say, absolutely, and he would point to a number of arrests and seizures to show you that.