interview john than saltzman and steven starr. he has worked at the globe since 2002 and joined the investigative unit in 2011. this year, he was part of a team that reported on sexual abuse at private schools in new england perpetrated by educators and the cover ups that protected the institutions and the people who caused the harm instead of the students. jonathan saltzman met steven starr working on it. he insists you all get a chance to meet him as well. john is a smart man. steven starr is a father, a film maker, excuse me, a media activist. he got a start with bob marley and the whalers. he's the co-founder of la media

and headed the new york picture operation for the william morris agency and co-created mtvs the state and produced several independent films. he has an m.a. in spiritual psychology. steven attended one of the school's featured in the boston globe series and is grateful for the healing of his secrets after a lifetime of silence. he's also launched the site, secrethealer.com to dedicate to healing secrets for hoars. the three of us are going to talk about the role the "meet the press" plays to end sexual violence. join me in welcoming jonathan saltszman to the stage. [ applause ]

>> good morning everyone. when i was first invited to speak today as a member of the "boston globe's" now famous spot light team, i had to make something clear immediately. i was not a member of the team when it did its pulitzer prize winning reporting on the clergy sexual abuse scandal. i arrived at the globe in the spring of 2002, and i was covering some decidedly less glamorous subjects when i first arrived like the water board. that's not to say i didn't have a brush with fame during the making of the movie. i sit two desks in front of mike who was one of the characters portrayed in the film. i did meet the actor mark

ruffalo, who played mike. mark ruffalo sat for several days next to mike to find out what it was like to be an investigative reporter. now reporters try very hard not to be impressed by celebrity, whether it's a movie star or the president. nonetheless, i couldn't help myself and i went over to him and i said "my teenage daughter would be thrilled to know you're sitting two desks behind me." he said "can i give her an autograph?" i said "sure." i took out a piece of paper and he wrote, "dear juliet, always stay sweet." i thought that was enormous. i joined the spotlight team about five years ago, and i've covered everything from corruption in boston's taxi industry to controversial surgical practices at mass general hospital. it was only this year, as kristin said, i began covering extensively sexual abuse.

specifically sexual abuse at private schools in new england. some of the most famous schools in the country, and primarily by educators. like other scandals that the spotlight team exposed, the abuse was largely hidden for years. although, sometimes whispered about. our mission, as it is with most of the stories we do, is to lift up the rock and see what was there. shine a light on it. the timing couldn't have been better given renewed attention to sexual abuse as a result of the spotlight movie. the clergy sexual abuse scandal started a national movement, as everybody here knows to hold churches, summer camps, schools, and other institutions accountable for sexual abuse. and the abuse that children suffered at some of the most storied private schools in the country is something that has

been hiding in plain sight for years. so far this year, i have worked on at least a dozen lengthy and shorter stories about sexual abuse, and they revealed that teachers at some of the best known private schools in new england talking about deerfield academy, for example, philip's exerter academy abused students. some waited 60 years to come forward. in a moment, i'm going to show the first big takeout, actually that's it, that we ran in may. i'm going to play a couple of videos that accompanied that package, and later i'll be joined on stage by steven starr, whom i interviewed in los angeles and was remarkably eloquent. first, i want to discuss the genesis of this particular project. you may think that an extraordinary amount of thought and debate goes into what the spotlight team decides to spend months investigating.

we're still one of the few newspapers that has a team that works for months, sometimes, on one particular project. i mean, that's a rarity in today's profession. and often it does take months for us to or weeks for us to decide what we're going to work on. in this case, however, the origin was more prosaic. one of my colleagues at the globe in the living art section named bella english wrote several terrific stories last year exposing long-buried allegations that educators at saint george's school in rhode island had sexually abused students in the 1970s and '80s. after several of those stories ran, a few top editors said to one another, haven't we had these kind of scandals at a few prep schools before? what is with that? and shortly after that, the head of the spotlight team, scott appleman, said that the editor

of the paper wanted us to see how extensive this abuse was, and why we're hearing about allegations now. three members of the team, jen ableson, todd, and i joined bella and we've spent most of this year drilling down on the subject of sexual abuse at private schools. we started by scaring news reports over the past 25 years to see how many private schools have been tainted by these scandals. we dug for lawsuits and criminal cases to see if there are allegations that hadn't made the papers, there were plenty of those. we began by contacting survivors and trying to interview them. when our first story ran online, we invited anyone who was abused to contact the globe. we heard from more than 200 people. since then, we've found that more than 100 private schools in new england -- that there were

more than 100 private schools in new england, where over 300 former students alleged over the past 25 years that they were abused or harassed by educators. largely in response to our stories, more than two dozen schools have hired law firms to investigate these allegations. so if nothing else, it's been full employment for lawyers. our stories have pressured schools to re-examine their policies and practices. spurred legislative efforts to ban the practice known as "passing the trash." reminded the public that sexual abuse can happen any setting, and chipped away at the shame and stigma that so many victims said kept them silent for decades. it's news and it's important news. now i would like to show you a couple videos that acomp anied our first package.

they feature two former students at a private school in newton, massachusetts. steven starr and adrian hooper who said they were abused in the '60s and '70s. >> it was just your typical adhd kid. shoe laces untied. typical kid, really, at 11 or 12 years old. i had a hard time adjusting to their rules. teachers were kind of free with the paddle back then. my dorm master was particularly violent. he would grab you by the soft spot underneath the chin and drag you around and pinch hard and it would hurt. a lot. i had a problem wetting my bed, which was a constant thorn in

the side of my dorm master. he brought me into his one room day and drop my pants and he paddled me with the paddle. he was very angry. he started talking about how i have to get this under control. he started to get really nice and he said -- he took my penis in his hand and started patting it and said "you've got to get this under control." then he yelled at me and he -- i think he grabbed my testicles or hit my testicles and squeezed them real tight or hit them really hard, but it really hurt me badly. to the point where i was crying. i'm pretty sure it was after that incident i just had it up to here with it. i left the school.

it was february or march. it was snowing. i walked from west newton, massachusetts along the highway into boston. i was crying, i was raging, i had a psychological shift. i was once, you know, kind of a type "a" personality. i completely withdrew. i kind of just lost faith in everyone and anything. >> next video features steven starr.

♪ >> i felt like it was wrong what was going on, but there's a part of me that also felt like, you know, he wasn't punching me in the face. he wasn't violent with me. he was sexually abusing me, and i was a lonely kid looking for somebody to love me. he would walk around campus with

a camera, and i was very interested in learning more about that. and so i pursued him to learn about photography, and that turned into something quite more than that. he would invite me to come down after lights out to his room and to work in the darkroom with him. he gave me a camera, which i actually still have to this day. it's like a talisman or a grim -- i don't know it's like a reminder. i felt like, wow, i was really special, you know, i had this mentor who was looking out for me. who was teaching me these things. he took pictures of me. he would pose me and stage me in certain ways. he took other pictures that were

much more erotic, and he took pictures of me in his room. he gave me those and he, over time, he started molesting me. it wasn't like the skies suddenly went dark and i was living in some, you know, darkness. i felt like this was somehow love. i was sure there was something wrong with this and it was shameful, but i liked it. and there was some -- something really broken about that. i've spent my whole life working through what happened to me at school. i've spent my life having to deal with the aftermath of these events.

>> those are really extraordinary videos. now i'm hardly an expert on sexual abuse of children, but i can share a little about what i've learned over the past eight months. first, in the vast majority of the survivors i interviewed have struggled with substance abuse and other self-destructive behavior. some have criminal records. this can pose a challenge to a reporter because if survivors are alleging criminal behavior by educators, we want to assess their credibility as well. that said, one of the things i learned was that this self-destructive behavior is so wide spread that it doesn't necessarily discredit the

accusers at all. second, as a journalist, i have to be more sensitive than ever to build the trust needed for survivors to speak with me. one of the most realistic scenes in the movie "spotlight" showed a south boston resident slamming the door in the face of my colleague sasha pfeiffer. i saw the movie with my wife and our kids. my kids were shocked when i said "that happens every day." but it does. and few people may be more reluctant to speak to a reporter than someone who was abused. i made the mistake, at one point, of e-mailing a survivor a brief bio i found online about her reported abuser. i wrote, just very matter of factually, "is this your guy"? i simply meant, is this the guy

you said assaulted you? but she took it to mean something very different. the point is, wear kid gloves when interviewing a survivor of abuse. third, there's a corollary to this. some survivors are dying to unburden themselves, and a reporter may be one of the only people they've ever discussed this with. one of the alleged victims in the school met me in the office of the attorney, if you saw the movie, is the attorney portrayed by stanley. he told me he was sexually abused by a former school psychologist who took him on a road trip to arkansas and mexico. when i asked him casually who else he had told about this abuse, i said -- he said you and mitch. i said, have you ever told your wife and kids? he said no. i was staggered by this. he just met me minutes earlier. but it underscores how much

people trust reporters and how crucial it is that we handle information with care and sensitivity. finally, i learned that the courage that one survivor shows by talking to me will embolden many others to come forward. steven starr told me he was motivated to go on the record in no small part by our coverage of sexual abuse at saint george's school in rhode island, and in particular by the movie "spotlight." in closing, i want to say our stories have been among the most widely read online in the globe this year, according to readership surveys. each of you, i'm sure, probably has a bunch of stories about how sexual violence has affected your communities. i encourage you to contact local news media to share what you know and the services that you provide. you never know who is reading. the kind of support they might need. i've seen firsthand how these stories can help folks heal by

chipping away at the stigma that often kept them silent. i'm sure that many of you can help those people, too, by getting their stories out. thank you. [ applause ] >> hi, everybody. my name is steven starr. if you look at that picture over the right shoulder of the statute of the boy is actually the window of the room i lived in eighth grade. it's sort of shocking to me when the story came out. i want to spend a moment talking about you. the work that you are all doing respectively in the various threads of this crisis and the work you offer the world,

without the foundational community of people doing this work, there's no way i would have ever come forward. there's no way that the progress that is being made on this subject would be being made. so i just want to honor you all. i came into this conference yesterday and sort of walked around and saw what was going on, it astonishes me the amount of great work that is being done. thank you for that. i want to briefly talk about secrets. five years ago, the school sent my father, at the home i lived in i was a boy, which he lives in, a letter of apology, 43 years later for what happened when i was a kid going to school there. it was a letter to the entire fessenden community. he was shocked because i had never told him what happened. and i still, at that time, was extremely reluctant. i told him a little bit but i

was so taken with the fact that the letter appeared on our doorstep so many years later that i went on google and i discovered that there was a lawsuit. i called this attorney in boston, and he was featured online and he said that the school was perfectly happy to settle if i was willing to sign a nondisclosure agreement. he didn't recommend it but he was happy to do it. i said no. i wasn't willing to be controlled by this that controlled me my whole life. to make a long story short, a couple of years later, they dropped that requirement and last fall i went to a screening in los angeles before the release of the film "spotlight" to go see this film i heard about vaguely. i saw stanley tucci playing my lawyer on screen. it was psychedelic. i called mitchell and i said i saw the movie. he was like what movie? i said "spotlight."

you know, i'm so proud to be your client. he was like, great, let me tell you what is going on with the case. like you saw him in the movie, that's how he is in real life. he offered me the opportunity to speak with "spotlight" he said would you like to talk to them? my first reaction was absolutely not. up until then i had literally never told my story. not to my family. i told a couple of therapists over the years and some intimate close relationships, but only in the broadest of terms, and never full disclosure. it was a deep source of shame, as i'm sure many of you know, to carry that kind of burden around and to not know how to share it. anyway, i got on the phone with "spotlight" with jonathan. as i recall, it was jonathan, myself, and mitchell on a phone call anonymously. after the call, mitchell called

me back and said they would love to send a film crew out to los angeles. i said absolutely not. i got off the phone and spent the weekend kind of tossing and turning. the long and short of it is jonathan and his team showed up in los angeles and i, for the first time in my life, told my story and put it out there. because i was exhausted from carrying this around. the story came out and i got phone calls and e-mails from former students that i was classmates with, from friends of mine, from complete strangers who sought me out saying could you please -- can i tell you my story? and the sort of iceberg of secrets that were out there just started revealing themselves to me. i was so lonely with this information my whole life until i shared it and then i was no longer lonely. and, you know, shame hides in darkness, right. the shame lifted from me in a substantial way and i found myself helping a lot of other folks tell their secrets.

now i find myself really egger to do more of that work, which is why i put this little initiative together. the gratitude i have for the journalists, which you have in your hometowns, and the opportunity to share my truth it changed my life. i've spent my whole life waiting to let go of this. i'm now in the process of doing that. you're all sitting in these amazing places and communities all over the country in a position to support local heros coming forward and sharing their stories privately. in some cases being models for the community to see that this is nothing to be ashamed of. i urge you, i encourage you, i beg you from my personal experience that's the most amazing work to bring forward. the effect on my life and the people around me has been nothing short of profound.

so thank you very much. [ applause ] >> we are live. the mike is hot. thank you both so much. we wanted to have the opportunity, actually, we have more time than we planned on. this will be great! to get into a nice conversation about different aspects of the role that media has on creating the environment in each of our communities. what people understand about sexual abuse, and how getting factual information or truthful information out into the press can open up opportunities for survivors to access healing or services or whatever it is that people need, but also shaping what our community, which also

means our jury pools, our lawmakers, you know what they know. because this information has a ripple effect. so i wanted to just start, first, john, by asking you as you and i were talking preparing for today, you shared with me that having first-hand accounts from survivors is something that makes for a much better story, and i was hoping you could help us all understand why that is. why the first-hand account changes the nature of a story. >> so it's a good question, and obviously -- and it's not just true of cases of sexual abuse. for a reporter, it's much better for me to be hearing about the story from the individual who was affected by it than from a therapist or from an attorney through any filter. that's why, for example, when i

started interviewing steven mitch was on the phone and he was doing exactly what a good lawyer should do. to make sure that his client wasn't going to go off the reservation somewhere. going to be careful what he says. it became so obvious to me that steven was so eloquent. i wanted to go out there and interview him in person. i can even tell you exactly what it was when i said ah-ha. this is a guy i have to go out to interview. i spoke to several people in person, but he's the one who really crystallized it. i asked him on the phone, what happened when this guy, dahlman, was abusing you? he said, well, i guess i entered this fugue state. and i probably hadn't heard that phrase since i was in college or something. i said i have to meet this guy.

it's like a perfect explanation why you want to get a first-hand account. >> steven, could you talk with us a little bit about what motivated you -- you just said here a little bit the burden of the secret was exhausting you, but could you talk a little bit more about that and what kind of things you were weighing about whether or not to tell your story publicly? >> yeah, thank you for that. so i think for me i had come up as we all have over the last 40 some odd years, for me, in an environment where every time this topic showed up and surfaced in the press it was like touching the third rail of the public consciousness. it was just a violent press reaction that felt extremely black and white without nuance

of any kind, like, you know, monsters and victims and my own experience, as i shared in that video, was different than that. there was an emotional attachment, there was a relationship, there was, you know, an entire cycle of relationship that went on between my perpetrator and me. and i never heard that story. i just -- i couldn't find that story anywhere. i felt like it was even more shaming to me that i had some version of a story where i thought it was love than, you know, every other story i was seeing in the media was monster, victim, you know, destroyed life and, you know, let's go get the monster. while, yes, it was a monstrosity that was visited upon me, i couldn't find my narrative out of the media. i spent my life with my mouth shut, and i feel like my experience was very -- i was singular. nobody else had that experience. everybody else was having the third rail experiences.

i couldn't find myself in the media coverage. what ultimately happened for me was this ongoing increasing sense of aloneness. that affected every area of my life. whatever i was able to do, i couldn't heal this piece of me. over, you know, walking into that screening and seeing "spotlight" and seeing the work that jonathan and his colleagues were reflecting into the world, i felt, wow, okay the culture is somehow signaling me that it's safe for me to speak. that's finally what happened. i felt safe enough to speak. and i met this guy and i was like i can talk to this guy. he's a good guy. i mean, it literally was that simple. when i got on the phone with him, you can imagine my antenna was so up. i was like, journalist, expos e exposure, my family didn't know the story. it took every skill he had, i imagine, give me the signal it

was safe. and it was effective and here we are. here we are. >> thank you. you touched on so many things i wanted to touch on today. so you were talking about how what you were seeing in the press was reflective of your own experience that added to that sort of disconnect. because i wanted to ask you about whether or not over the years you were paying attention to news coverage of stories started to resonate and if you were finding yourself weighing the different kinds of coverage that the issue as a whole gets. >> of course. i was completely interested in the conversation as it was emerging over the years, but in many cases, the press coverage was retraumatizing to me.

i would see these sort of violence around it, the energy around it, and i would be like that's not me. i'm never ever going to talk about this. ever. and in other cases, slowly but surely, as the work that people in this room and others are doing we talked about nuances. the nuances started to emerge. as i saw the culture start to proximate what i felt my story was a reflection of, then it became more and more safe. i think the critical opportunity in the culture now is to really go into that gray area and make sure that the conversation includes those that, like me, found themselves in repeated relationships with abusers where, you know, it was an emotional interaction that wasn't one instance that happened and i ran out of the room. i'm sorry it didn't happen that

way for me. i'm so determined to make sure that other people feel safe around that part of the conversation. because i think there's an immense amount of healing available. and, you know, with great respect this culture, if you track it back to the sexual wounding, nobody is untouched by this. it's across every institution, every demographic, every geographic, everything. it's all there. so we have to deal with this. here we are. >> thank you. john, when we were talking you mentioned having some trials by fire, and making mistakes during your work on these stories and what you learned from them. so, there are a lot of folks in the room who do work with their local press, and have some relationships. i don't know if we have any members of the media in the room right now, but if you had to offer advice to other journalists about creating these stories of interviewing survivors.

could you give us a few things that you think would be important for them to know? tell us why. >> yeah, i think, at least for me, the biggest take away was to be patient. i work in a business where typically you've got to turn stories around very quickly. i happen to be on the spotlight team and we're given extended time to really drill down into subjects, but even then, you know, my editors will be saying to me "did you reach that guy yet?" "is this person willing to go on the record?" there's an impulse, with good reason, to try to get people to come to the mike, as it were, as soon as possible. at one point, i called mitch

garabedian and mitch -- i think steven will verify this, mitch can disappear for awhile. we were saying, hey, what's going on with your client? is this person going to speak in for days he might not return my call, and under those circumstances, i sometimes would call and then i would send an e-mail and call again. at one time, he barked at me and said why are you being such a bulldog? these people need to come to this at their own pace, and i think the more i worked on the story the more i realized that's true. it's a huge decision to decide that you are going to come forward and talk about something that happened to you that, you know, traumatized you. so i think that would be the biggest take away, which is be patient with people. try to kind of deal with them on their terms.

>> steven, what would you offer journalists about good things to know when interviewing survivors or putting together a story about sexual abuse? >> i would say what jonathan shared is a first operating principle. it's the most important thing. because as i'm sure everybody in this room knows the tenderness around this, around telling your story, even now i'm sitting around here going where am i? what happened? and doing this thing. it's really tender. i would say kid gloves and a lot of respect. a lot of willingness to be patient is a place to start. then i would also say that now that a lot of people are coming forward, i think many of you are aware of this young woman who spoke on the "today" show, i

guess it was yesterday. you know, there are examples out there you can bring forward and share with people and say, look, look at what she's done or what the "spotlight" teak team has done or whatever. where people can see the courage in others. you know, i, again, if i hadn't seen the movie and been aware of what the team in boston was doing with saint george's. i would have never come forward seeing the saint george's students speak directly to their experiences is incredibly empowering to me. i would -- the resources are emerging now to break the silence resources are emerging now. i would really, i do actually refer people to those stories now who i know need to feel their own courage. that's one place i'd start. >> many people who work with survivors of sexual assault can be wary of connecting people they're working with to the

media. i think because we know there can often be unintended consequences of telling your story in public. but i thought it would be nice if you could both share some advice to offer to survivors who are thinking about telling their story. maybe what some of the unintended pros might be so people can weigh for themselves or hear from your experiences about the benefits of talking in public. >> so, you know, frankly, steven is the living proof, as you can hear of someone who found it liberating to speak about their experience. adrian hooper, who was featured in one of the videos, like wise, he, just as a side, because we have a limited budget, i was

going to be interviewing him on the phone. i had interviewed him on the phone, and i said, you know, i didn't know that we were going to spend money to go down and interview him in kentucky. he was so -- he felt such an urgency to tell his story he said, look, i'm going to fly up on my own dime and meet with you. and i said, great. he came and i'm glad he did because he had an incredible story, and he felt this enormous relief and validation. i think that's the other thing that people said to me again and again. people would say that they thought they were the only individual abused by this teacher. he called me several times after he came forward and after our

story ran and said have you -- did you ever hear anything else -- any other student say anything about claude hasbrooke, the teacher he said abused him. as a matter of fact somebody came forward. it was a more egregious instance of abuse, and we didn't write about it. i was able to relay it to him. that is, you know -- i think that made him feel really good. in no small part, again, steven can speak to this more than me. people walk around thinking did i imagine it? did i get it wrong? did i misunderstand. so that's the sort of thing that is one of the benefits that can come out of speaking to the media. >> yeah. exactly. there was one of the teachers, a

school psychologist, mickey clampett, after dowman got bored with me. there was another teacher waiting in the wings. mickey clampett is still alive. he lives in new england. he's apparently unreachable. dahlman died in the '80s. when i shared it with jonathan, he said to me, well, okay, and i need verification of this. because, you know, he's doing i had job to make sure he's not, you know, announcing some version of events for somebody who is going to be deeply affected by that version of events. my reaction, which i did not share with jonathan until now, did i make it up? i was -- but i didn't make it up. i know i didn't make it up because i spent my whole life thinking about it. jonathan called me and said i want you to know i've gotten two independent verifications of mickey clampett's behavior, as

you described it, and we're going to publish his name in the story. and, you know, it was like somebody said, you're okay, kid. it's okay. what youz you thought was true is true. the power of that is inescapable for me. >> to have jonathan say i need to verify this, you had a conte contextual understanding of why that is so and didn't hear it of doubting you.

is there another tip to offer to journalists about taking the time to sort of explain why you may have to ask some questions that -- you know, to do your legwork, to do your due diligence and help people understand it's not that you have doubts about what they've said, but that -- you know, for your own legal reasons and the other ethical concerns that go into reporting that you need to have things cross referenced. >> i want to say something very quickly. when i had that experience with jonathan, while i was aware of it, he was very thorough in explaining to me why he needed that validation. and i appreciated his explaining it to me in detail. i'm sure he has more to say about that. i also want to share that one of things that happened is as a result of him bringing that forward was, when i started to get calls after the article came out, i actually made some introductions of my former

classmates to not only mitchell, but to jonathan. there were stories that started to surface that i wasn't aware of, with teachers i wasn't aware of that are now in process of uncapping. so the power of telling your story will lead to other people in your communities who have had the same experience, perhaps coming forward and it creates a momentum towards getting to the truth that otherwise would never have happened. >> that's a great question. you know, why do we ask, okay, did this happen, and why do we drill down and why is it that we are trying -- you know, trying to get as much corroboration as we can and does that inherently mean we're doubting somebody who says they were abused. from a newspaper person's

perspective, there's nothing that is more, you know, incendiary to someone's reputation than being accused of abusing somebody, particularly a child. and frankly, it is like a textbook libel case. so when we want to really -- you know, when i'm asking somebody about what happened, it's not because i necessarily doubt what they're saying. there have been obviously false accusations reported. i was mentioning to kristen this morning, the very first newspaper i worked in little poughkeepsie new york, i covered the tawana brawly case, this allegation that this young woman was raped or sexual assaulted by local police officers. i'm aware that it's far more common for a victim of abuse to

never report it rather than to stick their neck out and report -- you know, make something up. but i have to be careful. and so that's why in the case when he -- when steven mentioned this guy mickey clampet, i wanted to get at least one or two more other people to say, yes, i was abused by him too. there was no lawsuit out there of that name mickey clampet. mitchell garabedian is representing a couple people and in fact had written a demand letter to the school which i was able to get a copy of. but that still falls a little short of a lawsuit that's filed in court that's privileged. we can write about that without any fear of a libel suit, or criminal record, an arrest. so it's a close call. i should also point that we

tried to reach this guy mickey clampet. coincidentally, i don't think i mentioned to this you, one of the top editors of the paper who reads spotlight's projects, he said, oh, my god, that was my summer camp counselor. he was a great guy. so we tried everything we could, not because of that, but just in due diligence to try to reach him. i found his -- his daughter -- or i think it was his niece. several other people sent certified letters. at a certain point, we felt comfortable that this was a legitimate accusation and the "globe" lawyer also reviewed it. >> thank you. when we started, i asked you about the importance of having survivors giving firsthand accounts to make stories more

personable and relatable. there still is a role though for third-party endorsement or second tier experts, which we're sitting in a room full of folks who play that role. so can you talk a little bit about how staff at rape crisis centers or therapist or other professionals can be better resources to the press and what the role is for us in that work? >> i get pitches every day from people. and some of them are great stories. they're not necessarily spotlight stories, but they're still news. and i will sometimes relay the information to other reporters or to editors. i think -- the only thing i can say about that is if any person in this audience, for example,

is coming across something that's a trend, that happens again and again, and hasn't gotten enough attention, i would -- i would contact a reporter and it's -- you know, reporters are very busy and they're usually very pressed for time. i think i would contact a reporter. i might first put it in an e-mail. i'd keep it brief. i'd -- you know, make bullet points about what you've discovered. and if you -- if you can put a human face on it, that's even better. you know, as i said, i get lots of tips. lot of the times, they're not stories. but sometimes they are. and any reporter worth his salt is going to take a few minutes to look at something and say, you know, there might be an interesting story there. >> i was -- i was just thinking about something, which if you don't mind, i'm going to share

it. i'm going to take a little bit of a risk here. there are hundreds of people in this room, and i am sure that one or ten or a bunch of you have stories you've never told anyone. anyone. i know that because it's true for me. this work we do -- my whole career was about giving voice to others. i gave voice to others my whole life. it's only now that i'm giving voice to myself. and i want to share that for those of us in this room still struggling with aspects of their own story they haven't shared and they found their way into this work because it's a way towards that resolve, i really want to encourage you from a very loving place that there's a chance to bring your work up a notch or 50 by getting to the root of your own story. so, if i may, i just want to suggest that to those who might hear that who might resonate with that.

>> when we were talking over breakfast and you started today talking about some of the nuances of the stories, and that when you are reading coverage or watching coverage that oftentimes professionals or other people talking are kind of sticking to, you know, the sole murder and the destruction and using terms that are really emotionallily evocative or highly emotional. we see this from attorneys that the language that's used when professionals talk about this issue that can reinforce stereotypes. what would you like to see professionals in this room start telling the press to expand the coverage or expand the way that this is talked about? >> yeah. thank you for that. you know, i said something in

that video that jonathan took in l.a. about i was a lonely little kid looking for love. and i was. that's what i was. and i went and, you know, unbeknownst to me, somebody had a plan for me that i certainly didn't want or expect, but it was about love for me. and i don't think that part of the conversation has been covered nearly enough. because i think that, you know, we're all emotional beings, virtual emotional beings. we are seeking, and there's just an innocence that was taken from me that i wish that i had felt the dialogue made itself available that the opening for me to talk about this thing that we're talking about right now, i wish i had done this 45 years ago. i wish the conversation included

the complexities and the nuances of the emotional connections that get made between victims and perpetrators on a level that's not black and white. because it's not black and white. and -- and i felt so lonely because i couldn't -- as i said earlier -- find myself in the conversation. it's only now that i feel like, you know, that i'm not crazy, you know, that i'm not alone in that place. and i know this is true for -- it has to be true for a whole lot of other people if it's true for me, and i didn't know that until i told my story. >> okay. one last question on this -- on this theme. when you are doing your research -- i think a lot of -- a lot of times i think folks in our field, people that work in rape crisis centers, have two goals when we're reaching out or working with media. certainly, having our

organization's name in the newspaper is a way to talk about the services that we offer, help people know we're a resource, kind of reinforce our place in the community, free advertising even if you will, but we also want to see stories that are well done, are well informed. so john, could you maybe finish a little bit just by talking to us about the opportunity of relationship building by giving expert information, connecting to other experts, you know, helping get you connected with, you know, maybe legal experts on a certain thing. what's the importance of the role of providing that background, that research, the -- you know, kind of the structure just to sit your story on? >> well, i guess what i would say is that the most -- the best thing that a source of information -- so let's say it's

some -- a counselor of dealing with domestic violence or sexual abuse or whatever, the best thing that i can hear in an early conversation is, here's my cell number. call me any time you want. i'm available to you at all times. now, that may be a tall order, but i want to know that the person who is pitching me a story is going to help me do my job. and that can mean sending me the names of various contacts, sending me links to studies or links to stories that were written. but making my job as easy as possible. and you'd be amazed how many people will kind of suggest a story and then mysteriously,

they're playing size versus spy saying, look it up, and the name is backwards and it's like blah, blah, blah. it's like, i don't have time to do that. so making themselves available is the most useful thing for me. and the other thing i guess i would put out is to not be offended if that particular story does not -- isn't something that we consider news. i mean, there's just as, you know, i get rejected every day by calling people up and having doors slammed in my face, you know, there are going to be times when we say, well, we just did that story, or there's nothing new there or whatever. i think you have to be prepared for that. >> well, thank you. check here with our time. you all are going to get a little bit of a bonus. is there anything that either one of you would like to end with? >> i would if i could. so i would say that for all of

you who are working locally in your local communities, like if i could imagine an outcome, it would be to one of your clients over a period of time could be a local hero. and that if you can find a way to engage that person with patience and dignity and respect and compassion, to see the opportunity to change your community by stepping forward, over time, there's a local journalist you could be working with, a person that's willing to take that step forward. what happened with you and i, me and jonathan, is just a microcosm that can happen anywhere. it's a trusted rapport that was prodded forward. you can all be mitchell garabedian or not, but you can play the role of matchmaker the

way mitchell did by encouraging me slowly to step into the bright light of this. if you do that, if you're from poughkeepsie or detroit or wherever you're from, you will change your city if you're able to bring those resources together as kristen's been talking about. you really will. so that would be my -- my best offering. >> the only thing i would want to add is if you have somebody as articulate as steven starr, that's the kind of person i want to talk to. that doesn't happen very often. so, you know, but that's going to make it a lot -- my job a lot easier and a lot -- you know, not that many people speak in such a kind of a nuanced fashion. so -- >> well, thank you both this morning for sharing your -- your wisdom, your experiences. i think inspiration, steven, in particular.

but also for your work with the spotlight team. i know you still have additional pieces you're working on that i know everybody in this room will be eager to read, the work of your paper was transformative more than a decade ago when it first came out. i think it has galvanized much of the work we do around the country. in the system accountability and changing laws. and the stories this year certainly followed suit. the film certainly did help that, but even without the film, we would have all been reading this series as well. so thank you both so much for joining us this morning. [ applause ] you all get an extra five minutes to refill your coffee or get to your next session, but thank you so much.

energy secretary ernest moniz talked before a house energy subcommittee. also discussed the impact climate change has on energy security, as well as the aging u.s. energy grid and the areas that should be prioritized. this runs two hours.

this hearing will finally come to order. obviously, four votes and members going home have put time crunch on this committee. i want every member to know whether you're republican or democrat, ten terms or first term, you'll have a chance to ask our witness your questions. but that means i'll be very aggressive with the gavel to ensure you stick to the five-minute limit. and here's my example. i'm giving myself five minutes for an opening statement. america is back. we are an energy superpower.

that statement would have sounded odd a handful of years ago, and laughable in the 1970s. but the fact is, we are awash in energy. today, we are the world's leading producer of oil and gas, and we're less reliant upon foreign sources of energy. our resources are plentiful and affordable. so affordable that low prices have become a common complaint back home in houston, texas. except from my daughter in college who now has more money from her allowance instead of buying gasoline, she goes to starbucks more often. this subcommittee has been hard at work to bring energy policy into the 21st century. we're beginning to see positive effects. since we lifted the ban on crude exports last year, american oil is spreading all across the

globe. we're undercut opec, russia, helping our allies and giving american workers an opportunity to compete. natural gas imports are ramping up as well. a trend that's likely to continue if we get the process right. unlike other energy commodities, you have to ask d.o.e. for a permit to export natural gas. unfortunately, these are applications that have been held up at d.o.e. and sometimes for at least three years without a decision. these delays are jeopardizing major construction projects and threatening american jobs. we have the opportunity for jobs and affordable energy right here at home and to our allies abroad. but there's still much work to be done. it's hard to build

infrastructure in this country. yes, my own state of texas has plenty of oil and gas to serve our homes and businesses but our friends in new england face gas shortages and price spikes because it's almost impossible to build a pipeline. in other parts of the country, people pay more than they should for electricity because of harmful epa regulations. we're using our energy conference with the senate to examine ways to improve infrastructure permitting, plus a whole host of other topics such as grid and cybersecurity, energy efficiency and workforce development. likewise, we are in an era of abundance of homes -- in emergency preparedness. for example, the nation's strategic petroleum reserve, the spr, is aging rapidly. in the d.o.e.'s long-term strategic view released last

week, raise very serious issues about the ability of the spr to meet its mission. according to the report, the spr may only be able to effectively distribute about half as much of the oil it's designed to supply in an emergency. one half. congress has authorized $2 billion for infrastructure modernization. before that can be approved, we need the department to be open and transparent about the condition of spr and the funds required to rehabilitate it. we want to make d.o.e. a bigger part, critical part of our emergency response. and that's why we used last year's fast act to grant new emergency authorities for procedures to act in some specific cases. however, these limits -- there are limits to its authority that we give d.o.e. a new request will be closely

scrutinized. again, thank you for joining us today, mr. secretary. i am proud this hearing, just like last week's, will mostly be bipartisan. an energy economy that brings jobs and creates security at home with opportunities to advance our interests overseas. and i yield back the balance of my time and recognize the ranking member of the full committee, mr. pallone for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, for holding today's hearing, evaluating the work on energy security here in the united states. and i'd like to welcome secretary moniz back and thank him for his efforts to provide us with a more secure energy future. this is an important topic, but our energy mix changes. we can no longer simply look at oil supply when we think about energy security. our country must take a broader approach that encompasses cleaner energy technologies,

including renewable energy technologies which are becoming more affordable. beyond the relates of our energy mix we must recognize the impacts climate change is having on energy security here in the united states and abroad. our nation is not alone in this. the g7 energy initiative states that reducing emissions from fossil fuels is necessary to tackle climate change and can enhance our energy security. simply put, an energy future that redurss our carbon emissions and reliance on fossil fuels is a more secure energy future. simply recognizing and identifying issues affecting our energy security is not enough. we must take real action to enhance and protect our energy infrastructure. i've championed two critical proposals built out of the review, one that supports state efforts to modernize the electricity grid and the other to encourage investment in the repair of old leaking natural gas pipeline infrastructure in major metropolitan regions. and to make our energy future

more secure, we must make serious investments in our aging and often outdated energy infrastructure. i'd be remiss if i did not mention the ongoing energy bill conference. along with my colleagues who sit on the conference committee, we have started the difficult process of merging two very different bills. while some progress has been made, there's still many contentious issues to be resolved. i've made it clear one of my top priorities in any final energy conference report is to address some of the items in the qer. the energy sector in 2016 looks vastly different than the last time we passed major energy legislation. changes in energy markets, new technolo technologies, improved efficiency and shifting consumer demand are transforming how we think about energy security. secretary moniz, i want to thank you for bringing this conversation to the forefront and for your work to bolster our energy and overall national security. i look forward to your

testimony, and i'd like to yield the remainder of my time to mr. mcnerney. >> i want to thank the chairman for holding this hearing. energy is an issue i care deeply about. i'm glad to have a chance to hear from secretary moniz. mr. secretary, i'm always happy to have you in front of our committee to give us the latest information on what's happening at the d.o.e. and around the country in the energy sector. i doubt if anyone in our country is more knowledgeable than you are. and you have the gift of being able to reverse the political landscape without too many scars to show. so congratulations. our nation's energy system works reasonably well most of the time providing electricity, natural gas, oil and coal reliably and at an affordable cost. this has been one of the foundations of our nation's economy and security. because of this, most people take our energy system for granted untilion takes place, large power outages

or climate-caused disasters. it's our and your responsibility, mr. secretary, to make sure that the energy systems continue to operate smoothly and reliably. this means the proper regulatory framework be in place to encourage the investments needed to keep our energy systems operating and up to date with the challenges we face of new technology, changing demand and changing generation, new sources of oil and gas, retiring nuclear plants and the different threats to our energy systems. the quadrennial energy review along with other stat uts such as the fast act and pending north american energy security and investment act are designed to make sure that we succeed in keeping our energy system in good condition. and that brings us to today's hearing. mr. secretary, i look forward to your testimony and to the back and forth that will follow to help me increase my understanding of our successes

and of the challenges that remain. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> right now it's time for our distinguished witness to speak for five minutes. mr. moniz is our secretary of energy, a regular here at the committee. an invitation in december to come to texas and see the petronoma programming. that's the first carbon capture situation in the whole country. so invitation and five minutes to give your opening statement. >> thank you, vice chairman olson and ranking member pallone, members of the subcommittee. i'm very plies pleased to be he discuss our role in energy security. u.s. energy security must be considered in the context of the changing energy profile, the evolving threat environment and the global security challenges facing our country and our allies in various regional settings. the u.s. is now the number one producer of liquid fuels and

natural gas in the world. but remains a major importer of crude oil. the unconventional production locations of the new supply creates infrastructure challenges and the spread between u.s. and european and asian natural gas prices has been reduced considerably. renewable technology is rising rapidly as costs continue to fall. energy efficiency policies and technologies are contributing to slow growth and demand for electricity and flat or declining demand for oil, even as our economy grows. natural gas has replaced coal as the largest fuel source for power jeoperatiogeneration. this changing landscape faces an evolving set of threats as well. and the structure and nature of our energy emergency responses must keep pace with reality. we know adversaries and homegrown actors are interested in the vulnerabilities of our critical infrastructures.

severe weather, exacerbating by warming and rising seas. emp, aging infrastructure, cyberthreats, and growing infrastructure interdependencies. they are in our laws and orders designed to protect our citizens and economies from those from menev lent intent and from natural disaster. challenges like these underscore the need to rethink energy security, the subject of this hearing. in june 2014, the g7 and the eu endorsed seven modern energy security principles. these principles are premised on the recognition of energy security as a collective responsibility among allies and friends. the first two principles te s with market structures, diversification of fuels and

routes, including indigenous sources. the next three highlight the transition to a low carbon economy through clean energy and efficiency, innovation and deployment as key to enduring energy security. and the last two principles deal with the need for energy infrastructure resilience and effective response to disruptions of all types, including the need for strategic reserves. we have appreciated working with this committee and with congress more broadly in responding to some of the resilience and response challenges and as called for, the fast act, are working with the department of state on an energy security evaluation strategy. study, excuse me. in the remainder of this opening statement hyme going to highlight a few points in my written submission. on oil, first, even with strong domestic production, the u.s. remains directly tied to global oil markets price volatility and potential market disruptiops.

second, the strategic petroleum reserve remains essential to ensuring the u.s. economy can withstand spikes in petroleum prices. the administration recommended and the qer and congress authorized through the bipartisan balanced budget act an investment of up to $2 billion in facilities and marine terminal infrastructure modernization. the long-term strategic review of the spro required by that act was submitted to congress in august. natural gas. the key issue with natural gas and energy security is the progress towards global natural gas markets principally through lng developments. increased u.s. natural gas production has contributed to a more financial lly liquid and natural gas market which has improved global security for u.s., our neighbors, partners and allies. physical exports of lng started

in february of this year. four more facilities are under construction. the u.s. entry into world lng markets will also put downward pressure on european gas prices and could constrain the noncompetitive practices of russia. the widening of the panama canal is coincident with growing u.s. lng exports thereby lowering supply chain costs from the gulf to the pacific basin. electricity. the grid faces a lot of new demands based on new technologies for both generation and distribution and the need to address a new set of vulnerabilities, institutional inertia, a complex jurisdictional environment and a mix of delivery service models. the second installment of the qer due later this year will examine the issues confronting the nation's electricity system. it will make policy recommendations on a range of issues, including the changing generation mix, low load growth, increased vulnerabilities, to

severe weather and climate change and cyber, new technologies emerging, fiscal threats and cyber, aging infrastructure, jurisdictional issue, value creation and the need for an integrated north american electricity market. d.o.e.'s grid modernization initiative complements the qer analysis by providing technology and systems solutions. the majorities of our national labs are directly involved in this. a key dimension of our efforts is our engagement with industry. especially through the electricity subsector coordinating council that brings together key federal agencies and electricity sector leaders around resilience and emergency response issues. finally, the question of emergency authorities. with the fast act of last year, congress provided d.o.e. with a new authority to protect and restore critical infrastructure when the president declares a grid security emergency. enabling d.o.e. to support

preparation for and response to cyber, emp, and physical attack threats. the fast act also noted the critical nature of large power transformers and requires a feasibility study of a strategic transformer reserve which we will complete by the end of the year. presidential policy director of '21 identifies d.o.e. as the sector specific agency for energy infrastructure. as that, we serve as the day-to-day federal interface for the prioritizization and coordination of activities to strengthen the security and resilience of critical energy infrastructure. in addition, we serve as the lead agency for emergency support function 12 under the national preparedness systems, national response framework. so we are responsible for facilitating recovery from disruptions to the energy infrastructure. we look forward to working with congress now on the alignment of

authorities, responsibilities, resources and organization. in conclusion, it's clear that energy security has many dimensions and global market structures on the low carbon energy system, transition and spps to a changing threat environment. vice chairman olson, ranking member rush, ranking member pallone, members of the committee, i look forward to continue work with the committee and to setting the stage for the next administration and beyond. i look forward to our discussion. thank you, sir. >> thank you, sir. and we'll begin questions with myself. five minutes for questions. okay. last year, the bipartisan act. they are provisions for the spr and improve its emergency response capability. one of the requirements was for d.o.e. to complete a long-term strategic review and report to

congress. that report is out, as you mentioned, and raised some serious questions about the ability of the spr to meet its mission. my first question is, how much oil are we supposed to have to be able to draw down from the spr if we have an emergency? >> you mean the design drawdown rate is just over 4 million barrels a day. >> what's the actual draw down rate? >> that depends on the specific circumstances, but, of course, the whole point of the modernization of the spro is to improve our sbrksal capability which has been compromised ironically by the very increase in production that we have seen in oil. >> but your report showed the actual draw down rate is more than 2 million barrels a day below the designed draw down rate of 4.4 million barrels a day. are you concerned by this? >> we're going to increase that with the project the congress has authorized. we've submitted our

appropriation request for the first tranche. if i may add, it's urgent that the approved because the authorization is only for four years. we really need to get on with the project. >> -- to make sure the spr is viable. any ideas? >> to make sure it's viable? >> prove its ability. >> modernization and building new marine distribution infrastructure in the gulf region. >> details, great. second line of question, both the house and senate have passed bipartisan legislation to streamline process for lng exports. there is more than one legislative option to push that across the finish line. the house would like to see it included in the defense spending bill. it's also in consideration in the energy conference. do you agree that lng exports offer wide ranging benefits to the economy, energy security and maybe even the climate?

>> the natural interest determination you make is precisely the answer to those questions. so far we've approved and frankly since our change in the process in 2014, we have approved quite speedily every application that is ready for action. the idea that we are somehow dragging this out is simply incorrect. the national interest determination requires us to get the appropriate information, inclu including for example -- action. we have acted on all of the applications and until now we've approved them all. so -- and we've approved them since our streamlining of the process in 2014. we have approved them as short as one day after having the ferc action to a few weeks. >> that sounds like a benchmark

over and over and over. >> i think one day over and over would be stretching creduality since there are questions we have to answer, but we have been committed to expeditiously addressing these applications. >> thank you. my final question, what areas of the permitting process need the most improvement? why does it seem to take longer to permit midstream energy infrastructure pipelines to pass site and approve drilling rate and also power stations. how come they are different than pipelines? how come up stream is different than down stream, midstream? >> i think energy infrastructure as a whole, the congress has, frankly, distributed responsibility for different elements of infrastructure among multiple agencies. dea, department of energy, department of state has some. those particular issues that you raise certainly are not in

department of energy's bailiwick. >> should they be in your bailiwick? you be the big king of the jungle, so to speak? >> i think that would be an interesting discussion between the congress and the administration. >> thank you. that's my questions. i yield to the ranking member. okay, to mr. pallone. ranking member of the full committee for his five minutes of questions. >> mr. secretary, i wanted to ask you some questions on lng, particularly related to language in the energy bill on lng exports that is concerning me. applications for lng export have been increasing in recent years. since revising the approval process for lng applications in 2014, d.o.e. has been able to quickly approve applications after ferc completes their review. is that correct? >> yes it is. >> typically how long does it

take d.o.e. to turn these applications around? >> it's been between a day and a few weeks since 2014. >> the energy conference is considering two provisions that would require d.o.e. to approve an application for export within 30 days of ferc publishing the final eis. proponents argue this deadline is necessary to ensure timely consideration by d.o.e., but given the department's track record, i find this arbitrary deadline to be completely unnecessary. in fact it could be detrimental to the ultimate approval of an export application. in light of recent events related to the jordan cove application in oregon, do you believe it makes sense to force d.o.e. to hastily make a decision on an application based on the final eis? >> we have consistently said we see no need for this. by performance. and as you've said, i think very correctly, there can be unintended consequences. the jordan cove, when that was rejected by ferc for

nonenvironmental reasons, would have caused a problem with the bills as proposed. so, you know, we really should be having records of decision by ferc in this case or marad for an offshore facility because that is the complete set of information that informs our final judgment. >> i want to ask you about climate change and note that climate change has to play a significant in terms of energy security. by lessening our reliance on fossil fuels and reducing our carbon emissions we can make our energy future more secure. you recognize this in your testimony when you reference the vulnerability of our energy systems to climate change. can you talk a bit more about the impacts climate change is having on our energy security and what can be done to address this important issue. >> climate change, first of all, we've seen just this week that a number of military leaders

pointed out howe how climate change is a risk to our national security broadly which has energy security implications as well. then there are the issues around rising sea levels and weather, et cetera. but, of course, the threats of energy security ultimately come to fossil fuel supplies since we all have our own solar supply, et cetera. so, clearly, we need to, as we go into a low carbon transition, we are addressing energy security, but in the near to midterm, we are also going to have to increase our approach to resilience of infrastructure because among the many threats, the threats associated with climate change to our infrastructure are just growing and they'll grow further. so that's where we need to harden our infrastructure. also improve our response to the inevitable disruptions we've been seeing. flooding, obviously, in the

southeast is an enormous issue. wildfires in the west. droughts in the southwest, in california. we can go on and on with these regional impacts. so it's -- we need to really think about addressing our security and our climate issues in an integrated way. >> i'm going to try to get one more question here. and that's about the electricity grid. in your testimony discussing modernizing our energy infrastructure, we have an electricity grid that represents the energy mix of the 20th century and not the present more dynamic state in which we currently exist. in your view, what parts of our energy infrastructure are currently the most vulnerable and in need of attention? >> well, i think it's many parts, including as you mention our oil, natural gas pipelines as a major safety and environmental problem. but i would just focus my

comments on electricity because, as we know, kind of electricity is the grid that all the other infrastructures depend upon as well. there, we have many tasks at hand. one is we have to better be able to integrate resources that are distributed, and i think that's ray lot of consumer and customer interest in more distributed generation, but that does not fit the traditional model of how electricity is delivered so we have both technical and regulatory issues. but i would say one very big overaerching issue is that we need to really get on with the job, in my view, of a much more complete integration of information technologies into the grid, both to provide reliability and resilience, but also to integrate that with providing new consumer services. so it's really an end to end utilization of information

technology. i think we're just scratching the surface right now. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> the chair recognizes the head of the full committee, mr. upton, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary, welcome back. good to see you. appreciate the relationship that we have all these different years. i want to go back to some of the questions as relates to spro. if you aren't able to answer something in writing afterwards will be certainly sufficient. some would argue that spro should, now, be eliminated or somewhat phased down. it's a relic of the '70s era when we're subject to the arab embargo. point out that, of course, domestic energy production is up, imports are down. private domestic oil stockpiles are at record levels and we're able to export crude for almost a year now. and, in fact, we see that happening. and there's more than -- there's almost a billion and a half barrels of crude oil, petroleum

products in private storage so they asked, do we really need a government-owned stockpile. are we actually required to hold public stocks of oil to meet international agreements, and how do other countries do it? >> well, first of all, maybe it's worth saying we are still importers of about 7 million barrels a day of crude oil. why are now net exporters of oil products but a lot of crude oil imports. the -- we are required by our agreements in the -- with the international energy agency formed in the 1970s, not only to hold strategic reserves, but also to have a particular share, which is about 44%, of the collective response capability of the oecd -- >> is there a mix that's required in terms of public and

private supplies or not? >> it's done differently in different countries. we do it by, obviously, having a physical reserve with four locations. some other countries do it by requiring -- requiring reserves with distributors, for example. so there are different ways, but always has to be on call that amount of oil. i would say that, and just you can go into more detail, but as you opened up your question, do we need a petroleum reserve, i think most vociferously, i would answer yes, and that's -- >> i knew the answer, which is why i didn't define it. >> but again, the issue as i said, in my opening remarks, is that we cannot become complacent because we're producing more oil because we are and we will

remain linked to the global oil price and our economy is exposed to that. and this is a very important tool. it's our premier energy security tool. >> let me go into the maintenance. in the d.o.e./ig report, more than 70% of spro's equipment or infrastructure exceeded its serviceable life. the report identified five separate major equipment failures in the last couple of years. i know that we authorized $2 billion for spro modernization which was intended to go to needed repairs and upgrades. is there a focus on major maintenance in the back log of the repairs? >> yes. so we estimate, and we will be seeking -- well, we've already asked for the first appropriation. $800 million roughly for the modernization, the upgrading of the equipment, and another billion roughly for enhancing

the marine distribution capability which we really need now because of the new oil flow patterns with the shale -- >> if that money came through, how long would it take to complete the work? >> it would be a few years. the authorization you all provided is for four years. we need to get on it and it should be finished in around three years. >> thank you. yield back. >> the chairman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman -- ranking member of the subcommittee, mr. rush. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, as always, nice to see you and welcome back to the committee. during these waning days of the obama administration, i want you to know that for some of us, you will always be our rock star, superstar secretary. >> for 128 more days.

>> mr. secretary, it's indeed a pleasure working with you to establish the critically important minorities and energy initiative at d.o.e. and some time before those 128 days are up, i would like to sit down with you and look at the progress, what needs to be done and what we've accomplished so far in this particular area. my staff will be in contact with the appropriate people in order for us to arrange that meeting. >> that would be a pleasure. if we could help to set up the transition to the next administration to continue that work. >> we look forward to it. mr. secretary, in the energy bill, the house bill, there's a provision that would have delayed any action on new efficiency standard for

furnaces. the department had issued a notice of proposed rule making. this was a provision that chairman whitfield and i put together by bringing together all the industry stakeholders and all the efficiency community stakeholders in a room together and having them negotiate directly with each other until a consensus was reached. to the best of my knowledge, everyone on both sides of the aisle supported that provision. however, a little less than two weeks ago, your department actually issued that suppleme supplementsupplemen supplemental notice of rule making. to my mind, you met the bar and we and more importantly the stakeholders made for you and

the condition for moving forward with the first new furnace efficiency standards in almo almost -- in around 15 years. as we're in conference on the house and senate energy, we have proposed that the house, as well as in similar provision in the senate bill be dropped because, once again, mr. secretary, and i emphasize, you met the mark that we set for you. do you agree that we should let the department move forward on the standards now that you have done what we asked? should we enforce this as the american gas association proposed or let you and the department attempt to respond to any concerns?

is it in your report? should it be in your report right now? >> yes, congressman rush. i agree this process has worked well for all kinds of efficiency standards. we go through the process. we listen, which is why, as you said, we heard the input of industry acknowledged that there was some issues raised. that's why we went went back with the snoper which did establish a new class of small furnaces addressed perhaps not all but some certainly of the industry's concerns. so this is working. we are now absorbing their comments on the snoeper n would look to try to get a final roll out this year. the process is working. there's a slippery slope if one starts to have the process interfered with for very specific rule makings and because we do have a successful process that we are executing

expeditiously. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> the chair recognizes a fellow texan, chairman joe barton for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. appreciate that. welcome, mr. secretary. good to see you. i've got a few folks in the audience. congressman gingrey. glad to have you back, sir. former member of the committee and i think the subcommittee. and mr. bud albright, former chief of staff of the committee. glad to have you. i can't think of the last time we had a cabinet secretary volunteer to testify. i'm told that you wanted to be here. usually we have to drag you guys kicking and screaming and threatening and all kinds of -- >> it's an important discussion. >> you said you wanted to come by. we dropped everything so we could hear you. we appreciate that. you mentioned in your opening

statement the strategic petroleum reserve and the function. you put out a report as you pointed out a month or two ago. that report's a little hazy on details. i have had a few inquiries in my office about do you -- when do you plan to put out perhaps hopefully for competitive bids some of the big projects, the life extension project and maritime terminal enhancement. are you going to competitively bid those, and do you have a timetable for when those requests for bids might go out? >> yes, we have, of course, we need the appropriation before we can go out and so we have our first request in for the first appropriation, which would be focused on the principally on the modernization part. but just -- >> so the next year or so? >> so early in the next year,

we'd like to move out. early in the next year. and again, with only four years of authorization, we need to, you know, be pretty snappy in terms of moving this all forward. but the -- >> snappy is a technical term that you learned? >> yes, that's right. the -- we have this under our formal project management system. the first milestone for the modernization was done last year. so we're ready to go. the first milestone for the marine terminal distribution only just happened last month. so that project will kind of be second in line, but we will be starting the conceptual ener energieenerg engineering next year. >> you answered a question to chairman upton that -- how important the strategic petroleum reserve is and that it's still relevant, but you

also answered his question that other countries do it differently. when we passed the ban on repeal the ban of crude oil exports, we also put in a provision to do a study of the spr. i think it would be worthwhile to look at privatizing. you mention in an answer to chairman upton's question you're going to need almost $2 billion to modernize it. it would seem that now would be a good time to maybe take a pgeg out of the playbook of the europeans and look at privatizing the spr and so that the government is not on the hook for the namaintenance and modernization. any interest in doing that, while you're moving forward, also look at privatizing? >> we can certainly make the next team aware of that possibility. >> you may be part of the next

team, you know. you are sitting there smiling and volunteering. mr. trump is the president, he may just ask you to stick around for a while. >> we can discuss that. >> i'm about to run out of time here. >> good. >> yeah, good. we'll strike that. >> stricken. >> the folks in chicago just have an attitude. that's all there is to it. what's your view of the market for crude oil exports now that we have repealed that ban and we are exporting crude oil? and we did it in a way that we really set up a market. there's not a lot of bells and whistles in terms of government oversight or interference or anything. i think it's doing very well, and i'm very happy that we've brought balance to the world oil markets by repealing the ability

of our domestic producers to export. you have any views on that? >> well, i think i would, in many ways, just repeat what i said last year in the discussion because i believe it's being played out. certainly the amount of exports, the increase in the amount of exports has been very modest. about 10%. because we used to export to canada. but -- and that's because in the context that we still import 7 million barrels. of course, what's happened is that there are customers who really want the light sweet oil coming out of the shale. so i think that's probably -- there's been some optimization of refinery operations in various countries by getting some of our light sweet oil. it's had some ironic changes and also, for example, i recently visited the biggest east coast

refinery in philadelphia. and they, at one point, they were taking 20% of the bachen crude and shut off their imports from africa and now that's flipped. they're back to three-quarters african imports as the market has readjusted. but macro, as i expected, frankly, at least for some years, i don't see an enormous increase in the exports. and that's shown because, especially the louisiana light index, has actually been trading even above brink. so the idea -- so there's not a big price differential. >> that's the whole point of the market. you let them actually operate and that's in itself a tremendous achievement. and over time, i think it's going to be benefits to the producers and to the consumer. my time has expired.

i simply want to say thank you for your service to the country. you've always been available to the members of the committee. you've always been cordial. our differences have been on policy, not on personality. i think you have served our country well, mr. secretary. i wish you the best in whatever the future may hold for you. >> thank you very much. >> with that, i yield back. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. mcnerney for five minutes. >> i thank the chair. mr. secretary, as more renewables come on to the grid, and as localized generation increases, what future do you see for the transmission as a business going forward? for electrical transmission? >> well, the -- clearly one of the important issues is the ability to integrate large sources, wind and solar, typically from potentially over large distances. as we know, there is difficulty

in the signing and building of these long-distance high voltage lines. we did use the congressional authorities given to the department of energy earlier this year to prove one such project that crosses several state borders. it's sufficient probably to say that that is now in litigation. but it's very important. if we're going to be able to really maximize our system for the 21st century, we need everything from the very long distance transmission to distribute a generation and bringing all of those things together is going to require grid and storage solutions. >> following up with that question, what do you see the business models looking like for the large utilities? as we get more distributed generation? >> i think there's clearly a bit

of a challenge in terms hough these business models evolve. and it's not just distributor generation. it's a very important part of that, but i would just also note that, you know, our success in demand side management is also a challenge to traditional business models because, particularly when the pie is getting bigger, when the market is getting bigger, there's many more ways of bringing in new players. so there's that kind of system. and finally, i think the -- not finally, but one other factor is that the regulatory structures clearly largely, in many ways state-based, certainly on the distribution side clearly, but the issue of how to value all the new pieces in the grid, like

storage, like capacity value, like low carbon value, et cetera. we really have not yet managed to solve that problem. and so valuation, which will open up new business we hope to get out in december. >> well, water is an essential component to energy security. can you elaborate on the doe's water energy technology team? how are they addressing that issue of water security? >> we have a very -- for the last two years we've been ramping up this water energy nexus work, and there's several elements there. one, by the way, we are focused on besides new technologies, and we have proposed, by the way, in

our fy 17 budget a newly roughly $25 million a year hub around water. it's not just about the membranes. it's about the system and how you clean up the water and everything else. in addition, i would note from our perspective, we think the quality and comprehensiveness of data on water is not up to where it needs to be. this issue we're working on data, working on technology, and working on the systems issues are all critical. international partners are excited about working with us on, this and israel, which is so far advanced in these technologies is one that we are

building up a stronger collaboration on. >> can you talk about the energy storage at the department? >> the energy storage program is one that we have expanded. a lot of congressional interest in that support, which we appreciate, so we are working -- we have a battery hub, which is doing extremely well. it is centered at argon. berkeley is the major partner. we recently put out maybe a month ago a report on hydro and pointed out in terms of storage we still have a lot of capacity for pump hydro in the country, which today is the most cost-effective in the places where you can do it. >> thank you, mr. chairman. yield back. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from ohio for five minutes. >> i thank the chairman very much, and mr. secretary, thanks for being with us.

i would like to touch on a couple of areas that you brought up in your testimony. one being fixing america's surface transportation under the fast act, and under the fast act provides the d.o.e. with a new authority to protect and restore critical infrastructure when the president declares a grid security emergency. how has this new authority changed the way d.o.e. works with critical infrastructure? >> so we are really ramping up that intersection. in fact, our secretary just hosted a meeting with leaders from the electricity sector last week at our sandia laboratory. we have -- in fact, if i just mention, say, cyber security as an example of that, we have developed now with the private sector ceos of -- well, ceos and people who work for the ceos, a

number of tools. partly it's something called crisp. i forgot what the acronym stands for, but it is a program of much more by directional exchange and situational awareness about cyber threats, including the exchange of classified information. secondly, we have developed what's called a maturity model, which allows the electricity sector, but also we've extended it to the oil and gas sectors to get a much better understanding of where they are in their cyber capabilities and, third, we have just instituted in august a dd.u.e., an integrated joint cyber activity that knits together all of our capabilities from our laboratories on cyber

to get faster response for faster iechksz and response of cyber threats. that's already shown its potential in a particular cyber threat that was identified much faster than was done in the industry itself. >> since you brought up the cyber side especially what's happening there, how is your cooperation been working with other departments and agencies in the government? especially homeland security. >> i think it's been good and getting better. in fact, this information sharing crisp initiative is with d.h.s., and certainly we also worked, i might say, not if in electricity so much -- well, electricity too, but it's other areas. work extremely well with fema in

temz terms of addressing issues. that included some of the flooding issues, for example. >> the fast act also requires you to submit a plan to congress by the end of the year evaluating the feasibility of establishing a strategic transformer reserve for the storage of spare large power transformers and emergency mobile substations for temporarily replace critically damaged equipment. can you tell me what the status of the review is and how to complete that? >> we expect to meet that december target. >> one other thing if i could, it's one of the areas i'm always interested in, in your testimony you also brought it up in the opening statement that when you are talking about different things, that are either natural or manmade, where are we at on especially d.o.e. and trying to combat electromagnetic pulses, especially when they're manmade. >> we've done quite a bit of

work on that in collaboration with epry. in fact, this is part of a report we have to share with you on resilient strategy. that was done with epry. we also have, of course, classified information that could be discussed in a different venue. >> well, thank you very much, mr. secretary. mr. chairman, i yield back the balance of my time. >> the chair now is happy. recognize university of houston's biggest -- in florida, ms. caster for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. he says that because the university president used to be the provost at the university of south florida campus. we can take ownership of her too. i want to thank you at the hotel center for global sustainability dr. lidia secarra. your director at the office of

solar technologies to give a presentation, and the room was packed even though we were in the midst of a huge rain event due to a tropical storm, and i think you're absolutely correct that american families and businesses across the country have so much interest in the growing renewable market and the potential to save money through energy efficiency. in fact, at the end of august during the primary election we had a constitutional amendment on the ballot to provide a little help to solar industry, and it passed by 73%, and i think folks are frustrated in the sunshine state because we have no goals for renewable standards. they cut back on energy efficiency. what you say about the business models at the state level really hit home, and we can talk a little bit more about that, but

the energy information administration is projecting that growth in renewable energy is going to grow faster than just go any other energy sector. in fact, they say over the past year we've exceeded projections month after month after month. you've said in this qer right now that it's outdated, that we've got to look beyond oil security, and energy security needs to be more broadly defined to cover not only oil, but other sources combatting climate change is also essential to strengthening collecting energy security. how far behind are we? i know the big grid modernization effort is very important, but what else do we need? >> well, i think, first of all, in terms of the addressing the

clean energy part, which was the third, fourth, and fifth principles, their major initiative that we put forward is the idea of doubling our innovation budgets over, say, a five-year period. we've been pleased that the concept has gotten i think very strong bipartisan support. that's got to get translated into numbers over these years, but i think that's very important. i might also add and it will probably be referred to soon by mr. mckinley that i was in morgantown earlier this week for our 13th regional innovation meeting. we are emphasizing that we think regional portfolio management will actually be a real plus, and needless to say there's been a lot of support for that too. now we need congress to

hopefully authorize that. that's on that side, but in terms of the more global aspects of energy security, i think since 2014 when those principles were put out, we have made substantial progress particularly in our discussions with the e.u., with the european commission, the european commission then adopted a very strong energy security policy in line with those principles, and we work closely with them. there's still a lot of implementation to go in the european context, but that's been important. a lot of it was driven initially by the ukraine aggression. >> what i hear back home, they think they write it into the

thermostat in their home. climate change. they see the cost right now after this recent tropical storm. they understand when you have salt water intrusion, the huge rain events are costing people money. flood insurance. emergency response. if we don't do more up front, it's going to be very, very costly, and i understand that. >> i visited florida power and light, and they're doing a lot, but it cost money to harden the system because of the obvious sea level rise. >> gentlemenlady yields back. we recognize the gentleman from west virginia, mr. mckinley, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you again, mr. secretary,

for coming to participate in that panel, and the trip to long view power plant. we hope it was beneficial to you. i have a couple of comments. i want to build up a little with my friends from california because when i read the written statements and listened to your opening statement, there were two it admissions that i heard. one is you didn't talk about water as being part of our national economic security, which i thought was -- but even more so you didn't mention -- i think it deserved to have some mention as part of our national economic kurt of this country on that. let me go to some questions, however, quickly. we've had testimony from phil

mohler when he was back, and he has since confirmed again that we've apparently talked about grid security reliability and that we've lost somewhere in the naubd of 70 gigawatts. it's an intermittent low. not a base low. we're still at a net loss, but much of that gain that we've made that replacement is over renewables, which we can't count on because there's intermittent use with it. how can -- how can congress get involved in value iing just dependable base load power plants. whether that's using gas or coal. what do we do to incentivize that? we have a satisfactory grid

then. we know -- we know we can't count on wind and solar to power our base load. in in effect, the grid is the storage system for wind and solar. now, as those penetrations, if they get much, much higher, of course, then we will have to manage the variability of those sources. part of it is technology like storage, energy storage would take care of that, but your suggestion, i think, goes right to something i mentioned earlier. that is what is the way of valuing different services in the grid that are have not been part of the traditional

regulated utility model, and one of those would be the question of value and base load, which, by the way,ing right now that's a major issue as well with nuclear power with the shutdown of a number of nuclear plants as well. in terms of response, the -- current i would say that there are certainly very few authorities in the federal government, certainly the d.u.e. ferk is doing work on what they call price formation, which is a question of how do you value these other qualities and states are the center of the action. part of the house package and the senate package, the energy bill, there is the ethane

storage skpk what we refer to as the appalachian hub. wepd be able to have storage of it in the northeast. are you aware of that? do you see an advantage of having a for energy security and national security. >> i would say that, of cour course -- given the ethane production. it's extremely valuable commodity, but, again, i specifically on the issue of ethane storage, i have to admit i have not thought that through. >> just in the meantime, just quickly when you met with longview and they made the statement that as they are the most efficient, cleanest coal

fire plant in america ahead of terk, but they said they can't get a permit to build off that. what would we learn -- what did you learn and how we could help another facility like that be constructed? >> well, again, as we discussed in morgantown, first of all, we continue to be very committed to carbon capture sequestration as a critical technology that we will need and everyone else says that. they will need to meet our climate goals most economically, so that's very important. i thought the proposal that they made there about coal firing was quite interesting, and, in fact, i hoped -- i do get a spreadsheet on that to look at. meeting the clean power plant goals with the goal and gas. coal fire would be quite

interesting. again, i'm happy to discuss it. a third one, which i mentioned, is a big game changer, if we can really solve it, but it's probably longer term, is the question of what are the technologies for economic -- very, very large scale utilization of co2. that's a big deal. if we can solve that problem. >> gentleman's time has expired. the number one houston cougars from houston. houston green for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, mr. secretary. i appreciate the job that you are doing. let me start out on the strategic petroleum reserve. we have 7 million barrels a day. how long would it take if all of a sudden we had an embargo and we couldn't ramp up in our own domestic production, which i think we could and be able to drain -- draw anything out of

it? >> we could certainly start withdrawing from it. i think it's a weak time frame, something like that. it's a rapid reaction. whereas, going to the uncompleted wells would be a several month activity. >> i was told it was much longer than that. that's why some of the things we did -- >> i'll check on that, but eebl it's more like -- it's not so much a technical issue as it is getting all of the sometimes all of the bids required for the distribution of the oil. >> even though we have a great pipeline in louisiana and texas, like you said, the maritime issues that we have to actually get -- >> also because of reverse flows in some of the pipes to get incremental barrels out is probably going to require, as we said, much more maritime distribution. >> the main questions i have --

you've talked a little bit about it, is that in 2014 one-third of the intention cyber attacks targeted energy infrastructure. in your testimony speaking about cyber security you stated we are seeing threats continuing to increase in numbers and sophisticated. this evolution is profound impact on security and resilience of our energy sector. i hope our hearing today we can understand what's being done, and on more of what we can do in congress to protect against these increasing hazards. it's not just looking at democrat or republican, but we're talking about refineries in east harris county and louisiana. you know, coal plants, natural gas facilities, and things like that. one of the most significant challenges in securing energy delivery systems against the cyber attacks. >> i'm just adding, if i may, that the point you make about the interconnectedness is very

important and as we've pointed out that electricity problems have led to enormous refinery and fuels problems, et cetera, et cetera. it's really important that cyber is just a growing threat. i think the key as i said earlier, working with industry is -- i mean, at d.u.e., let me emphasize, we would have i would say three different kinds of cyber challenges. someone a standard big entity administrative systems and personal information. the second is our nuclear weapons information, and third, in the hardest one in many ways is working with the private sector, the energy system. it's really information exchange, including making technology available to the private sector is really a key in many ways. a second key for us is to use

all of our assets, including those at our laboratories and bring those to the table on cyber threats, and we've done enterprise-wide. the one thing that i would say is -- in terms of possible changes in maybe legislative and it's not only for cyber, but it's for other issues as well. we need to make sure there are not barriers which could be competitiveness barriers, for example, that are out there for different parts of the industry working together on the response. >> well, i'll give you -- when we had hurricane ike come through east harris county, and it shut down the refineries in galveston bay in both united airlines. we said we would never light our

airplanes out of houston, and we are having to do it, and the air force is there too saying -- we need to have this jet fuel. that's why we need that grid up. >> coordination. >> the plan has -- each plan has their own, but you can't run a plant for generators. you have to have the grid to help. that's why it's so important. i know in some areas like in east harris county, we have a partnership both for security and other things, but i just want to make sure that everybody is on the same page. >> i might add that, for example, in may we ran a very big so-called table top exercise in the northwest, and lots of industry participation, many agencies, so that everybody could understand the challenges of everybody working together on the same page. that's important. another thing i just mentioned is that even though it's much smaller, you know, we have moved out in a couple of product

reserves as opposed crude oil reserves, and that came into play with sandy when we released that to some of the first responders so that they would have the fuel to respond. >> that's another interesting discussion. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from the commonwealth, mr. griffith, for five minutes. >> thank you very much. mr. secretary, thank you for being here as well. >> has time you were before this committee back in march, i expressed my appreciation for the folks at the department of energy working with me to set up the future of coal. about a month later david mohllor for clean coil and carbon management came to the coal -- a public symposium at the university of is a are have a's college at wise was held on the future of coal technology, innovation, and industry, and i

also highlight after i did that with all the opinion shapers in the business leaders and the folks who work in the coal industry, your team went over to clintwood, which doesn't get many visitors. there's no four-lane highways in dickenson county to visit students at ridgeview high school, which is a brand new high school built with a lot of dollars from the federal government because the county is not wealthy. it's in central appealachiaeara coal fields. that visit was particularly important for the students there in dickerson county because your team made it clear that there are possibilities in science that can affect the coal industry positively. i commend your folks for doing that. i also commend you for having the leadership to have folks.

i think it speaks highly of the work that you are doing. while we may not always agree, i would have headed in your leadership the department of energy, and i appreciate that. >> maybe it's been provided to you, but just to make sure actually at the end of august we produced i think a very nice synthetic paper on all of the coal issues that we're dealing with, and if you have not seen that, we'll shoot it to your office. >> i haven't seen it, but my staff may have it. it's been one of those busy times in d.c., as you know, when you have a few weeks, but i'll try to read that when i come home. we had a lot of good constitution discussions, and we talked about how to get our coal miners back to work and how we continued to refine the coal region in our economy and in our electric generation. it meant a lot to the people in southwest virginia and particularly in the coal fields in those counties, so i appreciate the hard work that you did in making all that

happen. one of the main things that i found particularly interesting in our discussions is we talked about the need for research parody for clean coal technology and why you've touched today already on some of the things with carbon capture and sequestration. i think that's the hot button issue and probably a good source in the short run, but with research i'm convinced we can use our fossil fuels, not just coal, but the other fossil fuels as well in better ways. can you just take a minute and discuss some of the things you all are working on with all the different fossil fuels and research and the importance of having parody? there's nothing wrong with renewables. parody with the renewables because we'll need the fossil fuels as well. >> on carbon capture, that's not only about coal. coal is obviously kind of the mark key application in many ways, but i believe ultimately we will need it for natural gas and very importantly, for a

whole variety of industrial facilities. we also support, like, ethnatural plants and natural gas processing plants, et cetera. that's important. i want to emphasize we have spent $5 billion on ccs. we also have an $8.5 billion loan guarantee program open right now for fossil technologies, et cetera. one of the things that really excites me for the longer term and would have -- i just mentioned one example of really breakthrough carbon management would have enormous implications for how fossil fuels can then be used in the economy. one of those is, as i said, the potential for really big scale co2 utilization, and if i toss out, you know, like a holy grail

of that, sunlight water and co2 to hydrocarbon fuels. some of the fuels industry might be, you know -- would be challenged, but that would be, for example, a game changer. there are negative carbon technologies that we should pursue. i think in terms of coal -- i say coal -- there's three big thrusts. one is the jaebd around things like ccs. another is the transitional assistance to economies and workers in coal country, and we just issued $39 million there. third is the really big breakthrough possibilities that could change the entire carbon management equation. >> thank you. my time is up. i yield back. >> the gentleman is back. recognize the gentleman from california. for five minutes.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to echo what my colleague mr. barton said earlier, and thank you for being a pretty regular witness here on our committee over the ten-year at the white house. by all appearances you are very willing to answer all kinds of questions, which is the most pressing topic. thank you for the time you have spent with us. your testimony today indicates this is a timely and pressing issue before us. we're currently in a conference level, a committee, of trying to negotiate an energy bill that will help define our energy landscape for the next decade. at the same time we know these threats from climate change are real, so bold action needs to be taken. communities across the nation are already facing the threats of climate change. in fact, i don't care call it a

threat anymore as much as dealing with the outcomes, which we are experiencing, whether through increased storm severity or flooding or as in california, the crippling impacts of our drought. my area five-year drought. we're building -- it's very expensive. the technology is pretty precarious. the massive forest fires have been costly too. i believe it's time we stopped considering these conditions as anomalies and addressing -- start addressing them as the new normal. if we start implementing strategies to adopt the scenarios, and also to the extent possible to mitigate them by reducing our contributions to climate change that's happening. president obama has made real progress in laying out a framework to start this transition, but there's a lot more work that needs to be done. we must expand the existing green technologies, such as solar power and increased energy

efficiency and invest in the new technologies that will carry us into the future. many of our research universities are really leading the way in doing this. it will benefit our energy security, and also our national security and our economy at the same time. can you -- you mentioned this in your opening statement, but i would like to give you more time to discuss the ways of renewable agencies and investment and inefficiency will bolster our energy security. >> i think, again, the answer to the last part is pretty straight forward. the renewable technologies are not looking at -- there's no issue of importing or exporting the fuels. that's true anywhere. a mix maybe. that's true anywhere.

the importance of this as an element of our energy and national security is quite clear. in terms of moving -- i, of course, maybe not totally objective, but i think innovation is absolutely core to this, and that's good news for us because we lead in innovation. we have to stay the leaders in innovation. particularly because as one of my -- one of our ceo friends in the energy industry tom fanning, the head of southern company, says they can't keep the waves off the beach. i mean, we are heading in this direction in terms of lower carbon and the paris agreement. no matter what you think about it, it tells you that we are developing a multi-trillion dollar global clean energy technology business.

the head of that train. now, cost reductions is critical, and we have -- through innovation and through deployment, they work together. more deployment, more innovation drives those costs down. we've seen that now for solar. we've seen it for wind. we've seen it for l.e.d.'s, which is not quite renewable energy, but uses less energy. we need to have the cost reduction pathway going and do it for carbon capture, and do it for nuclear and do it for off shore wind. we just got to keep at this across the board. i remain an all of the above guy aimed at a low carbon future where hopefully our industries, all of our industries, all of our people can be part of that

solution. >> just the right amount of time, but a word to say thank you because this path of progress during your administration, your leader shim at the department and to the extent that we are able to work with you is really made, i hope, significant progress although, as i said, there's a lot more work to be done. hopefully this is a movement now that will not be questioned as much as it used to be, but that we'll see it as progress all along the way. innovation is a great word. >> gentle lady's time has expired. recognize the fellow texan, mr. flores, for five minutes. >> the u.s. is now the leading producer of oil and natural gas, and how is this new age

benefitted our global competitiveness and allowed the u.s. to position itself as a global super power? >> oh, it's had an enormous impact on natural gas. first of all, we have not become major importers. we expect to be net natural gas exporters in 2017. domestically it has led to both a tremendous renewal in manufacturing. $170 billion capital invested in just in the kind of chemical arena and, by the way, also reducing carbon emissions. on the oil side, again, we remain very large crude oil importers, but the dramatic decrease in our net oil and oil products imports has had a

tremendous balance payments impact. both of them have changed the world energy scene and we are now looked at in a very different way. >> you haven't talked about the geopolitical implications. >> we are looked at in a different way. >> i'm talking about from a global stability standpoint. that's a different thing. moving on, you have talked about the failure of our nation's infrastructure to keep up with the new dynamics that we have in this energy industry. not only with respect to transmission, but also transmission of natural gas. the lack of capacity of the recent opposition to new infrastructure means that the average consumer pays more for energy than they should, but we headed for price spikes because of lack of infrastructure? >> i -- i would not want to

predict, but obviously there's a vulnerability if infrastructure is not there. another polar vortex or who knows what would happen. >> right. >> also, it's not just -- it's not even just wires and pipes, but also, as we pointed out in the q.e.r., inland waterways, dock -- i mean, ports, et cetera. >> and also. >> it makes no mention of the issues that arise with cross-border presidential permitting in general or in particular of the keystone xl pipeline. do you agreure silent permitting process is the qer because it creates significant uncertainty. >> that's what the qer said. therefore, we -- >> it's -- that goes to the next

question. that is how is the inability to render a decision in the keystone pipeline impacted other energy projects? >> again, i think the qer pointed out. i had forgotten to use that number. we have a lot of infrastructure crossing the border and certainly our electricity systems are essentially integrated with canada and now with mexico there's going to be increasing integration there as well. >> right. >> are you -- >> texas and mexico, as you know, do trade electricity. including lead power as well. let me ask you this. let me ask you about the time it took to reach the decision on keystone? >> that's a question for the department of state. that's not my responsibility. >> okay. you're the head of d.o.e. i would say you have a dog in

this hunt. >> that's a question for the department of state. >> all right. okay. is there room to establish a more uniform coordinated modern process for the consideration of the cross-border pipeline and transmission? i'm sure you have -- >> well, i think that the only thing i would say more broadly and it implies to also -- it does apply to other d.o.e. responsibilities is i think the congress has for good reason over the years put in all of these statutory, you know, assignments the idea of national interest determinations. i think that is what we do for lng exports and that's what the state does for their responsibilities. we have it for cross-border electricity lines. >> in my opinion this is something congress needs to get involved with the stat other underpinnings of the decision making process with regard to this. i'm assuming you would be willing to provide technical assistance to congress?

>> we're always happy to provide technical assistance. >> thank you very much. i yield back my time. >> the gentleman's time has expired. the chair calls upon a gentleman from pennsylvania. mr. doyle for five minutes. >> approximate secretary, first of all, thank you for your service. i've been in congress 22 yoerz and been through five or six secretaries of energy. you're by far one of the best, and you're going to be missed here. i want to say that right up front. just two quick things. i know we all agree on the importance of carbon capture utilization of storage. there's international consensus that it be very difficult if not impossible to meet our climate change goals by 2050 without this in place, and also without additional investment in this sector, the electricity sector, if we try to limit global warming to the 2 degree scenario

without it it's going to cost $2 trillion over the next 40 years. it's not only necessary to meet the goal, but it's necessary to meet the goal in an affordable way. i know the white paper that you recently listed several bills here in congress which would change tax credits or financing options for ccus. my question is you think what we're doing is substantial enough and what other options might we pursue. it seems like we've been talking about ccs forever. it doesn't seem we're any closer to actually seeing, you know, implementation of this technology on a scale where it can be helpful, and as you said, it's not just coal. it's natural gas too. what do we need to do to sort of make this, you know, a moon shot

and get this technology out there. the point is that there's -- there has not been a price signal to the private sector there, and i think that's what we need to have for sure. i would just make another point, if i might, on this kind of finance side. as you know, the administration has proposed now for two years tax credits for carbon capture. both investment tax credits and storage credits. in congress there's a lot of discussion around 45q as -- they have some different numbers, but fundamentally the same idea. i think a point that's not been appreciated enough and is why i think, you know, congress addressing this with some urgency was called for is that

big capital expenditures by utilities, by investors, et cetera, have a long gestation ti time. there are two signals that would be very powerful for pushing on ccu.s. one would be something like these tax credits that were put in place for a long period of time. okay. now i understand. you know, what i'm getting into. secondly, of course, is the carb carbon. the power plant does that through the regulatory approach. there are other approaches, obviously, including a direct one, but all i'm saying, i think signals now. it's not, you know, saying ccs might be a big deal in 2030, so let's wait. you'll need the signals now if you are going to get those

investments made. in 16 and 17 we have -- we are moving forward into pilot project scale, ten megawatt scale. we could take a lot bigger steps with more resources. i think those are the two areas that signal side on finance and carbon management and the innovation. >> we're seeing some of these premature nuclear plant retiermts and that could cause a threat to our diversity, and i know during the summit, you emphasized some of the valuable attributes like carbon-free electricity, reliable service, fuel diversity, and explain that these are not systematically valued by electricity markets.

you further stated that the department is prepared to take action to help address the economic market and valuation challenges for nuclear power, so could you explain the actions that the department has taken since the nuclear summit to insure nuclear plants are compensated for the energy security reliability, and other benefits they provide to the electricity? >> we don't have the authorities to take those regulatory actions, but what we've been doing and are doing is doing the studies of how to value those attributes, and that will lead to some recommendations in our quadrennial energy review at the end of the year. that's one thing. we also continued to have discussions with ferk which does have some authorities in terms of the price formation on the wholesale level. that's going on. of course, a lot of the action is at the states, and certainly

one of the notable actions was the new york initiative in august for the so-called clean energy standard and carbon neutral approach. that's very important. the other thing is in terms of the nuclear plant shutting down is clearly the clean power plant implementation plans and, you know, neck year we are rather confident on the courtside. 2018 is when the implementation plans are due. now, it would seem ironic to have lost zero carbon assets just as states are going forward with implementation plans. that's why something like the new york activity and illinois is considering something similar. i think they are quite important.

>> mr. secretary, i do want to ek quo the comments of some of my colleagues. it's been a pleasure working with you over the last few years. i -- you know, as we talk about these important ideas around energy security, i am glad to hear you say that you remain an all of the above advocate. i certainly hope that as you transition assuming that you transition out, someone else transitions in, that you will pass that advocacy on to your successor in the sense that, you know, we -- one of these days because we're problem solvers here in america. we always have been. you look back throughout our history. we won't go through the littany,

but there have been a lot of them. someday somebody might soofl the problem of harnessing the sun's energy and storing it up so that it can be made available on the energy grid for base load. same thing with wind energy. other alternative energy forms. i just hope that we can return once again to kind of a commonsense approach to an all of the above energy policy where we don't throw out the baby with the bath water and we're not killing jobs and that we're looking more for market driven solutions rather than solution from inside the washington beltway because i think the american people are -- are screaming for that. i don't think we can forget about the impact that we've made to our communities that have served our energy and national

security needs, and i hope that we can continue to work together throughout the rest of your tenure and you will also pass along the importance of finding a long-term funding solution for those funding challenges at d.o.e.'s cleanup sites, like the portsmouth piped in facility. those are very important that we keep those projects on a path to completion so that we can redevelop those properties and put them back into good use for the communities that have given so much already for our energy future. mr. secretary, you know d.o.e., as you well know all too well, is central to america's role in international civil nuclear commerce markets through what is known as the part 8-10 process under the atomic energy act doe

authorizes certain foreign sbe actions supper as technical nothing transfer and assistance on commercial nuclear power plants provided by our domestic nuclear industry. this authorization process has been the subject of scrutiny from both gao and this committee due to a long bureaucratic approval process, and i recognize that d.o.e. has been working to address these criticisms over the last several years by developing and implementing an updated streamline process. are you or the deputy secretary monitoring progress of these reforms? >> yes, we are. in fact, i would be happy to share with you some data that i saw just maybe two months ago, i think, in terms of some progress actually in terms of shortening the times because there were -- one of the issues is we've managed to -- with the inner agency because the d.o.e. is responsible, but we work with state and other agencies, and

what i think we have succeeded in is eliminating a lot of different serial activity with some parallel activity, and so the data suggests that there's been some progress. i would be happy to hair is a those with you. >> can you send that over to us? that would be great. that would be great. in the remaining time, i understand d.o.e. after two years of talking about it has not yet deployed its ek will trong tracking system to incorporate transparency and accountability and to the process and assist applicants. what is the source of that delay, and do you have an estimate for when this new tracking system will be active? >> on that i'll have to get back to you and respond. i'm not up to she'd speed on that. >> you can respond back on both of those. that would be great, mr. secretary. good luck to you. i too have enjoyed working with you, and i appreciate your sound reasoned approach on most of the

issues that we've dealt with here. >> thank you. mr. chairman, may i just -- >> yes. >> i'm going back to earlier statements that on the job creation front i do want to emphasize that things like, you know, the renewable space, energy efficiency, we have had tremendous job growth, so certainly in the energy sector -- i'm not talking about oil and gas production. there's that too, but we've had tremendous job growth net. we also recognize that there are distributional issues. that's not a uniform issue, and that's why working with our communities and talking about transitional activities is quite important, but the net job growth has been actually quite substantial. just solar alone is over 200,000 full-time jobs. energy efficiency jobs, which are a little harder to find, i would also be happy to share

with you a jobs report that we did earlier this year. energy jobs report. it was quite surprising. it was 1.9 million jobs associated with energy efficiency in the country, but we have distribution problems, and obviously appalachianaa is prime among those. >> and the coal industry. it's pretty hard to get my folks to look at a jobs report that shows all of this optimism that you are reflecting when we're seeing communities going to shut down mode because of the coal industry. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> the gentleman's time is expired. the chair now calls upon the gentleman from new york for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chair. mr. secretary, thank you for your bold leadership and for your visionary approach to what is a very difficult policy area. we have prospered from your

knowledge base and your determination to make a difference. for the leadership of the past and i'm certain into the future. thank you. thank you for leading us. in the past tradition was you spin those meters, assess the bills, print those bills to the customer and all functioned. as we transition, transform with technology, with renewables, with research, with distributed generation, with -- how do we bring the utilities along in that effort to make certain that they're able to tb a strong a player as possible assisting to grow for the commerce and responding to quality opportunities to the residential base and commercial base they

serve and at the same time address national security. there is a big challenge there as we transition and transform. how can we best assist in that effort? >> well, i think with the link to security, certainly a critical element is their responsibilities and maybe opportunities to address resilience and reliability together because that's a new challenge. now, that has to be typically, of course, appropriately internalized in rate structures, which tends to be a state by state activity. i think the congress would have to think through how we wanted to do that intersection with the states perhaps by incentiveiz g incentiveizing.

the build-out of infrastructure that we need, particularly for resilien resilience, against that entire threat spectrum i mentioned earlier, including climate-induced threats, to physical threats, to cyber and the like. i think that is a very, very important part. the second part, which, again, would typically be at the state level, because it involves the distribution system as opposed to the high voltage transmission lines is the question of what are utilities able to do regulatorily and what are they able to do in a business sense in terms of bundling new services to customers along with electricity supply because, again, as i said earlier, we don't anticipate a big growth in electricity demand. maybe even eventually increasing

demand even as the economy grows. then that means a business model needs to evolve as well into probably new services. >> yeah. well, as you know in new york, my home state, the process is up and underway, and everyone is waiting for what that produces. i think it looks very strateg strategically at the transformation taking place in this industry. and, again, with having lived through superstorm sandy, we saw what worked and what didn't. distributed generation had a major plus report card after that aftermath of superstorm sandy. >> new york is certainly a leader and also, i might say, not in the policy arena, but also integrated with its very strong and strong arm d as well. >> thank you for mentioning that. what do commitments to mission

innovations, and other investments in clean energy research mean to a stronger outcome for national security. >> well, i absolutely critical because, as we said, first of all, the whole clean energy push is in parcel of a modern energy security picture. so, i've said it before, that i think -- well i said it also here, it's also an enormous economic opportunity that we have to take advantage of and it wasn't exactly your question, but i want to emphasize that the question of doubling our innovation budget raises the question of, you know, do you have the capacity to absorb it well. i think we have so much unused capacity for innovation in this

country that that will not be a problem. i can go with problems like arthur e where we're funding 2.5% of the proposal in a program that's by any logical measure, extremely successful. i think there's a big pay off for us in economy, environment and security with that kind of investment. >> i agree. having watched some of the activities the ripple effects of sound paying jobs that that are associated and also a shot in the arm for the economy. >> it's that and the infrastructure renewal agenda, which is just absolutely critical. >> again, secretary, thank you. and we're all made stronger because of your leadership. >> thank you. >> the time has expired the chairman calls on the gentleman from new york, mr. ingle, for five minutes. >> first of all, i want to add my voice to the thanks and the

accolades that have been given to you. you've been accessible. you've been intelligent. you've been just terrific and only with energy and things that this committee does, you're on the iran deal you were right up front in answering questions. we didn't always agree, but you were always brilliant. i want to thank you. we really appreciate it. i want to start by talking about offshore wind energy, it hasn't been talked about very much here today. a small percentage of our global wind energy is generated offshore and much of the capacities in northern europe. but we're now starting to invest here in the united states. the first offshore wind farm is set to begin commercial operation in early november and several are being developed in new york, long island power authority is currently working to improve 90 mega watt farm

that will become the largest in the united states. can you talk a little bit about that wind generation, the u.s., what are the challenges, security, or otherwise, that the federal government needs to address with this? >> you know, this is a very interesting time for off-shore wind. as you mentioned the 30-mega watt project, actually, they finished construction and they'll start to get into the grid in november. that's the first off-shore wind farm. two, last friday secretary jewel and i released a jointly developed off-shore wind strategy, and if you haven't seen that we'll be happy to shoot that over to you to kind of lay out a bunch of the issues. by the way, one of the issues is not just only the kind of technology you think about. there's a lot more data we need to understand the development of

offshore wind. third, i do want to emphasize that in the block island project, that there's really excellent collaboration between the wind people and the wild life, like wild life federation, projecting whales and this kind of thing. i think that's an important part of the development. that's kind of going well. then i think we are now moving into this where we'll start to see platforms and we have a three-pilot projects, one main, one new jersey, new jersey new york area, fisherman's wharf. and one lake eerie, so-called north coast, that are looking at novel technologies.

two, the main project, in particular, is a floating platform that will ultimately be for deep water. there's discussion of a massive deep water wind farm off of hawaii, as well. so i say all of this that i think it's the same story that i said earlier, technology, development and deployment going hand in hand to drive cost down. i think we're now at that place for offshore wind where we can anticipate that kind of trajectory of getting the cost down. the block island project, ppa is like 24 cents per kilowatt hour, for an island like that, that's a lot less that they're now playing by bringing in diesel fuel. so i think, you know, i think we're at the beginning of that virtual cycle. >> i want to talk about the

testimony that we've read, turned on certain aspects of the economy including telecommunications and transportation and i want to talk about how the relationships apply to the emergency response responsibility. talk about super storm sandy, when it hit the east coast in 2012, the impact on energy structure was devastating and illustrated in many ways that our energy systems were vulnerable to disruption, as we all know more than 8 million people lost power. networks were power liezed and service stations couldn't pump gas. products were badly damaged. since that time, we've instituted a wide range of policies and procedures that design to better protect our citizens and infrastructure, we've made improvements but it's still a work in progress.

in your view, what are the biggest remaining vulnerabilities that need to be addressed. and what's that should the government and the private sector take next. >> well, we certainly for sandy and, obviously, katrina and rita and we can go through the list, certainly in the costal areas, the reality is that we have to be preparing much more and hardening our infrastructure for the inevitable continually increasing sea level and water temperature, which both contribute to the amplification of storm surges and the damage that we -- that we have seen. so there's a lot of blocking and tackling there that we have to do. i mentioned earlier, for example, florida powered light, you know, they're going through

replacement of all the -- essentially, the wooden poles. they're worried about the substations that are in flood areas. as they're doing it and i think, i'm sure they can do other things, too, but i give them credit. as they do the kind of straightforward hardening at the same time, they integrate smart technology. so they are getting resilience, reliability and the possibilities, also, of more information for managing the grid. so i think there's a lot of that that we have to do. the second point i'll make and, again, in new jersey we did a project of the laboratory after sandy was to design a major micro grid system with distributed energy that will sustain the electrified transport corridor, which is a critical public safety issue.

that went down, too, sandy. so there's also now getting that kind of micro grid structure to make sure that really critical pieces of infrastructure can operate during these storms, so that's important and this is a whole string of things, but those are some examples. >> okay. thank you. and once again, thanks for all you've done. we ae appreciate it. >> thank you. >> time has expired. mr. secretary, whooo, it's over. i'll close by saying thank you so very much for your patience, your expertise and your frankness. in texas we say you're a straight shooter, that's a very high compliment. no matter what happens in the future, i want to extend invitation in my district, at mit and doe, she's coming online this december, she'll capture 95% of the co 2 of one stack

that's made by powerful coal captured 95% user to get oil at about 65 miles south. it's the first viable, economically viable sequestration project in america. that's a big part. >> thank you. thank you. thank you. >> we're excited about it. >> if you come by, too, give us a little more time. best barbecue in rosenburg and bob's taco station, best tacos in fort ben county. with that, members, you have five days to submit questions for the record, this hearing is adjourned. >> thank you.

>> join us friday on discussion.

saturd >> in any war, in any time, weapons dictate tactics. you've probably heard that the civil war was faugtd with modern weapons and antiquated tactics and that's not quite true. the civil war is actually an evolutionary war, as both weapons and the men who employ those weapons learn different methods to fight with. >> author david powell talks about formations during the civil war. then at 9:00, military historian

michael talks about hi book about the 1945 meeting of harry true man, winston church hill to negotiate the end of world war ii and the reconstruction of europe. so the power in europe became a zero sum game. create a european union and the phrase is already out there. so that france, germany, russia, poland, don't see events on the continent as a zero-sum game. >> the idea that american presidents have always gotten the very best health care available in ever euro they live. i want to tell you that this is a charming myth and problems began almost immediately with george washington. >> parkway central librarian richard on myths surrounding

presidents and their health. he'll talk about how doctors have sometimes contributed to a president's death or saved them from dying without public knowledge. for our complete american history tv schedule go to cspan.org. that is grand rapids and grand rivers which divides the city. >> there's a good chance that most people over the course of any given day will see or interact with a piece of furniture made in grand rapids. >> we were the first city to receive a grant from the endowment to be used specifically to commission an original work of art for a specific civic site. >> this weekend, the c span city's tour, along with the comcast cable partners will explore the literary life and michigan. gordon olson, author of the book

"thin ice" talks about notable people. in about his newest biography on gerald ford. and gordon andrews talking about the life of charles hamilton houston and his role on the early civil rights movement. >> on american history tv on cspan three. grand rapids talks about the letter she wrote to then congressman gerald ford to help spark a movement bringing art work to public places across the country. we'll visit the public museum and talk about why the city is nicknamed the furniture city. we'll take you to the newly renovated exhibits at the gerald r. ford presidential library and

museum. >> a new car pulled up and stopped in front of the store and this big fellow stepped out of it and stepped into the entry way of the store and paused there, for a long time, and staired at junior. ford asked him if he could help him. the man looked at him and said, you' you're leslie lynch king, jr. he said, no. i'm gerald ford, jr. he said well, i'm your son, you're my father and i want to take you to lunch working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. >> now, it's a look at u.s. views on refugees and their treatment. photographers who captured images and refugee communities talk about how their pictures have influenced the public

perception, refugees and other migrant communities. gonzalez correspondent for pbs moderates this discussion for center, from last month, this runs about an hour 15 minutes. see, mike work greats. one challenge. first off, thank you for the generous introduction and that run down of my -- some of my bio, appreciate that. and thank you all for coming. it's a beautiful day in southern california. there are many things you can be doing other than hearing a conversation about refugees and photo exhibit. i hope you've all seen the exhibit, which is fantastic, i saw it myself last week. and i come to the photo space as frequently as i can. and i tell every visitor to los angeles who i know is a friend or a relative, go to the photo space, you have to see this

place. it's a gem of los angeles. it's a great way to spend a few hours in terms of their exhibition, whether it's on this refugee or anything else they've covered in the past. thank you very much for being here. let's turn to the conversation at hand and our guests here today starting from just a short introduction. and as i told them, conversations in the green room, if you're curious about their background, you google them, they have very very long resumes, much longer than my own, very distinguished but i'll be very brief in my introductions to them. first on the far left is professor of law at ucla. she's the new -- new director of center of near eastern studies atlanta ucla. a graduate of yale law school and laws of war.

to her right and in the center is nikita she's a historian and photography with an emphasis on war report aj, social activism and photography. she earned her ba at which college? >> varner college. got her nf a&m a and phd at har vord, correct? >> yes. >> and you are working on a project, now, about the civil war? civil war. >> and then to my immediate left is win, he teaches at usc. american studies. >> american studies and ethnicity. >> and ethnicity and he's the author of the novel "sympathier" which won an award, which i think i've heard of it. and it's, essentially, it's about the vietmanese immigration

experience but told in the context of a thriller. it's a great read. he's working on another book that's coming out next week called the refugee, correct. >> "refugees". >> check it out so you can order it online or the refugees next year. let's set up the issue with the international refugee crisis as it exists right now. in preparation for this, did a little homework. the united nations said there are 65 million refugees now in the world. that's about one out of every 113 people on the planet. it's about the same size population of canada, australia, and new zealand combined or to put in california terms, there are as many refugees now or people have been forced from their homes as there are the entire population of california plus about another 20 to 25 million people. you cannot check out a web site. you cannot see a news program. you cannot read a newspaper without hearing something about

refugees, particularly in this super heated environment of the presidential campaign. i was at both cleveland and philadelphia covering the conventions, and certainly at one political convention in cleveland you heard a lot about refugees and you heard a lot of fear expressed about refugees and what they -- the they may pose to america according to some right now. i can throw it -- throw this conversation to you. it's often described in the context of crisis, crisis of historic proportions, the people forced to leave their homelands and try to seek out a new life someplace else, is it. >> thank you so much i will say that the choice to frame this as a crisis isn't self political. what i mean by that is this, obviously there are very serious threats to the lives of people

who are forced into the kind of migration that have just described. people face horrific circumstances in syria, in somalia and iraq and many other places that are considering and they're experiencing genuine crisis. when we talk about these numbers, really needs to put it in a broader perspective. for example, country like france processes about 80 million tourists a year without any challenges. they're able to manage those flows and cope with that level of population ability as an ordinary course in the way in which they run their society. the question is can we manage the kind of flows of populations that we see. and the answer to that is absolutely yes, if we chose to. if we chose to address this as something which could be managed as a matter of policy, if we chose to determine what we need to put in place to meet humanitarian objectives, the numbers themselves do not represent an unimaginable or uncontrollable flow, but the framing as crisis, or as the

framing as controlled does get into a set of political choices, which are problematic. first, because we think of this in terms of crisis, i think we tend to go to the most extreme sorts of solutions rather than thinking calmly about what a manageable framework will look like. secondly, the political strategies themselves tend to endorse, i think, a way of framing refugees as assertive rather than a potential benefit of the societies that host them and that contributes to a climate of uni phobia. so these are challenges, i think that we would want to manage without resorting to a framing of crisis. >> -- you wanted the to say something. >> figure of 65 million refugee

that is you cited, i used it, too from the u.n. the interesting thing i did an event with the u.n. in new york city with samantha power, the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. i was about to use that figure until samantha powers said 21 million refugees. if i understand this right, i believe that 60 plus is displaced people of whom 21 people are refugees. i wanted to point that out. it is a very political term. and it gets to the issue why it is refugees are considered a trouble some figure, why do we want to classify and why other situations we don't want to classify people as refugees. >> very quickly, that 65 million that includes will be the classic refugee, something crossing borders driven by war, poverty, fa men, what hamine an basically staying with the borders. >> i think the number you're

referencing is 21 million, 65 million facing forced migration, crossing. . people who choose to leave their country of origin and live at least one year outside. they're internally displaced people, which is the group that you just referred to and they're not included in any of those three categories. >> refugee yourself, you proudly embrace that term. >> i have to forcefully claim that term, so many people want to call me immigrant and i say, no, absolutely not. i'm a refugee, and this is a refugee novel and war novel. the reason i have to insist on these kind of things because in the context of the united states to be an immigrant, it's really well with adamant american

mythology. to talk about refugees throws that into crisis. i'll give you an example hurricane katrina when that happened we saw all the people who had been displaced the question rose, what do we call these people. some people were using the term refugees. they both said these people are not refugees, the only two in time these two people have agreed with each other. they said these people are not refugees because that's un-american. for jessie jackson was racist to call because so many displaced to call them refugees as well. there's something about being a refugee that runs counter to how it is americans perceive themselves that's not possible for americans to be refugees. >> we'll come back to that. nikita when it comes to these

issues, your field of specialization when it comes to how they've been presented in popular culture, through photography, how they've been presented by the media, what's the same and what's changed over the last hundred years. >> perhaps, we can pull up a slide here. we can see the kind of images that americans would have been exposed to in the early 20th century and the way in which the kind of mythology that was referred to was formulated. >> this is classic immigrant and going to get his name changed something americans can pronounce. >> and they are humble. it is processed. you see the ticket booth or you see the booth there. you see the orderly there checking the documents. it's orderly processed and people who are enduring it are very humble. that is not the image that we see now. we see images of refugees and

immigrants as kind of disorderly, often we have these kind -- >> is that it? >> well, actually this photographer is kind of ejecting the kind of image of what we see in the news, whiches the kind of, you know, invasion image, people on boats -- invading this country or another country. >> i think the photo that was used in the campaign union members very controversial still photo of a line of people who knows where they were from and where they were going. >> these are crowds of people whom we can't pick out individuals, right and here the use of that hand in the foregrou foreground, immediately, brings us into the image as participants. we're not looking at a horde invading us. it brings us into this space. and if we look at these people on this boat, we can see a range of emotions being expressed

there and we can pick out individuals and see their reactions to their arrival and that's one of the things that tom discussed also in the film in the exhibition. >> have they been going back to the ellis island photo, that was a much more controversial issue at the time. you look at that photo now, say hindsight that's the classic american success story and that man is going to make a new life here in america. but at the time, wouldn't have people looked at that photo and drawn other kind of conclusions, like this is the invasion of the america in that era. >> well, but if you look back at the photograph, it is a very orderly image. these are particular types of immigrants, they are bias. i mean, this is one of many. you have to understand you'll be looking at more than just this one, they're often portrayed as very religious. they are the type of people that

we wanted, if they're going to be people coming, they are at least religious people, and humble people. >> can you tell me whether there were captures to dictate whether it would be interpreted. >> a caption something as this, is something that we see applied. it's applied here later on. they'll be used in news stories, yes. and often by themselves. at that time you wouldn't necessarily, as we do today, read a story, we read a news story with a new company image. at that time they would put an image in the newspaper and it might not have any type of contextual information. >> do you think we sometimes overromanticize. that we remember in hindsight we remember it being an orderly process, we remember the united states opening them with opening

arms -- but at the time, it was a much more chaotic, ugly reception than we may want to think now. >> yeah, i think that now we look at contemporary refugees like syrian refugees, for example. i got an e-mail from a swiss doctor saying, you don't understand what it's like out here. we're being overwhelmed. and i looked back at images of chinese immigrants who came here to the united states. when you look at the cartoon depiction from that time, they were horrifying now, because chinese americans are so well assimilated. it's hard for people to believe that it existed and instead what must be happening that new immigrants must be much more terrifying than the chinese back then. that's probably not true. >> yeah. >> those attitudes are certainly there in images if we scroll forward a little bit to the

image of the or fan city, two more. >> i'll talk about an image for a moment and call attention to the fact that this is an image that portrays refugees as a population to be managed and controlled. we associate with aerial view often with the military. you make an aerial view to show your organizational skills so we soo that here in this image of this camp. we see an aerial view. we see people who are organizing the different sections. we see people wearing uniform, these are all the same. the area emphasizes that and shows the lay out of the camp itself. we see a image of refugees as a people to be controlled. it's an image that implies

criminalization like they're inherently criminals or population in need of some sort of management. >> sorry, do you have anything to add to that. >> one thing i find striking in thinking about the current refugee crisis is that basically the same lens are witnessing very similar seams, century apart. one -- one way to think about it, we imagine horrors, is to think about sort of the legacy of the genocide and its survivors and its refugee population today, a century letter. for example, we know that the community there, which is 700,000 strong in the united states and who are largely descendants of those survivors are viewed as an important element of what makes the city a thriving city and part of a mosaic that you would won in the

language that attributed to the swiss correspondent. yes, you can manage that a century ago, the framings were echoed probably many that we're seeing today. it's both distressing to see that cycle and maybe enables us to begin to think about refugees and contribution a little differently. we in this country have an advantage in thinking about this. we pride ourselves on being an immigrant nation, that's unlevel. >> as yuan phonetic as they've been, very an alternative narrative that one can make appeal, too. this is less true in europe. but i think the distress that refugees face in trying to flip that narrative to the benefit side is greater there. >> do you agree with what he said, in our heads we sometimes put the immigrant on one side and the immigrant represents hard work and goodness and ready to assimilate in his or her new

country. and the refugee is the more other, kind of person, and some sm one who we think of being more suspicious or skeptical of. >> i'm being condenseden what you said. that's how often it plays out. >> the world that i enhibt which is about international law, framings and policy. strangely, i think there's a different play. refugees are framed rather than people entitled to various types of protection. and the framing is deeply troubling and we couldn't speak more about why that is, there's a way in which there's a category deployed to exclude people from both material benefits and material assistance in ways that are damaging and produces a struggle to be defined as a refugee. as opposed to a migrant who represents this kind of greater threat. the other piece that i think is

interesting to think about is, we tend to think of refugees not just vulnerable and needy, but sort of a population defined by its humanitarian needs, which eliminates agency, which removes their ability, again, to gordon to benefit in terms of framing and produces a kind of way that thinks about them that requires them to continually perform gratitude, in arriving ways, which i think is really stifling. >> expecting all of us to say thank you thank you thank you thank you. >> for deeply traumatized to get them into quite different cultures, languages, et cetera. also that expectation of performance is something that is very problematic. by virtue of our culture, we have a slightly different framing. at the international level, this

refugee migrant dichotomy is being performed in a different way. >> does that possibly have to do with how the u.n. itself defines "refugee" that sends the message in a humanitarian way. >> it has to do with the resfu gee convention and the ways we thought about different legal avenues for safe mobility. many more barriers have done up, barriers are being raised high europe represents front line states. they're not actually the front line state. the real front lines are for the region of the middle east and there's been a deep effort to contain the population there. >> lebanon, turkey, jordan, iraq and egypt are the five countries by far have the largest.

>> a koun tli that's produced 4 million refugees have absorbed more than germany has in terms of actually incorporating those populations on a sort of long-term basis within their border. they have been the true front line space. the response has been to limit legal avenues to continue to travel beyond them. in that universe, refugee status becomes one of the very very few relatively safe and legal means to travel, if it enables you to over come that barrier. i think we have a different kind of international crisis. it's where our frameworks are not capable of coping with the numbers, not because those numbers are uncontrollable or imaginable to represent kind of a challenge that could be a crisis in terms of resources. it's a crisis of political will and political frameworks. >> what you're saying -- first off in terms of church's context. i ran one out of every five

people in turkey is refugee of some sort, does that sound true? >> that is true in lebanon. it's a country of four million people that's absorbed 1.1 million, so the equivalent in the united states would be if over a course of five years we absorbed 80 million refugees, one in five people is a refugee. turkey is a larger country, has abdomened the largest number at over 3.5 million syrian refugees, that represents a smaller portion of turkey's small population. a small country like lebanon or jordan, all of these are countries in the developing world. if there's mention that worldwide refugees are housed 8 # 5% are hosted by countries in the global south. but, regardless, demographic meaning of that, of course, is very different than it would be

for united states or for european union or for larger wealthier to about similar number. >> right now, i think i saw a newspaper article now accepted something 8,000 out of and a lotment of 10,000. it took 155 and i think that have speaks to the point that the issue of crisis is a political issue. we could absorb it if we want to for political reasons. if we're talking about it, one thing this picture tells us that's powerful, is that one hand it could be construed as a invasion or rescue. that's how they've chosen to see this. we're a part of issue of gratitude comes up.

the united states sees itself as having rescued hundreds of thousands of refugees from southeast asia. >> it serves both st united states or deplit sizes who are afraid to bring up the history they don't want to be seen as ungrateful. >> we can kind of see you out there. i'm sure many remember when they arrived in 75, 76. camp penal ton had a huge camp. and texas, too, i believe. >> the four camps were arkansas, california, pennsylvania and florida, e norm mouse numbers, we're talking only 10,000, looks like we'll hit that figure, a little bit more this year. just a small number compared to what we'll get absorbed in the

past. >> in contrast to middle eastern refugees, for example. you have to remember in 1975 the majority of americans did not want to except it. this is congressional act that turned out well that was forced on the american people. we had forgotten that in the narrative of successful refugees. >> when does that faed away. when does the refugee who doesn't go back home. what do they have to do to reach that plateau or reach that place? >> that points to two things i think are interesting to think about temporarily. one is when does someone become vietmanese american and so on. i think, typically, that's a generational question, i think the general that are born second generation become that person. in some ways the person who has

arrived almost never is able to fully shed the identity of someone who arrived as a refugee, even if they resettled. that's a open question for anthropologyist to pursue. there's a second type of question, though. there are populations in the world who are refugees for multiple generations, three, four, five more. for example, ta city in syria hs turned into a city but never stopped being a refugee there. they remained refugees now they're refugees again, there were starvation conditions. there was a seize of that city. people were slaughtered on mask and some that have reached europe are palestinian for a third or fourth generation. similarly, there's a camp in kenya that have three, four generations of people still framed as refugees. the question, there, the

challenge to people who are working in the refugee framework is how long can you frame in the ways that the were described, a population as to be rescued or subject to humanitarian assistance, as opposed to indeed of -- and secondly, development assistance, meaning an investment and integrated and the framing of refugee across multiple generations, helps basically while those communities off from that possibility. >> and do you think in terms of how we portray immigrants/refugee that is we're doing a good job now. >> in terms. >> well, i think that the photographers on the exhibition and we can go to any of the images, maybe go back to -- go back one. i think that the images and exhibition are actively trying to address a lot of ideas that we've just discussed the image of the refugee is passive as a

victim, all f these photographers are portray it. we see it in a photograph like this, photographing men waiting for a train, but notice, so this is a landscape that is, you know, strewn, obviously, with lots of debris and these men standing and pose him in front of this tree to suggest a sense of resilience for these people. and also to suggest that they are not victims here. they are actively trying to, you know, formulate a life for themselves. i think you see that throughout the images and exhibition. these photographers have absorbed a lot of the debates about how photography shapes our understanding of political events and they are examples trying to work to actively change the way they wish they're

portrayed, these type of populations in the past. in many ways they are working in a way that a lot of photographers don't have the luxy of doilu luxury of doing, commissioned to do a project and working and spending lots of times. >> that gets into other issues. >> yes. >> this isn't the first time that they have partners with an ovrge to produce a photographic body of work and actually 199 # 5 a book called exodus was produced alongside a group called sigman. and they produced a book that was purposefully trying to explore through photography and use it as a tool. they've done this before. they recognize how photography done in different ways and new interpretative ways can really

speak to audiences and teach them new things about this experience. >> you know what strikes me, i mean, as a reporter and then somebody whose job it is to communicate the stories, at least, in the context of what we are in the los angeles, i'm always struck how poor of a job we do collectively in explaining these new communities that have arrived. they often, like, they live in separate universities, wlit's more established, american community now, or meeting community and then order or newer arrivals. i'm just wondering if you all have any reaction to that in terms of how refugees are covered in contemporary coverage by the media. >> i think that most americans don't know a whole lot about newer communities, refugees of any kind. the american society as a whole is structured to ignore these

people. i grew up in the lgbtq community and it's so many americans who are not to be, we never knew about this perspective. even people who live next to the vie yet the vietmanese, the entire way in which they're structured is geared not to pay attention to people who don't have chipotle. >> -- there's so much work that has to be done, who are working on these community the odds are stacked against us. we don't have access to hollywood to get these stories out there. the stories of everybody else will stories of unwanted. >> if you go to the portrait strt. you see that this is one -- this is one of the things that he's trying to do, so put a face to people to show us the people that we see, you know, might see on the street, there's a story

behind them. he creates these images in a way portraits of obama or any of the other politicians or and he works consistently in the same way in order to create, what he calls a democratic platform, his images, treat everyone the same way in order to kite. >> to insist there are stories behind each of our public presentation. >> one of the contradictions, i think, we want to argue that refugee have agency. you know, they have power. they've made concern conditions, someone who is exploded from these types of things. he's not a refugee and he's taking the photograph. by the time he actually came and did something like this like make a movie or write a story,

so we're already distance from the population that we once were. by structural condition, despite the fact that they have the agency to come their vote. you need to come down. >> they're doing other things, they're trying to survive. >> one of the things fastest things they are telling the story through cell phone. they're making photographs, they're doing their own documentation. we're beginning to see them tell their own stories and their limited time, obviously, people are doij that through cell phone photography. it has to do with distribution, how did the stories get out and we blow up on them much later. but we are seeing the stories starting to emerge. >> i've been on the coast where people are coming from other parts of nigeria. they have nothing. nothing. maybe a change of cloets, but a

lot of them. i know how to re. >> i was going to say, i think social media and the cell phones have images more -- has meant there's a capacity to season tifs through the eyes even if i travel. there's an example today mg you've may have seen. there's a story in which the -- has footage that he took during his journey and furniture of himself and upon arrival and mer lean, in this case, described what that journey looks like and while at the same time the accompanying story he left the construction that he feels confined to offer of being good refugee in an attempt to take new narratives about the kind of threat raepted. he feels the need to tell a story and not duplicating.

>> he's performing, the story that he wants to tell good refugee, but it's front. one other example of u.s. of social media and this goes back. another good seem. deploying images is -- the courtney case that's including in the exhibit here where you have a very young woman, turkish photo yournlist, takes a picture from the agency, very few of our ud yens here today will have seen an image and it's circulation. but peter whorvegs the head of the emergency's tim, was president at the time and also on the radio. an image that we have taken and it got retweeted. you have human rights watch which had been attempting to get a message about the tragedy that was taking place and with the drowning children and families, managing to frame a fay --

disconnected the context in which it was launched into social mia. when you trace them, you see how they being hornest. it's shifted the narrative in europe about the arriving. tens of thousands over the sum -- >> this is the terrible photo the three-year-old washed up on the beach. >>. >> and in a very, you know, sort of an it will come all the time for -- it has a kind of residence because of its location beyond what we might here along the poll. in terms of they might know, it's becoming a graveyard of

imag images. it shows us one picture that has a chance of showing four infants and child deaths in the mediterranean a death, now, this summer, which is up that's twice the number that was the case in 2015. >> i mean, every crisis gets its image or two attached to it. it is almost inevitable. you'll speak about the republican shoulder gets shot as he gets fall to the ground. does that disturb you that, you know, that along with the attention of focus, focuses on the issue, does it disturb you that that photo, in particular, got so much potential. or is there a draw back that we may not realize, any way. >> well, i think that what's different now the number of issues that we see in the spanish. that put it only one of its kind. i can pick you up and add you to

my group. these images, we have all of this time to kind of sit with them and to react to them and what i think is best thing now is the speed of which -- they come out and disappear. >> you can go online and see millions of images of families trying to cross the mediterranean. you still get that one image that explodes beyond that. the globe starting talking about it. the positive are recognizable does that mean he's doing it. are there any drawbacks. >> what's an image that goes viral. it doesn't matter what the intention of the photographer is. i think back to the vietnam war and everybody seeing the pictures, there's a photograph of the general. shooting of the suspect in the head. i -- it was actually justified

the way the world remembers, is not. let's photograph of the girl burned and that image is now, literally, this figure ra tifly burned in everyone's memory. to draw that, the positive important part it shaped a great opinion. >> but the draw back the vie yeet ma these, people all over the world as victims. that is crippling kind of story that's kind of hard for vietmanese people to get out of. you ve people in the united states and -- vietnam is not a war, it's a country and they feel like they have to keep on saying it. in the west, when you say vietnam, everybody automatically thinks war. that's what that photograph does. >> the soundtrack in the back glound, did you see that. >> it's em imagines of vun

ability, the young girl, obviously. images of mothers an children. images that resinate because of the christian origins of this country. the certain themes constantly coming up with the photographs that people are inspired too, anything to add. >> one thing i know experienced the peter watch emergency's director who chose to tweet that picture was a backlash of people saying that there's something almost pornographic about disseminating this image. his response was, you know, what was truly grotesque were the city of policies that were forcing on the part of yours to exclude that, so on and so forth. the policies that lent themselves to this. i mean, i think that is the place where tension lies, an image has the capacity to fully

shape the narrative if it's into our mind. it will shape how we understand, the policies and in this case, it indicted a policy at how children to be drowned in the seas around europe rather than allowing them to cost. that caused a major thift for that particular moment. but in the broader, i think framing, the idea that was pointed out, that this is a framing of run blt, that's what i'm pointing, call me if you have any other questions. >> the problem is. crisis that these, you know, individuals face to a framing of a whole city as a crisis and i think that's where you'll end up with the problems that we've been discussing. >> the photos to your right, immediately when you enter into the exhibit area and it really hits you in the gut. it really does, i mean this is so much power to it. >> i will just say that i think

that these photographers and exhibition and many photographers today do try to actively address their own position of as we have a saying, dot -- i can speak. the problematic aspect of me speaking for an experience that's not theres. the photographiers will try to do something about it. they're actually trying to is the up -- they're trying to portray something that you don't see in the media. >> those images being kind of normal life. the ordinary. >> each of these photographers are trying to address if we can go forward maybe. >> no, that's okay. tell me where. something like this. fashion photographer doing this kind of new imagery taking it if

you need me, images that we see photography of a mother and a child. he's doing something fascinating which is referencing a whole history history of african stewed photography and self-portraiture in africa. in that way showing that they are agents of their own creation, right, that they are individuals. so you see these photographers acti actively trying to do something you don't commonly see. diap doesn't usually work this way. he came up with this idea, using blue in particular. the choice of color in a lot of these images is important as well. color is not something you see

in this kind of subject matter, because it connotates action. we're used to black and white which connotates crisis and drama and the past and horror. >> and it's a smile. it's not a grim visage. >> right. this seems to be their own portrait, not a portrait that he made, right? >> we only have a few minutes left in this conversation. we simply have to address the united states in 2016 and this election year and the conversation about immigrants, refugees. we have a presidential candidate, i think you know who he is, he's said you can look into the eyes of a syrian refugee child and say, i'm paraphrasing, you cannot come into this country, sorry. i mentioned i was at the political conventions in leave land. i heard a lot of people talking about refugees being a front for jihadis coming in, refugees

being a way for diseases to get into this country. what do you -- this is open to anyone. what do you just make of the tenor of this conversation about refugees this year versus years past? >> i'll start, returning to where we began, which is this crisis framing, really helps en trench these kind of far aactivists. i can throw out anything, we could have said 60 million, 250 million. it would have been plausible at some level. you can say, for example, there's a crisis at the southwestern border, mexicans are flooding in, as repeatedly the same presidential candidate has said, when in fact that's a net outmigration of mexicans from the united states, it doesn't matter, because the crisis is the only way we have the best way to understand it. the solution is what can we come up with in terms of walls, barriers, exclusions and so

forth. it points to the need, obviously crisis models are constantly deployed for political strategic purposes, and we're witnessing that, there's nothing new about that. there are many shocking things about our current political moment. the deployment of crisis language and the depiction of migrants and refugees as viruses, as threat and so on, resonates with our ordinary politics, unfortunately. that isn't a piece to my mind that's extraordinary. it's just the depth of the toxic xenophobia we see, not just in the united states, but in the west and globally. we have this challenge, can we start thinking about global migration. future trends success migration patterns will increase, mobility will increase, more so because of climate change and conflict. we can address it by trying to come up with rational policies or do the ad hoc dance that's generated what you see in the

united states and europe. our current political moment helps illustrate how ugly a choice it can be. >> makeda? >> the current climate reminds me that images matter and that our passive consumption of images, of immigrants and migrants and refugees as hordes of nameless, faceless people invading, those images, even though we may passively consume them, we have an impact on a lot of people, and it's important for us to seek out and to support other venues that are showing other representations. you know, the media, our everyday media doesn't have the space or time supposedly to show images like what we see. you might find it on a special section of the "times" called the lens blog. but that's a special area. how do we find the space in our everyday media to look more deeply and differently at these types of issues?

>> i go back to history. all those things that you see that donald trump is saying that syrian refugees and other refugees will do, bringing contamination, be a religious threat, a mortal threat to the united states. if you go back historically and look, just at the chinese, those same things were being said about the chinese in the 19th century, they would bring vice, evil, they would destroy the american family, undermine the american working man. they were considered completely antithetical to american culture. i really don't believe simply because syrians are muslim that somehow they are different than other populations that have come to the u.s. before. the other thing about history that i think is important is that typically, you know, europe and the united states have played a major role in shaping the historical conditions that have produced refugees in the first place. you go back far enough in history, the role that the u.s. has played and europe has played in the shaping of the middle east, that has led to the refugee crisis. but we don't like to think about those kinds of things.

and, you know, the fact that we're in an economic, supposedly economic crisis today, if you believe that, the crisis of globalization and of neo-liberalism, we are putting the game for the economic fallout of those things on refugees, when refugees are only themselves the product of those same kinds of economic decisions that the u.s. and europe have made. >> let me challenge you very quickly, and this will wrap it up. does anyone have any sympathy for the argument that a country, no matter how wealthy, can really only sustain so many people coming in over a certain period of time? certainly that's maybe even a larger conversation now, at least in terms of western countri countries, in germany. is there anything to that? and the concern that you let one person in in this outflow and that guy decides to put on a suicide vest, there is a risk there. or they're completely looney to have these concerns?

>> so any society may have a sort of threshold on what it can do in terms of resources, in terms of its political context, social, demographic, economic and so on. but i think the thing to look at is we need an international framework of responsibility sharing. the current international framework places the responsibility for any crisis on those who are most proximate to it. turkey, jordan, lebanon, had far less to do with the circumstances that led to the unraveling of syria than the united states. the three largest refugee flows that we've seen over the last ten years, they've been out of syria, iraq, and afghanistan. in order to acknowledge and embrace a threshold, one has to come up with a framework of sharing of responsibilities that doesn't place the burden on the immediate front line states. had there been a transfer of resources to those countries, iraq, jordan, egypt, you

probably wouldn't have had the onward migration you saw en masse into europe. until that onward migration occurred, there was no migration crisis. there was no acknowledgement that there was a refugee crisis associated with syria until the syrians started showing up on the shores of europe. and as long as that determines the resource allocations in the international system, the question isn't do individual countries have a threshold like germany or the united states, but where is the breaking pointe, to what extent can a lebanon of 4 million absorb 4 million and 4 million after that. there's going to have to be a massive resource transfer to enable people to survive. these aren't people traveling to make a better life. these are people who are traveling to stay alive. as long as the conditions for them to be able to maintain basic subsistence are absent from the places they can first travel to, they will continue traveling. and questions like what's the threshold are not going to be

the determinant of whether they keep trying to move. >> i would like to thank you all three of you for a fascinating hour. [ applause ] and of course the an enberg space for photography and this fabulous exhibition that sparked this conversation and so many other conversations like this are part of this exhibition. again, if you haven't seen it, i hope you do walk over there and see it. and you come back and talk to others about these issues. certainly this is the year to do it in the united states, as we face elections in november. i'm sorry, are we taking questions and answers? >> good evening, everybody. >> i guess we are. >> we are taking questions. that concludes our lecture for the evening. it brings us to q&a. there will be two people with microphones, myself and kirk to my left. if you have a question, please raise your hand. if your question is selected, try to make your way to the end

of the aisle so we don't have to reach over your neighbor. remember, this is being recorded, so if you can please talk clearly into the microphone. first question. a question over here to the right. >> i would just like to know why a large segment of the world seems to be exempt from a consideration of all these factors you've discussed tonight, like asia. how many refugees or immigrants are heading towards asia? are they welcome? are they not? japan i know doesn't take anybody. vietnam? china? south korea? why aren't they in the news? >> saudi arabia, if you're going to take a very wide scope of what's asia. kuwait. anyone like to tackle that? >> well, i can start with a point you made about the gulf countries. the gulf countries make the claim that they actually host very large populations of expatriated syrians,

palestinians and others, but not as refugees, and they don't recognize resettlement as such. also, you know, for what it's worth, so unlike china, unlike some of the other countries that were raised by the actual questioner, they do pay into a system of trying to at least create some resources. but anyway, that isn't to excuse the gulf countries or any of the other parts of the world that have absolutely not participated. there are only 26 countries that participate in the u.n.hcr's resettlement program. one of the reasons that people don't head to other countries, for example in asia, for starters, they do. as you may know, there was a major crisis, again, of people fleeing in boats who are leaving myanmar, muslims and bangladeshi muslims, basically trying to go anywhere in asia that they could land. in the moment of extremeis, around violence, people flee to their immediate neighbors, they don't try to go to the united states or europe, they try to go to lebanon, thailand, the place

that is nearest where they hope to find safe haven. the truth is those societies are already at the breaking point in terms of their economies, managing a set of challenging social and economic circumstances in which the likelihood that a refugee, large refugee population arriving is going to be able to integrate and maintain lives where they can actually have any hope of meaningful long term subsistence is more limited than in the countries that have larger resources. so understandably, the motivations of populations that are fleeing in any eve attempt stay alive will move to places where resources are more likely to be available. that isn't to say refugee populations from asia are flowing to europe or the united states. they're trying to go to australia, and at the beginning we described what kinds of constraints they're facing in that attempt. in any case, almost always the destination points are best described in terms of their relatively much greater

resources. why those other countries aren't being required to join the resettlement program is one of the questions that what i'm suggesting, a responsibility sharing framework in which international responsibilities for what are global crises are more fairly allocated, that would have to be part of the conversation for south korea, for japan, saudi arabia, a whole host of countries that have relatively large economies and relatively small refugee populations. >> so although people may not settle there, they can do more, they're wealthy and prosperous enough to play more of a role in solving this issue. okay. am i calling the questioner? >> we have another question right here to the right. >> hello. thank you for coming. i'm hoping you can talk a little bit about the violence in central america and mexico and also why that's not being framed as a refugee or humanitarian crisis in the same way, when you think about the cartels. also related to photography, i

often wonder, reacting to violence and so-called gratuitous photos, when something becomes you cangratui versus showing what's happening. people sometimes don't understand the level of violence that's happening, and maybe if we saw these photos regularly on media, it would wake people up a little more. >> one of the fascinating things about the photography is the way in which she addresses the history of violence in mexico, while at the same time telling the story of the migrants. if you look at her images, she's often staging her subjects in very specific locations. and if you read her captions, you see her reference a particular historical event. one of the things she's trying to do in her photography is to remind us of the history of that violence, that migrants have faced, and that could possibly endure, and what it takes to do

what these individuals, these people do. so that history is there. i think it's being interpreted in ways that respect as what you're saying, this issue of gratuitous images of violence, which is very common in images of conflict in central america and mexico, lots of bloodshed. she's trying to do something different by referencing this history without actually showing that gratuitous violence. >> if i could offer one additional thought, the refugee convention frames those who are entitled to material assistance when they flee violence around a well-founded fear of persecution that is connected to five recognized categories: religion, race, political opinion, nationality, and membership in a social group. and the challenges for those who flee violence, like criminal, gang violence and so forth, to find a way to fit that framing. historically they have not been found to fit the framing.

although they're fleeing persecuti persecution, they're not fleeing persecution that entitles them under the convention. we have a basic instinct and understanding that anybody that is fleeing and has a fear of persecution and violence that is a risk to their life is entitled to some form of protection. there are two possible ways to rethink our framing. one would be to reopen the current refugee convention for negotiation. most experts agree that if we did that, it would probably involve a scaling back of protections instead of an expansion of protections. and i think what we -- probably your question is motivated by a desire to see an expansion of protections. so a second strategy is to develop sort of what is called soft law or guidelines or guidance that suggests that the refugee convention remain as it is but that subsidiary forms of protection be adopted by countries. the united states, for example, has something called temporary

protected status which is a kind of protection from being returned that does not involve asylum or permanent refugee status, but nonetheless offers protection from -- for individuals that are fleeing a circumstance of deep instability. because, as i mentioned, the sources of global migration, of forced migration, are as much natural disaster or will be in the near future in climate change as violent conflict. the urgent need to come up with broader protections that entitle anybody at risk of their life should they be returned to a place to protection, is acute. so one thing is to develop that political will. and that involves individuals, especially in a powerful country like the united states, which is convening a summit around the u.n. general assembly meetings in september in new york on the question of forced migration and population mobility. that conference could take up this topic of subsidiary protections. given the political climate in our country at the moment there seems little appetite for a

groundswell of support in the united states. without that leadership, it's difficult to come up with a framework for broader expansion of protections. >> when we think about migrants from central america, we think there's an issues of coming just purely for economic reasons and to find a better life. but, you know, if central american gang member is trying to kill you, you're just as dead as if it's a syrian soldier, right? you face the same degree of lethality in the world you live in. but it's a good point. next question, left side, third row. >> i want to follow up on that last question and what professor bali said, because i think it's something that a lot of us don't even realize. last fall, i was one of a group of attorneys that went to a place called dilly, texas, where women and children from central america have been held there.

when i came back to los angeles, by the way, most people said, oh, did you go to europe and help the syrians? i said, no, you know, we have refugees crossing the border into the united states. just a couple of things, since we're at the annenberg. number one, i thought it was interesting, they didn't let us take cameras or cellphones in. so we couldn't actually take any pictures of the people. there were a few people that t got freed afterwards, and i took pictures of them and posted it. that's one of the reasons that maybe it doesn't get as much press coverage as it should. the other thing is what the professor said, there's only five bases for asylum. the fact that you're going to die or some gang member is after you doesn't necessarily mean that you qualify for asylum in the united states. but having interviewed dozens of the women there, the typical story i heard was this: outside

of their homes they would start a business, they would have a restaurant, they would sell clothing, they would do something like this. so let's say they started a restaurant and some guy would come there for lunch every couple of days. and they knew he was a gang member. but he would say something like isabella, your little 5-year-old girl, she's so cute. i always see her going down this boulevard and then she turns left to go to school. oh, and by the way, you know, we have a little organization that's trying to help the community, and you're doing pretty well with this restaurant, maybe if you could donate $100 a month or something, that would be good. and they knew that that meant that their daughter's life was in danger if they didn't come up with that $100 or whatever it was a month. though cross over to the united states. they don't try to sneak in. they immediately look for the first border patrol agent, turn

themselves in, and then they end up in these camps. some of them, at the time i went there, some of them had been there over a year in the camps. and i think it's something that we really should be cognizant of, because they're right here in this country, and there's no possible -- you know, nobody's afraid that central american women are going to go into a bus and blow everybody up or something like that. so it's purely, are we going to provide safety for these people or not? they're not a threat to the u.s. >> right. anyone, response to that? i guess it just relates to what you were saying earlier, in terms of how people are described and categorized and the need to revisit that, and the fact that i think with this woman who opens a store and people like her, again, i think the issue is, there is a recognition that she could be just as dead by that gang member who kills her versus the syrian child who is killed by a soldier of assad, right? it's the same level of threat.

the feeling of, i have to leave this place because i could die and my kids can die. even if it's not a strict -- even if the international community doesn't see that as a civil war or, you know, an event that's worthy of refugee status. >> one thing to say is that the idea that these camps exist and that americans don't know that they exist for the most part is not unusual. i think most countries have these kinds of camps, these detention camps, border camps, places where people can live in a semi permanent or even permanent or even multi-generational state of statelessness, is something that's unknown to most citizens of many countries, but yet together they comprise, as you were mentioning from the u. u.n. hcr report, the 24th largest country in the world. that's a crucial part of many people's existences. if you're a citizen, you're invested in not knowing that these countries have these place where people can just be put

away. >> we also don't understand how the immigration court works, where you don't necessarily have representation at all, and you have 5 and 6-year-olds who go in with no lawyer at their side. next question. >> following question, to the right front. >> thank you for being here today and sharing in this very, very important topic. i wrote a screenplay about world war ii refugees and put a very human face on the story of the refugee. and, you know, they went through very difficult circumstances and ended up in china, in shanghai, to follow up your question about china. and i guess my question pertains to, how do we light a fire up under our nation, and it includes the story of the st. louis, i don't know if anyone is familiar, the st. louis, where we turned away a boatload,

people who went back to face the atrocities there. what can we do as citizens to continue this conversation, how do we get a roomful of people having this conversation that will perpetuate change? >> i'm going to turn that over to my smarter people. >> i mean, there is almost no substantial organized political voice in the united states arguing for the united states to resettle larger proportions of refugees. i think that would be the starting point of, you know, lobbying your elected representatives for that. and because really the numbers that the united states are willing to take in or just such an absurdly small, as we've just discussed, 60 or 65 million people are in circumstances of displacement, let's put it this way, and we're prepared to take 10,000, 15,000 in crisis

alleviation mode. that's really an absurdly low figure, clearly, and that's the figure that's taken on the syrian case. one could make an argument for broadening protected status to for example extend to central americans. the story we just heard is typical, yet at the time, and again, this is what i mean by the crisis framing, encouraging a kind of distortion. there was actually a description of a crisis at the southwestern border, again, of central american arrivals. the notion that those numbers represented a crisis is absolutely absurd in a country with, you know, the size, population, and economy of the united states. but they actually became an entrenched national framing that authorized extraordinary action to deport, basically summarily, huge numbers of people. inordinate each step to resist the political tendency to do the expedient thing in the face of these framings requires organizing, even if it just

means organizing yourself to contact elected representatives, but even better would be organizing with your friends, community members, people who attend events like this one, to engage in more meaningful political action. but basically it's a grassroots story of religious communities and civic associations and others pressing a case, because at the top of our leadership at the moment, the political climate we've described several times now on this panel is one that is really not propitious for an improvement in the kind of responses our country -- and it is a leading country, both in the causes of producing the kinds of instability that have generated the crises that we see, but also it's a leading country in authoring the frameworks that determine how we respond to them internationally. so it's i think a heightened obligation for citizens here to act. >> if i could add, have you talked to immigrants, talked to refugees? it relates to what i said earlier, we live in paralittle universes in los angeles, people who were born abroad and come to

this place, we don't know them at all. it's important to just get outside and talk to folks. this is very -- kind of a no-brainer to me. also talk to people who think, you know, the next immigrant could be the next jihadi, and they're obviously wrong. there's a lot of americans, i've been with them in recent months, a lot of americans who just have some pretty extreme views about the threat immigrants and refugees pose to this country. and i think conversations with them are equally important. so we're not in our separate political camps as well. that may be even a more important conversation to have than with the immigrant or refugee. that's my two cents. >> also it's important to support cultural organizations such as this that are telling these stories. because people do listen when people show up. so a lot of these stories are being told in many ways, in many places, but people don't come. people don't buy the book or people don't, you know, buy the magazine or they don't support it. a very easy way is to actually

support these things. >> yes. yes. but they're probably -- i would guess there probably aren't a lot of donald trump supporters in this audience, i must say. and i think it's important that -- maybe there are. but i think it's important to reach out to those who you don't agree with and talk to them about these issues and talk to them about the future of this country and the place of outsiders in this country. if you are donald trump supporters, my apologies. you should give your views back. anyway. left side, last row. >> hi. and thank you for this very interesting talk. i have to say first, i'm very grateful to see that this was a sold-out conversation and to see how much interest there is in refugees in our city. my name is carolina seinfeld, the chair of the refugee forum in los angeles. here locally, people don't know

that we have one of the largest humanitarian community of agencies here working in los angeles. the refugee forum has 21 agencies at this time, that include not only resettlement agencies but also legal service providers, lausd, lapd, school districts as well. i just want to point out that if you're interested, definitely go see the exhibit, because it's very educational. but then also reach out to the agencies if you want to volunteer. if you want to participate in additional activities. in september, there is going to be happening, welcoming week starts on september 16. so look up for information on that, our events around the city. and world refugee day every year, around june 20th, there's also a lot of public events. i hope people stay informed and engaged. and thank you for being here. >> yes, certainly a ton of

organizations with the central american community, there's chirla, there's catholic charities that works a lot with that community. no shortage of great groups here in southern california that have the refugee and immigrant population. >> all right, folks. that concludes our lecture for the evening. if you guys can all join me in thanking the panelists. [ applause ] [ room noise ]

join us friday for a discussion on the legacy of america's first ladies. at 11:15 a.m. eastern, following a panel discussion, michelle obama and laura bush will join the conversation to offer their perspectives as the two most recent first ladies. watch that live, starting at 9:30 a.m. eastern on c-span3. join us friday for remarks from u.k. independence party leader nigel farage. we expect to learn who the new party leader will be. that person is expected to speak as well. watch it all live starting at 6:45 a.m. eastern, friday, on our companion network, c-span2. later we have more "road to the white house."

first lady michelle obama is on the trail. she'll be in fairfax, virginia, to stump for the democratic standard bearer, hillary clinton. watch ms. obama's remarks live starting at 3:00 p.m. eastern on friday on c-span. this weekend on "american history tv" on c-span3, saturday evening at 6:00 p.m. eastern. >> in any war, at any time, weapons dictate tactics. you've probably heard the civil war was fought with modern weapons and antiquated tactics. and that's not quite true. the civil war is actually an evolutionary war, as both weapons and the men who employ those weapons learn different methods to fight with. >> author david powell talks about military theories, battle tactics, and formations during the civil war. then at 9:00, military historian michael neiberg talks about the

1945 meeting of truman, churchill, and stalstalin, to t about the he found world war ii. >> the power in europe became a zero sum game. the way to solve the problem under this viewpoint was to merge europe together, create the european union, and the phrase is already out there, so that france, russia, poland, don't see event on the continent as a zero sum game. on sunday night, 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> the idea that presidents have always gotten the very best health care available in whatever era they lived, i want to tell you this is a charming myth. and problems began almost immediately with george washington. >> parkway central librarian richard levinson on myths surrounding presidents and their health. he'll talk about how doctors have sometimes contributed to a president's death or saved them

from dying without public knowledge. for our complete "american history tv" schedule, go to c-span.org. it's that time of year to announce or 2017 student cam video documentary competition. help us spread the word to middle school and high school students and their teachers. this year's theme, your message to washington, dc. tell us, what is the most urgent issue for the new president and congress to address in 2017? our competition is open to all middle school or high school students grades 6 through 12 with $100,000 awarded in cash prizes. students can work alone or in a group of up to three to produce a five to seven-minute documentary on the issue selected. include some c-span programming and also explore opposing opinions. the $100,000 in cash prizes will be awarded and shared between 150 students and 52 teachers. the grand prize, $5,000, will go to the student or team with the

best overall entry. this year's deadline is january 20th, 2017. so mark your calendars and help us spread the word to student filmmakers. for more information, go to our website, studentcam.org. blogher is a media company that began in 2005 with a conference on women and blogging. from this year's conference, here's a conference on what feminism means today and how it's changed from the 1970s. from earlier this summer, this is just shy of an hour. [ room noise ]

>> thank you so much for coming and i'm so sorry for the wait. but the best things come to those who wait. my name is jamia wilson. it is my pleasure and honor to be honoring our feminism across generations conversation today. we had some technological difficulties but maybe that's a sign this is going to be a feminist organizing meeting as well. now that we're getting started, the first thing i wanted to do was talk about why this conversation is important. and why i was thrilled to be invited by blogher to have this conversation. i have been part of the feminist movement officially since i was in college and first organizing on behalf of choice usa. and several other feminist organizations. and now i'm running a feminist organization called women action in the media, and i'm also a writer on a feminist beat with that intersectional race/class analysis. and also on the board of various feminist organizations.

this feel very important to me as a person who probably calls herself a feminist and a womanist. but it's very important to me at this time in our history as a people. the conversation about the election that's happening right now, no matter where we stand within it, the conversations around policy issues that are facing us. as someone who is working toward building my own family and thinking about issues of motherhood and equality as it relates to that as well, that there's so much that i know that i want to learn from the generations before me and i also believe that there's so much insight that my generation and the generation after me has to give us about how to make this world more equal. i'm really thrilled to be joined by these dynamic bad ass women who with here to talk about the triumphs of the movement, the sacrifices and the mistakes that were made in the past that will help inform our present and

future. we're going to talk about our perspectives, talk about feminism from where we stand. i'm a person who believes in multiple feminisms. i have a specific point of view and a way that i live and do feminism but i believe there are a lot of other people who do it differently. i'm of the mind-set that other people can call their feminism different things too and to me it's still feminism if it smells like feminism and looks like feminism and helping the world be more equal. i know there are people who disagree with me on that too. we're going to talk about how we can work together to grow movements and move beyond the tension points that we have to be able to build together for a more equal future. what we're going to do to get this started, because we want to also have time for the organizing meeting. can't be an organizer without taking advantage of these amazing women and minds in this room right now and saying that we're going to give kind of an opening where everyone is going to tell you who they are and what brought us to this place

and then we're going to get into questions i have and then get into your questions as we explore this topic. so first i am going to just introduce each panelist by name and then they're going to tell you the real heart of who they are. so we have kelley skoloda, a partner at ketcham, also on author and global trend spotter. we have alex regalado, the co-founder of twighowto.com. and i had the pleasure and honor of being one of the judges for the f word contest winner and i voted for her video to be number one so i was really excited that the will of all of the judges also came to this conclusion because it was the right one. and also angelique roche who is vice president of external affairs at ms. foundation for women, who has also just been sister colleague friend of the movement and i would not want to be in the

trenches with anyone else but angelique, spent a very negative 22 degree weathering the primaries together with her not that long ago. i'm really pleased to be with this group and to dig into our discussions. first we're going to talk to kelley and hear what feminism means to you and what brought you to this conversation and what excites you about feminism across generations. >> thanks jamia and thanks panelists. is this on? can you hear me? >> that one is on. >> there we go. thank you. so it's great to be here. i have been to all 12 of the 12 blogher conferences over the years and so it's -- i met alisa and lisa way back before they got started, even before their first conference. when i heard about what they were doing. so i've been with them every step of the way. as jamia said, i'm kelley

skoloda from ketcham where i'm a partner, and i have run the practice for the past decade. i'm also a published author of the book "too busy to shop" marketing to multi-minding women. and most importantly i'm a mom, a sister, a friend, an aunt and a woman who thinks about feminism and what it means to me and have done that many years of my life. i do it from a couple of perspectives. one is from the personal perspective, right, as a woman. and especially these days now that i have a son who is 16 and a daughter who is in the hatch program next door who is 12, i think about what it means to me as a woman. as i was really thinking through what i would say what feminism means to me, i was in a conversation with my kids and it's amazing how perspectives between generations can change, right? so my daughter and my niece who were there when i asked them what feminism means to them, you know, i don't know. i mean does it matter?

you know, what does it mean. and i've raised my kids in a pretty, i guess, feminist household and when they said that i thought, what does that mean? did i not do a good job? am i doing a good job? or is that things are so equal in their world that they don't need to think about that. and that's pretty much what it came down to when i asked the girls. we can do what we want. you know, we feel great in the classroom. they're just so comfortable in their own skin and feel so good about their opportunities. it's not even a question. and then when i talked about this topic with my son who is 16, he said, mom, you're sitting on a feminist panel? what if you went to a conference and there was a mennist panel. wouldn't that seem pro-man and wouldn't you not like that. what does it say if you're on a feminist panel. so because in his world too, things seem to be so equal and girls and boys are treated pretty equally. he doesn't see the disadvantage.

when i talk about unequal pay and those things, it's foreign concept. i think about it from that perspective and how have their views changed my views of feminism. and then of course i think about it from the professional side because i'm a professional brand marketer. and what i do every day is counsel clients on how to represent women, men, families in their communications. and i get to work with big ad agencies on what they do and within the realm of pr and marketing. i feel like i have a great privilege but also a great responsibility to help marketers understand who women are and how important it is for them to be portrayed in the right way. so when i think about myself and feminism, that's how i think about it and on those two different levels. >> thank you. and now i'd like to hear from alex and hear about the same question, what brought you to feminism and what does feminism mean to you. >> yeah, thanks.

so my name is alex regalado. i work as a video editor here in los angeles and i specialize in dominicary and documentary and social justice work. i'm really into women's rights. so for fun my friend katelyn and i who is here, we cofounded a website called twighowto, and it has articles and videos that we think all young women need to know. we're creating a damsel free world one article at a time. so it really, it came from this idea that after you graduate college or you enter the working world, there's so many things you still don't know how to do, like how do you set up a 401(k). what happens when your air conditioner is broken, how do you fix it. it's become an open forum where women can join a nationwide network of women. i work on the website with a bunch of other awesome ladies and we decided to enter a video kest, #thefword.

we came together to create this video and i wanted to share it with you today. i hope you like it. ♪ >> this part of me is seen as too distracting for class. this part of me is taken less seriously in boardrooms. this part of me make others think i shouldn't show my vulnerability. some say this part of me is asking for it. this part of me determines my privilege.

feminism to me means my part in this world isn't dictated by my gender or the parts of my body. this part of me takes a stand against prejudice. this part of me pushes my creative boundaries. this part of me lifts up others in my community. this part of me develops ground breaking innovations. this part of me shatters glass

ceilings. feminism to me means my part in this world is determined by my choices, my actions and the parts of my character. ♪ >> it's beautiful. [ applause ] and now angelique, tell us about what feminism means to you. >> so, i actually will start off with my video, because i have a very interesting story that goes about how i even got to the ms. foundation and the fact that i was not always a feminist. at least i didn't think i was. and so what i am actually going to start with was a little bit of a project that happened for me when i first started working

for the ms. foundation, a lot of my friends were why are you working for the ms. foundation. i consider myself a black feminist, or i consider myself a womanist or i consider myself a humanist. i don't understand why you would work for a feminist organization. it led me to ask a question as to, okay, so what does feminism mean to you. so the ms. foundation, we put together over three days 42 different women, men, transgender men, black, white, from the ages of 72 all the way through 81, which is what gloria steinem was at the time and asked them that exact question because i asked that question to myself before taking the position at the ms. foundation. this is a composite of what happened. ♪ >> people have their own impression of what feminism was about. many people oftentimes felt that

the word itself left out the history or left out individual voices and it was oftentimes defined in the media by white men. and at the end of the day, when i'd look at myself in the mirror, i'm a black woman and i didn't quite know where i fit in that. >> feminism at the beginning profoundly makes people uncomfortable. >> i never identified as a feminist and it's largely because i guess the images of what i had of what a feminist was growing up were really these images of white women and privilege. >> the act of creating who i was as someone who was born female was very much a feminist act. that was at on the soldiers of so many freedom fighters before me. >> in the '60s and '70s there was one way to express your feminism and today there are just as many ways as there are women. >> as a woman with a disability, traditional white middle class feminism never worked for me because i was never going to be

equal to a white man. >> we all come to the table with our own stories. you know, we bring, i want to call it, our personal histories and we often bring the collective histories of whatever tribe we come from with us. >> feminism is a question. and the question is what truths are missing here. so in that sense my feminism is intersectional because intersectional feminism is to ask what truths are missing here, what voices aren't being heard here, who isn't at the table that you don't even realize who is not at the table. >> 21st century feminism needs to center those most impacted and look at all of the conditions that women face. >> i was raised by a feminist. i was raised not to be a feminist but to have a level of understanding of human interaction and justice. and i think being in that environment it was easy for me to be like yes, i'm a feminist. it wasn't a hard thing for me to

say. >> when i go throughout my day i really try to align my politics using an intersectional feminist lens which means i make decisions on is this good for a poor black woman. >> what defines me as a feminist is this core belief that all individuals, men, women and anybody who defines themselves in between should have access to the social, political and economic equality that this world presents to us. >> what makes me a feminist is that i understand that if women aren't free i can never be free. you know, as a gay man, really understanding that their struggle is actually my struggle too. >> the feminist values that i want to raise sara with are an understanding that every single person is equal. >> my feminism is a form of faith. it's a form of faith. it is having the faith to believe, do you know what i

mean, that women are whole, complete, you know, human beings and should have all of the rights and privileges of you know, every male human being on the planet. ♪ >> feminism is the social economic and political equality of all genders. >> all genders. >> all genders. ♪ [ applause ] >> so one of the great things about this is it is actually the definition of what i have come to believe is why i'm a feminist. as you noticed, there are a lot of times there's stereotypes when it comes to feminism. there are a the propaganda that people say oh no, i don't burn my bra, or i'm not man hating, why would i be a feminist.

i don't need to be part of a movement. and one of the things that i love about how feminism is transitioning is that it's about identity. it's about defining who you are and having the ability to say, you know what, i'm not a feminist or i am a feminist. and that's cool. but it's also about setting the table the right way. as you noticed, we didn't just have a video of the same people who all looked alike and did the same job who are all from the ms. foundation who were all the same age who came and talked about it. and we were okay with people saying i didn't define myself as a feminist. and some of our interviewees said i'm going to say this before i get on camera. i'm like, cool, say it. we want you to say it. that's part of the conversation. and so one of the things that i love about being a feminist is that every day i get to wake up and i get to have this

conversation. i get to have the conversation where someone goes, well i don't agree with that. it's like you know what, you have the freedom not to. and that is the core part of this, you have the freedom to get up every single day and not have the fear that if you disagree with someone else that all of the sudden you are devalued. you have less opportunities. because you decide to wake up and you feel at your core that your identity is not female, your identity is not male, that you are not binary. if you wake up one day and you decide that hey, i'm going to paint my toenails green and dye my hair purple that you can walk out of your home and have the same social, political and economic opportunities and value as any other human being. and so the core part of it is exactly why i'm a feminist. it's exactly why i get up every day and i work as hard as i possibly can to find people of all genders who are working for

that core part. and i'm lucky enough to work at the ms. foundation, where that's our missive, amplifying the voices of women to ensure that they're empowered and engaged to be able to create the solutions in their own communities to be able to change that imbalance of equity. so i will yield the mike. >> thank you so much. and i think -- i just want to dive into this question and have some real talk about what comes up at happy hour that we can bring to the light today. so i've been a part of a lot of conversations, sometimes, you know, that happy hour will be a lot of women of color, sometimes it will be black women, sometimes it will be millennials all together and sometimes i will be the only younger person in a conversation where it's a lot of older women. and i've heard some common themes. wow, working with millennials who haven't paid their dues. they don't know what we had to fight for. they need to get on board and

understand that we know the right way to go. one thing i've heard. another thing i've heard is wow, i never get to take ownership of my power. people just want me to do busy work. i'm not getting the support that i need. i'm not getting to express passion in the way that i want to because my workplace doesn't understand that social media has actual impact. another thing that comes up at happy hour, this is one of the most important historic moments of our time. i cannot believe that these young women are not supporting x candidate. and on and on and on. so i'm sure many of us have heard these conversations. many of us have been a part of these conversations. many of us probably felt strongly triggered or some were in between of the things i brought up. that's why it's important for us

to have this conversation. because let's get real. in 98, 97 days, i'm scared to count, we are going to be facing some very serious impacts no matter who wins around economic justice, paid childcare, health care, education in this country, the supreme court reproductive rights. all of those things are going to be impacted by the decisions that are made. and right now there's varying and diverse theories of change that a lot of us have who call ourselves feminist or people who believe in equality. and there is a debate out there about whether it's a good or bad thing that we have different theories of change or different approaches about how to reach that equality. and i just wanted to ask you to have this be a conversation right now about what you think about this time and this moment. is this a time where we have to

have complete unified strategy, unified terminology, unified jargon or is this a time where we can dig into these contradictions or dig into these tensions? is there a space for us to have people who don't want to call them feminists within the movement. these are the questions i would like to hear from you in asking about what feminism means to us and also about whether this moment in time necessitates specific action. >> interesting question. >> yeah, i mean, i feel like if i'm being true to myself and my beliefs and even the feminist movement, which is more about opportunity and dreams that can come true for everyone, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, you know, any difference, then i feel like there is room for people to go about it in many different ways. right? depending on where you have in your life and what your area of responsibility is, i'll go back

just to my personal perspectives and how i feel like i can impact feminism, you know, as a parent and being able to talk to my kids about why this is a historic moment and engage them in conversation. i mean if you don't think about it, you don't explore it. so just having that conversation and understanding the differences of opinion with them i think is an important step. and then when i think about myself as a brand marketer and how every client i counsel can't go about it the same way. nor might they be so inclined to do it in a really aggressive way. but if they can do it in a way that i think is right for them, their company and their brand and still be true to showing humans as humans and doing those things right, then that's the way they go about it. when i think about myself in the workplace and not every

situation is the same, but being able to -- being active in supporting women and helping them think about what's going on and enabling them to make their own decisions. i think that freedom of choice to decide how you want to pursue it is important from where i sit. >> i think it's an interesting question and it brings up two things for me, which is, one a motto that i have which is my liberation is not yours to define. i'm an extra millennial. i'm an '80s baby and i'm right in the middle and i think that does make a difference. i think it makes a difference also that i am a core identifying woman of color from the south who worked in d.c. and now lives in brooklyn. right? my problems are different. and i think it boils down to that, right. when i first walked into the ms.

foundation, i had come from politics and i looked at my boss who is an avid feminist and i said hey, so, teresa, you know i'm not a feminist, right? and she looks at me, she brought me to the mission on the wall of the ms. foundation and i read it. i was like, cool. she's like do you believe in the social, political and economic equality of all genders. and i'm going to censor myself because we're being videotaped. of course i do. who wouldn't believe in that. that's like a principle. we later found out in polling there's a significant amount of people that don't believe in that. but even when we did that polling we didn't get 100% of people who believed in it. but when we say hey, do you consider yourself a feminist, only 16% of people said yes. men, women, black, white, cross generation, completely split across the united states. but when we asked them to you

believe in the social, political and economic equality of all genders, it jumped three times that. so i think that something you said is poignant. not every client is going to approach equality and feminism -- and i don't say women's rights. i say issues that impact women in their communities. because our identities have so much broader than what people consider to be those quote unquote women's issues. that i truly believe you're right. everyone comes to the table differently, everyone brings it to the table differently. and about three months after working for the ms. foundation i walked in my boss's office and i was like hey, so you know i'm a feminist, right? and she kind of looked at me, very dry, slight roll of her eyes, she's like, okay. glad you figured it out.

and i walked away. but one of the things i really appreciate about that conversation, and this goes back to your question, is she didn't force that on me. she didn't say you have to be a feminist or you can't work for the ms. foundation. which some people would absolutely and totally believe in. but i think as we approach these issues we've got to approach them like that. we've got to be able to say no, i don't think a man can't be a feminist. of course a man can be a feminist. do you believe in a political, social and economic equality of all genders. cool. come on board. we're totally down for you. you don't have to say feminist as long as you believe everybody should have the same opportunities. because i think we close our doors, we close the opportunity of being able to have more partners and more allies and more people at the table with brilliant ideas, brilliant ideas. you know, we even came up with black men in feminism this year. we has a trans man talk about

how there's privilege in being a trans man and the fact that he has seen both sides of it. that part of the conversation would not happen if the table wasn't open to different perspectives and different ideas. and people who are allowed to identify themselves in such a way in believing that it's about equality. right? so, you know. >> this idea of it being about equality, that to me is the connective tissue beyond all of our own individual dogs in the fight, so to speak, if you'll allow that metaphor, there is that goal. liberation can look like many different things for different ones of us based on our identity. i think a lot about how there's a difference between righteous debate and deep diving into questions we need to dive into about our various identities. and then also sometimes the media appropriating movements and disagreements that we have in order to perpetuate

stereotypes about women and trans people that are divisive. about catfights and feminist hysteria for example in order to then undermine women's agency and undermine the progress that's been made. so i was wondering if you all could talk a little bit about what your thoughts are about how to challenge this trend. what should we do when we do disagree. in this culture of think pieces and call out culture and twitter to support each other and not derail each other when we disagree on tactics but agree on overall strategy. >> you can have different views but for me it's about promoting something that's still empowering, inclusive and positive overall. so you don't have to spread the call out culture. you can create your own sphere if you don't see yourself in the media. create a place where you can

talk and discuss things openly. as long as we're just really trying to amplify all voices equally, then we're already working towards something good. >> i think there's a second part to that, though. within the silos and within creating your own voice, there has to be organizations that are sitting out there going, hey, we're going to make space for you. so i think that's also something that's very very important in the conversation, is having those people at the organization saying, oh, wow, this one xyz is doing something amazing and creative. and intersectional. let's make sure we're making space for them so that they're part of the conversation. and that's an interestingly difficult demand sometimes in the world of click bait as i call it where they would rather see a cat fight on twitter between nicki minaj and whoever

it is last week. i'm sure. i don't pay attention. or you know pulling out who was naked on what cover of what magazine last week. and i think that all comes down to consumers. are we being responsible consumers or are we really interested and bored with our lives and want to see what's happening between neek mills and whoever last week. literally what is that. >> and i'm wondering about the best practices and ethics since i was thinking about your work and kelley's work too about that. because i think in the spaces i'm in we're talking -- we have a lot of work to do to be more inclusive and to do the work better always. but i think in the spaces i'm in we have a lot of people who are thinking about intersectional theory and feminism, for example. and i'm wondering when you are in a position as a brand marketer, when you're in a space, in a industry like in tech for

example that might be male dominated, how do we bring up the parts of best ethics or when there might not been multigeneration views representing the voice of feminism, so to speak, in that context. and i'm really interested in what your thoughts are about that. >> there are a couple of things. from a marketing standpoint i think we can -- and i always try to be really smart stewards of my client's marketing and image and make sure it's very much in line with the research that we see. and at ketcham we do tons of research into women and moms and make sure they're portraying women and moms in a way that's consistent with how women want to be seen. we try and match that. i think also being more outspoken and trying to really be change agents within your organization. and there are wonderful things happening in the marketing space ranging from the 3% conference to just i see a whole kind of

resurgence of women finding their voice. and also helping men find their voice so we can all work on that together. i also think there is something very specific that we can all do to help each other, and it's not so much finding your voice but last -- about 18 months ago we did a global research study in conjunction with blogher and it was all about trying to understand women and moms and the role they play as breadwinners. and the research was called "breadwinner phenomenon." and so what it found to no surprise is that each more than expected -- and i think pugh said four in ten women were now the breadwinner in their family. it was actually closer to five to ten, half of the women are on par or breadwinners in their family. which is fantastic. the earning power of women has gone up so dramatically. a lot with that came a couple of things that were disturbing. more stress.

and importantly when i heard sheryl crow mention that you have to nourish yourself before you nourish others, women tend not to do that. the number one thing that women start to do when they make more money is they lose track of their own health.