can sometimes be a mile wide and inch deep. sometimes, we flip and go the other way and get very deep on a particular subject, so i'm not deep on saudi arabia, but i had so many impressions. what i saw there was so counter my prenlgjudices going in. i had followed the kingdom mostly from ring side seats and egypt or iraq or the elsewhere in the region over a number of years and all of us tend to think saudi arabia sa the most change resistant, the most conservative of all the gulf states and arab players. we've watched the center of gravity of the arab world in so many fields. business, education, art, science, medicine, ideas. communications media, shift from the my beloved cairo and

the la vant toward the gulf and we explained yes of course, money will do that. all those petro dollar, but then why, why is the kingdom evidently so resistant to change and we make so much when a ruler goes and this son or that person gets named and we speculate so much about the role of individuals. any way, i came with a will the of questions. and one of the conceptual frameworks it used to bring to the great privilege of this service i had as an american diplomat foreign service officer, was sort of crystallizing a book about 15 years ago that probably most people here have heard about called the tipping point malcolm gladwell. the job of diplomats, good business people, good analysts and think tanks is to look for trends. not just changes that are happening, but what are the changes that are going to happen. not just the threats of

instability and revolution when we think about tipping point, but the opportunities. where are tomorrow's sort of explosive trends and fashions and business opportunities going to come from? and if, if you think about the work of malcolm gladwell, similar writing over the year things like the law of the few or things that hide in plain sight. often trends are counterintuitive until they become obvious and break out. one is the law of the few. it doesn't take a majority of people starting to think in a certain way to make the trend. by the time it's a majority, the trend well on its way. so, there's a few people that he calls them the mavens or the sales men, the connecters. people who are passionate about something, see something, want others to understand. you know in a shrt visit and such as i had, there's no hope

of having a representative sam a principle, okay? and that wasn't the point. the point was to expose me, to educate me to some interesting things going on. the proximate reason to go there was something i thought would be very stayed. it was something called institute for diplomatic studies. a bit of a relationship with the atlantic counsel. principally to the center for strategic and defense studies. i went thinking it's a saudi institution and there are usual ways of dealing with them and all that. i had my expectations firmly under control. we went, several day conference, very well organized. more than just older guys. people speak fluent from the shore counsel. very outspoken. very articulate. not just saudi officials. people from the world of business. private sector.

and a really rich interchange respectful, but not inhibited in the way that i expected to find. a lot of interesting ideas and banter and so forth of you know, i had been looking before, but it was just fresher and better. i thought, okay, this is a positive impression. i had been in touch with prince dor thi. he wasn't available. so i met with his son, who is a one of the leaders of something called the king fizel center for research and studies. he pointed out that research was added to the title. it used to be the center for islamic studies and they select venerable copies and do this. but what he wanted to talk about and what one of his scholars wanted to talk about was their research.

and it was research, they gave me a stack of publications which i actually looked through how they stack up against what we do in washington. they were in english strikingly. they do some in arabic as well. i thought they were pretty good. pretty interesting, including assessments on american foreign policy, which is pretty insightful and thoughtful. and assessments on iran, syria, egypt, the region. not, not simply justifying the kingdom's outlooks on thing, but really pretty thoughtful, legitimate. the conversation itself was wide ranging, interesting in the way of the prince himself. i could see the father and his son, princeton educated. any ways, it was, that was good.

just positive. not another swallow making -- and finally, i went to something that was strat ling. even in its very title, even after hearing the title, my expectations were this can't be for real. the title was this institute that was at prince time university, all male campus. they haven't built a female campus yet. 70% majority are female students on that campus. that was interesting for me. intermingled, not visibly segregated to me. there's an institute called the institute for the study in english, of study and government. in arabic, it's more startling than that. governmental creativity. and i thought, you know, even in washington, if you hear such a name for a think tank, you'd

have all kinds of snarky comments. ha, ha, ha. how impossible how counterexper yen shl is something like that. but they meant it as it turns out, it was started when it was the prince online center for government. now and i met with about a dozen people, four or five americans. think all the americans were women. i will mention two women in my remarks here. one of them is an american named ann who is a real management consultant and organizational change. she has her on consultant from harvard, goes between boston and riad to do this work. i think it's called one world, all the world, all world live network. and so she's a management

consultant on management change. serious professional. long established track record in working that field in the united states and they hired her. of all people. to lead this effort and she brought in other people who had experience with deloi and you know, maybe mckenzie. different firms, but it wasn't just these two americans, there were then the thing that gets to the point and makes me wonder, it's made me come back and ask my staff to do more research. research on the question of, is there are a tipping point happening or several in different fields in the kingdom as well as across the gulf perhaps. and i mean a positive tipping point. i don't mean a tipping point toward revolution or not negative violent political revolution. i mean positive revolutions.

and that is this. there were over half a dozen about eight saudi ranging age from their 20s into probably approaching 40. one had come back from study at oxford. the others had come back from study in the united states. one was a woman. didn't cover her hair. amongst the other men in the room. much less her face. all dressed demauerly in sort of black robes. and the conversation was really insightful. full of passion for what they're doing. they wanted us to understand what they're about and how important it was. so, this king solomon center for innovation and government started as an idea in 2013 reved up in 2014, initial studies. 2015, they published a catalog

of the 227 agencies that they found. of the kingdom's government. they thought to actually survey what is the government here, what does it look like? >> dug down into how they're working. best practices. how is it serving the people? what's work, what needs to be thrown out, abolished, disaggregated. who are the best leaders? they have published on this and are doing more work and these young saudis are fired u. up and evidently feel released and em poured to do it. again, biggest strength, i don't know. but the date of i think merits some analysis, some gathering of

analysis. come from the work of the other just touched upon by a small case by one of our staff. a young lady, stephany houser ali, who couldn't join us today. she's off. is about the numbers of saudis who have studied in this country. if you go back the gladwell's work, you see the different things matter in examining and analyzing trends, tipping points before they reach the tipping point. they don't have to be really great. they just have to reach a certain threshold. 2005 king abdulla and the president got together. they sent 5 or 6,000 the first year.

there are about 500 saudis stud studding in the united states. many have returned. similar stories across the gulf. the numbers were strong in earlier years. they grew, grew, grew. it is quite a trend. the fashion movement f. you're a well to do person in the gulf. to send your kid, not just to the west but to the united states, and typically very ambitiously for the best places and then they come back. they're not all integrating into the united states. they're coming back, running the family businesses. they're not going to sinecure, famously, a lot of employment in the west is work get it but the people i saw were not in make work jobs. they are fired up. they weren't working for the the pay. they were passionate about what they were doing and the way

people to have atlantic counsel or other constitutions around the united states. so, i guess that's the area for further study. we all know there's a youth demographic and particularly in places in the gulf and that should taper off, but what is a subset who have studied not just tourism, but lived among americans, british and i choose the english speaking world why? because that's how you link to the world of the internet and ideas and you read efrlg that's out there. some are going to france and other countries in the west. >> major recurrence of modernization and -- gl yeah. what are the channels there? how many, where are they concentrate concentrated? surveying them, what are their

ek experiences? we get some data a lot is impressionistic. we talk to three four, five people and you make vast conclusions like i'm doing here. but on the same it should be tested and look at the numbers and are they reach inging a tipping point. where people are coming back, male and female, and having impacts on institutions of civil society and even government and big companies and famously in the oil industry over a long time of course. i put out the questions for further research. i was just blown away by the work ann was doing in saudi arabia. gl thank you. >> all right. i have to say that haven't done some surveys that, it's always interest interesting, supposed to have occurred with the saudis. there's also a fact that no five

year plan has reflected a serious improvement. we've got, going to gif you cia figure, approximately 11 million people in the labor force. 80% of those are foreign. saudis reach job age every year. youth unemployment among saudis 24 and under, is rated at close to 30%. you have a lot of money going into job creation, economic cities. but you also have the oddity that more women graduate from secondary school and university and they take far more serious courses because it isn't dominated by religious instruction. you look at those demographics

and you take them into account because yes, we have those people. we also can look at significant parts of the kingdom where that development hasn't occurred, where there are constant security problems, where there has been a difficulty with al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula and now, rising attacks that have begun to emerge from the islamic state and not all of them are out in rural areas or the border. there are serious security problems in areas like and the kingdom has had to react. so, yes we need to get to the numbers, but and there are a lot of positive trends. and i think we have to be very very careful about the demographics here. and this is a country that's gone through an incredible amount of population pressure.

it's technically more than 84% urbanized going from something like less than 10% in 1950. and you get an idea of the stress involved. so, yes, there are tipping point, but i think we need to be very careful. they can tip in two directions. >> let's talk about yemen and iran and i want to come back on policy before we open it up, but we've seen a sort of a new level of engagement by the saudi military and local conflict. the particular, the air campaign may not have gone so far as they intended. i wonder if you could talk about what that means for saudi's role in the region and is this a vulnerability? mohammed has the face of this campaign. he has been more personalized maybe than his traditional and saudi politics but if it goes

badly, it a vulnerable nerability to him and for further iranian gran diazment. >> it's an air campaign which has -- looking at the claims it's very difficult to figure out what has actually happened. prz but certainly they have been quite a number of military and security targets. what, if anything they accomplish and dealing with the population, that's very hard. but partly because it's a very mixed population there and in the way they are, 35 a% of the population in yemen roughly, nobody knows precisely is shiite. only part of a much broader movement in the head of state. remember was a shiite. for many, many years.

dancing on the head of snakes was done by shiites not but a sunni. the other side of this, at the other side did they seriously think they could bring the previous leader back? i don't think that was something you can blame on the minister of defense and i'm not sure anybody thought they could. if the campaign is followed by some kind of political deal and by buying off the right amount of power brokers, and calling yemen a democracy is shall we say one of those many american generalizations, which doesn't have much coalition reality then it may be somewhat successful. but the broader problem in yemen is reflected at what you don't

see in the bombing campaign is for year, they've been debating whether there should be a purely massive barrier defense along the border and the answer no seems to not only be yes but to try to create a buffer zone on the yemeni side to try to block the flow of illegals but it is mostly to try to contain the problem while essentially ensuring you don't have major iranian influence. now, the saudis have a much more negative view of iranian influence in the movement than the u.s. does. we don't see that level of arms transfers or presence. but what i think we can all agree on is okay, there's a bombing campaign. i think the it's fair to say that yemen is one of the few countries in the world that most people who are development experts have given up on.

there is no way to deal with the population pressure, the water the failed economy, the other factors involved. it is going to be unstable and a mess indeaffinitely into the future. the that's gotten lost on this focus, which seems to have been incidentally, for what they were trying to do reasonably effective, which is a message being sent. now, it did reveal some other problems, which had nothing to do with this young minister of defense. saudi arabia needed to turn its red sea fleet into a real fleet for about the last 20 years. they haven't done it. they need to give their fleet in the gulf the same level of modernization. that they've given their air force. they haven't done it.

these are basic structural problems that affect their security that need solutions. now, whether this has anything to do with the appointment of a young friends is another issue. they have a major problem in their military cities, which they're reorganizing. but they tend to be static, they don't give mobility. we talk about yemen because that's today's headlines. they've been deeply involved in the syrian civil war from the start. but they say that prince vandarr was a little bit of a disaster. there was an open contest as to who could do the worst job of trying to intervene in syria. the obama administration and prince vandarr, a great thesis written on comparative incompetence if any of you are trying to have a doctorate.

you have the problem of iraq. where i think we've done better and they've been too isolated, unwilling to engage, but iraq on their border, it's real and the islamic state and the front and all quid in the arabian peninsula, which has nothing to do with the hoo pha are real threats. they're active. they have attacked. they have a very effective terrorism force, but they have terrorists. you have very weak partners. nobody wants to talk about -- but it has a very weak, ill, head of state. growing security problems. it's own demographic and economic problems. they're caught up with a barre or let's be frank about it. you have a deeply divided royal family that paralyzes movements toward real reform.

you have kuo tar,cut r, which seems to be more balanced, but frapgly, depends on us for real defense. it is not really part of the gulf cooperation counsel in an integrated sense. you have a kuwait with its own divided royal family. less visible. which is undergoing its own internal political problems and is is right on the border of iraq and iran. and from a saudi viewpoint, whatever you may think of yemen, understand that if we solve the nuclear problem the way we're planning to what we're really saying is we'll keep them at something approaching the breakout level with about two years of warning indefinitely into the future.

we won't solve what is a massive build up in iranian missile capable the tyilities capabilities. we won't address a major build up in asymmetric capabilities in the gulf. we won't do deal with the expansion of iranian influence n. all of these issues which wen i to saudi, dominate their perceptions of security, along with their own shiites and internal security problems focuses on the age of the present minister of defense and on yemen isn't terribly realistic and one problem we need to remember is yes, this is a long away way from us. it's right on their borders. on all their borders. and these are debates which go far beyond all of this focus on

the leadership and where i think there's a lot of continuity, but no good answers. none of these problems seem likely to go away in the next half decade and that's probably optimistic. >> well, that happy note, john, let me ask you. for another pessimistic note, it doesn't sound like the prospects for the accord on production are in the offing but how dhuz play out in the p5 plus 1 agreement comes on, iran will revive maybe 700,000, a million barrels a day of presanctions production, maybe sometime in 2016? late in 2016? iraq is reported to be able to deliver a million barrels a day year on year increase if the peninsula revamp takes off as planned, which is a question and so, how is this going to play out given the challenges in the regional dynamics?

is this a race to the bottom or does revenue max mization trump everything else? >> very easy questions there, david. but i think to bring back in this question, to bring back the yemen issue, i think that one of the reasons the saudis are so intent on making sure force in yemen is is really to show to the iranian that they exist. as a military power. maybe not strong, but they exist and they have to be accounted with. in any kind of settlement so the p5 plus 1 arrangement takes place, i would not be surprised if there was an arrangement between iran and saudi arabia on many other subjects. because i think everybody understands that you cannot fight islamic state just with saudi arabia alone. you have to have a saudi iranian

arrangement. if that doesn't happen, islamic state will continue to survive and do pretty well. so, if the arrangement works out and the saudis move forward with iranian on developing more of a stable situation in syria in particular and in iraq, i think they would be a lot of things will happen at the same time. now, in terms of the oil production, yes, i would, definitely the iranian can produce 600, 700,000 barrels more in a year or two years and the saudis have time to deal with that in a sense. let's remember i think that and there are people in the room who know this much better than i do any way, but i think the focus of iran is really on natural gas and if saudi, if iran can find some capital to reestablish

their gas fields, they can start producing. today, iran is a net importer of natural gas and has the second largest reserves in the world. they can export to pakistan to europe and what not so there is an enormous amount of possibilities for iran. they could develop their liquid natural gas industry which is nonexistent at this point. a lot of people would be quite happy to help them develop this if the gas can be produced. so, i think the gas angle of this could be one of the part of the deals they work out with a saudis in that sense so i'm not too worried about the race to the bottom in terms of pricing because if part of the deal is saudis could produce production to make up for some little by little increase in iranian production, now, where you mentioned iraq is is a lot more of a problem because iraq has much more capacity to increase production if there was some kind of arrangement in iraq. now, today i was reading in the

middle east economic survey, yesterday, i think that the kurdish territories are very upset at iraq because iraq is not payinging so the kurds are being pusheded out again and they could start producing. we have our own companies up there, they have their own pipeline to go to turkey and so the, it's not huge amounts of oil, but it could mount up to half a million maybe a million barrels eventually over a couple of year, but iraq is really in deep trouble. they cannot have the security arrangement totally workeded out. i don't see any much increase in iraq oil. now, they have last month were producing exporting more than ever, but that's including the kurdish oil or the oil which on the field which was invaded by the kurds. so, i'm not sure we're going to see.

maybe i should not, but i actually discount iraq as a problem in the terms of the race to this point. if things actually if the iranian, saudi agreement ever takes place or took place, then there might be some arrangement in iraq who would then could produce more in the, but we're talking three, four, five years down the line. eternity in price of terms of oil. >> let's turn to the audience and i think we can start with ambassadors row and then we'll take two or three questions at a time. yes. >> on the board of atlantic counsel. one thing has not been mentioned in this discussion. can someone comes to power with more experience in foreign policy and domestic policy than his predecessors, he had seen

foreign policy with aus with arab countries, with europe. he was governor of riyadh. he has excellent relationship with his community. and this is something that should be emphasized that you have a king who has ek appearance, you have a king who has traveled. you have a king who has good relationship with many leaders in arab world and that's something that should be emphasized. >> right. >> let's take a couple more. >> yes, thank you. very interesting discussion. i go way back in saudi arabia but i managed to be return once in a while, but i go back to the days when king solomon was prince solomon and governor riyadh and i think some people looking at it from afar, well, what's a governor? he was much more than a governor. of a, the capital of the

province. he was the, on the inside of policymaking in the royal family for years and years. at the same time crown prince well, then king abdulla he was the number two and i tried to keep in touch with him and i thought to myself, gee, you know, this this fellow is a bedoin, how can we ever run a country. i was astonished to see how he took over. he had hardly traveleded outside the arab world. and i think instituted a lot of very important reforms. some people can say they weren't enough, but whatever. i think the leadership has been very good, but let me just go to the one question which you raise and that is education. the saudi arabia has done

marvelously on educating and the 100,000 saudis who are studying the united states, that's very good for our bilateral relationship and the country, but, but, it does relate the thg called jobs. we just had the president of tunisia here last week and he made that point too. he said under the president and then afterwards, there were two reforms. women and education. women's okay but the education now we have so many educated people without jobs. and i think obviously, this is a risk for saudi arabia and you mentioned saudi, the whole idea that you've got to get away from having this ship of state run by a crew. when i was there, we tried hard and i think since then they have helped them with

establishing a vocational training program. working with your hands. it was not very successful. i think there is this tipping point and i hope it's going to be a positive one, but last point, yes. you have two very young future leaders and i think yes, that's a good thing. basically, all that ooifr i've heard is that that's good, we can now look ahead not just for a couple of years but maybe for a couple of deckadesdecades, o there's the feeling of keep us safe and maybe this will. just random thoughts. thank you. >> thank you. >> let's take a couple of more before we come back to the panel. right here in the front row and then back there. >> go ahead.

>> protocall dictates. >> ambassador. sorry. i'm out of practice. to a guy that's getting ready to go in a matter of days to the kingdom, in a role that i'm still trying to grasp, but specifically, it's going to be in a training and advisory role with the saudi arabian national guard. advice, counsel and we don't need to bore the rest of the scholarship here, but i would like a few minutes afterwards if either of you gentlemen would be so inclined. >> atlantic counsel. excellent presentation, thank you very much. can you please drill down a little bit about the saudi iranian dynamics in view of a possible agreement on the saudi nuclear, the iranian nuclear

program? specifically to what extent the saudi counterpart of a nuclear program can appear and where will it go and on a separate note, in terms of the yemen scenario, to what extent do you think that may have effect shipping of oil around the peninsula into and up the sea. thank you. >> okay. so we've got king solomon's pedigree and education and job risk and nuclear. tony do you want to start? >> well, the first i think there's no question you have a king who is a proven and confidence technocrat but i'm not quite sure and i think we all need to worry about is saudi arabia isn't the only problem in leadership. you look around and you have

obvious uncertainties in egypt. there are fewer questions but the real in jordan, certainly, the saudis are concerned about both. you don't have is a a stable leadership in iraq. i think that we have underestimated the problems in oman. there is a study i think by brookings which at least surfaced some of the issues, but it's been something of a black hole. in terms of actual coverage. the problems in kuwait problems in bahrain, these are very real. the failure of nicheinitiatives to bring the gulf cooperation counsel together into an effective security body to deal with these issues initiatives that king abdulla took, these are continued. now, i've been listening to good ideas raised since the early

1980s. and to the extent i've seen efforts in integration that went into the security structure, they've largely been a technocratic failure and a waste of money. some extraordinarily expensive in character. so, the problem for the saudi leadership is a lot broader and we keep talking about u.s. saudi tensions. but the tensions locally are bad enough. one area where i see an operation is is dealing with the syrian opposition and i hope that continues, but it's still now a high risk because you're talking, so, exactly, what is the relationship between saudi arabia and syria or iraq and lebanon? not as soon as we can ignore safely the palestinian and israeli issues, which don't lead me to that conclusion. so, i get worried about the idea

of continuity here. i get worried about how well a kingdom can deal with a king, a new foreign minister and the security issues. it's not that i have any pessimism about it, but i have concerns. i think we have to be careful. let me go back to a couple of other issues. on the job side looking at the five-year plan data and the budget plan data and the saudi arabian monetary fund data, and anything else i can find, they're not making progress. and it is critical. i mean, women are a key aspect of a productive labor force when they're more than half the educated population. the rate of youth unemployment

in women is is twice the rate of men. that's a lot of talent that isn't being used but young saudi men are not getting the jobs and let me say that and this will get me in trouble with various universities, there is an amazing lack of correlation globally between education and job creation. education for jobs when the economy is is create ingcreating them is very valuable. education for the sake of education has almost no historical impact in moving countries toward development. and this is not popular. but it is unfortunately something where nobody trots out numbers to contradicted and the kingdom has to face this. now, just to go back to the saudi iranian issue, let me just

say that every conversation i have with people who are involved in defense, intelligence or foreign affairs, do not see this nuclear agreement as having any positive effects. they are focused exclusively on what they see isas the expanse of iranian influence in the region and they see us at least as partially to blame. a lot of that i think unfair, but they see us as having failed to contain iranian influence. now, some of the more recent meetings may or may not have helped to deal with that. but i also when i talk to them am constantly reminded, yes, the nuclear issue has this very high pro profile.

a lot of it is driven by our focus on proliferation, a politics of u.s. and israeli relationships, by the history of some very key figures like prince turkey as supporters of arms control. but when you go to a different level, the focus is on a asymmetric capabilities. and you have to be careful here because seen from an iranian viewpoint, they don't see themselves as a successful, stable military power in other ways. they realize a hell of a lot of their air force is stuff they were buying when i was serving in iran and that was for obvious reasons, the early to mid 1970s. their ships their surface to air missiles, are obsolete. by the standards of the gov. this is a power which has reason

to be concerned and then you look at the rising level of shiite sunni tension. which is only partly related to islamic extremism in groups like is and there are serious problems within the kingdom, some of which i think they have perhaps been too strict about dealing with, in terms of the way they treat their hits. but these problems aren't going away and they're not going to be solved by the nuclear agroemt. and when i look at that agreement, i think from what i have seen of the tentative structure, i would certainly support it. but it is not going to contain the iranian nuclear capability. there are a whole host of things they'll be able to do under any of the frameworks that i've seen today. and the saudis are aware of this. the practical problem, however is is if you buy reactors and

you get yourself into a fuel cycle, and you then have to create the capability to actual develop and produce a reliable nuclear weapon safe to put on a delivery system, it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the kind of nonsense i see coming out of think tanks in washington, which is based on a species idea that all you need is enough fis l material and you have a successful bomb. as a collective intellectual community, we sort of deserve an f minus for the quality of serious analysis in dealing with this issue and it's going to be a very major problem for the gulf states. now, what are the options? people like prince turkey have talked about well, if the

iranian can have a fuel cycle, we have to have a fuel cycle. fine. that puts saudi arabia into buying reactors and being able to manage its own fuel cycle. i would not hold by breath and of course, that doesn't move them anywhere toward getting a bomb. they have missiles as you know, a strategic missile force but it's not a force they have a technical background to adapt. and the operators seem to have a fairly heavy chinese presence. there's no other arab country that has capabilities in these areas. so, where can you turn? and there's only really one clear place. and that is pakistan. now, whether pakistan would sell missiles and nuclear weapons, i don't know.

they will have significant overcapacity in the production of fissle material relative to the current nuclear weapons program. fairly quickly, so there is that potential, and it would be a very dangerous game changer and it is something which could present us awith a real crisis if this nuclear agreement doesn't take place. or if it's cheated on. all of which is something that may or may not be discovered in the next month or so. >> we've just got a kouchl minutes left. i want to give you and john a chance for a last word and we'll wrap up. gl sure. if i could come back to walt's observation and tony, yours on education, a lack of correlation to jobs. we did something here yesterday called hiding in plain sight on putin's role in the world.

sometimes, you're look inging for something and you miss something else. there's an old joke about a watchman, a guard at the gaits of an establishment, a factory watching a man come out with a wheelbarrow every day full of straw and he looks under the straw, doesn't see anything. he's suspicious. every day, this guy comes out with a wheelbarrow with straw. he knows there's something wrong. he watch day after day checks the straw, there's nothing there. goes out. finally, he interrogates the guy and says, what are you doing here? what are you hiding? i know you're taking something. and the guy finally admits, he's stealing wheelbarrows, so by thot watching the wheelbarrows and look ago @ straw, you can miss what he's doing. i'm a product of one of the best things the u.s. senate ever did.

i got into global affairs thanks to jay william. he was against the vietnam war, beard, long hair, whole thing, but reestablished the full ride scholarships so that education came from that, was hugely impactful on americans and foreigners who came here. the education i think was in some ways the straw. yes, there's knowledge being transferred. the saudis who are coming here, the others are studying some maybe some are doing poetry and humanityies humanities, but many are getting mbas, science, medicine, all that's important, the tech transferring the knowledge but what's really important, what's the wheelbarrow, is living for four years when you're in your 20s among americans and seeing how americans think. for example, they're not going to school necessarily to get a job in the government.

in egypt, they crank out half a million graduates a year who are expected to go to get government jobs. most americans who go to expecting to go out and get government jobs having provided for them, just going to finishing school. they are rtd rt staing businesses. there is a whole different rich array of how americans think about work education gender roles, gender participation. it's transformative. and so i found when foreigners come back from living in the u.s. it almost didn't matter what they studied. they come really changed. and that's what i get to. are there -- how many tens of thousands are coming back from education here with a different idea about what it means to be a male, a female arc human an adult, an economic actor how you run your family how you engij with the world what you teach your kids, the role of

religion. they are not necessarily getting the most important stuff from inside the classroom. i don't know. i don't mean to paint a sunny picture and say all these terrible trends aren't real. they are. but there is stuff that's hiding in plain sight i'd like to get at too. i think that's where business opportunity also lies. >> jean francois last word, optimist or a pest mis? >> i'm relatively optimistic. i think for once i may not agree totally with dr. quartsman. but i think that in the old -- not that long ago iran and saudi arabia were trying to establish a rapprochement. the first visit of king abdula when he became king was to iran. there was a lot of talks that things should be improving. i'm not overly concerned -- i am concerned of course by the terrible things that are happening between sunni and shia. but i think frankly these things

can be arranged in a way. because, again abdula had made a huge effort to work with the shiite and saudi arabia. and i think the shia responded fairly positively at the time. i think if the situation overall all koms calms down a little bit thing will start improving. my experience is on shia/sunni relations mostly in bahrain where i lived many years and before the prime minister and all that really pushed the sectarian issues the shia and the sunnis always had some problems. we knew about it. but they lived together they got married and so on. i think we can see the same things developing in saudi arabia. i'm not so concerned about that because i think that from political standpoint can be used or not used depending how that goes. just a last note on the ministry of foreign affairs, since somebody mentioned it was so important to see -- to have a

nonroyal in term. i think the minister foreign affair -- there was no other, anyone except facer. there was no ministry. all the decisions went to him. i think having the commoner of the quality of himself in charge is they can build a ministry and have somebody who can actually write studies and surveys and so on for the government to make decisions. until then, they didn't have that. and i think that is going to be a most difficult job is to create a real ministry with real people who can provide real information. >> terrific, thank you. we can clearly go on a lot longer. our time is up. thank you to our panelists. and thanks to awful you for listening. [ applause ] . >> i want to thank you all for coming. i hope you will come to more events at that time global energy center and the outer

center. tomorrow the funeral service for vice president joe biden's son beau who died last week at the age of 46 following a fight with brain cancer. mr. biden served as delaware's attorney general and was also a member of his state's army national guard for more than a decade surfing a tour in iraq as well. beau biden leaves behind a wife two children, two siblings, his stepmother jill and his father, the vice president. president obama along with the first lady plan to answer the tomorrow's funeral with the president delivering the eulogy. see it live saturday at 10:30 a.m. eastern on cspan. this sunday on cspan's road to the white house, a conversation with former virginia senator and likely democratic presidential candidate jim web. he discusses growing up in a military family and his service as a marine in vietnam. american foreign policy,

politics, congress, and why he wants to be president. >> this country needs leadership. i think if you look anywhere in the country and ask people what they believe is missing up here at the federal level it's leadership that they can trust people who have the experience that they can show that never a record, who can work across the aisle and get things done. i've had a -- sort of a blessing in my professional life in that i've been able to spend about half of my time in public service, and then half of my time doing other things, working for myself, basicallies is a sole proprietyorproprietor. and i just believe very strongly that we need to create a new environment in washington where we have leaders who can talk across the aisle and actually solve our problems. >> jim web, this sunday at 6:35 p.m. eastern on road to the white house 2016 on cspan. both chambers of congress from in recess today.

the senate returns monday at 3:00 p.m. eastern to continue work on 2016 defense programs and policy. senators have been working on amends but we don't expect any votes on those until tuesday. armed services committee chair john mccain has expressed hope the bill will be finished by the end of next week. follow the senate live on cspan 2. and the house returns tuesday to continue work on 2016 spending for the transportation and housing departments. they have a number of amends to work through with final passage expected early why the week. also expected a measure that would reauthor the kmod december futures trading commission. see the house live on cspan. the senate natural resources committee held a hearing earlier this week on drought conditions in the western u.s. and what those states are currently doing to address the problem. this is two hours.

good morning. we're calling to order the full committee on energy. welcome to everyone this morning. we are meeting today to discuss drought conditions. i don't know about the rest of you, but i was completely dumped on yesterday. i had never seen it rain so hard. but i was thinking about drought as we were battling the wet

here. but truly, the drought conditions that are facing the western united states have garnered the attention of so many of us. much of the west has been in varying degrees of drought for the past 15 years now. according to a survey released last week by the u.s. drought monitor, approximately 57% of the west is now experiencing moderate to exceptional drought. all or parts of nine states in the worst shape range from severe to exceptional drought. the impacts are significant. california in the midst of its fourth year of severe drought has for the first time imposed mandatory 25% reductions on water use on residents and businesses. farmers have contracts with reclamation in the state but today in absence of water their

livelihoods are being dramatically impacted. drought is leaving behind hard decisions for these folks. decisions where they are saying, now which fields do they lay fallo? do they change the certain crops that they plant? do they plow under crops such as fruit trees? i was out in fresno several months ago and saw whole fields of beautiful citrus trees, healthy citrus trees that were literally bulldozed over because there was no water. in certain cases the drought has led farmers to go out of business entirely. of course the impacts are not just on our farmers. with some communities no longer having running water and individuals in farming communities losing jobs. now there is much discussion regarding what drive water release decisions in the state lt during the course of the state's four year drought many have said that the large amounts of water that have been released in various times or various

forms or held back have been done to ensure production of fish at the expense of cities, towns and farmers. indeed we've heard repeatedly that farmers in the state use 80% of the state's water. so the needs to be asked is that accurate? my understanding is that the california department of water resources has rereported that statewide water use looks more like this, 10% urban use. 41% agricultural use, and a majority of 49% use for environmental management. wetlands delta outflow wild and scenic des i go nation and instream flow requirements. so one of the very real questions that we should discuss regarding california's circumstances and potentially elsewhere is to what extent is the very important balance between water for fish under state and federal law been given equal legal support for that of water delivery to meet the needs of people in cities towns, and farms. and if the balance is not equal

then why not? are there regulatory imbalances? >> and can the federal government be helpful in addressing imbalance? elsewhere in the west the situation while perhaps not as dire is trendsing that way. in washington state the governor declared a statewide drought emergency on may 15th. in oregon the governor has declared a state of drought emergency in seven counties with another eight requesting designation. across the colorado river basin where 40 million residents in seven states rely on water from lake powell and lake mead on the colorado for residential, industrial and agricultural needs, the drought in varying degrees has been a fact of life for now some 15 years. and the strains are starting to show. most notably at lake mead where lake levels have fallen 130 feet in the last 15 years. at the current rate in the next few years, users in arizona and elsewhere could see reductions in their state allocations under the colorado river exact.

hydropower operations at lake mead and lake powell could also be curtailed in coming years. as a brief aside, i've mentioned in this committee and in others that potential hydropower impacts remind us of the very strong nexus between energy and water and this drought the strain that drought puts on that nexus is something that i'm watching and am very concerned about. in the face of the challenges stemming from drought water users, federal state officials and others are working to ensure differry of water where it's needed. these actions include state and federal officials working together to facilitate water transfers and farmers agreeing to delay the date of delivers of water to benefit species. of course many farmers have turned to ground consumption of water to meet their needs. there are hard questions that need to be asked. are current actions sustain number the face of multi-year droughts in are all affected

parties giving sufficient attention to long term planning and related actions? >> and what is the federal government's most appropriate role in addressing long term solutions given tight bunlts and that most of the water in the west is actually managed by the states? are there innovative efforts on the ground that should be replicated. also what new ideas for water storage, conservation and use might we consider? we've got an impressive panel of witnesses here today n.t i look forward to hearing from those who are on the ground and how they are meeting the challenges. i look forward to everyone's thautsd on how we can be helpful here. i'll turn to my colleague senator cantwell. i will note to the committee that we have a vote scheduled at 10:306789 so we will keep the committee going and just ask member to go out and vote and then come back. but i'd like to turn to senator cantwell. >> thank you. i think i'd like to thank the

chair woman for scheduling this important hearing. as you mentioned in my state, the governor has declared a drought emergency as has been done in 11 other states. i hope we can use this hearing to better understand the magnitude of the impact of these droughts across many of our western states. i want to emphasize, too, that we hope to have a robust discussion today about solutions, things that we can do and things that we can plan for in the future. what is working, what is not working, what are the federal government actions that need to be addressed to face the drought issues over the long term and if drought conditions are likely to become the new normal, what do we need to do to usher in a new era of solutions? this year many states are experiencing the warmest winter on record. in my state snow impact at the mountain level which keeps our river flowing in the spring and summer are now at 9% of normal

levels. and 11 snow sites monitored by the department of agriculture were snow free this year for the first time ever. hurricane ridge which is one of the most visited parts of our state in olympic national park is normally covered in feet of snow, and this year is completely snow free. it's startling sight to many washingtonians. as a result of such low snowpack 78% of the state's streams are running below normal and run off is projected to be the lowest it has been in 64 years. the governor declared a statewide drought imagine and have been working to mitt gate impacts. for example, in the yakima basin which is the state's most productive agricultural region irrigation districts are remarking waters and farmers are facing significant cuts. the washington department of agriculture predicts the crop loss could be as much as $1.2

billion this year. so i want to make sure that our federal agencies are working hand in hand with the states to provide relief and assistance and to try to address this issue moving forward. meanwhile, our communities are bracing for a severe fire season, which also will provide many challenges. so it's very important to me that we look at responding to the long term changes that are before us and the ways that we do business in managing water in the midst of this major crisis and that we think about the paradigm shift that is in front of us as we face these warmer seasons. we need to develop 21st century strategies for water management that not only respond to the drought conditions of today but prepare us for an uncertain future. this requires new ways of thinking and collaboration which means exploring all options, not just incremental change at this point in time. i think the yakima basin project

in my state is an example of long term water basin planning which hasn't been done in the past in which interest groups from farmers to fishermen to tribes to environmentalists are working together to try to implement the best plan over the long term. but i think that there are four areas that we should consider moving forward. one, we need more collaborative water sharing agreements just like with the yakima basin this empowers communities to take action at local level and be part of crafting solutions. second, we need to be more flexible in drought operations this. includes the way we build manage and finance storage and other infrastructure and how we support those efforts at the local level. i know a lot of people don't even want to talk about storage because they start thinking about how long it takes to get it permitted and authorized. i'm not talking about rolling back any environmental laws but i think we have to think creatively about how we build storage now.

we need to do -- even if that small scale storage is what is being done with the yakima basin project. we need to do a better job of leveraging science and technology. i'm mazed at what israel has done as a country to have such low water resources and continues to be a agricultural producer. we need to make sure we are deploying new technology that help improve efficiencies from everything from our hydroelectric dams to agriculture to our home and finally we need to do a better job of planning for the future instead of just simply reacting. i hope, madam chair that we can in the future get some of our climate scientists from oak ridge. i know senator alexander is a member of our -- i think he is -- a member of our committee who -- they have incredible science on what will be impacting us as a nation. they have the modelling. i think we should look at what these new normal conditions mean to us as a nation because i think we can see what the

economic impact is going to be from an agriculture perspective. and i think it's going to be great. i think we need to do a better job planning for the future. so we need to do all that we can now at the federal level to be flexible in our response to get the right kind of investments to help ensure that our states can deal with these and that our communities will be better protected in the future of the once again i thank you for your leadership in having this hearing. i look forward to hearing from the witnesses, including tom longer who is with the water resources manager from the department of ecology in washington state. and i look forward to hearing from all of the witnesses today on this important topic. >> thank you senator cantwell. with this, we will begin hearing from our witnesses this morning. again, very distinguished panel. thank you, awful you, for being here. the lead will begin with the honorable michael conner who is the deputy secretary for the department of interior. he will be followed by mr.

thomas busho, the skey of the arizona department of water resources. thank you for coming from the west to be here. also from the west, from washington we have mr. tom longer, who is the water resources program manager for washington state department of ecology. he would be followed by mr. james aggs bury, who is the executive director for the western governor's association. so giving us the view from the western states there. mr. cannon michael is the president of bowles farm, which on behalf of the family farm alliance. welcome to the committee. and wrapping up the panel is ms. betsy cody who is a natural resources policy specialist at crs. we welcome all of you. and with that mr. conner, we will lead off with you. and when the vote is called, you will see various members of the

committee leaving. but i would ask that we just move through the testimony here this morning. i know that you have a hard stop at noon, so we want to try to accommodate that. so five minutes testimony, and your full written statement will be incorporated as part of the record. mr. conner, welcome. >> thank you chairman. thank you senator cantwell, members of the committee. i'm mr. conner i want to thank you for the opportunity to testify on the subject of drought and the action that the department and its bureaus are taking to address the serious water resource issues affecting much of the west. i will briefly summarize by lengthy written testimony. the department is acutely aware of the drought related challenges and worries confronting families farmers, tribes businesses, cities and the environment throughout the west. and we are commit ted doing all we can to address the situation. we understand the implications for western communities, and the need for continuous action to

build long term water supply reliability and resiliency. given the current and future impacts associated with climate change and other stressors we have no choice but to adjust and adapt. to that end, the department is taking a multifacetted approach in marshaling every resource at its disposal to assist western communities impacted by drought. the department has instituted a multipronged strategy that encompasses short, medium and long term dimensions. given the significant infrastructure own and operated by the of reclamation a response to drought requires a focus on immediate day do day operations. the department and its partners are taking actions to maximize supplies fore human use while maintaining viralal uses for fish and wildlife and protect the interests of other water users. this year, the fifth year of historic drought in california mitigation has been minimal while agencies water users and

nongovernmental have worked together to share limited water supplies. the collaboration and cooperation has been as historic as the drought itself. beyond addressing the current crisis we are also making strategic investments to stretch limited supplies and minimize complicates over the next several years. as illustration, two weeks secretary jewel travelled to los angeles where she announced a total of $45.9 million in gran assistance to cofund a host of water conservation programs. these grants join hundreds of millions supported by congress to help families across the west confront booed i the historic drought. finally we continue to assess and plan for long term actions of our understanding of water uses and technology investments needed to address unsustainable water uses that are the source of significant conflict today and likely to get worse in the

future. the department views this as an all hands effort with actions occurring across the department. the national parks service, bureau of land management fish and wildlife service and geological survey are working aggressively with our partners like the department of agriculture as part of the administration wide national drought resistance partnership a form up to help community address the impact of the drought. from california's central valley to the yakima river baysin from grazing lands and itemer lands and park lands, reducing water consuchgs, preventing water loss, protect assets and providing irrigation to farmlands -- our experience has taught us to be successful we

must be dedicated beyond near term results and committed for the long term. take the colorado river basin as an example. that basin has been the beneficiary of collaborative beneficiary measures for the last is a years. most reebl the program created in 2007 with the southern basin states as well as agreements forged in 2010 and 2012 with the heks mexican government through those programs 1 million acre feet of water has been conserved. uncommunitily, the drought continues to outpace our conservation efforts and potential shortages in the lower basin are now possible in 2016 and 2017 underscoring the need for continued collaboration and extraordinary operational measures into the future. successfully confronting the challenges of drought will take considerable investment and ongoing commitment. the department and this administration will not lose focus on our duty to help western communities dealing with drought. we know that neither the federal government nor the communities that we serve simply build

conserve, recycle or regulate our way out of these challenges or rely on only one option to neat challenges that we face. rather we understand the need to take a multifacetted long term approach in working to achieve lasting results. thank you for the opportunity. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you deputy secretary. mr. boo shotski? >> good morning chairman, ranking member cantwell and member of the committee i. amendment the director of the arizona department of water resources. thank you for providing me the opportunity to present arizona's testimony ralt regarding drought in the west its impact on my state. our formula or offsetting drought kblakts and the role of united states. arizona air i had environment in arizona reminds of of the value of every drop of water we have. we have about 7 million acre feet of water per year. source 40% from thele colorado river, 40% from groundwater, 17%

from instate surface and 3% from reclaimed water. arizona has created certainty for our water users. it took capital compromise and dedication over long ages to effectively manage our water. the result was worth the effort. arizonans enjoy a high quality of life and a vibrant economy and will continue to do so even in the face this drought. despite arizona's successes water supply uncertainty and vulnerability remains. managing that uncertainty and eliminating vulnerability is a part of arizona continues to be a strategic goal for our state. drought on the colorado river is at the top of our list of challenges. arizona will lose 320,000 of its 2.8 million acre feet colorado river allegation when a tier one shortage is strigerred.

we will know in august 2015 if shortage will occur in 2016. the probable of a shortage in 2016 is 33% and increases to 75% for 2017. arizona should terse brunt of the shortage about 84% of the total taken by arizona, nevada and mexico. if lake mead continues to decline, arizona will take larger reductions while california will continue to take no shortage. another challenge for arizona and if lower basin is an issue referred to as the structural deficit. it is caused by the volume of water released from lake mead for beneficial use, evaporation, and delivery losses exceeding the volume of water entering lake mead from lake powell even in a normal year. as a result, lake mead's elevation drops about 12 feet per year. greater than normal colorado river flows into make lake mead help offsheet structural deficit impacts but drought has reduced that likelihood from happening. despite the impacts, uncertainty and vulnerabilities i have described arizona is not in a

water crisis and is well situated to deal with the drought, an outcoming of good planning, good management and the 1980 groundwater managing acts and its progeny. the act has carrots and sticks. agricultural use is capped and new housing move a 100 year water supply. the act incentivizes saving water, underground storage programs allow water to be stored unground and recovered later resulting so far in the storage of 5.6 million acre feet and another 3.4 million acre feet by the arizona water banking authority which is dedicated to backfilling shortages. this program was quickly recognized by other states. arizona stored 80,000 acre feet for california in the 1990s and another 600,000 acre feet for nevada in the 2000s. maintaining the resiliency arizona enjoys today will be a

challenge. s a i conclude i want to address the potential role of the federal government. first the second of the interior water master in the lower basin in the colorado river should be a partner in creating and implementing collaborative actions to create a sustainable colorado river. however it is imperative that the actions not reduce arizona's flexible to manage its own water supplies. arizona already takes the lion's share of colorado river shortage federal actions that might further impact arizona are not warranted and would not be equitable. second the reliability and sustainability of the river is critical to arizona indian and to the united states as trustee for those tribes. central arizona project water is essential to tribal rights settlements in arizona. third there is a need for augmenting the colorado river.

lastly, arizona would like to see additional opportunities for federal supported programs to conserve water that will benefit the entire system rather than one particular user especially considering what some users like arizona have already done. thank you for a opportunity to pry you with a snapshot of the arizona experience. >> thank you. appreciate your comments. let's go to mr. longer. >> madam chair, member of the committee thank you for the opportunity to testify. i'm the water resources manager with the washington state department of eology. as senator cantwell mentioned current snowpack levels in washington are 9% of normal. this is the lowest we have on record. because of the low snowpack, rivers with diminishing flows and irrigation districts already cutting off supplies to junior east users the govern declared a drought in washington in may w. the state's drought declaration, relief can be provided for those

experiencing hardship and to improve flows for fish. regarding agriculture in the state, currently difficult decisions are being made about what crops get priority water and how best to save fish. as fireman mentioned the washington state department of agriculture anticipates $1.2 million in crop loss this year in the state. the yakima basin where the bureau of reclamation has built multiple storage projects the drought means less water is available for junior water users. in the last two weeks we have already issued 30 emergency drought well permits to junior users in the rosa irrigation district in the yakima basin n. the other baseins in the state we've send out curtailment orders already to junior users n. the wallia wallia we are act thely working with irrigators, tribes, and other water managers to develop leases and provide pulse flows for struggling salmon. regarding community in the

state, the largest municipality seattle, tacoma everett, have all indicated they are not experience water shortages this year. these utilities have taken proactive steps to secure rain water that full during the winter time. however smaller community systems may experience problems. the drought response funding from the legislature will allow communities to rehabilitate or deepen wells as needed or construct interties with adjacent systems like we did in the 2005 drought. regarding flows for fish, in the dungeon he is river on the olympic peninsula in washington we have committed 13 leases already will farmers will let 1,000 acres of farmland life fallo. flows will return in the critical late summer period. we are also in the process of leasing water from the kitti

tash district in upper yakima. right now in the wallia wallia water fly supplies and flow is extremely low impacting irrigators use and fish passage. currently partners are shifting flow from creek to creek to aid struggling salmon as well, chinook and trout as well. chael challenging time for fish and farms in washington. key to the successful implementation of emergency drought response in washington is the work we've done actively developing collaborative partnerships in these key watersheds like theiac marks the downing necessary wallia wallia around the state. pps is a new way of doing business where we have irgetters supporting flow enhancement projects for fish. we have fisheries interest and tribes supporting water supply projects for out of stream use of water. from these partnerships we have developed minimum flow requirements flexible

mitigation strategies and lease arrangements that make it easy to shift water around when we have to rapidly during a drought. examples in the yakima we've develop leasing arrangements to share with water districted. in addition, all parties including the yakima tribe have growed to a flexible mitigation approach that wells used -- the yakima integrated strategy was developed working with all of these partners. when funded it will expand the reservoir capacity in the yakima basin, improve facility operations and improve fish passage and fish habitat providing more water for these critical brought periods n. the dung necessary watershed the engineers association has agreed to voluntarily reduce their water flow periods in perds of

low flow. this is remarkable. they are also entering lease agreement so water have been left in the stream during these critical periods. in the wallia wallia they are actively moving water around to broke theishr finishry and irrigation. thank you. >> mr. longer -- mr. oaks bury? welcome. >> thank you chirwoman, ranking member, and member of the committee, my james is jim occasion bury, i'm the executive director of the western governor's organization an independent nonpartisan organization representing the governors of 19 western estates and three u.s. territories. it is an honor to be here today. well over a year ago, nevada governor and current chairman of wga brian sandoval announced his intention to devote his energy as chairman of wga on the

critical issue of drought. this announcement was applauded by the western governors because as an issue it speaks to the strengths of wga. it is timely. it's actionable. it's bipartisan. it's a top prirtd of our governors. and unfortunately it is a perennial concern in the west. it's designed by governor sandoval the drought forum is an effort that speaks to the pragmatic nature of governors who as chief cuttives are focused on practical common sense solutions to stage and regional challenges. i will not belabor the severity of the present drought or its impacts. you and other witnesses have established that case. and there has been extensive coverage of the drought impacts on california where snow levels are now 0% of level and the snowpack of the sierra nevadas has officially disappeared. these severe conditions, however, are not limited to the golden state.

washington governor jayencely, as you have heard, declared a statewide drought emergency on may 159d citing the fact that on the olympic peninsula where there should have been 80 inches of snow there were instead glacier lillys in bloom. governor kate brown of oregon i believe has declared drought emergencies now in 15 counties. early may snowpack plefls in boise river basin of idaho were the fourth lowest on record since measurements began in 1940. western governors have individually taken decisive actions to prepare for drought and manage its impact. california governor jerry browne issued an executive order on april 1st mandating a 2% reduction in municipal water use. governor insly has spearheaded washington state's participation in the yakima basin integrated water resource management plan which will empower water users in a rich agricultural area to collaboratively address the risk of drought to agriculture communities and the environment.

the governors have also addressed drought collectively through the western gore governor's drought forum. the forum has organized drought workshops, hosted webinars, produced reports and engineered an online resource library for officials and water managers to share drought management best practices, case studies and innovations. w.g.o hosted workshops each of which focused on a particular economic sector, including energy, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and tourism. the lessons learned from these and other activities of the drought forum have been memorialized in an online resource break and will be summarized in a report that will be issued by the governors later this month at their annual meeting in lake tahoe n. wrestling with drought western governors have enjoyed productive partnerships with the federal government. western governors provide a critical leadership for the

original enactment and roont reauthorization of the national integrated drought information system, nidus. this has led to continuing work with the national oceanic and atmospheric association on improved coe coordination of drought. likewise wj supports the corative water program and of the u.s. geological survey as well as the snow activities of the national resources conservation service. these programs provide value data and information to inform state water resource decisions. wj recognizes the value of state federal partnerships. a collaboration of federal and state agencies to craft a unified plan in california for example, led to an expedited water transfer process among other benefits. furthermore, we recognize the experience of infrastructure

investment, the value of streamlined personaling for infrastructure, and the significance of federal support for state and local watershed groups. the governors deeply appreciate the attention this committee is investing in the issue of drought and look forward to working with you to craft solutions that both fly the substantials resources of the federal government and respect did authority and expertise of states to manage water within their boundaries. thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. >> thank you, mr. "o" bury. mr. mikele a, welcome. >> good morning, i'm like to first of a you will thank the committee for this tune to be able to present on this important issue of the west wide drought and thank the committee for taking the time for attention on this matter. i'd like to special thank the chairwoman for the leadership role she has taken in this effort and also for our recent visit to california to see the conditions for herself firsthand. and i greatly appreciate your comments that you started with.

it means a great deal that you have taken it to heart and learned so much. i would offer anyone in this room the opportunity to come to our farm for a visit to see conditions for yourself firsthand. i'm here today representing the family farm alliance. we are a grassroots organization comprised of family farmers ranchers, irrigation districts, and allied industry groups that have representation through the 16 western states. the main mission of the alliance is to provide the -- ensure the availability of reliable, affordable irrigation water supplies for farmers and ranchers. my game is cannon mai michael. i'm the sixth generation of my family to farm in the central valley. my great great great, great grandfather came over from germany in the 1850 as and through a lot of hard work became a successful calculating rancher. we are still farming some of the land he settled on. i live on the farm with my wife

and three irn which. i have already falloed 20% of my ungro. i am awaiting a decision in the next days which may take that number to 80% or higher. we mentioned regulations for fish. the sole decision that may change my allocation and the trajectory of my farm this year is based on temperature modelling for fish only. there is not enough now. it's been discovered there is not enough cold water available in storage for fish and that may completely eliminate all the collaborative work that's been done to provide water supply for different water users this year. obviously a very disturbing time for me and my family. throughout the last 15 months there is no denying and last four years there is no denying that hydrologic issues have been plaguing california. but in that 15 -- in the last 15 month period there has also been significant rainfall events very precious at the time of this critical drought. what we've seen over and over again is the uncaptured part of

those rain events has flowed out -- the majority of it has flowed out to the ocean and not been able to be captured by our water system. california relies on an engineered water system that moves water through the sacramento san joaquin delta where two thirds of the waterfalls in the northern part of the state and two thirds of the population lives in the south part of the state. the system has worked. now with this layering of regulation since the 1990s we have seen all flexibility taken out of the system. i would ask today as the federal government you have the opportunity to ensure that regulations when they are in place are implemented with some balance and some accountability. it would be one thing to me if these last years of regulation and limitations, if we had seen some improvement in the fish species. but ear we are not seeing. that so there needs to be a clear look at those regulations, and they need to have accountability and they need to have balance. quickly on the impact of

falloing, i wanted to make the point quickly one falloed acre has an extreme impact over a very large area it's not just the income to a farmer. it represents loss of work to my people on the ground. if i don't run a tractor on that ground it moons i don't buy tires, i don't buy parts i don't buy fuel. all those associated industries that bring me those products they also suffer. it then means i don't produce product on.that ground. that prount doesn't go to a processing plant, doesn't go to a supermarket, doesn't stock those shelves of doesn't come out to something else that may be transported, i may not take any financing. it affects the banks. it is a large ripple effect from one acre fall odd. we have over 800,000 acres being falloed this year. the economic impact is huge. we have also seen food prices rise. we are taking away the sources of healthy fresh fruits and vegetables from people that we have been telling they need to

eat more of those types of products. 10 to 15% may not mean a lot if you have a disposable income but it means a heck of a lot if you are on a low wage or have a difficulty providing for your family. we cannot take these products away from people. california farmers produce food in the environmentally and echo friendly ways in the world. we have enforceable penalty if we do not follow regulations. l.a. times did an expose on mexico where we are getting more and more food. they do not pay living wages. they do not have environmental standards. and they do not have enforceable penalty. i know i'm out of time. everybody uses a lot of water every day. we all rely on water some. we need to decide where we want those products to come from. every time you eat, you are consuming water. every time you put on your clothes, you are consuming water. we are ultimate water consume. consumers. do we want places to come from california, or do you want them to come from other countries?

we have to start figuring out solutions. we have to have some accountability for vooltal regulations. we need leadership from the federal government. we need your help. i'm asking for that today. thank you. >> thank you, mr. michael. i appreciate the personal touch that you have clearly given to the issue here this morning. and foonl lesion let's go to ms. betsy cody. welcome to the committee. >> thank you. chairman, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity for csr to testify today on western drought conditions and challenges facing western managers. water managers. while my testimony includes list of potential options to address challenges, crs does not take a position on proposals or make recommendations to congress. more than 20% of the united states is experiencing moderate to exceptional drought. much of the drought is concentrated in the west. although there have been slight

improvements in some areas higher than average temperatures and lower than average precipitation have resulted in low record snowpack and early run off in other areas. the short-term seasonal outlook for for these trends to continue in the far western states especially. long term predictions, those more than three months r more difficult to make especially on a rooej regional basis. chief among the challenges for western states is managing scarce water supplies and ensuring public health and safety and industry and other effects as you have heard from many of our panelists. states and local water entities typically lead efforts to prepare for drought. i think you have heard excellent examples of that d to. due to their primary role in water allegation. each without drought, though, 80% of state water managers surveyed by the g a o expect water shortages within the next decade. key concerns range from population growth and lack of information on water availability and use to

potential impacts of climate change and effects of extreme weather events such as floods and droughts. the bureau of reclamation as we've heard from mr. conner faces similar challenges especially for its large multiple purpose projects that involve balancing multiple objectives across large areas. challenges in the colorado river basin and for the central valley of california and to some degree the columbia river basin are prime examples. in these areas, challenges include how to accommodate existing and new demands including growing populations and complying with laws. as you have heard again from the chairman -- as you have heard again from the chairman and mr. conner as well reclamation has estimated that supply shortages for the colorado could be in effect as early as 2016 and 2017.

meanwhile, central valley project water deliveries as we have also heard can be significantly cut back affecting junior and senior water users fish and wildlife resources, recreation and other industries. smaller recolumnation projects are also challenged by brought drought and are experiencing water delivery cutbacks. again we've heard more of that d to. the yakima basin is an example, and projects in new mexico. although there are wide range of options for addressing drought, the federal role in implementing option is not always clear-cut. options often discussed can be categorized. supply driven options, can be demand driven those that involve new governance or institutional structures and those that require monitoring and support state and localers. all have their pros and cons and involve tradeoffs. for example, developing or

augmenting groundwater storage projects may provide more water but their costs are often significant. likewise developing water use and desalination projects can also be costly. project evaluations have also become more complex and lengthy. hence, some observers suggest streamlining or removing federal regulations to facilitate project develop and operations while others are more protective of the status quo. to address authorization and funding issues some have called for an authorization process for reclamation similar to that enacted for the corps of engineers and the water resources reform and development act of 2014. they also called for public private partnerships, authorization of nonfederal funding of some projects or coordinated funding and creation of re -- and creation or reactvation of federal loan programs.

some have also proposed new governance or institutional structures such as drought councils such as water banks or water markets. a difficulty in expanding water markets is this relationship between state water rights and the federal government's role and having deferred primarily to states prime's in water allocation allocation. lastly some commonly pursued options to support drought resilience and response at the local level include providing technical and financial assistance for drought planning monitoring and mitigation, providing incentive for efficiency and conservation and research and development. in summary, addressing drought in the west is a challenge for decision makers as we have seen today at all levels of government. whether the federal government should continue or expand existing policies supporting these efforts or pursue other legislative option is likely to

be a matter of ongoing debate. that concludes my testimony. i'm happy to answer questions. thank you. >> thank you. i was hoping you were going to have the silver bullet to wrap this up and say, we've done this analysis -- >> i wish i did. >> we all wish that you did. each and every one of you has mentioned collaboration, coprarks flexibility-- cooperation, plexability. but it seems that collaboration amongst our agencies, this is all key. we clearly hear that. and yet weir still faced with a situation where the drought is as extreme in places, and the forecast is not looking very good, and the uncertainty make it even more difficult, more complicated. are there -- beyond what we see today -- and i'd be interested

in hearing your perspective, mr. boo shotski, in what arizona is doing -- are there ways that we can provide for greater collaboration with our federal agencies? what are the barriers that we have right now that are limiting our opportunities to do more, clearly, with less? i'm going to throw this out to all of you. and then i'm going to have to go vote. but i'll be back for a follow up with this. but mr. boo shotski, if you want to lead off. and i would really ask all of you to weigh in on this. >> chairman, first i'll say that the collaboration with the federal government and the department of interior has been exemplary so far. i think the biggest roadblock for further collaboration in dealing with drought continuancy and sustainable planning on the

colorado river in the lower basin is number one the drought in california has reduced their flexibility to participate in potential ways to save water in lake mead. i think second, the environmental issues revolving around the salton sea, drain water goes into the salon sea from the imperial irrigation district. we could save a lot of that water by creating fish sees in that irrigation district. but the environmental issues, it's related to the salton sea. and lastly the fact that salve under the 1968 project basin act does not take shortages, only arizona and colorado do. has created an unlevel playing field. i think we could use help on that issue finding a way to create more equity at this negotiating table. >> mr. connor comments on that? >> well, i do agree that the issues that tom has raised are

the next wave of areas of collaboration that we have to deal with. and some of those issues are fairly tough which is why they haven't been resolved up to this point. the salton sea is certainly one of those areas. the -- but nonetheless, i can point in the colorado river basin where over the last 15 years we have had six or seven major agreements that have reduced water use, that have increased storage in lake mead, created institutional mechanisms to incentivize the saving of water, and yet here we are facing significant percentage possibilities that we are going to face a shortage in the lower basin in 2016 and 2017. but yet the states are still at the table. we've got a system pilot conservation agreement that we've all put together upper basin and lower basin and the federal government to create more water to look for new ways

to conserve and place more water in lake mead. there is an mou that has been agreed to where i think the states are looking at mechanisms to create another million acre feet by 2018. and these are the mechanisms that we are going to have to finalize through our agreements. but the idea also is that we've got to create new relationships between the parties. and that's what we've been doing. i would just note real quickly that the success of the arizona water bank which has been tremendously successful as i found out even more so this morning -- was facilitated in great part by the 2004 arizona water settlement act that the congress passed. it facilitated arizona taking its full colorado river entitlement every year, a good pouring of that which has been stored for the -- to alleviate any drought situations. by the way it also resolved two

indian rights settlements and provided opportunities for them to increase water supply availability. we are looking at new storage opportunities. one of the more recent storage facilities we do have is in the colorado river basin. a regulating reservoir that's saving 60 to 70000 acre feet per year, once again keeping that water in lake mead. investments, new agreements, new relationships, and certainly i think for the salton sea, we are going to have to look at new authorities, probably. >> thank you. senator cantwell? >> thank you madam chair. and mr. conner, i think i'll continue with you on this issue. first of allings thank for visiting the northwest. i think you were at a yakima basin exact meeting years ago with myself. and then secretary salazar and congressman hastings as long with others. i know you have great familiarity there. but as we've seen these drought conditions persist in the west

over years and as we've tried to make plans for changes you know, you mentioned increasing storage capacity. what are the major barriers for the department in -- if we continue to do authorization project by project and it takes years of planning and studying -- again i'm not talking about changing viralal laws, but what do we need to do to give more flexibility? what are the major barriers that exist to more rapid response to some of these conditions? >> well, i think you know obviously, the larger the project, the more complicated, the more likely to impact other water users as well as the environment. and i think there is a fundamental question related to the economic feasibility of some of those larger project. so i think sometimes we have been focused on larger is better. but it bogs down or at to move

flew personaling processes, et cetera. skill and give the yakima as a perfect example with the black rock reservoir proposal which took a lot of time which proved to be probably reservoir proposal which proved to be one of the more expensive ways to yield water supply. and when the numbers kate out, called into question whether it could be afforded and caused the parties to go back to the table and to a much more robust and comprehensive approach to dealing with water supply issues from the environment to the water supply to facilitating conservation. conservation. and i think at the end of the day the smaller projects, those and we have been doing this in the yam ma basin the yakima river basin project we created somewhere about 30 to 35,000

acre-feet reduced diversion demand. that water has been allocated to improve instream flows while also being retained by the irrigation community to lemhelp weather times of drought. we're making great advances through a series of smaller projects that are less controversial, more affordable, and proved to be yielding, adding to the bottom line and bringing in more broad support. it is not always smaller is better but i do think at times we get bogged down with the very larger projects. >> you are reminding me that a process does solve most problems. that step of going through that larger exercise i think was a catalyst to bring all the parties together at the table. as a hearing that i once chaired on this committee on the san what queen a similar process.

after 18 years of legal battles, people decided to come to the table. with this issue, what do we need to do to provide more flexibility to the agencies to support those kinds of cooperative efforts. >> i think we have good authorities right now that allow us to participate as a cost-share partner and what has happened in a lot of cases and i think we should look at more opportunities to facilitate this. the federal government is a participant in a lot of projects. i would concede that when the federal government is a project development activity there are a lot of hoops to weed through with respect to the regulatory permitting process. there's some of that will we participate, and a lot of cases the state and local entities have developed project concepts and are looking for federal permits as well as federal assistance with respect to cost share and that's appropriate in a lot of cases because there are federal interests at stage. in the yakima basin we have the

yakima nation and the environmental laws and the goals we all have with respect to the fisheries and we have a federal project that we want to maintain its viability for the agricultural interests for long term. a lot of cases facilitating the federal government to continue to be a partner in these efforts whether a conservation project small storage project, environmental restoration projectings, as a partner providing flexibility from a financing standpoint for nonfederal entities will help facilitate the results. >> thank you. it's great to see tom. first question to you, you talk about lake mead. it looks like we're in our 16th year of below average run offof the colorado river. lake meade is likely going to hit the 1,075 feet mark over the next two years.

and will trigger the shortage declaration. you talk about structural deficits. you touched on it in your comments. can you explain that further evaporation, delivery losses and how that affects allocation? >> the structural deficit is a function of the fact that those losses and evaporation losses the reservoir evaporation, those volumes of water in the lower basin, arizona, nevada, california and what goes to new mexico are not accounted for. so each state's allocation which was certified in that decree was for the total con sumptive use. so more water has to really be in the system to get those volumes of water to those

entities for actual use. and so that impacts the lower basin by driving lake meade toward shortage. the brunt comes on those states that take shortage. but there are also impacts to the upper basin states, colorado wyoming new mexico and utah potentially. so there, their system under prior appropriation and under their upper colorado river compact they incorporate the losses into their use by their farms, customers, cities, et cetera. because lake powell and lake meade are balanced, lake meade falling more rapidly forces more water from lake powell to go to lake meade. the impacts are on loss of power revenues. those are used to fund

environmental programs in the upper basin. and also if lake meade and powell continue to drop, potentially, those upper basin states are subject to curtailment under the 1922 compact. if they didn't deliver 75 million acre-feet. so the impacts fall on both the upper and lower basin because of the structural deficit. >> during times of water storage in the west we see this as agriculture pitted against the cities. will you explain how these tensions will be dealt with in arizona or are we trying to allow growing urban economy but maintain a healthy agricultural economy? >> there are tensions between the senior priority users and the cities in central arizona

who take central arizona project water. we have been work with the start arizona project and the yuma agricultural interest and trying to come up with a way to intentionally create a surplus that secretary conner referred to. i think those have been going fairly well. we don't have a deal on the table yet. in central arizona those who take central arizona water will suffer the brunt of the shortage. they will lose about half of their renewable colorado river supplies. they have options to pump groundwater under the state law. but they also have options to partner with arizona tribes and arizona municipal users who have higher priority central arizona project water. those folks, the agriculture users can partner with those entities, take their colorado river water and in return, those entities get a future credit to

pump groundwater from under the agricultural land. the department of water resources has looked at the permitting that goes along with that program and tried to create as much flexibility as possible as we approach a shortage in 2016 or 2017. >> thank you. very quickly, you talk about augmentation. what are the most promising areas to augment the resources that we have? >> i think the lower basin states, include arizona are help funding, weather modification, trying to inclose the flows there. we also are looking at potential desalination of brackish groundwater within our state. of course our participating through to auspices of the minute 319 process the implementation with mexico to look at potential bi-national desalination with mexico.

and also potentially partnering with california for desalination with california and arizona. those are probably the main sources. >> thank you. >> deputy secretary connor, in its colorado river basin study, the bureau of reclamation identified efficiency and conservation projects as some of the most cost-effective approaches to increasing available water supplies for users. in other words, actual wet, delivered water. in new mexico the state is elected to pursue any diversion project on the gila river under the arizona water settlement act instead of focusing on efficiency projects that would help stretch existing water supplies further. as reclamation begins its review process with a value planning study this summer, i'm wondering how will the lessons learned from the basin study factor into

the consideration of the costs and benefits of the various projects that could be pursued under the settlement act? >> senator i think in looking at -- you know obviously when we do our studies one of the areas that we look at are alternative approaches. as you pointed out, i think that will be something that does get scrutiny. as to what are the water supply demands that are trying to be betmy be project first of all. and then what are the option available to meet that demand? overall through our history and in my prior capacity i have the opportunity to spend time up. here and testify for water resources. one of the things i went back and looked at, the back of the envelope speculations for the relative different types of projects that we have. there were a couple of large-scale storage projects one was the black rock reserv