s in the reservoirs until the water table can naturally absorb it. the cooper road project has been very effective at managing storm water that once caused regular flooding and will serve as a model for other areas on the yard. next we now utilize door jams at the ground floor openings on building in the floodfloodplain. we've installed gates and identified existing exterior walls for use as flood walls. and our up coming cyber building will be located on the corner of the yard where we occasionally experience nuisance flooding and for awareness this cyber builting will be located -- building will be located between the library of nimitz and the engineering facility. it will be a 200,000 plus square-feet building and the building is going to be designed to act as a flood wall for the corner of the yard. next i would like to discuss the infrastructure improvements in

the wake of tropical storm isabel. in 2003 isabel caused widespread flooding and equipment damage throughout the yard. the total cost of that for repair was $120 million. we've taken several measures to ensure a similar event will not have the same detrimental impact. we've raised the ground floor elevations of new construction. for example, wesley brownfieldhouse was built above the flood level and acts as a flood wall. we reelected the chiller plant and moved the hvac equipment to rooftops where feasible. we have raised electrical outlet on ground floors and installed check valves on ubd ground tunnels and storm lines. where suitable we've identified opportunities for quote wet, flood proofing unquote where we designated billings and fields that will be allowed to flood once in a 100 years. they can handle flooding with

minimal damage and using costs to keep them dry would not be cost effective. and we have protocol for equipment relocation in classrooms and labs in the event of a major storm. to prepare for future flooding, major tropical events and rising sea levels have charted the naval academy sea level advisory council. it is co-chaired by professor dave kreebl and ocean engineering chair and captain em ill patch rio associate chair. the council includes miss sarah phillips architect of the naval academy and will use the research for infrastructure implementation. a council member from the naval command will ensure coordination across commands. the sea level advisory council will look to better protect future sea level changes in annapolis and identify the naval academy's vulnerabilities. from this analysis we'll

prioritize these vulnerabilities and work to inform future resource management and preventing and minimizing damaging effects of in undags. finally i think it is important to mention the academic courses available to the midshipmen responsible for mitigating the long-term effects of sea level rise at the naval academy and beyond. we offer two courses specifically designed to investigate this issue and educate the inheritors. the efficience is oceanography 445, global climate change. it reviews the sources of climb and the natural and human factors that influence the local, regional and global climate and political science 345 environmental politics and security, this examines the major environmental problems incurring u.s. domestic and environmental security policies and including weekly outside

speakers who present materials from various perspectives including representatives from industry, military and the advocacy community. mr. chairman, distinguish members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and in summary the naval academy is aware of the risks of heavy rain, high tides, severe tropical weather and rising sea levels. we're studying and adapting to the risks to identify, prioritize and develop effective solutions to future vulnerabilities. i'm prepared to address any questions you may have regarding my testimony. thank you all very much. >> thank you admiral. mr. baker. >> members of the committee and congressman van hollen thank you all very much for what you do. distinguish colleagues on the panel and in the audience, thank you. i speak today for the over 200,000 members of the chesapeake bay foundation, our

board, our staff. chesapeake is getting better. but it is still a system dangerously out of balance. and i use the word "system" because science has taught us to realize that the chesapeake is a collection of all of the rivers and streams which feed into it from the six states, the district of columbia, the 18 million people in the water shed and of course the main stem. fortunately there is a plan in place to restore the chesapeake and all of the rivers and streams. it is called the chesapeake clean water blue print or in clean water act terms, epa called it the mother of all tmdls. it is a heavy left though. and global climate change will add to the burden. we're seeing the impacts now

right before our eyes. chesapeake bay foundation has environmental education centers on smith island and tank ear island inhabited islands in the mid-bay. residents of smith and tank ear are losing their homes they are losing their island. day after day, week after week,in ex orablely losing their home. on a property of the chesapeake bay foundation in just the last 25 years we've lost an entire pine forest. several dozen acres, several hundred trees, to sea level, bay level rise. i've submitted any testimony but let me just summarize briefly. the impacts of climate change

are multiple but let me tell you about three for chesapeake bay. warmer waters have a decreased capacity to hold dissolved oxygen. exacerbating the bay's dead zone. temperature sensitive species like eel grass and many others are really, truly at risk. second, the bay region is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise exacerbated -- exacerbated by land subsidence. approximately one foot of net sea level rise in the chesapeake over the last 100 years is roughly twice the world average. thousands of acres of environmental critical wetlands and shorelines have been and are now further threatened with

inundation. and third, increased intensity and frequency of storms create more erosion and run-off, increasing the flow of pollutants especially nitro john, fos ferrous and sediment into the streams, rivers and main stem of the bay. let me give you one very specific example of how global climate change and bay pollution are conspiring to potentially snatch defeat from the jaws of victory of one of success stories. science said that the chesapeake bay rock fish stripe bass were a fully restored species. well, with pollution and increasing dead zones the bottom waters of the bay are uninhabitable all too often for rock fish.

and with increasing water temperatures 75, 80 degrees and more, the upper levels of the bay are all too often unin uninhabitable for rock fish and they are getting squeezed and stressed into a much narrower amount of the water column. to wrap up let's instead of focusing on the problems let's focus on the solutions. addressing climate change mitigating the impacts of climate change, and implementing the clean water blue print are more than just two sides of the same coin. we not only need both to save the bay, but each will reinforce and add value to the other. one plus one can equal three. thank you very much. >> thank you.

dr. ekwurzel i hope i'm pronouncing it correctly. >> it is great. perfect. thank you on behalf of the union of concerned scientists, i thank you, ranking member pal lone and congress sarbanes and van hollen for the opportunity to testify here today before an esteems panel with my panelists and a very interested audience in these topics thank you so much. so i'm a senior scientist at ucs and we are the leading science based nonprofit working on some of the world's most pressing problems. we have over half a million supporters who are hoping that there are changes that we're talking about today. so as we all know, burning coal oil and gas and tropical deforestation are increasing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide methane at undes presented levels.

the buildup of heat dropping gases is warming the atmosphere and acidifying the oceans and as a result marine life are facing multiple stresses. we have the ice diminishing, we have many regions that are dealing with decreased snow pack increasing the risk of wildfires, the list goes on. it is quite depressing actually. but sea level is what i'm going to focus on today that one impact because it has really accelerated and that combined with extreme precipitation really are having an impact on severe flooding which is part of the reason why we're all gathered here today like the city of annapolis and this beautiful naval academy. so the pace and the amount of greenhouse gas emissions determine how much worse things get. so what does this mean for maryland and the location of this hearing? parts of maryland are also faring the risk of loss of land. everyone who cares about maryland should care about reducing emissions, the future

of key economic resources and cherished places like where we are right now really depends on these decisions. today the capital analyst is one of the most frequently flooded cities on the east coast and as sea level rise accelerated due to climate change the flooding will get exponentially worse. there are countsless other communities up and down maryland and the eastern seaboard that are facing similar vulnerable risks. according to a recent ucs report which we call encroaching tides, the highest tides are flooding further inland causing more damage. and some places are likely to be under water in the lifetime of a typical 30 year mortgage. so recent trends help explain why this is happening. over the last 50 years sea level rise has risen much master a -- faster along most of the gulf and the east coast of the united

states and i've included a figure. it is really quite stark. sea level at annapolis has risen by moy than a foot over the last century and the global rate over that time period is 8 inches. to give an idea of the accelerating level of sea level rise and the consequences for places like annapolis. let's look at this. if we stay on our current business as usual which is the highest trajectory of emissions, analyst would see another eight inches it took that much over the last century for the globe, in just 15 years from now. and by the lifetime of a home mortgage 30 years we could see another 7 inches here in annapolis. but annapolis could prepare for only an additional 3 inches in 15 years and 6 inches by 30 years. a little bit more manageable buys for time.

today the popular city dock is a gathering place in annapolis that is central and sees about 50 times a year flooding. annapolis is protected to experience roughly 262 flooding events by the year 2030 and over 380 by the year 2045 if we stay on this high emission trajectory. this means that likely half of the days of the year will have flooding at annapolis. other coastal communities are vulnerable. ocean city is highly vulnerability to storms and high tides. more so with sea level rise. flooding occurs eight times per day and the city could face 60 flood events by 3020 and 411 per year by the year 2045. these floods would be far more extensive than the limited

flooding typically seen today. the case for emissions reduction reductions could not be more in effect. ocean city could prepare for around 42 flood events per year by 2045, instead of 411 on the high emission pathway. tidal floods will be more severe in the duration and except by 2045. today tidal floods typically last a few hours or less. now several locations in the chesapeake bay area and including baltimore and the flood prone waterway are projected to be under water for 875 hours per year, so that is 10% of the year by the year 2045 if we continue on the high emission. even when a hurricane forms naturally, conditions brought about by climate change are contributing to the power and destructive path of hurricanes in the north atlantic through more severe storm surges and

more intense precipitation. to make matters worse, the latest science suggests that hurricanes typhoons and cyclones are shifting higher latitude and that means more to the north which puts mid-atlantic states at greater risk. resulting damage can expect to worsen in the future as rising seas raise the frequency of flooding from regular high tides but increases the height of storm surges. the u.s. and the global community must start rapidly reducing emissions of heat trapping gases to slow the pace of sea level rise and to avoid the worst impacts of climate change along our coast. the future welfare of maryland, new york and other coastal communities really depends on this. thank you. >> thank you, doctor. thank all of you. so what we're going to do now is we'll have questions from us from the congressman i'll start

and move to the left. we're going to try to limit it to five minutes from each of us. we don't actually have -- mike is doing this manually. we're not high-tech here, even though we're the high-tech committee so i guess i'mir or embarrassed -- embarrassed but you'll do fine. i want to start with the admiral but you actually answered most of my questions. i was going to ask what exactly is happening at the academy and the courses offered at the caught so i won't repeat that. but can you give us an idea how much it has cost the naval academy to repair the damage caused by severe storms or what you estimate the cost will be for some of the things that you mentioned? >> it is actually very difficult to put in exact dollar figure in that. i mentioned what had happened through the -- the damage that was caused by hurricane and then tropical storm isabel was well

over $100 million that was more than just repairing the cost, it actually gave us more protection. so we used some of the money to build burms, to do as you heard me describe, build the flood doors and some internal pumps. so we were able to get that money to make the naval academy better and safer. as you see here at the academy grounds, the majority of the structures here are over 100 years old. everything from the chapel to bancroft all where all of the midshipmen live to many of the buildings here were built at the turn of the century by earnest flag. so there is a cost to maintain them and making sure they can handle rising waters and major events. so we do within the budget that we work, within the navy have currently enough money to handle some of these upgrades that we're planning over long-term.

you heard me talk about the cooper road project and some of the others. so as we do some of these other projects whether it be setting up a new advisory committee but i'll tell you we're able to do those things within the construct of the funding that we have but i have not gone too congress to ask for more particular monies just as we build new structures here like the wesley brown fieldhouse, the cyber building, that will not only serve as a new academic building but a source of flood protection for that part of the yard. so to say that i have a specific number to say this is what we're spending per year on just flood protection it would be very difficult within my normal operating budget except to say that there are moneys that come from naval facilities that support us in that effort. >> all right. thank you. let me ask the mayor according to a special investigative report published by reuters,

historic downtown annapolis experienced flooding no fewer than four times last year. you mentioned some of this. how has this impacted community and local businesses and what are they saying about you and have you heard of other mayors from coastal towns that have to deal with the impact of climate change. >> i serve on the mayoral municipal league. there are 150 cities and a lot of them are close to the watt and it is something we talk about and the other mayors effect and something there is consensus built upon. talking about politics and getting outside of d.c., out of the 157 cities in the state of maryland only four have bipartisan elections and then the others you run on your name. people talk about it all of the time. a lot of concern from business owners. what are we doing protect avenuely to address it -- proactively to address it.

but we have a plan in place, we just need the funding to implement it going forward. >> okay. i'm going to skip mr. baker because my questions were about rock fish and stripe bass and i think you mentioned that on the one hand there is -- rock fish are back but on the other hand, what is happening in terms of climate change could severely impact them. did you want to add to that or did you pretty much explain it to us, do you think? >> just that one of the big concerns is a wasting design called micro bacteriaosis. there is no knowledge as to what causes it but we know that when fish are stressed they're more prone to disease so the general thinking is that a fish under stress has more problems than one that isn't and personal the population is starting to dip again. >> okay. let me then go to lastly doctor

ekwurzel because noaa released the state of the climate in the 2014 report that represents data from scientists around the globe and i know you stressed -- you gave us a lot of information about annapolis and maryland. but if i could just go beyond that according to this state of the climate 2014 report, 2014 was the warmest year in the historical record. in fact 17 of the 18 warmest years on record have occurred in the last 18 years. this is worldwide. so just give us -- if you could talk more globally the average global surface temperature for 2014 is roughly half a degree above a 30-year average. it doesn't sound like a lot. but what effect does that increase have? and also the upper ocean heat content has increased significantly over the two decades and how does that trend impact us on land, just in general? >> sure. those are very disturbing trends. in fact, we've even just a

couple months ago the noaa found that the global ocean surface temperature is the hottest ever since we've been keeping records in a way that we can have accurate data and the land so combined and that meant at the time, for example when there was extreme inland flooding in texas and oklahoma where unfortunately tragically people lost property and in fact loss of life the hugely warm waters of the gulf of mexico bringing in this extra precipitation and fuelling some of the intense thunderstorm activities are something that are causing inland concerns for people who are living along river valleys. and then with the tropical storms you mentioned irene, mr. tonka, that when they are naturally occurring they are caring more precipitation. so when it comes on shore and going inland and moving up into the united states, it is dumping

intense levels of precipitation and washing out bridges in vermont and having intense -- the bull's eye is causing incredible damage to people who are not used to having their basements flooded black mold, a lot of costs that are happening, children you don't want to be exposed to some of these longer term effects of flooding. the other aspect is the wildfires. and in some areas we have too much rain but other areas out in california and in alaska -- alaska is burning right now, the pacific northwest, we don't have the resources to fight all of the fires right now because of the polar jet stream pattern that is set up the extreme intense, recentless high pressure that some -- that relating back to sea ice, decreasing in the high north and that means alaskaa down to california, immense drought conditions and we get a lot of our food from the central valley of california, the almonds.

we have a lot of economic dodges that are related to shifting climate and the extremes that are setting up so dry places are getting extremely dry, multi-year droughts an other places are getting too much rain, all at once and too intense. so we have very high flash flood risk. and so this is the type of situation that is unfortunately climate change means we have to get used to more extremes an the infrastructure of the past century is just not built to handle the type of extremes that so-called mother nature is throwing at us with a little bit of a assist by human affectity affectities. >> thank you. mr. sarbanes. >> mayor, you mentioned you had a town hall recently and the turnout was very large about 150 people. i'm curious, what are the residents saying to you i know you mentioned they talked about who should take responsibility local, but what is the basic

input that they're providing to you and how are they projektsing their own willingness to help be responsible for the solutions. i'll be curious of the perspective you got there. >> it is a very interesting town hall. different than the most we have. because there are so many key players involved. you have insurance company and updated fema maps and if it is going to flood and who is going to pay for it and residents concerned about their property. and as the doctor alluded to if it will rise, where should they live and how should they cover it. i think they just want a sense of what we're doing going forward and it is rewarding to tackle this challenge and i'm glad to say it has gotten some attention in the local media. probably for too long, probably in d.c., it has an issue worked on but not talked about and now people are engaging. i want to take a point of personal privilege to mention my colleagues here from the city

council. as we talk about partnerships i couldn't do without it. alderman cushy, and fin layson and joe budge as well and so half of my council is here so we technically have a quorum if we want to vote on anything. so they are big supporters as well on this. >> thank you. admiral carter i'm curious, the same kind of question. the students that are taking these two courses that you mentioned, tell me a little bit about the perspective they are bringing and the level of enthusiasm and the interest ownership of the issue, which i imagine is helping to inform the naval academy in terms of the kind of focus it should have on these issues going forward but i would be interested in the perspective that the midshipmen have on the offerings that the naval academy is providing? >> absolutely. and before i answer that, i want to make a high light of my new

commandant and midshipman concern steve lizuski who just came on as a full bird colonel of the united states marine corp and he is leading the midshipmen and on 2 1/2 weeks of losing the class of 2019, the freshman class on board some of you may have seen them walking around they had the first formal parade and these are the key talented young men and women that you provide from your districts that we have representing every state and every voting district in the country. i'm very proud of the talent that families of americans send us to come here to the naval academy. as a lot of you may know. we have 25 academic majors here at the naval academy. we focus heavy on science technology, engineer and mathematics and 65% of the graduates leave here in a discipline involved in some sort of scientific endeavor and

oceanography is one endeavor. i'm an oceanography major graduating here in 1981. it is a popular major. because the midshipmen see it as a technical science and a science that has application to what they are going to do whether they are going to be an aviator, a submariner, a marine, a fighter pilot it impacts all of the communities when they go out to serve. the talent that we get here at the naval academy is such that many of them are finishing the 140 credit core curriculum they have to graduate here in less than four years. that is significant. because regardless of what their major is a lot of them are able to either go into advanced studies which with he do with partner colleges and universities or more importantly to get involved in cap stone projects and that is the area where many of the midshipmen can do additional work sometimes in the disciplines here in

understanding climate change and patterns and the study. and in fact many of the oceanographers go on trips down to antarctica to do ice measurements. so the midshipmen are doing cutting-edge research and development as part of the curriculum here. and that is not just so they can be smarter when they graduate we believe that part of the charter here is not to just prepare the young men and women to be future commissions officers but we believe they are the talent that will hell solve the problems as we were talking about, 15, 30, 100 years from now and we want to keep them fired up about these challenges. >> excellent. thank you. will baker. thanks for speaking from the heart as you always do in your testimony. i wondered if you could talk about what you hear in terms of the economic impact of these

challenges to the bay. because oftentimes we can put an exclusive kind of environmental lense on it, but i imagine that businesses are coming to you all of the time and expressing their anxiety relating to the fortunes of the bay and if you could describe that with more detail i think it will drive home why economic opportunity and empowerment is very aligning with preserving and protecting the health of the bay. >> thank you, congressman. about a year ago we began working with dr. spencer phillips a distinguish economist who works in academy in virginia and maryland and we asked him to assess the value of the chesapeake bay and the water shed to the economy of the region. now, if it is improved and not addressed. and the numbers are staggering. the current economic value of

the bay and the region, environmental value to the economy, is about $107 billion annually. if the clean water blue print is successful by 2025 that value can increase to almost $130 billion annually. and if we're not successful it will decrease. so in terms of eco-system services to the economy, the numbers are taggering. but but when you get right down to individuals who are making their livelihood the commercialman the charter bode captains those involved in the tourism, the impact is dramatic and immediate as well. when you talk to folks on smith tang ear, across the eastern shore and you hear how their livelihoods and the family's

livelihoods have been impacted over just the past 35 years it is extraordinary. so you can go beyond that to seafood restaurants, to our -- i remember the impact of the chesapeake bay on our region someone once said if you look at a telephone book from a major metropolitan area the number of columns of companies that use chesapeake in their name is staggering. this is our identity. we can't let it go. >> thank you. i have a question dr. ekwurzel but maybe we can come back around for a short mini round at the end. >> go ahead. >> okay. i just wanted to -- you were conveying probably better than anyone in this room could the urgency of the issue and it appears that what i'm hearing from climate scientists and the testimony we get on this issue is just how things are

accelerating. it is not a linear progression, right. and you know, even two, three four five years ago as we were projecting out, it was still an abstract concept for a lot of folks. and we would talk about sort of the scenarios about the future but they are really here now. as you say, you are talking about within the life of a mortgage, getting to places where you'll have 300, 400 flooding events in the city of annapolis, you talked about a high trajectory path and low traj aektory path. can you just comment briefly more on the acceleration of the impact that is happening. because i think that is creating an urgency that really ought to make this the number one overarching focus of

policymakers in many different places. so if you could talk to that. >> absolutely. these are impacts we're feelg already and we're playing catch-up. and unfortunately, as a scientist, i see the curves for how fast it is taking off and we have only barely tasted what is in store. we are at the point where how we make the changes over the next ten years really do play out and whether we go that low emissions or the high emissions pathway, make a big difference in lives economy and cost of doing business anywhere along the coast. and as well as interior to many of the land areas. and i would like to say that you know, doing emissions reductions is one of the adaptation costs that is the tide that floats all boats. when we reduce the pace of change, it allows the mayor of annapolis, the naval academy to put in flood barriers at a more

cost effective way and do plans that are reasonable and not hurting the economy as much as if we just keep reacting to this -- we're ready to take off and if we can avoid taking off, it makes a world of difference. as some people say it is a difference between suffering and a somewhat manageable world. >> thank you. congress tonko. >> thank you, congressman. the stewardship again, vice admiral, that comes via the navy is so incredibly important and i thank you and the navy in general and our military in general for addressing climate change. when i look at operations that are far inland like that at saratoga where you once served and i represent and our coastal situations like norfolk and annapolis, there is no denying that as we create these perfect

storms if you will, as spoken to by congressman van hollen, it is impacting some of the most unstable -- the fight for available land and some of the hardships with droughts and flooding will impact people that can at least endure around the world. so it is obvious this is a an issue of national security. so given that and recognizing that the navy is speaking to these concerns where is the prioritization within the navy? is it a concept that has risen to the higher levels of priority? >> sir first of all, i'm going to make sure that everybody recognizes that i represent the naval academy. but i will not deny that i have served 34 years in navy and sailed many of the oceans of the sea on many different aircraft

carriers and other ships. to answer your question, from my personal opinion, i do believe our united states navy and our department of defense has raised this up to a very high level. my good friend rear admiral jonathan white the oceanographer of the navy he leads a panel called the navy task force climate change that has multiple partners within the navy and staff to take an operational risk view of some of the challenges. so they are trying to apply science and trying to apply the data they see so we are leaning forward and understand what the future challenges are. i would also give you my global view as a sailer. i think everyone here would agree that the earth is covered by 70% water. so as a navy, that gives us a pretty big area in which to patrol with our ships. we are a global naval.

from the strait of her mouth to the strait of on laka to the coast. so this is the environment in which we operate. 90% of all global trade moves through the water especially through key points like the straits and the suez and panama canal so we as the navy had the responsibility of working with our partners the coast guard, sea merchants to make sure the lanes remain open because our world trade requires that. so as we look at the science and the risk analysis of what is happening here those are potential risk areas. i'll tell you just three years ago i was the admiral in charge of the uss enterprise and the ships within that carrier strike group. beyond doing operations in afghanistan, we were charged with going through the strait of

hormuz many times to make sure that particular water way remained open as a threat of the iranians was to potentially do something there to disrupt trade and movement of oil through that strait. we took that 51-year-old aircraft carrier through the strait in the summer of 2012 ten times. the sea water inlet temperature in that part of the world is often above 90 degrees in the summer but that particular year it approached almost 100 degrees. that is a very difficult place for anybody to operate regardless of what type of equipment you are working with. and then of course as we've already talked about, on our return journey home one of the greatest environmental disasters ever known to man was hurricane sandy. i had the distinct bad timing to have to bring enterprise home right in the middle of sandy. so as we came through the strait of gibraltar we threaded the needle between three tropical storms sandy was the lesser of the three as she was forming and

our entire journey home across the atlantic was to deal with hurricane sandy in a way that -- we were worried about our homes along the eastern seaboard i also had an aircraft carrier of 5500 men and women on the ship and a cruiser and three destroyers all in company with us going through seas that exceeded well over 20 feet. i saw water come over the bow of the enterprise 60 feet above the water as we're coming across the middle of the atlantic and 1,000 miles away from sand as she hadn't reached a category 5 storm yet. so i saw firsthand what it is like to deal with a storm of that magnitude and what that impact is for my role as part of the national security apparatus. i was very thankful that due to a lot of hard work of my sailors we did not damage any equipment. enterprise came home on all eight nuclear reactors and all aircraft flew off and all were worried about taking in water

intrusion and then of course what that did here to the united states. the other part of that 70% water, 90% trade is maybe one of the most important aspects and that is 80% of not only the united states but the world's population lives within 500 miles of the shore. so as we talk about the impacts of what sea level rise has been, even here in the chesapeake, that has an impact and it is something that we're not only just worried about here at the u.s. naval academy, i know our u.s. navy is paying close attention to it. so as we're setting up our own advisory here to understand the local impacts here and that is in partner with the city of analysis, the army corp of engineer and the team that i described, i know our united states navy is taking a look at this in a much larger scale to not only help protect what we know from data in past but look forward to how to prevent solutions for the future. >> i think just looking through

the lense of our military you would think that would be enough to push the moral campus in washington to get this issue resolved. mayor, you mentioned the order of planning required for you and the members of the city council. what sort of relief would be doable, do you think if the federal portion were a true player in this regard? would you think that a major piece of the pie that you need for that planning, was that a million plus i think you said. >> it was a million plus for the design design phase and that puts it in perspective. our budget is $98 million. and i will say the superintendent's leadership with the two courses offered academically and the cap stone chances, i think we can make annapolis the model not just because i represent it but for

the legislatures in the state. the delegation has 147 senators and 140 delegates an they live here three months out of the year and a quarter of their lives they live in annapolis. so on flooding projects, they may have an opportunity to see it. people may not have a chance to see it the western shore our public works director with the sea and the navy we have the talent and the opportunity and the skill set to make a significant impact on it we just need the resources necessary to make that happen. >> and just an observation and the naked eye of a visitor you can sense the richness of heritage and history and when we were impacted in my congressional district by irene and lee, there were tremendous damages that impacted our heritage infrastructure which is something that is very difficult to replace. and so i think we need to be sensitive to that also. and to mr. baker, the construct

of the chesapeake bay, albeit a maryland designation, is dealing with a multi state impact. is there talk amongst your group about the role of -- or the issue of boundaries, state boundaries, whatever political lines coming into play with this discussion of climate change? because it takes these incidents to realize that we'rin ex orablely linked and maybe you can share the multi state culture that addresses this issue. >> as we were talking about before the hearing started the environment and everything about the environment knows no political boundaries. so if you look at a water shed like the chesapeake bay, whether talking about pollution or global climate change mitigation, the only jurisdiction of government that can treat this system the way science tells us we must is the federal government. >> absolutely. >> and the federal government

has been through epa, through usda and other agencies, a great partner with the state. the states and the federal government have entered into this partnership willingly. we see that as the real hope for the future. and that this effort now, which is really the third major one in 30 years has the potential to be a game-changer, if in fact all players stay at the table. >> it is national strategy and why the president preached to an executive order because congress did not act and we had plenty of time and we're still trying to accept the notion when we should be addressing the concept. and doctor you spoke in youren troeching -- crotchencroaching tide studies you speak to the high and low emission issues. can you just elaborate on that a bit more. and by the way, when you talked

about irene and lee in my district, and the heavy amounts of precipitation 14 inches within less than 24 hours. and neighboring communities got perhaps three. so not only was it saturation of precipitation, but sporadic activity within a small given radius of geographiy. >> it is very difficult to plan for the extremes that climate can deliver. it is on a scale that we just haven't had to face in the past. and so the past is not helping us with this. and so the difference is really local communities dealing with the flooding of irene or annapolis. is it fair to ask local community to bear the brunt of the cost to adapt to this when many of us have contributed to the challenge. and again the federal government has a key role to play. either we're reacting to disasters and disaster funds are

there, or we're proactive planning for the 2030, the time of mortgage, and making plans with local community input that is so key but having the decision support support -- that all of the federal agencies can provide that help planners. and so the two levels of planning i say we should -- we should mitigation for the low emission scenario but adapt and plan for the high emission scenario. so all of the numbers i gave you, let's give you the example in new york, kings point, new york if we prepare that community for -- by 2045, 264 flood events but let's reduce emissions and they'll be protected because by 2045 there would only be 67 flood events if we reduce the emissions of the united states and global partners around the world. it is a very different world and

we'll be much safer. >> thank you. it is so good. it is music to the ears of an engineer to hear planning. time and time again. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> congress vann hollen. >> thank you. thank you mr. chairman. and i want to join my colleagues in thanking all of you for your testimony. very, very helpful. look, it helps provide real texture and specific examples of costs that are being incurred on a real-time basis. and as i see it there are two types of costsch the costs that we're incurring from intense and extreme weather events caused by climate change, and there are the costs of mitigation to try to reduce the impact of those longer term costs. but they all add up. and mr. mayor, you talked about a town hall meeting where people were trying to decide who would help pay the bill for the mitigation costs with some of

your colleagues, the alder men and women is it the city of annapolis or state and the reality as being driven in many cases by a lack of action at the national level and at the international level. and so, i think the first thing we have to do is make sure the public understands and i think they increasingly do through the testimony like you're giving today and the superintendent is giving today people in charge of a city and facility and you add up the costs just to the city and the facility and multiply it by the facility around the country that's a big bill. and the mayor talked about the insurance agents being present at the meeting. that's just to look at the flood maps for the city of annapolis and the impact on insurance rates there.

the increased insurance rates americans are going to be paying as a result of climate change are going up and up and up, big costs. so i think it's really important to collect this testimony as part of our argument to the public about the need to make the kind of changes that dr. ekwurzel and mr. baker are saying at the national level. and there's a huge cost differential between the business as usual path and the path where we actually begin to address this issue and i don't know, doctor, if you could tell us what policies you believe are necessary at the federal level in order to get off the business as usual path? >> i think we do need a preparedness planning and assistance and preparedness and not just disaster response. so that's very important. and there are wildfire disaster bills before congress and. that and also we need to have the externality of the price on fossil fuel carbon burning and so that we can pay for the adaptation costs, help with

planning for the future and make the costs more manageable. there are different ways of doing that. there are lot of subsidies that incentivize burning fossil fuel, even if that money were just stopped that would bring money back to the state and federal coffers that could help state and local communities prepare. not even a price, a new price, added price, but just stopping the fossil fuel subsidies. to change that calculus of the economic incentives we need to have some resources to better plan. in the long run it's much more cost effective than just responding to these extreme

events. >> right. let me -- right. so we're making things worse in two ways in terms of subsidizing some of the fossil fuels that are accelerating the problem and through lack of action to increase, not just get rid of the subsidies but put a price on carbon. i'd like to ask you, mr. baker, about the impact on the warming water. because mr. sarbanes asked you about the economic value of the bay. the bay obviously has huge value to the state and the country and the world beyond just the economic value but the economic value is huge. it's essential to the state of maryland in terms of tourism, in terms of the watermen, and the rock fish and the oysters. as i look at your report, you point out that there is based on the inner governmental panel on climate change model, the waters

of the bay could potentially rise to -- by five degrees celsius by 2070 to 2099. i'm not a biologist but there are just some things you can't mitigate if you get into that kind of territory like whether or not certain species survive or not. i'd be interested if there has been an analysis on what the impact to the bay resources would be if the temperatures really went up to something like five degrees celsius. >> thank you, congressman. you know, water temperature is one of the most basic measurements that science takes and it's something we do on all of our educational field trips. the impact of anything anywhere near that level of increase, let's just take two examples. one eel grass, the dominant species of underwater grass in

virginia. it really can't survive above 80 degrees. you lose the eel grass and you lose the crab population and it cascades through the system. warm water does not hold as much oxygen. we have a severe problem of low dissolved oxygen in the chesapeake bay dead zones. and to your prior question when i talk to some of my friends who are climate deniers, i say, let's stop the argument about whether or not it's true or not. are you against reducing pollution? oh, no, they say. we're not against reducing pollution. address long-term climate problems is all about reducing pollution. and that's the two sides of the

same coin one plus one equaling three. it also creates jobs. over and over and over again we see that ways of reducing pollution and doing things differently require new technologies, demand new jobs, new investments. there is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be proceeding down this path with all deliberate speed. it will help every aspect of our society. >> thank you. just in closing, mr. chairman, i think clearly the responsible thing to do is to plan for what we see happening in terms of the impact of climate change. but we would be totally irresponsible if we don't work from the other end in terms of trying to reduce the increasing climate change when we know that it's within our power to help reduce the impact. i just want to close by -- there are some things that cannot be mitigated. if you have a five-degree celsius increase in temperature of the bay and it wipes out species it's hard to mitigate

for that. no matter how hard you try. so as we plan to address these challenges, we've got to really on an urgent and emergency basis take -- put in place policies at the federal level to begin to reduce the overall threat of climate change directly. i mean, if we were to have a disease here, i think we'd be spending a lot of money as a country to treat the disease. but we'd also have a full-blown effort to try and come up with a vaccine to get at the root causes to prevent people from getting it at the beginning. we have to do the treatment but also have to address the cause. thank you. >> thank you. i guess we've been here about an hour and 45 minutes.

i don't want to keep everybody much longer. but -- and i think it's been extremely worth while in terms of the questions, the responses, what we've gathered here today. but i don't want to stop anybody. if any member of the panel wants to ask something else or make an additional comment or some of our witnesses feel they would like to add something. go ahead. >> if i could just quickly toss out and perhaps we don't need to discuss it here if you want to get information back our way. but one of the tough lessons learned and experienced in superstorm sandy and in irene and lee in new york was the impact on utility infrastructure and what survived and what didn't. distributed generation, obviously being there where we saw many going without utility service for days upon days, impact on small business,

agricultural and certainly households and household budgets. so if you just want to give a brief statement about any ideas you have about the utility infrastructure that recalculation of thinking that we need to do in order to again do the preventive therapies which are hard to advance but they were real lessons learned. and hopefully we'll respond in a way that moves to those concepts that work. >> in terms of utilities, the city of annapolis has taken on a very ambitious goal. we're currently working to have the largest solar park on a closed landfill in the country. and one of the things we saw is we have an old landfill that is covered up let's make it an asset. it's turning over the land to a private person to put up solar panels. it's part of the ways we are reducing greenhouse gas and addressing the way that energy is transferred. >> congressman tonko as i mentioned in my statement a lot

of the actions that we did after the actions that we saw with the tropical storm in 2003 were to relocate a lot of our key infrastructure here on the yard of the naval academy to higher elevations, the hvac units were moved. there is no high wires here on the campus. so most of the power lines, all the cabling and all of our steam lines, everything runs pretty much underground. so we went through and did a significant overhaul of that to make sure that those keep elements of that are placed in those tunnels in a place that when water does go into there they are not at the bottom. that was all done to make sure in the risk management of knowing that we're going to have the three categories of flooding, the nuisance flooding

we described, the flooding after a major rainfall and the big event. how do we mitigate that so we minimize the amount of damage. and finally i'd like to say, we are the navy. we operate and live at sea level. this property here, 338 acres, much of it was reclaimed from the river and the creek here. so we are what we are. and we teach our midshipmen from day one, time, tide, and formation wait for no one. we live this here. >> i want to thank the panel and make a couple of closing comments. i also want to recognize the members of the annapolis city council that are here and thank them for their good work stepping up to this challenge and to each of our witnesses your testimony has been powerful and will be useful as we go back to washington and try to push for this. and thank you, mayor pantelides,

for having the city of annapolis host us and for vice admiral carter for not just hosting us today but for everything you do here. it's a source of incredible pride for all members of congress when we the opportunity to nominate people to the various service academies, including the navy academy. a particular point of pride for me that i represent the naval academy here in the third district. i want to salute again the members of the audience who have come, all bring a deep interest in the issue of climate change. and i want to try to not overstate the urgency dimension of this. but why not? you know, congressman van hollen presented the scenario, if there was a disease looming before us out there, that posed the same kind of threats in terms of not

impact on infrastructure, not impact on wider nature, perhaps, even though those are key concerns but just the human toll that is coming from this threat, it seems if that was coming from any other place we would be -- every command center in the country would be occupied right now and congress and state legislatures would be meeting in emergency sessions to deal with the threat. we need to move to that level of urgency if we're going to address this before these trajectories overcome us and before it's too late. i hope that this testimony that we received today will be helpful in conveying that sense of urgency on to our colleagues and to the wider congress. i know that the audience is activated behind the importance of this issue and will continue to work with everybody for whom this is a real priority. thank you, mr. chairman, for

coming to maryland, to annapolis, to naval academy to be a part of this hearing and thank you to all of our witnesses. >> thank you. i couldn't have asked for a better group of witnesses to basically relate some of our concerns and give us important information. before we close if any of you wanted to add something, speak up, otherwise -- all right. this truly was -- i don't -- you probably say he says that to everybody. but we really don't. some of our congressional hearings are rather boring and not terribly helpful but this is not in that category. thank you all again. we really appreciate your testimony. thanks. >> thank you, everyone. [ applause ] c-span 3 will be live when secretary of state john kerry and treasury secretary jack lew testify on the iran nuclear. agreement before the senate

foreign relations committee at 10:00 a.m. eastern. it's almost as if they were were -- >> freedom. i'll say it a third time. >> twice is enough. >> always to the right. >> film makers talk about their documentary "best of enemies" on debates between william buckly over war, politics, god and sex. >> very unlikely today. today i believe there's someone saying, you know, the numbers are dwindling. whereas then i don't think that

was the norm in tv at the time. i don't think these guys needed that. >> as you mentioned was the moderator. who was a distinguished news man, who i think was kind of embarrassed by this. he was moderating but he disappears for sometimes five or more minutes at the aim time. i think really everybody just stood back and let the fire burn. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on sunday's q&a. the polling recently looked at the public opinion of the supreme court in the wake of summer's decisions of approving same-sex marriage. we spoke with one of the principle members of that firm this morning about the findings. this is from today's washington journal.

>> how are you? >> fine, thank you very much. we're going to talk over details of the poll. one of the thinghouse asked about those who participating was the topic of the supreme court and partisanship. what were you looking for and what did you find? >> what e we found was that the public basically we gave them a choice whether they thought the supreme court was acting in a serious and constitutionally sound manner or they perceived the court as partisans like democrats and republicans in congress. essentially two and three think they are acting along partisan lines. moderates and conservatives basically see them a as partisans. a little less among liberals. that's the only divide among the public where liberals tend to see them as acting in a a constitutionally sound manner. but americans of every type and description with the exception of liberals say that they are split into parties like

republicans and democrats. in essence almost like they are politicians. >> were these responses specifically tied to decisions about same-sex marriage, subsidies under the health care law or was it overall people were asked about these things? >> we actually asked this question in the past in a a somewhat different form having looked as these issues over six years, ten times actually. but we when we asked them in terms of the affordable care act, also known as obamacare. half the people heard that, half the people heard whether the same-sex marriage decision whether they were split on political grounds or act in a constitutional manner. it didn't make that much difference. essentially two and three

americans think that they act like republicans and democrats in congress rather than act in a series in constitutional manner. >> mr. green, one of the things we talk about here on c-span and other people talked about as well as the idea of cameras in the supreme court, you asked questions about it. what did you find? >> this has been so interesting over the six years. a majority have always supported cameras in the supreme court but what we're finding is that its support is up 15%. it's bounced around a bit but it's never dropped the 60s. now basically 3 in 4 americans, and this includes americans of every type and description percentages say they would like

to have tv coverage of the supreme court. >> in the matter of lifetime appointments, are chosen in what they get, did the public think that was a good thing or a bad thing? >> well, that's another thing i found really fascinating about these numbers. most people when you're asked you strongly agree or strongly disagree that the u.s. supreme court justices should serve lifetime appointments. they rank 60-40 against appoint appointments appointments. when you give them an alternative, the support gets really strong. in essence, we get 4 in 5 americans would prefer -- and we tested this particular alternative, there's been others we tested an 18-year appointment with the potential for reappointment, that somebody could serve as long as 36 years, and in any case when you give them something specific, the

public know what is they want, which is they would much prefer that these guys were serving long-terms rather than lifetime appointments, as is true today. >> you asked participants to talk about the educational background of the justices. why did you do that and what did you find out? >> we thought it it would be interesting to see that whether in fact we basically mentioned -- we set up in essence that most of all the justices basically come from harvard, yale or columbia law school and whether they saw justices ideally would come from some different background. what we found was very strong 4 to 1 support for different backgrounds rather than the ivy

league law schools. interest. ingly, the older you are and the more like ily you are to follow 50 and older voters as well as nonvoters by e enormous margins when justices come from a different background. the only americans that are slightly more likely to support what might be be thought of as ivy league traditionalism would be the younger ones. not that they don't break toward wanting justices from a different background, but at least the margins are a little closer there. in essence americans want something different. one thing that was sort of fun about this is what we were looking at was strangely if you saw justice scalia's decent he touched some of the same notes that this question also looked at. we wrote the question before any of that happened.

in fact, i've asked this question several times over the years. they really would prefer terms and they'd also prefer that the supreme court justices came from somewhat different and presumably broader backgrounds than what they do today. >> much more information available on this recent poll done of the u.s. supreme court robert green joining us to talk about it. thank you for your time. >> thank you, sir. . retired general john allen is the special presidential envoy and he spoke earlier this week, and after a brief introduction, general allen made remarks and took questions from the audience. this is about an hour and 45 minutes.

good morning, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the center for american progress. it's amazing to see so many wonderful friends here. i see several distinguished members of the diplomatic corp., and we are all here from caps perspective to launch this report, but from all of your perspectives to get an opportunity to hear directly from general john allen, the president's special envoy to the global initiative to defeat isis. they say isil and i say isis. and the general is one of the great patriots and public servants we have had in the country and i have had the privilege to know him several years, and he has been a man that would take on any difficult task for the united states, and he's been endlessly dedicated,

dedicated to the troops, dedicated to the marines he led, and dedicated to the civilians that worked in the most difficult places, and i am really honored that we have him here today. before being the president's special envoy of the global coalition to encounter isil, he took on the challenge to help lead the middle east process for two years, working back and forth with the israelis and palestinians and working what was a heroic effort to get a two-state solution, and he is somebody that applies a great deal of thought and reflection on how america needs to handle its most difficult challenges. most importantly, and i have seen him in this capacity wearing the uniform and out of the uniform, he understands the kinds of challenges we face are never strictly military, they are always political and always

complex. we could have no better person to bring to this task to trying to figure out what are all of the pieces of the puzzle encountering the threat that isis poses to the countries it is currently decimating, erasing borders, to the region and to the world, and how we can get a solution that is just not going to rely on military force, by us or by others, because the only way forward is going to be something comprehensive and sustainable and something led by the country's most affected with the support of a wide coalition of partners. we don't have general allen for a very long time today, so i won't go into much detail. we will be hearing from him, and he and i will have a chance to do a short discussion and then we have a distinguished panel that will join us afterwards for follow-up discussion.

without further ado, general, thank you for joining us. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. it's really a great pleasure to be here, and i want to thank you for not just the introduction that you have given me this morning, but in your own right for the magnificent public service you have rendered on our country. as many of you know, he has had substantial contributions across a whole variety of ways, in a variety of ways to our diplomatic and coalition

efforts, and i benefited directly from those and also your work in east asia, so we should all applaud your great work and should benefit from the work that you have done, not just there in the department of defense, but certainly more broadly in this community that takes such a great interests here particular, for the important and difficult conversations, so thank you for that. and i want to thank the center as well, and so many other complicated issues facing our country today, and in particular i want to compliment you on the report that has come out recently and the three recommendations that we are digesting. we are digesting it and i want to thank you for the efforts from the center in bringing those about. today we are here to talk about the coalition and the coalition as it deals with isil. as president obama said last september at the united nations general assembly, this is a

moment where the world is at a crossroads. we are living during a time of human history, when the older order is passing and the newer order is coming into being, and how isil has effectively used 21st century tools, the ease of world travel, and global financial networks and the internet, and we see some vulnerabilities and gaps in the global order that is, in fact, emerging, and gaps that can be exploited to the detriment. they are so skilled at using phaud return technology in spreading such a anti-modern and mid evil and dehumanizing theology. as somebody that spent four decades as a u.s. marine, i have come closer than many to the face of inhumanity. i have never before seen the kind of deprivety and barbaric

that isil represents and, in fact, celebrates every day. in my service as the president's special envoy to the global coalition to counter isil over the past ten months, the global response to isil's calculated imhumanity has given me optimism. im impressed by the partners who have committed themselves and their states to counter isil and to contribute to the campaign. by their willingness to make substantial contributions of national prestige and the blood and the treasure of their population, it is their genuine effort to mark a contribution to solving a complicated and complex problem. indeed it has been a privilege

to help to organize their efforts, the efforts of 60 nations and two organizations into a coalition campaign that matters profoundly to the security not just of this nation, but of the nations of the world. from the outset of this coalition, this coalition's campaign to counter isil, which i will henceforth refer to by it's acronym as daesh, we would persist and adapt and reassess our activities in the light of both victories and setbacks. setbacks such as the one that was experienced in ramadi in may. at the same time it's also imperative for all of us to understand the direction of our campaign, from a more expansive horizon than the ones set back for the one victory. having been part of four previous coalitions over the course of my career, and having commanded a coalition of 50

nations in afghanistan, i see how important, how indeed, essential is it to see the ups and downs of a campaign within the context of long-term strategic objectives. as we mark one year from the horrific events in iraq which spurred the united states to act and convene a global coalition, we have an important opportunity to take stock of how far we have come and how much further we have to go. it's difficult to remember just how perilous a moment it was last june as daesh fighters crossed the syrian border and began to pour down the tiger river valley, and they massacred thousands of ethnic and

religious minorities in its path and it was a moment when iraq was under siege and largely alone in the world. not only did daesh win quick victories during those days, but they demonstrated an ability to use information operations as a force multiplier as daesh fighters took to social media to boast of the women they brutalized and they forced into a sex trade and these had a remarkable affect upon the world. immediately, ultimately, we will never know the complete impact these messages had on thousands of iraqi soldiers that fled their ranks, not just because of the weight of the media campaign against them but to defend their homes and families. we do know this, daesh's ability

to define the information environment played a pivotal role, perhaps even a defining role as they began to emerge in this crisis, and our ability to delegitimize that narrative and the very idea of the organization will play just as pivotal a role in their demise. nowhere has daesh's message mattered more than in the weeks after the capture of mosul, where they declared the existence of the so-called caliphate, and the leader proclaimed daesh's global ambitions and it was during those difficult days last summer, as daesh fighters surrounded thousands, as they threatened the approaches to baghdad, united states took a series of actions that would ultimately shift the momentum, and president obama, secretary kerry made critical decisions that would begin to lay the ground work for a coalition, and

a comprehensive effort to come. first, we searched intelligence assets over iraq from one isr intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, from one a day to 60 a day, getting a more granular picture to daesh's movements. we restored critical relationships between iraq's central government and kurdish commanders. third, we deployed special forces team to assess iraqi security forces. fourth, and perhaps most critically for iraq's future, we redoubled our effort to support the iraqis in the political

process following national elections. these actions were absolutely essential in the immediate term, but by no means sufficient to address the many grave dangers that we face. indeed it was last summer that we began to understand that daesh was not simply a iraqi or syrian problem, but emerging as a regional problem with global and generational implications. it was out of a keen awareness of that reality and understanding of the unthinkable human implications if this emergency were to go unevaded, that our president supported by the secretary solved to build a global coalition. it was at that time last year when i was asked by the white house to assist the president and secretary as a special envoy to the global coalition. since i began serving in the role, i had the opportunity to travel to 30 capitals, many of

them repeatedly and during that time, as we have worked together, we have been able to establish a coalition of 60 nations and two partners, two-partner organizations. unlike other coalition campaigns i have been a part of, we have had to build this coalition out of old cloth. when i served as the commander of our nato forces in afghanistan, our legal authorities resided upon the united nations security council resolution and the framework for our organization rested on the council of nato, the unprecedented nature and the urgency of this effort required that we create an organizational framework that would sustain a long-term effort while simultaneously confronting the emergency that we faced. last december in brussels, the coalition to address isil went to a joint statement that

outlined our objectives and commitments to work together over multiple lines of effort. while its the coalitions kinetic actions that often do and usually do receive the most attention, it's the aggregate effort of the coalition's activities across multiple lines of effort that will as was said in the beginning, in the end will determine the coalition's success. that's why in every visit i have to a coalition capital, and every conversation i with a prime minister or president or a king, i describe the coalitions campaign as organized around five multiple lines of effort. the first is the military component, to deny safe haven and to provide security assistance to our partners. the second is disrupting the flow of foreign fighters. third is disrupting access to daesh's financial resources and their ability to access the

international financial system. fourth, providing humanitarian assistance and relief and stabilization support and the fifth is encounter messaging where defeating daesh is an idea. let me provide an overview of the coalition's progress over the lines of effort, and the ways in which the coalition is evolving to confront an adaptable enemy. our first line of effort is focused on providing security support to the partners on the ground. while these efforts are the purview of the central command and its partners, it's essential the coalition activities over each lines of effort are synchronized and mutual lisa poertd. as we evaluate that ramadi is a

setback from which we must learn and understand, and if you have not been following, about 500, the iraqi security forces are en route now to isolated ramadi and to take it back. we should also not forget while we think about this campaign that is unfolding against ramadi that daesh is also suffering setbacks in places like pwab annual province. with the support of our air power over top of determined fighters, they were soundly defeated, and that is an accurate term, soundly defeated from a military perspective, beyond kobani, and across a long stretch of the syrian border, maybing and across the border of syria and turkey, and two-thirds

of the border has been rested from the control of daesh in the last six weeks. in tikrit, prime minister abadi asked for coalition support, and security forces were able to recover the city, and today less than three months later hundreds of displaced families have now made a peaceful return to the city. this process gives us reason to be cautiously optimistic about the iraqi led efforts or stabilization and the stabilized support, deliberated populations

and communities as they seek to prevent sectarian reprisals. while these important gains are important to our partners on the ground, the coalition played a vital role in their capabilities as well. 15 partners are helping to build the iraqi security force capabilities at five training camps, and six partners are contributing the coalitions advise and assist mission, and eight nations participated in air strikes over iraq and five over syria. among them, more than 8,000 iraqi fighters that the coalition trained and many are now helping to secure borders and are in the attack to recover ramadi, and in the short period

of time since ramadi's fall, president obama's decision to locate our troops at a five training location has produced an additional 1,300 tribal fighters who are engaged in supporting the iraqi security forces in the attack on ramadi at this moment. so make no mistake, more iraqis, sunni and shia alike must be recruited, trained and engaged to take back their country. building the capacity of iraq's security forces will be required during a commitment, and one i believe this coalition has made. others may not agree, but it is my belief that with each passing week as greater numbers of iraqis are trained and equipped and take to the field, we will see their increasing effort have affect, and success will inspire success as we have seen in other places. i believe we will see others enter the fight as time goes on. the same time we must appreciate the security gains can only be

sustained if political reforms are made in parallel. towards that end we must continue to encourage prime minister abadi's pursuit of an inclusive path he has set for his country, one that begins to operationalize his approach of governance called federalism, this vision of governance in decentralizing authorities to the provinces, and it's in that approach we hope to test the plan that president -- prime minister abadi put in place, the plan to uncover anbar in the process. success in anbar will depend heavily on baghdad's ability to train and equipped sunnis to take back their country. this will require prime minister abad i and others to assume political risk with their largely shia constituency. we've seen him assume that risk

and we've seen the sovereign decisions made in baghdad that are beginning to pay off. as we see the sunnis begin to organize and more tribal forces be produced, we'll begin to see the reality of that support as well. how we support iraq's efforts, we must avoid oversimplification of iraq's identity. we've taken note of sunni leaders, for example, of the anbar province provincial council to endorse the contributions of pmf or popular mobilization force elements, which are primarily shia in their orientation. endorsing their presence in the province and their willingness to fight alongside iraqi

security forces. they recognize there's a distinction that must be made between the shia hard line militias under the influence of iran and the large number of shia who answered the fatwa of grand ayatollah ali al sistani last summer and they came to the rescue by the tens of thousands. i believe i'm better qualified than most to understand the destructive and destabilizing role that sectarian militias can play. from our own insurance in experience in iraq. as someone who is deeply committed to this coalition's campaign and to iraq's success, i also understand the error in seeing iraq's fighters and iraq's communities and iraq's future through a narrow and sectarian prism. in fact, enabling iraqis to move beyond these divisions is part of why stabilization efforts in

the liberated communities are so important as the campaign continues to unfold and why the coalition support for these activities is one of our central lines of effort. as i see it, there are four components to the counteroffensive under way that require these efforts be closely synchronized. first, the clearing element. when the iraqi army and the popular mobilization committee and forces ultimately remove daesh from an urban location or center. there's the security and policing effort also known as the hold force that deals with crime and provides general security to the liberated population so life can return to normal. this hold force will be a combination of reconstituted sunni police, local tribes and some militia elements. third, in restoration of local governance, we find the effort by the central government in baghdad and provincial headquarters and capitals to extend governance and the writ of government to the areas liberated and have suffered so much under the heal of daesh. in the stabilization effort

itself or provision of essential services, this includes immediate humanitarian assistance to address life-threatening issues, as well as short-term restoration of essential services like health care and fresh water and electricity. on each of these four elements the coalition is searching technical support and assistance to our iraqi allies and the iraqi-led efforts. while the germans and ameridis are helping organize these stabilization efforts, other coalition partners are providing significant support. the italians are playing a substantial role training the effective iraqi police force being reconstituted.

and several coalition nations, including the united states have made sizable contributions to a u.n.-administered stabilization fund. and this fund will allow the iraqi toss make immediate investments to meet the urgent needs of those who have suffered the daily degradations under daesh's heel for so many months and to restore water purification and electrical distribution. through the support of baghdad, this provides populations what they need so badly. and it creates the opportunity to strengthen the connection between the capital and the people, in fact, being liberated. this can be considered and ought to be considered as reconciliation from the ground up. these kinds of stabilization efforts will eventually be just as critical to syria where coalition supported fighters have made a series of recent gains.

the coalition is enhancing our cooperation to capitalize on such successes as kobani and are working to organize elements so we can create reliable partners on the ground in syria, which is essential ultimately to our coalition outcomes. at the same time, centcom is looking for ways to streamline our train and equipment programs. we can plainly see the number of fighters currently enrolled is smaller than we anticipated. we'll continue to require capable partners on the ground in syria to ensure isil's lasting defeat. we must find ways to improve this aspect of our strategy, and we are. we cannot afford to become desensitized to the level of violence in syria or the belief that nothing can be done for these people. we will continue to work this very hard. while it is not the place of the united states or coalition to dictate the future for the syrian people, each of us has a profound stake in creating the conditions where syria's people can begin to determine their own future. a future that is free of the

brutality of the bashar al assad regime as well as organized elements such as daesh or al nasra. one of the best tools the coalition can use to disrupt daesh's management and organization is our ability to squeeze its access to financial resources. these counterfinance activities led jointly by italy, kingdom of saudi arabia and the united states constitute another one of the coalitions central lines of effort. we're sharing information to block the access of daesh to global financial networks and systems and uncovering their points of access in the region and abroad for financial support. i must tell you what we have learned from the take off the objective in the raid two months ago is beginning to paint a very clear picture for us in ways we can exploit. the coalition has also worked to degrade daesh's oil enterprise through our own air cam pan and other measures. still daesh is proving resilient in its ability to bring degraded

energy back online. we're going to continue to directly attack the oil enterprise and must recognize daesh has other financial capabilities and resources that are diverse beyond the oil enterprise, the portfolio includes a number of other measures. massive criminal extortion of the populations under its control. looting, kidnapping for ransom, human trafficking, slave trade and potential profit from the sale of plundered antiquities. daesh also operates where there's an extensive criminal infrastructure to support illicit activity, much of it used by the smuggling routes in an effort to defeat the oil for food sanctions of the 1990s. in a recent raid on the abu sayyaf, we not only recovered a great deal.

abu sayef, the financial manager for daesh, we not only recovered a great deal of information about the financial activities, but we've also got much more -- much greater clarity in the organizational activities and organization of daesh. and this is helping us with further planning. the coalition's countermessaging line of effort is also contesting daesh's narrative across platforms and languages. here it's important -- here, it is important that key credible muslim voices and scholars speak out and publicly reject daesh's ideology. in the arab world it's important the voice is muslim and that the face discrediting daesh is an arab face. just last week the united arab emirates and the u.s. launched a joint center to counter daesh messaging in the region. this is a regional asset, not

just bilateral. we're discussing with other regional partners messaging centers that's could be established in europe and in southeast asia. these efforts will remain an uphill battle. still this remains an area the coalition must take more comprehensive and decisive action and we're committed to them. daesh's toxic message cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. the final line of effort is in the area that spokes the most universal concern with coalition partners. that's the area of stemming the flow of foreign fighters. most of the foreign fighters enter the space along turkey's 900-kilometer border. the burden of stopping the flow of foreign fighters to the battlefield cannot rest with turkey alone. other partners need to step up

their own interdiction intelligence collection and sharing of information. in fact, the turkish border should be the last line of defense in this equation. last week i led a high level interagency delegation to ankara for extensive consultations. we've seen substantial progress by engaging in a sustained and respectful dialogue on this and a variety of issues. and i believe enhanced cooperation with turkey will present further opportunities for our two countries and the coalitions efforts to counter daesh as we enter the second year of this campaign. we need nations working together like this. working together at each link in the chain of becoming a foreign fighter or daesh recruit. and the links of that chain are at the border between potential

foreign fighters. at the point of recruitment. at the point of radicalization which is often, frankly, a cell phone or personal computer. to date, over 30 coalition partners have enacted laws to create greater obstacles for those planning to become foreign fighters and those who support them. at least 26 countries have made arrests breaking up daesh affiliated networks. but nevertheless, stopping the flow of foreign fighters into iraq and syria continues to be a serious challenge. as we assess our strategy we must also confront a new reality. potential foreign fighters no longer need to leave their home countries or even their homes to be radicalized, to be recruited and ultimately to be tasked to become lone wolf attackers. we must appreciate that there is

no one type of foreign fighter. no single method of recruitment and no one source to support them financially. one critical issue we need to address is how we manage to reach and rehabilitate and reintegrate the thousands of people who have become known to us and who we'll need to help returning to their societies to become productive members of their states once again either as they have become radicalized fighter. there is no denying many societies find the idea of rehabilitating foreign fighters objectionable. those who have broken the laws of our land must be detentionable. i believe that we must strive to be a coalition of compassionate states. especially when certain coalition partners have experienced success. the promise of rehabilitation and reintegration is one we ought to actively study and embrace. earlier this year i had the

opportunity to meet with key muslim leaders and social scientists in singapore. they've been working successfully to deradicalize young men and in so doing have supported their successful return to society. the numbers are not high. for singapore, for not as high as singapore as they might be for other states but their success is notable. of the 57 releases they've made, there's been only one recidivist. belgium, austria, germany, other states in europe, other states within the coalition to include the kingdom of saudi arabia, have developed a set of effective practices for the specific cultural and natural context ultimately to assist in

this process of the reclamation of these foreign fighters back into society. any successful approach will have to respond to uniquely local social conditions and realities. at the same time, some of the forces which compel young men and increasingly young women to be foreign fighters are thoroughly global and modern in their nature. daesh is practiced at exploiting a sense of rootlessness and separation that many young people feel in their communities, whether in arab communities in the west, in certain arab societies or in southeast asia, a feeling of disenfranchisement and otherness is present. and a powerful -- powerful force for many. there is a separation between these young people and what is defined by a mainstream culture as they perceive it. a separation between the opportunities young people see on their smartphones and those they believe are available to them in their own lives. there's a separation between these young people and the true depth and richness of the faith of islam. frankly, we must save our children from this reality and guard against the manipulation and the anxieties they feel while working to address their root causes. truly this is not a small task. it is a matter of working

together as a coalition and community of nations to ensure the promise of modernity is available and achievable to all. in my discussion with muslim in my discussion with muslim scholars of the faith of islam and imams, by embracing modernity and connecting with the world not through its rejection that a muslim can fully achieve the richness of his or her faith. developing this sense of mutual respect strengthens our ability to act in shared purpose, which is absolutely essential in the fight in which we are now engaged. when daesh seeks to divide and conquer, we must draw strength from the diversity. the enormous and, frankly, favorable diversity of our coalition. when daesh succeeds only when men and women feel little connection to their government and to their societies, it's necessary for us all to work together to offer better models. when daesh defines itself by what it seeks to destroy, it's important for us to define our ultimate efforts by what we seek to build together. and when we see groups and individuals seeking to affiliate

and align with daesh in several parts of the world we see clearly how thesis challenges are not unique to one region. the growth of a number of daesh-affiliated groups is a challenge the counter-isil coalition is beginning to confront. not every group who raises the black flag of daesh represents the same threat. many of these groups are simple criminal gangs or contained insurgencies. we find it necessary to ask a series of questions. what command and control does core daesh, orb core daesh being syria and iraq. what control does core daesh have over this group? second, has daesh leadership decided to link itself publicly with this group and coordinate their propaganda and messaging campaign? can core daesh and this potential affiliate exchange

resources, including funding and fighters? and fourth and most importantly and can this group threaten the coalition homelands. if the answer to most of these questions is yes, the coalition has ways to mitigate this threat. on three lines of coalition effort, countering finances, the flow of foreign fighters and countering messaging. we can build then on current or local efforts that are being taken to counter daesh affiliates locally around the world. we must also not forget that daesh's legitimacy is tied to a so-called caliphate, described as a protostate with specific geography. over arching object ative it must not just be countering daesh more broadly around the world but bear down, squeezing and degrading and defeating daesh there in its core makes it more difficult for an affiliation to stand alone beyond the boundaries of the iraq/syria region.

so as a coalition, we cannot eliminate every rivalry whether between nations or different faiths or those who hold power and grievances, one against another. in coordinating the global effort to counter daesh in championing a spirit of much interest and mutual respect over our many differences, we can and we have changed assumptions about how nations can come together to fight one of the great challenges of our time. over ten short months we've united dozens of partners to confront this emergency while creating lasting structures and mechanisms of action that will endure long after this present campaign is complete. having commanded a theater of war in afghanistan, i'm beginning to see strategic momentum building. sustaining that momentum takes daily attention across the

coalition and within the lines of effort and within our working groups. it means learning from our setbacks. not letting them define our long-term objectives within our campaign and strategy. this will be a long campaign. aspects of it like defeating daesh's ideology will like lie take a generation. we as an international community can and must rise to the challenge. i know that many of you in this room are experts on this issue and you seek to understand the complexity of the campaign and contribute in your own ways, and we value those contributions and solicit them. i look forward to a conversation briefly, but i also look forward to the continued work of this very important center in helping us all to get to the place we want to be which is ultimately the defeat of this odious movement. thank you ladies and gentlemen. [ applause ]

>> i want to thank general allen. thank all of you. general allen has to be at the white house extraordinarily shortly, so we're not going to have the -- as much time as we had hoped for questions. but i thought i'd give you a couple of double whammies. >> i'll go on the hour. >> you gave us an extraordinarily frank appraisal of the challenge. i think an appraisal that can perhaps make us a little bit depressed but then a fairly hopeful picture. >> that wasn't my intent to leave you depressed. >> a fairly hopeful picture of the coalition and the dedication and commitment you are seeing not just from a handful of

friends and allies but from an incredibly broad range of countries and partners. let me talk to you about your deep experience working with coalitions. obviously, coalitions are always complicated. but in this case, it seems to be perhaps the most complex environment to have a coalition coming together. and there's two areas that i'd like to highlight. of course, today we're in the moments after the announcement of an iran deal. members of this coalition have deeply differing views about the level of threat in the region. many of them see iran potentially as a greater threat than even isil and are acting in some cases independently of the coalition in other areas, for example, striking yemen. at the same time, within syria, countering isil. you have some members of the

coalition that are giving help to al qaeda affiliates. can you share your views on the potential perception some of us might have of the coalition. sometimes working across purposes on how these complexities play in and how you are managing that? >> that's an important question. and i think the first thing that comes to mind as i said, this is the fifth coalition in which i've been involved. one of the first things that is evident in any coalition is that while states have come together, usually sharing a desire to achieve a common purpose, achieving common values, common interest, seldom will those states in that process subordinate their personal or their national interests.

and so national interest will continue to be important to the individual members of the state of the coalition. we have achieved, i think, in a relatively short time, a remarkable consensus within the coalition. ultimately for the defeat of daesh. that really -- that really was a very impressive effort, i think, on the part last year of the president's leadership but having watched secretary kerry very closely in this, and in the real emergency of august and september, bringing this coalition together. they've come together to achieve an outcome with regard to daesh, but in the course of that, they also have continued to recognize, as we should recognize, that's they all have national interests of their own. for many of the members of the coalition, iran has been, is and probably will remain one of the principal sources of threat to their national security.

you see that clearly in the gulf and in that region. and i won't speculate on the outcomes of the announcement that was made with respect to whether it will fundamentally change iranian behavior, but that is a very important question to all of them. will iran's behavior change as a direct result of being more completely assimilated into the community of nations as a result of this agreement. remains to be determined. but i will tell you that it is clearly a point of interest and strong attention for our neighbors and allies in the region and will become an important point over time. even though we are committed to daesh, committed to the defeat of daesh and our iraqi ambassador is here this morning, not only are we committed to a political outcome in syria, which sees in the end a

transition to a government that is represented or is supported by the syrian people, that does not include bashar al assad, that does sometimes create tensions as some states view individual entities in the syrian battle space differently than other members of the coalition. and i think we have a strong common view that the political outcome is what we seek. the modalities may differ from one partner to another. the alignments that had been formed early in the civil war in syria were strong alignments that supported various groups to seek to either liberate the syrian people or to take action against the central regime. those alignments have been