district? >> yes, it is still pretty much considered as a whoin that dist. >> very cool. all right. mr. greisman, the bipartisan senior fraud protection act, that asked the ftc to distribute material to seniors and care givers to explain this process for contacting law enforcement. how are these types of educational efforts important? >> well, they are critical and it is apart of the fdc consumer protection mission. i have referred earlier to pass it on which is our signature consumer piece gearing towards our older americans. we outreach a number of ways at the grass roots and we held 30s in the past couple of years. those involved, states and law enforcers and providers, we

engage in webinars throughout the country. again, many targeted at older consumers. in december, we'll be holding a workshop looking at the changing demographics country. >> i do that when i was in office, pros accuecutors, we wel over the states. it is astounding how people don't know and with phone call scams and with law enforcement and they need their information. that's a common one and whether it is on the internet and we have more and more seniors and easier and easier to target. thank you for your work, we look forward to working with both of you. thanks. >> well, i am going to exercise jurisdiction at the chair and i am going to ask a few more

questions. hopefully, the clock room knows that i am here. >> i am kind of curious about and first, i want to thank you klobochar and senator cornyn and i appreciate anybody making this a priority and the leadership. i am trying to -- back in north carolina, we had a problem with chopped shops. when they chopped up a cars and selling the parts as more than it is worth as the car. we decided to clamp down on it and we decided to define the criminal enterprise and i am not an attorney or prosecutor so bare with me if i mistake. we decided to define as a criminal enterprise, anybody who was involved in it and fact, if the building owner knew or should have known that this was a fraudulent activity going on. if they were operating at the

basement of their house, basically, defining the criminal enterprise of this productive, the bad guys, you're all potentially going to be prosecuted and many of you are going to have your access. do we have this sort of ca capabilities. >> if the case is charged something like a male fraud schemes. in the evidence supports it shown volunteerly, they would be subjected to cupablety. >> are there more that's helpful? >> senator, i cannot think of any specifically at the moment. if i can take that question back to our legislative affairs people and have contact. >> i hope you would. if you think of the criminal enterprise and they're technology rich and they got a phone rich and a base system.

they got a business enterprise that in some case would be innocent and implemented so you can only see the asset that they purchase. you can make it difficult for them to set up shops into the extent that we need to change the laws to do that, i for one would be a big proponent of it. miss greisman, do you have anything to add? >> you mentioned of tela marking context? we'll look at the lash out of calls which millions and millions of every hour. we look at the entity that provides the lead lists and entities of lists and see what

they should have known and held responsible. we have sued many entities under that approach. >> good. those are the sorts of things that to the extent t we could provide more tools and making it really, really miserable for them to make the lives of seniors miserable, i want to do everything i can to do that. mr. horn, do you have anything to add? >> i don't want to interrupt by any means, you asked the question for the warrants o f the arrest scam, if i can have a question, that's a good chance that the phone call from constituent in charlotte came from our prisoners. that's our case. what the prisoners would do is instruct the victim to do is to get a vanilla car. to answer your question, we are reaching out to the financial service providers and the companies that provide those cards to work together and

preventing those kinds of frauds. hopefully, our case will help to alleviate that problem. >> i hope you and everybody else paying attention here and spending a lot of times to figure out what other tools we could do. we are in north carolina trying to crack down and preventing phones in prisons. there is a lot of snakes that have never been in prison and making millions of dollars on senio seniors. we need to find them and make their lives miserable. with that, we are going to stand and recess.

i don't know what members are going to come here. i am going to finish my round

and if other members don't show up. i will release you and call a second panel. you may expect some members to ask questions in writing so we appreciate your response into that. mr. horn, we all know that data can be helpful to better understand and respond to our problem, accordingly, i recently sent out a letter to the justice department to find out more about its efforts and including its data collection and its enforcement activities responding to its financial exploitation. in its response last week that the justice department noted that, it does not collect data on the prevalence of elder financial exploitation nationwide. the department also said that its own case management system, "cannot provide statistical information of the number of

cases prosecuted for elders and financial expectations." if you can tell me and maybe in your position. it is difficult for you to speak for the department, why is the department collecting data and would that type of information be helpful to the department or the whole federal government broader efforts to come of financial exploitation? >> absolutely, senator. in my capacity u.s. attorneys and northern district of georgia, as an example for what that kind of data is not collected specifically to cases where the elderly are the victim population affected just a couple of things. one is the tracking system that the department uses is a statue base system. there is a number of statues that would apply to be able to charge a chase that involves the elderly victim population whether it is a mail fraud

statue. the jury duty scam that has a fair number of elderly victim and that victim pool, that's a public. we consider that case to be a public case in our district because it involves our potential involvement by our prison guard. it is true that we don't collect that data. one of the things we are looking at in the elder justice working group through the agac is that we share the recognition that data could be helpful. we'll be looking at ways that we could do better tracking cases that involves the elderly. one thing that we have done is not a perfect system is we have institutionally done surveys that involves the elderly victim population. we have done searches of press release as and databases of this like that. we have conducted a pool over 200 cases that have a substantial impact of the elderly. that's not a perfect system and

that's agreed of something we'll be looking at. >> are you able to use any data that's collected by others such as states government as an example? >> i am not aware, senator, that states government are collecting it. we work closely with the senator in georgia, we worked with several groups that's impacting with the elderlies and population. that's something i will be asking. i am not guilaware specificallye thing that we rely on is the database that the fgc remained. >> this will probably have to be my last question. mr. horn, senior citizens at the hands of relatives and care givers may need help finding a new place to stay. they may need an attorney's help

or seeking restraining orders or fighting -- and victim's compensation, -- why hasn't the justice department finalize regulations that as my understanding where originally proposed in 2013 that would clarify the eligibility of elder abused victims for crimes victims' compensation. since they have not, do you have any idea what date will this victims of crime act regulation be finalized and submitted for permanent approval? >> senator, i actually have no personal familiarity with that regulation. i will be more than happy to take that question back. in addition to whatever

regulation may require, we are actively looking at victim services as a component to what we are doing in the elder service area. just an example, we partnered with the snacenter of crime for finding those resources they need of whatever it is. >> do you know whether the justice department collect data indicating what percentage of the crime assisting elder abused victims and if so, what information can you share on that subject? >> senator, i don't have personals. i will be more than happy to take that question back. my next question depends on whether or not regulation would go through but it does begs the question whether congress should demand the victor crime acts to

ensure that -- or whether that statues are clear on that matter just await thing that regulatio. >> senator, again, i am not familiar with that regulation. we do in all of our cases, i can assure you that we bring in the u.s. office of restitutions and any funds that can be made available to the victims of the crime. we have separate attorneys where they look for resources and do whatever they do to bring the resources into the pool and make sure they get to the victims. >> miss greisman, i have one question for you. let me ask you about how best senior citizens we can protect them in rural communities from scams, we need to ensure that support resources are available

and not just urban areas but for these individuals as well. could you describe any specific consumer education strategies that ftc is taking to connect with seniors living in rural communities, and what specific challenges are there in ensuring the message getting out to them. i don't mean to imply that you have a separate one but if you do, i would like to have you explain i want. >> thank you. in the first instance, we urge you to provide a link to that video on your own website that i referred to earlier. i mentioned before that we have done many common ground conferences throughout the country, the past couple of years and in setting these up, we work among others aging organizations and legal service providers, really have been an

effort to reach grass roots and communities throughout the country. we do as well as part of our every community initiatives. i know we work closely with the iowa attorney general and i know we reached out to the state of iowa and distributed as broadly as possible. >> okay, are you aware of any evidence indicating that seniors in rural areas may be more targeted and frequently by scammers and what surprises you if they were targeted frequently. >> i am not aware of any evidence or antidotal information. >> both. i cut you off. >> i was going to say a lot, for example, of the telamarketing

scams we see. they don't care where their victims live. >> listen, thank you very much and we appreciate very much of your testimonies on this very important issue. i will call the second panel now. >> thank you, senator >> thank you both. we start out with joel marque-- member of the aarp, iowa's executive consul as well as a volunteer with aarp, fraud watch network. he would be up on these issues very much and he must be appreciated because he's stepping in at the last minute to today on behalf of karla

sighburg and next, nancy shaffer and senatoor bloomenthal. she's a member and consul of the connecticut, elder network and the national association of the program. miss shaffer owns a bachelor degree in sociology and human development and donna harvey, served since 2011, previously director of the agency. she represents iowa as pressure of the national association of

area agent sees on aging. miss harvey completed in training and human specialist through elsewhere community college and received a degree in human services management up in iowa university. welcome and thank you all of you for being here and taking time out of the your busy schedule to come and tell us about your experiences on this issue and we'll start with joel. >> good morning, my name is joel -- as you know, aarp is a non partisan -- aarp helps individuals protecting themselves and families from frauds and scams by sharing important information through your fraud network which is a

free resource that's available to everyone. it was through your network that we met karla cybert. >> she was scheduled to testify today but she had a surgery on monday evening. she's back home and the bad news is what happened to her parents and it is all too common. in april of 2014, karla's mother became seriously ill. karla's mother is a primary giver for karla's father who had dementia. >> she took a call on her mother's cell phone from a cell phone who was interested sending her mother more help supplements. karla discovered a company named leading health source had been selling her mother thousands of dollars of supplement. more than $44,000 worth. she knew her parents could not afford that debt.

karla heard a very common story, a man would call her and per wa persuade her feeling better with their products and she started buying their products and giving them access to all of their credit cards information. one card that lead health source got a hold of had not been used in nine years and had a limit of $15,000. seven charges went through in 15 days for more than $21,000 worth of supplements. leading health source preying on their health and po. what happened to them is just wrong. >> fortunately, karla had a power of attorney from her parents and she was able to help them. the state's attorney general and her own determination.

karla's parents were able to get all of their money back. too frequently of a fraud workshop were heard, we hear stories like the ones that happened to karla's parents. they are very concerned for their parents and older loved ones. >> through our network, we are helping iowa staying one step ahead of the crooks. those engaging and learning about tool and scammers used and -- and the most common fraud s in the area. if legal ramification are ne needed -- i hope in my reading of karla's story, you can imagine the heartbreaks and the fears and anger and frustration

that she went through. had she been here, she would be able to convey it to you. thank you for inviting us to speak on karla's behalf of the financial abuse targeted of seniors in iowa and throughout the states. >> mr. joel. >> miss shaffer. >> good morning chairman and members of the committee. my name is nancy shaffer and i am honored to be here. the connecticut long-term care provides advocacy services to residents in long-term care facilities and assisted living facilities and residential care homes and the school fill

facili facilities. i have to thank senator bloomenthal, she's been very suppo supportive of our service and thank you senator greisman. it take as toll on society as a whole. exploitation often leaves an elder depleted of resources and dependant on state resources for their long-term care needs in the last years of their lives living the state responsible and a burden of cause to that state. the effects of financial exploitation of the viindividua are skaignificant and can be

life-changing. >> depression and fears, some have called this a silent epidem epidemic. it is my responsibility to be a voice for those residents and tell their stories to you, the policymakers and legislatures so we can help improve the quality of their lives overtime. examples abuse and misused of an elder funds -- i have a number of case examples in my written testimony but i did want to highlight a couple that is pertinent. we had an individual of a connecticut resident who was admitted to a nursing home for a short term rehabilitation, while she was there, her daughter, her power of attorney gutted her home and sold on valuable

property. allegedly, approximately $700,000 in total. >> it was not until the nursing home was ready to discharge the resident's home when they discovered all this. the home was unin hat bitabhabi. that resident ended up having to stay at the nursing home. we see a lot of power of attorney misused and abused and i think that's something that happens. it is blourought to our attenti after the fact and little that we can do about it at that point. one of the situations that a grandson, he convinced his grandmother of her poa to allow them life use of her home and a deposit box.

when she confronted him about the deposit box, he administered her to a nursing home. >> the it. >> this lady was too afraid to bring charges or bring this up to law enforcement. her husband, in fact, she was devastated and did not want to bring further shame to her family. those kinds of power of attorney abuses really do abound and we don't know about them until they are done. not a lot in terms of the residents care and can be done at that point. another situation was a connecticut residential care home and this home was fined $1,000 and it was placed on probation for two years after one of its owners were accused of stealing funds from two of the residents. the owner was charged of multiple levelslarcening. ultim.

>> even from nursing home staff about financial exploitation. there is some sad examples of long-term care employees exploiting their position of authorities for personal gains. you maybe familiar of the ability of residents to put into their own account of what's called either personal needs account or a resident trust account. people in the business office have access to those and a number of cases, it is been discovered that individuals have for years abused those funds in the tens of thousands of dollars and gone undetected. our agencies are responsible on their annual review to review those records. but, these individuals are

forensic auditors. they don't have those kind of skills or not able to detect those types of abuse that's happening. that's someone who's well trained. one conversation that i would suggest is maybe to talk about independent audits that could be an mate ndated of the homes so t it could be managed in a better home. i want to mention to you of our coalition in connecticut. in 2014, governor mclloyd issued an exec sif -- executive order. >> over the past three years, the coalition has brought together state agencies, private entities including medical and

academic institutions and business and banking organizations, law enforcements and attorney's office, and we have done much in the way of joining collaboratively to strengthen and improving the program and services available to elderly abuse victims and to train, for instance, our partners at the aarp have been amazing. their fraud watch and programs, they reached thousands and thousands of connecticut citizens to talk about that. we invest practices from our grass roots disciplinary initiatives of their combat elder abuse and all its forms. they bring to us sad examples of community abuse that they work on a multi discipline bases. i want to thank you this opportunity. it is been an honor to be here today. your commitment is a shining example of what we need to do for our elders, i think.

you know cathy greenly at the department of health and human services over her ten years have done so much to advocate for the long-term care consumers and one of the things that i admire so much about cathy is in each of her speeches, he talks about elder abuse and one of the things she said is, you know, impersonally committed to combatting elder abuse, what about you? >> i think that's a very prudent question, how can we do and what can we do? some of the challenges, i think are senator tillis really eluded to that early detection and being able to initiate the training for bank tellers and connecticut has been really helpful. it is the first responders, they're going to, the best early detectors when fraud is happening and individuals are being exploited. thank you very much.

>> thank you. >> thank you donna and miss shaffer. >> good morning. it is my great honor to be here and speak on behalf of the many vulnerable, older individuals that are affected by this growing issue. i want to thank you for tackling it and your ongoing work. it is honorable that you are taking it seriously. as you have heard from the senator, i have been in this network for 33 years and so it is an end less job and i am sorry to hear that we continue to have these issues and they're growing. together, we can make an impact. i have been honored to work as part of the reynolds administration and in iowa and the staff of the department on aging are serious of agencies across iowa and our many aging network partners including aarp that's here with us today.

it is something that we are working today. i provided soft three different scenarios of the state of isaow. the first one was an older woman appointed -- ended up in a long-term care facility, was going to be discharged for like a payment and we had our long-term care on but someone stepped in and legal steps were taken to end that. much like the story we told, she lost a lot of her assets and had a long-term impact. number two is part of the sweetheart scam. an individual who was widow and developed the relationship online and ended up there is a cost involved with that of many thousand dollars as she conn continued of her relationship. a case that i have been involved in. the insurance commission has been holding some fraud awareness seminars around the

state of iowa as well as the aarp. when i attended on behalf of the department to talk about the importance of conservatipower o, that can be diynamite in the hands of the wrong individuals. i sat with a family that were really struck. they were concerned of their mother who even years ago had announced to them she was so excited because she won a lottery and she could not wait to take them on trips and pay all their debts and ensuriing great lives for them. as the family became involved, she became isolated from the family and she changed bank accounts from the local bank that asks her questions. in small community, sometimes we know a lot about what goes on in

neighborhoods. so every time they started questioning the individual on the other end of the phone told her to end those conversations so for instance, the telephone bills, she was asked to destroy them. what was discovered where these calls were made from jamaica. she was receiving calls from jamaica everyday. through a series of interventions, i connected them with the attorney general office who was involved with the investigation of dci officer and we work with the local sheriff who knew the family very well. mom denied every step of the way. only when there is an intervention with this individual that she finally admitted she had been scammed. the only person that i confessed this to was the priest. that was representative of what we are seeing.

it is embarrassing admittance, they need a safe place to share it and family is not always the best to do that. i think as we look at it and we know that 3.5 to 5.6 americans are involved in financial ex ploy tagati exploitation. 28,000 that are affected by financial exploitation. we certainly have our work cut out. we have made recommendations for our final reports. as you related as how those are connected, how would you like to learn about how you can protect yourself? the primary thing they would like is a toll free line where they are comfortable making the call without anybody, having an opinion and not a local

appearance with that and television commercials. while we heard of the connection to the website, we find that many older persons do not rely on websites as a way to get information. so i thought i share that with you, that's what our consumers are saying that's common. i will relate to an issue whether or not rural families are more connected. what i can tell you is that we don't know of a connection of where you live, it is a connection of where you a isolated. i think all of us would agree, if you don't have a strong family and neighbor commitment in a rural area, you are more isolated and therefore, vulnerable to these kinds of opportunities to financially exploit those older individuals wch what that, i would like to say i appreciate the opportunities to speak and i look forward to t questions. >> yeah, i would like to have all three of you responding to this one. tell me about specific challenges that's making it

difficult to fight back elder financial exploitation and what specific strategies should be pursued to over come these challenges. would you like to start out miss shaffer? >> sure. so i think that as i mentioned earlier of early detection is such a significant issue so often that we don't know of the issue until it has happened. for the resident to remain at the nursing home if that was the plan and what the resident would like to do. in my testimony, i provide you come comments from paul greenwood and the district attorney from san diego. one of this i thinngs he talked and he would like to see on

victims do not have a choice as to whether or not to press charges. that's not a stance that we can take. we work, our mission is to work at the direction of the residents and if they say no they don't want to take further steps, unfortunately, we may feel passionately and this is a wrong situation, it should be pursued. giving law enforcement more tools and more preliminary kind of assistance and identifying it as it is happening, that's an important piece. not just power of attorney but family members who have become dependant on elders' income for themselves or they're feeling that inheritance is theirs and they are ready for it and they need it right now. i don't know what the answer to

that is, but that's a challenge that we find often. we'll get calls that a resident is in a nursing home and the nursing home is not being paid and oftentimes it is unfortunately, the family has learned to or become dependent on that additional income for the elders and they're not coming to pay it. i don't know if that answers your question completely, i think there are so many things that, you know -- >> it is very helpful. i will ask donna and joel to add whatever i want to add. >> absolutely, i would say the deep barriers i see is the lack of education of law enforcement and judges on what to look for and how to detect potential, abuse that's occurring and what to do with that. the other thing i would say is we all get busy doing our business within our own silo and our own system and oftentimes

forget to accidentalconstantly o see who's working on this topic so we are aligning. awareness of who else is tackling this topic and how we work effectively. no matter how many meetings we hold, we find out somebody else is doing that. we need to be looking closely at the power of attorney guarding c conservative issues and charging individuals that have been charged of what it means and what power lack there of and do i have when you assume those rules and seeing a lot of violation giving somebody an authorized powers t. it is very difficult for all of us to have the opportunity to support an individual and continuing to make bad choices.

and the family that i spoke about, that was the first thing that i said to the family members. you have to be ready to accept the fact that mom allows make bad choices and there is not much that we can do as long as she believes she's taking appropriate steps. that's the barrier that we'll move forward. >> joel, do you have anything to add? >> education is extremely important of the old rule of thumb is you have to teach by saying the same message three different ways for the adults to get that message across. the collaboration that we have seen in iowa and the attorney's commission and general attorney's office. those collaborations that we talked about before of who we can reach and how to get the message out. this was through that collaboration that we are able to assist karla. >> i will use my five minutes

and call on senator -- i have different groups coming out and i had a financial advisor group out. i had not read this piece of legislation. one or two or five important pieces of legislation. they were asking us to consider if they knew about this financial exploitation of people that evidently, they cannot report it and if they report it, they could be sued. if they tried to intervene, you know? this would allow them to have a sort of safe harbor if they were in good faith helping somebody being financially -- >> i would like to yield to my

colleague from iowa. >> i think you are talking of the senior safe act. >> i believe that's what it is called. >> i want to ask about that. >> i have not read it. do you think it is a good piece of legislation? >> let me ask you about it. according to -- one way and this is in the stats that we can put a stop to it is making sure financial professionals who notice the transaction -- and right now are our financial privacy laws are often making it

harder and impossible to report concerns. this is not in the committee's jurisdiction but i hope that all my colleagues will join me in supporting this. this seeniorsseniors' safe act. it would make sure the financial professionals like bank employees, and investment advisors get the training they need to spot elder abuses and know how to report those transactions to authorities. miss shaper and harvey, you have not looked at this bill but can you tell me if you think it would be helpful to make sure financial professionals don't have their hands tied when they see a senior's retirement

account being exploited. >> senator franklin, i listen to what you talking about and i look back at the program that was around in the early 1980s where we trained utility workers to be gate keepers. i give them a safety net and if they have the right to report that without any kind of ramifications. in iowa, when we looked at legislation and the bank industry came to us and said, well, we would like to do that but there is a federal law that would not allow us to report anything that we see that does not make sense to us. i will look at that bill and be happy to get feedback on that as we see that it would be appropriate so thank you. >> so -- sorry, in connecticut we expanded our definition of mandated reporters. that's been helpful and that's a

continuous look at how we can continue to expand that. again, i think that training for first responders is important and if they are mandated reporters, how helpful that is in order to get that initial reaction and movement forward. okay. >> in this case, allowing to report, i am not sure they are mandated and thank you for being here today and for the very important work that you do, miss shape shaffer as you are aware of this decision of your older loved ones. during this process, i expected that residents and their family is thinking of one's health and hard to believe that every family and respected reside resident -- rather i imagine

that many families having a robust process or employee. unfortunately, as many examples here, can you explain where the screening pr screened processes are the best practices? >> specific to skilled nurses and facilitiefacilities? >> i can speyes. >> yes, i can speak to that. oftentimes one allegation of abuse or neglect or exploitation in the nursing home is that individual being accused is probably going to be temporarily let go. and so oftentimes we find that they never come back.

and, nothing ever evolves in term of investigating that case as diligently as it should be. if that staff members does not get put on a registry of having been an abuser, they likely can go to another nursing home and work. that's a real flaw in our system. that's at least in connecticut but being able to continue that investigation until it is complete and then determining the outcome and against the individuals ensuring proper steps are taken so that he don't have the opportunity to do that bad act again. >> thank you, i imagine the nature of the abuse is something should be noted. >> if i could and another flaw and i am kind of going on a

little while here. another flaw is that nursing homes and for that matter assisted living facility, reporting any abuse or neglect. it is near perception of what happened rather than what may happen. that's the case and i adodon't d to disparage nursing home. >> it is a flaw in the system and allegations. whether it is determined to be true or not, sometimes we see the respect as it is written out in the report as it is reported to us boo iy a family members ay the residents. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you, and thank you senator franklin and all of you for being here. i apologize that i was stuck on

the floor and mixed of the photos that's very important of our state in connecticut affe affecting the status of puerto rico. i was really impressed by your semi, miss shaffer. my favorite part was the average life very encouraging to both of us. and we welcome you, senator grassley, any time you want to move to connecticut. but you are so young at heart and in spirit and in physical stamina that you're nowhere near that age. but i also was impressed by the point that you make which struck me as a former prosecutor that seniors are often asked by law enforcement officials whether they want to, in quotes, press

charges, which puts them in an impossible position because very often they're choosing to press charges against a family member or a caregiver or even in an institution someone whom they may have come to know. so is the major remedy for that issue more education and training of the prosecutors, or you think there's some other step that can be taken? >> that's a tough question. i think that it involves better training and maybe sensitivity on the part of law enforcement, those first responders. but then through the continuum with the prosecutors as well. but i think it's a real tough situation if you have a parent whose son has exploited their funds. how does that parent go about doing that?

that's a real tough situation. >> which was the case for mr. montava, when he was exploited by his own son. but he had the courage to come forward and talk about it. and the reason i think it's so important is that, as you say, the real deterrent here very often is criminal prosecution. a civil fine against a nursing home or even a civil penalty against an individual lacks the real deterrent power of a criminal prosecution, and we need to regard these kinds of crimes as, in fact, crimes. rather than just some sort of misguided misuse of funds that are fell in common when, in

fact, they belong to the senior citizen, not to the family member or the caregiver or the institution. and i share your view that they ought to be prosecuted. and also i don't mean to put you on the spot now or any of the other witnesses who are here because i invite them to respond to this question, but you emphasize the importance of an inclusive definition of financial exploitation. and i wonder whether you have thought about how that might be done. obviously, financial exploitation involves unauthorized use of credit cards, bank accounts, as you say, identity theft, undue influence, and just outright stealing. so how would you define abuse so as to embrace all of these different forms of financial

exploitation? >> i think it requires really identifying the very many sources that could take whatever form, perpetrator, that undue influence is such a kind of nebulous concept and likely very hard to prove. but emphasizing those sort of nebulous kinds of things so that prosecutors could have some parameters, maybe broader parameters, to make their case. i think it would be helpful. i think knowing that we have nursing home staff who -- and you know, other staff, again, i'm not trying to disparage nursing homes, specifically. but we have, you know, at times cell phones that are used inappropriately by staff.

or the egregious cases of the misuse of resident trust funds. those kinds of things. so i think really encompassing just a whole range of perpetrators and those bad acts would be helpful. >> very good. anything, miss harvey, to you have anything to add on that question? >> the only thing i would say is that i think the definition is going to be key but very difficult, and yesterday we met with staff and just tried to think about what those parameters might be. and i think at some point we have to decide what are the most critical and tackle those and keep looking. i'd like to share something senator ernst said to me yesterday. when she was a state senator, worked with governor branstad, the department of human services

who oversees the aps program in iowa. that director has been there for quite some time. he said i'm now understanding and feeling like elder abuse is where child abuse was 30 years old. we have a lot of work, a lot of defining, a lot of cleanup to do. i think that's reassuring but it's also a challenge that it's time we rise to the opportunity to look at that. i'd also like to tell you that iowa ranks number one in the percentage of people 85 and older, so i think the senator is in a good location as well. >> well, in my retirement, i'm moving to iowa. >> great. >> my family was from nebraska originally, so maybe some of it has rubbed off. >> perfect. perfect. >> your point about child abuse leads to my next question. let me first ask miss shaffer, you mentioned that connecticut has added some mandatory reporters, which has been so

important in child abuse, mandatory reporting of child abuse. who now is a mandatory reporter under connecticut law? >> all staff who work in any of the institutions that are under the jurisdiction of the ombudsman program. emergency responders. nurse, hospital staff. people who work in senior centers.te mandatory reporters. >> but financial institutions are not. >> financial -- i'm sorry, yes. financial -- bankers have become -- to the best of my knowledge, i believe they are, yes. >> because they really can see very close and personal when a senior's bank account is being depleted or in some other way

they are being victims of theft. >> yes. >> is that true, to your knowledge, in other states? >> i don't know. i don't know what their mandatory reporting standards are. >> miss harvey, in iowa? >> in iowa, that is not true. we would align almost exactly with anybody who has direct contact with an older person that is dependent for care, whether it's in their home or in a community-based setting would be a mandatory reporter as well as medical professionals. but no one in the finance industry would be a mandatory reporter. >> i think, if i may, some of the issues are around -- if a home care agency, for instance, is licensed or unlicensed, and we have a lot of unlicensed home care agencies in the state, as i would imagine most states do. those individuals are probably not going to be and are not subject to the background checks that the licensed organizations are subject to. >> so home care workers are not

required to undergo -- >> they are, if they are a licensed -- i don't believe they are if it's an unlicensed agency. >> if they are unlicensed. right. >> yes. >> as i recall, we worked hard to get background checks on the >> well, one area where i think, mr. chairman, we might want to focus our work is on the mandatory reporting. i don't know that federal government can require states to require mandatory reporting but maybe we can preside some encouragement because obviously hi iowa does a good job of it and connecticut, maybe we can take some of their best practices and expand them and encourage their states to do so. i was interested, miss harvey, in your remark about utility workers.

now are they mandatory reporters? >> no. they are -- they are trained to call the area agency on aging when they notice some change in behavior. we also have that with postal agency so it's an ongoing training but it's a less invaseive approach o really get people connected with services before they're in crises. >> right. excellent idea, though, because they're literally in somebody's home. >> absolutely. >> and they can see what is going on if there are instances of -- >> right. >> -- abuse. particularly physical abuse. >> right. >> well, i want to thank you for your excellent testimony. mr. marquart, do you think this mandatory elder fraud reporting

requirement should be expanded? >> i -- excuse me. i am here as a volunteer. i could get the national association to respond back to you. >> that would be great. >> as a private citizen, i certainly do. >> thank you. thanks, mr. chairman. >> you bet. i'm just going to have one question and then we'll have to adjourn. it's for donna federal government to combat this problem? do you feel that the federal government's efforts are effective? and this is probably the most important part of the question, is there a need for stronger coordination between states and the federal government? >> i think it's easy to start with your last question and say, absolutely. i think, as i shared earlier, we all get busy doing our work and we don't share. so, for instance, i learned about the federal trade commission's marketing and i actually have three of their

packets to take back home. but i was not aware of that before i came here. so i think, yes, we need to work more collaboratively. i would say the administration on aging, again, under assistant secretary greenlee has taken elder abuse as a very high priority within her tenure in the office, so she is constantly trying to reach across the aisle. that information gets shared but i would say even within her role, she's not always aware of what all the other departments are doing, so the more we can reach across, the better, and certainly the more we push it down to the states, i think we can have a much better impact. and as you probably know in the northern district, they are one of ten districts that are working on elder abuse. again, it's focused primarily with nursing home but we're hoping that that will give us an opportunity to bring more federal partners to the table in iowa with some of our work as well. >> thank you. before we adjourn, i've got some

letters that i'm going to put in the record, without objection. and the record will stay open for about a week for members to insert questions to both panels. and we thank you very much for your participation and we'll have to keep working together because my mother went through this in the late 1960s and, quite frankly, it's going to go on as long as people find they're smrter to keep ahead of law. there's always people like that. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> you bet.

[ background chatter ] c-span's "washington

journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, veterans affairs secretary robert mcdonald on current issues facing veterans including vice preside v.a. reforms and access to health care for veterans. and tennessee republican congress nanman phil rowe will talk about wednesday's veterans committee hearing on the care the v.a. provides, the commission on care report, criticism of v.a. secretary mcdonald, and the possible is subpoena by the d.a. commission regarding documents of art purchases by the v.a. naigswide since 2010. also joining us, andrew stutterburg, contributing editor for the "national review," recent story on the impact of automation on elites in america. watch c-span's "washington journal" live beginning at 7:00 eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. the ongoing humanitarian crisis in sudan is the focus of the house foreign affairs committee hearing wednesday.

donald booth, u.s. special envoy to sedan and south sedan, testifies live at 2:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span3. supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg speaks to first year law students wednesday at georgetown university, expected to speak about the late justice antonin scalia, review the court's 2015 term and take questions from students live on c-span 3:00 at 5:00 p.m. eastern. this sunday night on "q&a" david k. johnston discusses his book "the making of donald trump" which takes a critical look at the republican presidential nominee. >> i met donald. i immediately recognized by him that he's p.t. barnum, sending you tickets to the fiji mermaid and amazing two-headed woman. because he was the dominant force in atlantic city, i

started asking about him and his competitors including steve ngyuen and people who worked for him and big gamblers all l saido me, donald doesn't know anything about the casino big. >> 8:00 eastern pacific on c-span's "q&a." now, national transportation safety board chair christopher hart, he spoke at the national press club on the safety of self-driving cars. this is about an hour. national transportation safety board chairman christopher hart has been in this role for a little over a year, and already has made his mark in a job that can involve chasing the latest problems and being frustrated when it comes to preventing them. the ntsb, with a staff of 400, is an independent federal agency that investigates significant accidents involving railroads, highways, u.s. waters, and airplanes. just this week, the board was called into action to probe a

fiery head-on crash between two freight trains in texas. the agency determines the probable cause of the incidents and issues safety recommendations aimed at preventing future accidents. in addition, the ntsb studies transportation safety and coordinates the resources of the federal government and other organizations to provide assistance to the victims and their families affected by major transportation disasters. hart is the great-nephew of james herman banning, the first african-american to receive a u.s. pilots license which he got in 1926. banning was killed in a crash during an air show before hart was born but aviation must have been passed through down the family genes. hart is a licensed commercial pilot. hart's career has taken him to the federal aviation administration and to an earlier term on the ntsb. he also worked for the national highway traffic safety administration which may have sparked interest? what he's here today to talk about.

autonomous vehicles. it's a wild, wild west of a fill that holds potential for improving highway safety but also poses a lot of questions. who is liable if a crash occurs, what happens if a technology that's supposed to help people drive safely have the opposite effect? autonomous vehicles c s can bens from other. most other modes use some form of automation. please help me give a warm national press club welcome to national transportation board chairman, christopher hart. >> thank you, tom, for that very kind introduction. thanks to all of you for coming and certainly thank you to the national press club for inviting me to speak on behalf of the ntsb. it's a privilege and honor to be

here. when they invited me, i warned them they were going to have trouble shutting me up because i love talking about this stuff. i'm an attorney. my credo is never use one word when two will suffice. driverless cars have been called all kinds of names. i'm going to call them driverless cars. i want to talk about how the ntsb can help the process of bringing them onto our streets and highways. by doing this, i don't mean to suggest that we're looking for work because our plate is already very full, but i am suggesting that we could be a very valuable resource. so to put my remarks in context, i'll follow up with what tom said. he described it pretty completely. that won't stop me from using two words when one will suffice. ntsb is an independent federal agency and oversee accidents in all modes of transportation. a lot of people think of us as aviation accident investigators only but we do all modes of transportation. we do that to determine what caused the accidents then make recommendations to try to revent

them from happening again. our primary product is recommendations. our world-class investigators and analysts don't like to give up until they have the answer, until they found out what caused the accident. and the recommendations that they create are so compelling that the recipients respond favorably to our recommendations more than 80% of the time even though they don't have to, they're not required to do that. we are not a regulator. we're a recommender. they do that more than 80% of the time. we like to think that the implementation of our recommendations has helped to make transportation safer for all of us. speaking personally, it's a privilege and an honor for me to be here because we do have such world-class investigators and analysts and they do all the hard work and i get all the credit, so what's not to like? my remarks come from the context of our experience as accident investigators. driverless cars are coming. there's no doubt about it. and their potential for improvement is absolutely

amazing. first and fore momost, driverle cars could save many, if not most of the 32,000 lives lost every year on our streets and highways. a tragic and unacceptable number that's been decreasing for several years but recently as most of you know taken a turn in the wrong direction. driverless cars could also increase the amount of traffic that our roads can safely carry because instead of maintaining a car length separation for every ten miles per hour as i'm sure we all do, driverless cars could reduce that separation. stay tuned for what other amazing changes might be possible. how might that happen? ideally with automation. most crashes on our roads are due to driver error. the theory of driverless cars is that if there's no driver, there will be no driver error. ideally, removing the driver would address at least four issues that are on the ntsb's most-wanted list of transportation safety improvements. namely, fatigue, distractions, impairment, and fitness for duty. the automation in driverless

cars would presumably also address another item on our list, improve collision avoidance technologies. decades of experience in a variety of contexts has demonstrated that automation can improve safety, reliability, productivity, and efficiency, bull but that experience has also demonstrated there can be a downside. as noted by professor james reisen, record we nounrenowned quote, in their efforts to compensate for the unreliability of human performance, the designers of automated control systems have unwittingly created opportunities for new error types that can be even more serious than those they were seeking to avoid. end of quote. our investigation experience provides three lessons learned that support professor reisen's statement. the first is that the theory of removing human error by removing the human assumes that the automation is working as designed. so the question, as always, what if the automation quits or

fails? will it fail in a way that is safe? if it cannot be guaranteed to fail in a way that's safe, will the operator be aware of the failure in a timely manner and will be the operator then be able to take over to avoid a crash? an example of the automation failing without the operator's knowledge occurred right here in washington and you may remember the metro crash near the ft. totten station in 2009 that tragically killed the train operator and eight passengers. in that accident, a train temporarily became electronically invisible. we found that there was a -- it was called a parasitic oscillation in the electronics. i minored in electrical engineering and never heard of parasitic oscillation. that's what caused this train to become electronically invisible. when that happened, the symbol of the train disappeared from the display board in the central dispatch center. when a train becomes invisible on the board, an alarm sounds. problem is that the alarm sounded several hundred times a day. so that meant it was largely ignored.

unfortunately, when the train became electronically invisible, there was no alarm on the train behind it regarding the electronic disappearance of the preceding train. that's why the operator of the train behind was unaware of this disappearance of this electronic disappearance. instead based on the electronically unoccupied track ahead, the automation in the train behind began accelerating to the maximum speed for that area and by the time the operator saw the stopped train and applied the emergency brake after coming around the curve which is what limited her sight distance, it was too late. another lesson learned in support of professor reisen's statement, efsh if the operator is removed from the loop, humans are still involved in designing the vehicles, manufacturing the vehicles, maintaining the vehicles and they're involved in the same functions with respect to the streets and highways. each of these points of human engagement presents yet another opportunity for human error. moreover, human error in these steps is likely to be more systemic in its effect which means it possible involves

several vehicles instead of just one and more difficult to find and correct. an example of this lesson learned is the collision of an automated driverless people mover into a stopped people mover at the miami international airport in 2008. that collision was caused largely by improper maintenance so even though they had no operator, it still had a crash caused by some other point of intervention of human error. the most fundamental lesson learned from our accident investigation experience in support of professor reisen's statement is that introducing automation into complex human centric systems can be very, very challenging. most of the systems we have investigated, excuse me, are becoming increasingly automated but not yet fully automated. as a result, wefr seen the challenge have been even more difficult in a system that still has substantial human operator involvement and is not yet completely automated. situations involving partial automation with substantial human operator involvement have demonstrated two extremes.

excuse me. on one hand, the human is the most unreliable part of the system. so that's the reason for trying to take the human out of the system. on the other hand, if the system encounters unanticipated circumstances, a highly trained and proficient human operator can save the day by being the most adaptive part of the system. an example of the human operator saving the day is captain sollenburger's amazing landing in the hudson river when his airplane suddenly became a glider because both of its engines were taken out by birds. in stark contrast, a textbook example of the complexities of the human automation interface in which the human was the most vulnerable part of the system is air france flight 447 from rio de janeiro to paris in 2009. after air france 447 reached its cruise altitude of 37,000 feet at night over the atlantic and began approaching distance thunderstorms, the captain left the cockpit for a scheduled rest break. in doing so, he gave control to two less experienced pilots.

the airplane had tubes that project from the fuselage to provide information about how fast it's going. air speed information is so important that there were three pido tubes for redone dansy andy were heated to ensure they were not disabled by ice. with abundant supercooled water from the nearby thunderstorms, the po2s were overwhelmed and became clogged with ice so the airplane no longer knew how fast it was going. the loss of air speed information caused systems to quit which they're designed to do when they don't have reliable information. included the automatic pilot flying the airplane and automatic throttle maintaining the speed. as a result, the pilot suddenly had to fly the airplane manually. the laws of air speed information also rendered inoperative the automatic protections that prevented the airplane from entering an aerodynamic stall in which the

wings no longer produced list. the pilots responded inappropriately to the loss of these systems and the result was a crash that tragically killed all 228 onboard. as with most accidents that we investigate, several factors played a role. to begin with, the redundancy of having three pido tubes was not effective because all three were taken out by a common cause. in addition, the pilots had not experienced this type of failure before, even in training, where the problem can be simulated in very realistic simulators. so as a result of never having seen it before, they were unable to figure out just what went wrong. finally, use of the automatic pilot is mandatory at cruise altitudes so the pilots had never flown manually at that altitude before even in training in the simulator. this is important because the airplane behaves very differently at cruise than low altitudes such as during takeoff and landing. operational and design issues

compounded the problem and led to the tragic outcome of the loss of 228 people. as an aside, the pido tubes have frozen before in that type of airplane but the pilots in those previous encounters responded successfully. consequently, the entire fleet including the accident airplane was scheduled for the installation of more robust heaters but given that the previous encounters were successful, an immediate emergency replacement was not considered to be necessary. with that background on how automation can be both the good news and the bad news, let me turn to how the ntsb can help inform the process of moving toward driverless cars. first, as i have just explained, we offer considerable experience regarding the introduction of automation into complex human centric systems. most of our investigations involve relatively structured systems with highly trained professional operators who have various requirements regarding proficiency, fatigue, impairment, distraction, and fitness for duty. given that human drivers will

probably be in the loop for some time to come, i would suggest that as difficult as that transition to more automation has been in the structured and regulated environment that we have investigated, it may be even more challenging in a public arena in which drivers are usually not highly trained and may be fatigued or impaired or distracted or not medically fit. whether some human drivers will always be in the loop because they would rather not use the automation for various reasons, for example, they just don't trust it or they just like to drive. the second way that the ntsb can help relates to collaboration. the auto industry has already recognized the importance of collaboration as most recently shown by the collaborative approach regarding autonomous emergency braking. our experience with collaboration, especially regarding commercial aviation, may help improve it further. so let's talk about where we've seen collaboration in aviation. the most recent fatal u.s. commercial airline crash occurred in 2009, and more than once in recent years a commercial aviation industry has gone years in a row without a single passenger fatality.

although automation has played an important role in the industry's continuing safety improvement, much of the industry's exemplary safety record is attributable to collaboration. in the early 1990s after the industry's accident rate had been declining rapidly, the accident rate began to flatten on a plateau. meanwhile the federal aviation administration was predicting the volume of flying would double in 15 to 20 years. the industry became very concerned that if the volume doubled, while the accident rate remained the same, the public would see twice as many airplane crashes on the news. and at that point, it doesn't help to go to the public and say, don't worry, the rate's real low. what the public counts is the number of times they see crashed airplanes on news. that caused the industry to do something that's never been done in any other industry before or since, pursued a voluntary collaborative industrywide approach to improving safety. this occurred largely because

they realized the way to get off the plateau was not more regulations or bigger shtick for the regulator, but instead the way was to figure out a better way to improve safety in a very complex aviation system. the voluntary collaborative process known as c.a.s.t., commercial aviation safety team, brings all the players, the airlines, the manufacturers, the pilot, the air traffic controllers, and the regulator all to the table to do four things. first, identify potential safety issues. second, prioritize those issues because they quickly realized they'd be identifying more issues than they would have resources to fix. third, develop interventions for the prioritized issues. and fourth, evaluate whether the interventions were working. the c.a.s.t. process has been an amazing success. it resulted in reduction of the aviation fatality rate from that plateau on which it was stuck, reduction from that plateau by more than 80% in less than 10 years. this occurred despite the fact that the plateau was already considered to be exemplary and

many thought the rate could not decline much further. the process also improved not only safety but productivity which flew in the face of conventional wisdom, that improving safety usually decreases productivity and vice versa. in addition, a major challenge of making improvements in complex systems is the possibility of unintended consequences. yet, this process generated very few unintended consequences. and last but not least, the success occurred largely without generating any new regulations. as an observer in c.a.s.t., the ntsb can help determine how much this aviation success story is transferable to their industry. one size may not fit all. the airlines do not compete regarding safety. you've never seen an airline ad saying we're the safest out there. you always see ads by auto manufacturers that our car's the safest. so the 80% reduction in the fatality rate accomplished by

c.a.s.t. even though one size may not fit all is a very powerful example of how much can be accomplished relatively quickly through voluntary collaboration. another difference between the two industries is that the aviation regulatory framework is largely federal, whereas collaboration regarding driverless cars would probably need to include significant participation by the states. the third way that the ntsb can inform the process of introducing automation relates to onboard event recorders. our investigations -- excuse me, our investigation are significantly enhanced when we have event recorders to tell us what happened. airliners have had black boxes which, of course, are actually orange. they've had black boxes for decades to record both the aircraft parameters and the sounds in the cockpit. other transportation modes are increasingly introducing event recorders as well as audio and video recorders. assuming that difficulties will be encountered as automation is being introduced, the more the industry knows from the event recorders about what went right and what went wrong, the more the industry will be able to

fashion remedies that effectively address the problems. accordingly, consistent with another item on our most-wanted list, expand the use of recorders to enhance transportation safety. we would encourage the use of robust onboard recorders to help the process. event recorders and oa erers in of transportation introduce significant issues, privacy and the appropriate use of recorder data. the ntsb's sensitivity to these issues already helped to inform the conversation in commercial trucking and the process of improving passenger vehicle event recorder as wheell pel. in closing, rathser than waiting for accidents to happen with driverless cars the ntsb engaged to help inform how driverless cars can be safely introduced into america's transportation system. our experience in the introduction of automation into human-centric systems, our appreciation of the power of collaboration and our understanding of the importance of onboard event recorderses all

position the ntsb to provide valuable assistance in this process. so thank you again for inviting me to speak today. i would be happy if i have time, and i think i do, to answer any questions. thank you, tom. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we do have a lot of questions for you today, so i hope you're ready. >> good, this is my favorite part. >> good. let's start off with a pretty easy question e. what scares you the most about autonomous cars? >> that's a good question, but there isn't any single thing that scares me the most because the whole process is going to be very complicated. i mean, there are -- i think people are wildly underestimating the complexity of bringing automation into this system. so there's not one things it's just sort of the total picture. is unnerving to me and i think we have a great opportunity to help because we can transfer the wonderful success story from other modes, mostly aviation to help it happen better in this body.

>> u.s. automakers have huge hopes autonomous cars will improve safety, is there a worry that the first fatal crash involving a self-driving car may bring the whole enterprise down? isn't it likely that people will overreact to this, despite the fact there are 30,000-plus highway fatalities that they're used to every year? >> i think it's fair to say it will certainly -- the first fatal crash will certainly get a lot of attention, but this train has left the stationing. i don't think it's going to be stopped by one or even two, if there's a trend, that's another thing, but just there will be -- there will be fatal crashes, that's for sure, but i don't think it's going to be stopped just by a crash here or there, and especially because it's probably still happening at a lower rate than what it happens without automation. >> what's the best way to demonstrate autonomous vehicle technology as safe? enough to be allowed on u.s. highways? should google cars be held to a higher standard, for example, than human-driven cars? >> well, that's an interesting question. i go back to the collaboration that's going to be important.

so many people are going to have to work together. the moral of collaboration is very simple. anybody who's involved in a problem should be involved in developing the solution. this is going to take collaboration of a lot of people to make sure that what they're doing enhances safety and generates safety as much as possible. >> on that note, driverless cars are likely to be on the road before states have regulatory regimes in place to govern them. what are the first steps states should take to handle regulatory complexities especially with the mix of human drivers and driverless cars on the road? >> well, i'm going to return to this topic many times, i'm sure, but it goes back to collaboration again because we -- it will not end up as a patchwork quilt of this state you have to have your hand on the wheel, that state you don't have to. there's going to have to be some uniformity across state lines and that -- and collaboration is going to help generate that. so i return to the issue of collaboration. it's going to take a lot of people working together and this will be much more complicated than in aviation because aviation, it was federal, so we

only had one source of legislation to look to, whereas in states, it's going to be significantly more complicated enterprise. >> let me follow up on that. already in the united states, we see a patchwork of a lot of laws governing different things. states sometimes don't work together. so is there -- do you fear the idea of driving from utah to colorado or something like that where there's a difference and all of a sudden you're breaking the law when you weren't in another state because they didn't work together? >> that's a fair question. i think it's fwoings going to b evolutionary process that goes back to, guess what, collaboration. it will be a collaborative process where the states are realizing how much it's going to hurt their commerce if they don't join this effort collaboratively. >> we're getting handed, like, a million more questions. this is fun. >> you're not having as much fun as i am. >> i'm interested if learning more about what steps the ntsb has taken regarding this relationship between self-driving cars and moetser cycles. specifically is it safe to

assume that self-driving cars can detect motorcyclists and if so, what specific precautions or scenarios are used to account for individual riders on motorcycles as well as groups of motorcycles? >> i can say as a matter of my experience in a very general way that the driverless cars are made to recognize anything out there that could be an issue. so that could be a pedestrian, it could be a deer, it could be anything that moves that is a potential problem and motorcycles would be part of that as well, so they wail have to -- the driverless cars will have to figure out how to operate in the environment they are in and that's one of the big challenges is because that environment is so variable. >> do you expect some pushback from, let's say, municipal governments, that count on speeding tickets for revenue? >> good question. next question? >> we'll put that down as a no comment. what is your prediction on the rate of adoption for driverless

cars? >> i think that people are, as i said before, underestimating the complication of making this happen. especially if you talk about when are we going to be totally driverless except for the few people like me who just like to drive? so i think that's going to take longer than people are thinking and i think it's going to be a far more complex effort than people are thinking, so it's hard to put a time on it. i can just say that if we inform the process with the success stories from other modes like aviation, it's going to be a much smoother ride. >> we were chatting before the lunch, i was told by this time at my age, i would have a flying skateboard, at least, right? and flying cars. how do you educate the populous about this is not necessarily science fiction, it's not going to work like it does in "back to the future," other movies like that? >> education is going to be a big issue. i mean, go to the basic fundamental question, does my 13-year-old daughter need to even learn how to drive? or will it be driverless by the time she's driving? probably not in her case because that's in three years but for

someone who has a 1-year-old, that's a real question, do they even ever have to learn how to drive? that's a complex question that's going to -- that is going to require this collaborative effort in order to address some of these big issues. >> sticking on pop culture for a second, from a nontechnical point of view, how do you see driverless cars changing soci y society, culture, infrastructure? >> i mentioned the infrastructure change because i think the ability to have cars be much closer in spacing is going to hugely increase the efficiency of the use of the infrastructure. so i see some big differences there. i'm wondering, i mean, the social scientists are looking at all kinds of ramifications of this like, for example, do i even need to own a car? or will i just call a car and say, i need to go to work, so a car will show up at my door and i'll take it to work then i call a car, i need to go home from work, and i need to go get my groceries and i need to do this, need to do that. well, that could be a huge change in the way our society

works because will individual car ownership be necessary anymore, and will that actually increase efficiency of use of our resources because now instead of your car being used an hour a day and parked in a garage for the rest of the time, now the use of the car is going to be much more of the day and so it will be far more efficient utilization of our resources. there are so many potential variations on that theme that i couldn't even begin to know where this exciting concept is going to go. >> you talked about this a little bit, but i want to pin you down if i can. do you think autonomous vehicles should have a licensed driver in the driver's seat or do they have potential as you just mentioned as kind of a carpool drivers for children or chauffeurs or elderly people or others who can't or don't want to drive? >> the answer to that question i think varies with time. i think eventually when this whole thing is figured out, that's going to be some task, you won't need someone who -- i mean, you can be drunk now and you can have a driverless car take you someplace because you're not going to do any of

the driving. so, you know, there's already talk about car without the brake and without the steering wheel, so in time we're going to reach a time when many of the cars are that way, but that's not going to be any time soon. meanwhile, humans are going to have to play a significant role and that raises the challenge of if your car is mostly driving itself, and then it gives up because you're on a rainy street and the rainy street covers the lane markings so it can't see where the lane markings are, will it tell you you better take over because i can't find the lane markings in time for you to effectively do that? that's one of the big challenges of automation is how does the operator know when they need to take over and will the operator at that point be able to take over? >> you touched on this for a second, but is the bigger benefit of autonomous vehicles the safety on the road or the economy or changes in the savings on infrastructure, for example? >> i can speak to the safety aspect because that's what we do is safety. when i see the possibility of saving 32,000-plus lives a year, a number that as i said is now starting to go the wrong way,

that is amazing. so that's what i'll speak to is the safety aspect. that's why we're so interested in this and see an amazing opportunity for us to inform the process with what we've learned in other modes of transportation. >> the ntsb of courbviously doe get involved with the vast majority of vehicle wrecks, but as self-driving cars become more common, what will the board's role be, if any, in reviewing wrecks involving automated vehicles? >> what we try to do in highway crashes because as you said, there are so many more than we have staff to look at, we look at the ones that have systemic imply k llications as opposed t had a bad day. that's probably where we'll head with driverless cars as well, we'll look at the accidents that have systemic implications that give us an opportunity to inform the process and make it better. >> and you raised this during your address earlier, one of the contributing factors of the aseana crash landing a couple years ago in san francisco was the pilots became too dependent on automation. how do you guard against people kind of losing the skills they might need to drive with the

rise of autonomous vehicles? >> and that's another transitional effect that as we transition from no automation to full automation, there's the vast area in between where it's a combination of automation and driver and that's when that issue is going to be important, and it's just going to take some experience and hopefully learning from other modes like what we have seen to make sure that when, if there's a situation that the driver needs to take over, the driver -- the alert is clear, the driver knows that it's time to take over and the driver is in a position to take over. >> so we're talking a lot either autonomous vehicles or self-driving cars. but what about self-driving trucks? and i'm thinking the questioner might be referring to commercial vehicles, i assume. >> i've seen that already that they are talking about self-driving trucks and several, like, amusement parks have se d self-driving buses already. that's a possibility,

self-driving -- all the vehicles on the highway are self-driving. i see that has a definite possibility. >> this gets to something you probably won't be able to answer. we're going to try, anyway. do you have any insights on the ethics of autonomous car decision making? algorithms to making a decision to save the riders in said vehicle or other cars or pedestrians? >> that's going to be a major question. we'll have to play that one by ear as the issue arises. the example that is given to me oftentimes is you got an 80,000 pound truck coming at you so is your driverless car going to run into the 80,000 pound truck or go on the sidewalk where pedestrians are? a question of you aor me. will the driverless car have a pick me/pick them button? i doubt it. i'm being flip on that. that's a serious issue, today if a driver chose to go up on the sidewalk to avoid an 80,000 pound truck, the driver would probably not face charges for

avoiding hitting the truck because that would be clearly fatal for the driver. if the software makes that decision, how is that going to happen? one of the vast array of legal and ethical issues that are going to have to be addressed, again, through the collaboration. that's why this collaboration is going to have to include people who are in the law enforcement community. it's going to have to include a whole variety of people that, as i say, if they're involved in the problem, they need to be involved in the solution. >> on that note, as we started off in talking about this, who is responsible in a crash? is it the driver? is it the car? is it pushing the button between choose me or choose them? >> well, i am a lawyer and i'd be happy to go after the legal question, but it's not in our lane, so i'm going to pass on that. >> okay. but on that note, still, will driverless cars require some legislation precluding class-action lawsuits in this case? >> i see a variety of types of legislation that are going to be necessitated by driverless cars. it's going to be a huge shift

for everybody, and if i could say, right now we got the difference, some states say you have to have your hands on the wheel, other states don't. so right there is a need for some changes. there's going to be a lot of legislative action on this one. at the state level. maybe the federal level as well. but definitely the state level. >> the full lawyer employment act essentially. does the ntsb need any statutory authority to take a role in regulating self-driving cars? >> i'm not able to answer that question well. i don't know what their statutory authority is, what the limits are now, but it would not surprise me if there's going to be some federal electilegislati changes as well. >> as cars become more connected to the internet, do you think there should be -- should ever be a reason that drivers should be checking social media like facebook or sending e-mails or texts? and if not, should the government step in to ban such activities as part of a car's infotainment system or left to the automakers? >> that's a today question.

when the car is driverless, that will be a moot point. today, we recommended hands-free cell phone use should be banned in all states. most states ban texting because they know what a huge accident cause that is. national statistics say when you're texting, you're 23 times more likely, not 23%, 23 times more likely to have a crash than you're not. almost all states prohibit texting. many states prohibit handheld cell phones. no state prohibits hands-free cell phones. we think even with hands-free cell phones, your mind is on your call and not on your driving task. people say, well, how is that any different than talking to the person next to me? it's very different because the person next to you is another set of eyes who knows you're in a construction queue, on an icy road. the person on the other end of the phone has no idea of your environment. it's hugely different than speaking to the person next to

you. >> what kind of data would the ntsb like collected? what about the privacy concerns of consumers with these recording devices? >> privacy issues are ones we've had to deal with big-time in aviation. as i said, they've had the black boxes in airplanes for decades. so far, we have not had any breach of information that created a private ssy concern, we've, the industry, has shown an ability to use that information carefully. we use it only for one purpose and that is to figure out what caused the accident so we can try to keep that from happening again. what the owner of the box does, in this karks the owner would be the airline. that's up to them. the law doesn't allow us to do anything with that except use it to improve safety. >> so i'm just laughing about one of the questions i got. we'll ask that one later. you referred to clab rollaborat several times. what kind of collaboration is already happening and is what's happening, what's needed to happen? >> the example that i used for collaboration was regarding the autonomous braking and the agreement to institute it voluntarily.

we applaud that because we know from huge experience in aviation that this 80% reduction in the fatal accident rate was prima primarily result of that amazing collaboration. we know how powerful vol terrell collaboration can be and i think this agreement, which reaches over 90% of the cars that are being made, that is huge to be able to have it happen as quickly as it did. it would never have happened that quickly if it had awaited a regulatory result. >> moving on to a little different subject. what is the best way that you see to reduce u.s. vehicle crashes? >> automation. no, we -- for about -- just to be more specific, for about 20 years, we've been pushing for something that is a collision-avoidance system, "a," a warning and "b" a way to stop a collision from occurring. we've had recommendation on that subject and subjects like it for more than 20 years.

certainly step number one is collision avoidance technology that prevents cars from hitting each other so that's one of the foundation stones for moving to driverless cars. >> let's talk about trains for a second. despite several high-profile fiery crashes involving oil trains, such trains continue to run through the heart of certain american cities. such as philadelphia or here in washington, near the united states capital. should trains carrying crude oil be banned from traveling through densely populated downtown areas in the united states? >> after the discovery of oil in north dakota, we all of a sudden saw a lot more crude oil train derailments, and historically before that, if a train derailed, it might be a mile-long train with five or seven or ten cars of crude oil. now it's a mile-long train of nothing but crude oil. if that train derails and one car breach, es, it only takes o car and puts product out in the environment, something ignites that, the other cars even if they don't breach by puncture, are in a thermal environment

that encourages breaching. step number one is to keep the trains on the track. we've pushed hard for that. step number two, have more robust tank cars. step number three, address the emergency response community because a lot of these accidents happen in the middle of nowhere where it's just a volunteer fire department what hasn't ever seen a hazardous material spills. we started pushing that big-time because of the amazing increase in not only carriage of crude oil which happened because of the north dakota find then also we have an amazing increase in ethanol which became because of the law that said we want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil so we're going to start putting ethanol in the gasoline. we have trains from the corn states to the states that make the oil, so those two things caused us to see a huge rise in trains carrying hazardous material and the cars they were carrying them in were the same cars that were used to karr carry corn oil. that's completely unacceptable. there's a transition toward much

more robust train cars. the first step is to keep the train on the track. talks about doing everything you can, positive train control, to keep the train on the track. >> speaking of positive train come, there was another train crash this week that may have been prevented by positive train control. are you frustrated railroads have gotten congress to extend the deadline for them to have ptc, positive train control, in the places where passenger rail safety requires them to? >> we've been pushing positive train control since the late 1960s. it's been on the list almost continuously ever since. we took it off briefly when congress enacted a law that said you must do this by the end of 2015. we said, okay, we've taken care of that problem. guess what, they hadn't, because very few people finished it by 2015. yes, it is an ongoing challenge for us. we don't call it frustration. we call it a challenge. that's what keeps us going is we

know we have the topportunity t move the needle. >> here in washington, as we all know, the metro has a few issues, but -- >> myself, today. >> you were early, though. >> go figure. >> but metro has been using manual operations for a while. what is the ntsb's view on using -- >> we're starting to see that. the first place where we saw it big-time was in airport trains. most airports you go to now, the trains are typically operatorless. i'm old enough to remember when elevators had operators. that shows how far back i go, but what we look at is what's the safest way to do it? if it's automation, we're in favor of it. if it's not automation, we're in favor of it. havi to their credit, they stopped using it when it wasn't working properly, so, of course, when you go manual, that means you're going to have more jerky ride. the starts are more jerky, starts are more jerky.

i pacompare it with the automat trains i've ridden on. they're very smooth. elevators stop and start smoothly. our concern at the ntsb is safe safety. what's the safest way to do it? to their credit, when they realized it wasn't doing as it was supposed to, time to go back to manual. >> stays on metro for a second, how would you praise the performance of the fta thus far in wmta's safe tracking program? >> we have a recommendation after the smoke event in the fontplaza station in january 2015, we put out a recommendation that we don't think the federal transit administration is well suited to oversee this transit property. the reason is because for most of federal transit administration's existence, they had no safety authority what savr. they were basically a funding agency, gave out grants to build infrastructure. so for most of that time, they had no safety authority. after the 2009 ft. totten

accident, we said this agency needs safety authority because the transit in the u.s. have no federal safety oversight. we recommended that fta seek that safety authority, and they did, so since most states already had state regulatory mechanisms like new york, illinois, pennsylvania, california, texas, florida, they already had state level, so when they created the fta's safety authority, they said let's not dismantle this whole state system because it's working pretty well. let's let the fta work through the states. so that's easy when there's only one state involved. in a few situations, there are two states involved. but in those situations, there's a handful of them, they have reached agreement, i'll take the back seat, you take the front seat. our jurisdiction has three. maryland, d.c., and virginia. and those are three difficult cats to herd. so getting them to work together and getting fta to work through those three states isn't -- hasn't worked so far. we're trying to look for an immediate solution and our view on the immediate solution is to let the federal railroad administration do it because they don't work through the states and they can do it more

directly than federal transit administration who has to wait for the three jurisdictions to enact legislation and have an agreement to say that they can work together and that might happen by the time my 13-year-old daughter graduates from high school. so we want more immediate action and we think the way to get that and our recommendation says it, let the federal railroad administration oversee this property because this property has to report to three jurisdictions and that is simply, we're the only one in the country that way with three, and that is simply not working. >> the ntsb, under your predecessor, debby herzman, gave a lot of attention to drugged driving as distinct from drunken driving. now that marijuana is legal in many states, does there need to be a legal national limit like there is for alcohol to decide who's too impaired to drive after ingesting marijuana? >> we are very concerned because in every mode of transportation, we've seen a troubling uptick in the use of drugs. my state, colorado, is one of them that legalized marijuana,

so we are very concerned that that's going to cause us to see more use of drugs in transportation accidents. i'll give you one very troubling example and that was a truck accident where an 80,000 pound truck crossed over the median on the interstate, hit an oncoming bus. we found paraphernalia in the truck. that's the only way we knew this truck driver was using a synthetic drug. guess what, this synthetic drug is one that's available legally over the counter at a truck stop. that's very troubling. something that is an impairing drug is obtainable legally on the highway at a truck stop. so we're very challenged with drugs because there's -- these synthetic drugs, we don't have good understanding of how they work. we don't know the met tab liftic history in the body. we can now look at alcohol and marijuana and tell from a backward look, reverse engineer what was the state at the time of the accident. we don't -- most of the drugs,

we don't have that knowledge, we don't know how the drugs interact with each other. we don't know how they interact with alcohol, how they interact with fatigue. there's lots of issues regarding drugs that are very troubling and we're concerned and seeing a troubling uptick in every mode of transportation. >> what do you see generally as the board's greatest weaknesses and needs and how do you think that will be impacted by either secretary clinton or donald trump in the white house? >> our challenge is always trying to figure out where -- what's the best next direction to go. so when all of a sudden a lot of oil trains are coming out of north dakota, we're seeing a lot of derailments. our rail staff was not prepared for that sudden spike in our workload. so our challenge is always trying to be strategic and figure out what's the next thing we need to do so we're ready to handle that variability when it arises? >> in your time, since this is a regulatory agency, which

recommendation -- agency -- which mode of transportation has been most receptive to following your recommendations? >> that's a good question. number that i mentioned, more than 80% of the time our recommendations are responded to favorab favorably. i'm afraid i don't have a breakdown on how that goes from mode to mode. it's probably fairly universal across the modes. i'd have to get back to you with a breakdown on that. >> okay. let's talk about those who don't. why do you think some have not been receptive? >> congress created us to be -- we look only at safety. we do not do cost/benefit studies. so the regulators, they have to look at the total picture and not just the safety picture. they have to look at the totality of circumstances. we're supposed to be the ones who provide the answer in an ideal safety world if safety is your only consideration. i give kudos to congress for

creating us that way because what that means is that if the regulators in the industry were doing 100% of what we recommended, that means something is probably broke. that means we're not being safety-only enough, or that means the regulator is being safety-only too much. on the other hand, if 60% of our recommendations were being responded to favorably, probably something is broke there, too. i think safety experts would agree around 80%-ish is about right to show the tension that congress intentionally created between us and the industry is working. so, yes, we have to have our hand on the pulse of the economic reality, so, for example, when we first recommended ground proximity warning systems on airplanes, that's a system that warns the pilot, you are approaching the ground too fast under the circumstances, you better do something about it. so when we first started that recommendation, these were big, bulky expensive things, okay, you can put them on a 747, but you're not going to put them on a 19 seat beach 1900 because it's too big and expensive and bulky to put on the little airplanes. when we first made that

recommendation, we limited it to the big airplanes. then as the technology improved and they got smaller and cheaper and better, then we started recommending them on all airplanes. so no third decimal point cost/benefit study but we had to have our finger on the pulse of economic reality. >> so let's talk about this for just a second. do you think the ntsb should be given more than advisory power? >> that's a good question and people ask me that a lot. they say why not mandate what the ntsb does? i think the reason our product is so good is precisely because it's not mandatory. i think that means our staff knows that if this isn't a real good idea, people are going to ignore it because they can. well, people don't ignore it more than 80% of the time and that's, to me, if we -- if it was mandatory then there's something wrong with telling us we have to be safety only, because if we're safety only and it's mandatory, that's a disconnect. i think it's a good idea that we aren't mandatory and i think that's one of the reasons our product is as world class as it is because our staff knows that if it's not a really good idea,

people just won't do it. >> i think you told me your term is up in march but you've been at the ntsb for a while. now that obama's presidency is almost done, how would you assess his administration's record on transportation safety? >> in general, all of the industries are improving in their sastty. that's real good news. one of the problems we've seen that's a generic problem across all the modes is regulations have to go through the office of management and budget, and the office of management and budget has a cost/benefit test. so as all the industries get safer, we know that that filter is getting ever more challenging. when we send a recommendation that says require, that's ntsb speak for promulgate a new recommendation, then many times we're told, we're so safe that omb says where are the dead bodies and there may not be any or enough then that stops the recommendation. in a bigger-picture sense, i think we need to have a conversation about, yes, there

needs to be some kind of a cost/benefit filter because we don't want money spent willy-nilly without having a clear benefit to it, but i think we need to have a conversation about how to update that cost/benefit test to make it more realistic. so, for example, the cost/benefit test cost a split in the fatigue requirements in big airplanes. so if you're flying a big passenger airplane, you have different fatigue requirements than if you're flying a big cargo airplane. our view on that is a big cargo airplane is in the airspace and if it collides with another big airplane, it's going to be just as bad if it's carrying cargo as if it was carrying passengers. but the cost/benefit cost said, well, how many cargo airplanes have we seen that crashed due to fatigue as opposed to how many big airplanes have we seen? i think it's a different way to ask the question and i think the process can improve by being updated with the new realities. >> since you're here at the national press club, i thought i'd ask you, any advice to reporters covering accidents being investigated by the ntsb?

>> most of the industries we deal with have a huge problem with the media because of a strong emphasis on sensationalism. an example that's somewhat dated now but i'm not sure if it's unrealistic anymore. when airplane crashed, americanairlines crashed in colombia in 1996 and it was a very difficult environment, took a long time for people to get there so when they got there, the bodies had been there for some time. okay. so when they got there, they said they found alcohol in the pilot's blood. well, and so that was big front news -- big front-page news, alcohol in the pilot's blood. four days later on page b6 was, oh, this alcohol was putryification alcohol, not consumption alcohol. meanwhile, the pilot's reputation had been sullied, airline's reputation had been sullied. the public is thinking, oh, this pilot was trunk. the accuracy of the coverage is crucial and we used to be in control of the information a