anniversary -- change and adversity. before the economic crisis, which began on some timber 15, 2008, the failure of lehman brothers. after inflation of median income in america was $2,000 a year lower that was when i left office, 90% of the gains of last decade went to only 10% of us, 43% to 1% of us. that is profoundly disorienting. more and more people working harder for less. now, we have the highest of percentage of americans to have been at work than we have for decades. this is disorienting. .

whether you feel oriented walking through the day, how to feel secure in the face of insecurity, how to feel border in the face of chaos. i am not defending specific behavior. i am just telling you that is what is going on. there is enormous psychological disorientation today, and that is what there was in the early 1990's. we must not forget that when that happens, we have to pay

special care both to have a raging debate, because we need to figure out what to do about this, and to do it in a way that nurtures the best in us, not the worst. the second lesson we have to learn is that we cannot let the debate deteriorated so far into hatred that we lose sight of our common humanity. we cannot ever forget the fact that there is a basic line dividing criticism from of violence or its advocacy, and that the closer you get to the line, and the more responsibility you have, the more you have to think about the echo chamber in which your words

resonate. look, criticism is part of the lifeblood of democracy. nobody is right all the time. but oklahoma city proved once again that beyond the law, there is no freedom. there is a difference between criticizing a policy or a politician, and demonizing the government that guarantees our freedom and the public servants who implement them. and the more prominent you have been politics or media or some other pillar of life, the more you have to keep that in mind. i acknowledge that in my political career i have on more than one occasion, in the face of a policy i disagreed with for a practice i thought was insensitive, referred in a disparaging way generally to

federal bureaucrats. it was as if all of them were arrogant or insensitive or unresponsive. i have not done it again. you could not read the stories of the lives of the people who perished in oklahoma city and not respond in that way. and do some people still abuse their power? yes. to some of them to treat their customers and the people who pay their way in inappropriate ways? yes. does congress sometimes do things that do not work or do not make sense? absolutely. but our criticism should be aimed with a rifle, or preferably, with a bb gun. we should not demonize the institution or the people who work for it. i too learned that from oklahoma city, and i think it is worth

repeating again today. as we lived in another highly contentious, partisan and uncertain time, i have to tell you that i had a great time fighting with newt gingrich and dick armey. i remember when he called hillary the socialist. i remember when gingrich said that hillary and i were the enemies of normal americans. it did not bother me a bit. i was glad to get in and mix it up. but, what we learned from oklahoma city is that we should not gag each other or reduce our passions for the positions we hold, but that the words we use it really do matter. it is an echo chamber.

they go across space, and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike. they fall on the connected and the unhinged alike. i am not trying to muzzle anybody, but one of the things that the conservatives have always brought to the table in america is a reminder that no law can replace personal responsibility. the more power you have, the more influence you have, the more responsibility you have. look, i am glad they are fighting over health care and everything else. let them have added. -- have at it. but i think all you have to do is read the paper every day to

know that there are people out there who are deeply troubled. there are people involved in patriot groups, at 99% of them will never do anything they should not do, but 1% of them will advocate violence and participate in violence. one guy the other day called for an all-out civil war. i am is a southerner. i know that we were paying for that 100 years later in ways large and small. it does not take many people to take something like that seriously. so, i do not want the whole story of this retrospective just to be about this. i think that the point i am trying to make is that i like

the debate. this tea party movement could be a healthy thing. they are making us to justify every penny of taxes we raise and every dollar of public money we spend. they say they are for limited government and a balanced budget. when i left office we have the smallest workforce since eisenhower and the biggest surplus in 70 years. if the people they say should be elected had not gotten elected, we would be out of debt for the first time since the 1930's. but when you get mad, sometimes you end up producing the exact reverse result than what you say you are for. think about every time you have made an important decision in some personal way. when you were angry or frustrated or afraid, there is

about a 75% chance you made a mistake. is that not right? the older you get, the more you will see that. doing things when you are mad is not a -- is by and large a prescription for error. i am sang, have added. goethite. do what you want -- go at it. do what you want. but you cannot be violent. the boston tea party and called the seizure of a shift because there was taxation -- involved the seizure of a ship because there was taxation without representation. this argument is about taxation

by duly elected representatives here you have the option to vote out of office. there is a difference. this goes back to the beginning of the country. when george washington went home to retire and john adams became president, george washington was called out of retirement one time. he was called out to command the armed forces sent to pennsylvania to put down the whiskey rebellion, because a good americans who had fought for this country crossed the line. they went from advocating a different policy and opposing the current one, to taking the law into their own hands in a violent manner. once in awhile, over the last two hundred years, we have crossed the line again, but by

and large that bright line has held, and that is why this is the longest lasting democracy in human history. that is why there is so much at stake. that is why people can organize their groups and advocate whatever they want to advocate, but we have to keep the bright line alive. that is the second lesson. the third lesson is that it is always a mistake to bet against america. what happened at oklahoma city, something that horrible, that could have made people so full of hatred and anger -- use of

the monuments on that gentle slope with that pool and 168 empty chairs -- it is always a mistake to bet against america. we tend to figure this stuff out. we go up and down, but we still have a growing population with a healthy fertility rate. if immigrants still want to come here notwithstanding the legislation in arizona. it is more true today than when president kennedy, that -- then when president kennedy said it, that our democracy is not

perfect, but we have never had to put up a wall to keep our people in. by all means, keep arguing, but remember, words have consequences as much as actions do. what we advocate, commensurate with our position and responsibility, we have to take responsibility for. we owe that to oklahoma city. we know it to keep on fighting, keep on arguing. they did not vote for me in oklahoma in 1996. it was still a republican state. but i loved them anyway. i will until the day i die, because in this country, people mourning their losses rallied

around the federal government and around the principle that what we have in common is more important than our differences. that is why our constitution makes our freedom last, because of that bright line. thank you very much. [applause] >> coming up today on c-span, sandra leavened with an update on his legislative agenda. ways and means committee chair, sander 11 at 1:00 p.m. on c-

span. >> our content is available on television, radio, and online. you can sign up for our scheduled alert e-mails @ c- span.org. >> this year's studentcam competition asked middle school and high-school student to make a five to eight minute video about the challenge the country is facing. here is one of the winners. >> many people consider the united states to be the leader of the free world. as the leader, should we not have the best education system? that would allow us to continue to make the world a better place for all. do we currently have the best education system?

according to the experts, we only rank as average. >> oecd, the organization for economic cooperation and development. we have experts in areas such as science and technology, taxes, migration, and all of the concerns of the 21st century. we work to ensure that people everywhere have a chance to find good jobs with a stable future. we examined what works in education and why. >> how did the oecd evaluate the effectiveness of our educational system? >> they used the program for

international student assessment. >> we looked at the central subject areas. we do not just look at competence. we are also interested in attitudes and disposition. we want to know if young people see signs of something that is going to open up life opportunities for them. we collect a lot of the textual data that helps us understand where our educational system actually is. >> pisa surveys are given every three years, beginning in the year 2000. the results may surprise you. the united states has consistently performed no higher than average. these average results for the united states are in all subjects, math, science and reading.

what does this say about americans and our education system? in 2004, "the wall street journal" headline read "economic time bomb, u.s. students are the worst at math." if education is the most powerful weapon we can use it to change the world, do these test results indicate that we will not be able to lead in the near future because we are failing our younger generation? president obama said -- >> americans education system must once again be the envy of the world, and that is what we intend to do. that is what the budget i am is submitting intend to do. >> president barack obama is

committed to improving the educational system. in 1966, a famous sociological researchers conducted an extensive study on the effectiveness of our educational system. according to his research, the amount of money spent on students did not affect their test results. instead, he found that students with higher sociopath economic status scored -- hire socioeconomic status scored higher on tests. 40 years later, things have not changed. the united states outspends korea on education, yet korean students consistently outscore the u.s. on test scores. for our county school district is taking a different approach. it was selected as one of four

districts to receive a grant from the bill and melinda gates foundation. bill gates spoke about the changes needed in the educational system at the 2009 conference in philadelphia. >> when we see the power of the top teachers, we should identify them, we should retain them, and we should make sure other teachers learn from them. >> the foundation's education director said, "is all about the importance of teachers. it is a seven year experiment to put the best teachers possible in the classroom." another woman said, "is our ultimate goal to raise

graduation rates and ensure college and careers readiness." local administrators i spoke with felt that better teachers ensure better success. >> we have teachers taking, sometimes on the weekends -- teachers taking trainings, sometimes on the weekends, sometimes after school, and sometimes with a substitute making it possible for the teacher to go out and get training. >> there is a cooperative learning strategy they train their teachers to use. >> the problem is the replacement cycle. when students get something new they forget everything else. you do not throw everything out because you put something new in. you always keep what works and

add, just like you do with technology. >> in president barack obama's education strategy, he outlined the importance of teacher's role in helping students succeed. >> we should be rewarding outstanding teachers. from the moment students come to school, the most important factor is the person standing at the front of the classroom. >> there is a lot of debate about what government, educators and administrators can do to improve student learning, but i think it all boils down to the students and families themselves. this is why i challenge every student to show up to class every day on time and prepared to learn. make completing your homework a priority. ask the teacher for help if you need it. get your parents involved in your school work.

attend after-school help sessions and homework clubs. use all available resources, including public libraries. this spokesman from the united negro college fund sums it up best. >> to see all of the winning entries, visit studentcam.org. >> let's meet another winner in this competition. we asked about one of the country pose the greatest strengths or challenges. today we are speaking with a second prize winner. welcome to c-span. >> it is great to be here. >> why do you believe education is a challenge our country is facing? >> i think education is a challenge our country is facing because over the past years we

have continued to slip and our international ranking. >> why did you use a "from nelson mandela? >> i believe that education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world. i believe that educating yourself is the best way to move up in the world. >> what is the oecd? >> is the organization for economic cooperation and development. it was established in 1961 to help sustain economic growth, raise living standards, and help growth world trade. >> what is pisa? >> that is the program for international student assessment. was designed to provide countries with accurate data about their educational systems. >> how do americans consistently rank on pisa testing?

>> american students have consistently ranked average in all subject areas on test every year that it has been given, which includes 2000, 2003, and 2006. >> what does this ranking mean? >> it means we need to work harder on increasing our scores or we will continue to fall behind. >> thinking about your own educational experience, what are some areas that are working? >> i think teaching the two -- teaching the teachers is working. the teachers are working on creating a positive or king environment. -- a positive learning environment. >> what do you think is not working? >> currently teacher pay reward longevity not performance.

>> what did you learn from the people you interviewed? >> the headmistress of my school taught me about different cooperative learning strategies. >> in your documentary you also mentioned what your county is doing to try to increase student achievement. what are they doing? >> we are one of four counties in the country to receive a grant from the bill on monday its foundation. this money is going to be spent on improving teachers in the classroom. they want to identify the good teachers and use them as mentors to the others. >> what you believe increased government spending does not help student achievement? >> i do not think it hurts student achievement, i just think we need to focus more on how it is spent. i think we need to change our culture and place more emphasis

and value on education. i think students need to realize that more doors will open for them if they apply themselves at school. >> thank you for taking the time to talk to us today, and congratulations on your win. >> many people consider the united states to be the leader of the free world. as a leader, should not we have the best education system? that way we can turn -- that way we can continue to make the world a better place for all. do we currently have the best education system? we only rank as average. >> to what all of this documentary and all of the videos at any time, go to studentcam.org. >> and now a look at how atwitter has donated its

archive to the library of congress. >> this is an historic day for the library of congress. the library is going to get the twister archive -- twitter archive. what is that? guest: every tweet since 2006 will be coming to the library of congress. those are public tweets. account set to private or direct messages between people will not be included. host: will this be an ongoing thing? you're getting everything from 2006 and beyond.

more tweets are made available every day. guest: that is correct. there are billions and billions of them. the first amount that the library is getting will be a terrified. -- a terabyte. host: obviously this is a new form of communication that was just developed. what is the historical reasoning behind getting to the archive? guest: this is a natural outgrowth of what the library

has done for its existence. if you look at generations past, there have been letters, journals, and other means of communication that have been spoken from generation to generation. this new technology is a new way of transmitting communication between people, between citizens and the government, the media, and different social circles. there is a great deal of historical and cultural relevance that can be mined from the twitter archive. every major event of any sort of importance has been documented on twitter, not just from the observer's perspective, but also from the participant's perspective. it will be everything from march 2006, so whether that is the

earthquake in or the election of president barack obama. his first week after being -- his first tweaked -- tweet after being elected was to thank his supporters. there was of course the use of twittered in iran after the election. there was a journalist who was arrested, and his tweets set up a chain of events and eventually he was let go. the handoff of the data will happen in about six months. researcher access will be initially on site at the library.

we will be putting some selected tweets up under different topics and categories. host: russ is for the update. we will talk to you again. -- thank you for the update. we will talk to you again. >> the vetting process has begun to replace justice john paul stevens on the supreme court. you can see videos in the c-span on library online. >> coming up in just under half an hour, a ways and means committee chairman on his legislative agenda. he will be live at the national

press club. we will have a year at 1:00 p.m. eastern time on c-span -- we will have it here at 1:00 p.m. eastern time on c-span. senator christopher dodd speaks about financial regulation. this is about half an hour. >> the good morning, everyone. how are you? sorry we are a couple of minutes late. is roy joined by my colleague from virginia, mark -- i am joined by my colleague from virginia, mark warner. democrats and republicans have worked very hard over the last year putting together a proposal for financial reform. we are not there yet in terms of achieving a bipartisan bill.

the process is an ongoing one. we have reported on the talks over the last couple of months. let me just share a couple of thoughts, and then i will turn the microphone over to mark warner. americans of all stripes all across the country have suffered terribly as a result of the economic crisis in the country. millions of jobs have been lost. hamas have ended up in foreclosure. retirement accounts -- homes have ended up in foreclosure. retirement accounts have and then eliminated. we have seen the devastation all across our country. we came to the brink of a major meltdown of all financial institutions approximating the great depression of the 1920's. we have avoided that, but obviously a lot has to be done

to make sure we do not end up in this situation again. we must never again leave future generations without the tools to respond to an economic crisis, as surely there will be one. lastly, we want to make sure that we are providing the kind of innovation and creativity that allows our financial services sectors to provide the jobs, credit flow and capital that allows our economy to provide the kind of opportunities that america has historically provided. those are the goals of this legislation. we did not take the action lightly. we are committed to making sure the bad decisions on wall street never again lead to the kind of disastrous economic results that occurred on main street. we are committed to making sure

that taxpayers are never again put on the hook for massive bailout, such as the bush administration paid out in the fall of 2008 and early weeks of 2009. wall street and our republican friends are entitled to their own opinions. they are in great abundance of around here, but no one is entitled to their own set of facts. here are the facts about what this bill does. our bill and too big to fail, a bailouts forever. there is no room whatsoever. we worked literally for weeks to develop this legislation. our bill includes strong protections for consumers. never before have consumers received the kind of attention within the sec -- within the

financial services area that this bill provides. it allows for independent rule making, examination, and enforcement of those rules so that consumers are not left behind. it holds firms accountable and the man's real the -- and demands real transparency. firms cannot gamble with our investment. our republican friends apparently want to leave in place the status quo. that leaves us vulnerable to another economic crisis. once again, too big to fail will be in place. for those who argue otherwise, you need to understand that without the changes we are talking about in this legislation, institutions would have an implicit guarantee that the federal government will bail them out every time. without real reform, these

companies will not be put out of their misery, as we talked about earlier. our republican friends and the big firms are literally reading from the same black is white talking point. why are big firms taking the republican side in this bill? is it because the bill is not tough enough on them? i have been hopeful that we could come to an agreement that would produce the kind of broad though we should have on this legislation. i still hope that can be -- brought vote we should have on this legislation. i still hope that can be achieved. it is time now to act.

the talking is almost over, and now we need to move and make decisions about whether or not we are going to support this legislation. without getting into the decision of a legal matter, there is no doubt in my mind that the lawsuit recently brought against a major wall street firm would not have had to happen if the rules of this bill were in place. we are trying to stop the kind of shenanigans that occurred in large financial institutions across this country. i will now turn it over to mark warner. >> thank you. i have recently had major dental activity, so if i start drilling in the middle of the -- start drooling in the middle of this,

you're sorry. -- i am sorry. i wanted this bill to do three things. one, make sure taxpayers are protected. two, make sure that we never had a permit so large that it could not be unwound -- never had a firm so large that it could not be unwound. three, make sure regulators share information. we have had a lack of transparency, a shadow banking market, and in interconnectedness that almost brought the system down. when the crisis and did a ride

-- did arrive, there were no procedures in place to unwind these institutions. a number of colleagues from both sides of the aisle have worked for hundreds of hours over months and months trying to get this right. we understand that the unforeseen implications of our actions could be great. let me tell you what we have done to make sure that the actions of 2008 could never happen again. first, we realize that the regulators too often did not share information. who was looking at the depository side, the versus of the holding, versus securities? we need to make it possible for these regulators and to share in the nation.

one thing that has gotten a lot of attention is the financial resources office. on a day-to-day basis, they collect all of the information and analyzed this level of interconnectedness. we would have known the kind of problems aig had. second, we have said that these firms to get so large -- these firms that get so large and interconnected need to have speed bumps. there were off-balance sheet activities that did not have appropriate capital reserves to cover them. we are going to have higher capital reserve requirements. we have to look at leverage ratios. these institutions did not have

traditional 10 to one of the average rate, but had 100 to one of leverage. "we are creating a whole new category of contention -- we are creating a whole new category of contingent capital that can be converted to equity. that would put the pressure on existing shareholders to make sure that management does not take undue risks. finally, we have required that these firms managers put in place a process where they can demonstrate to the regulators that they can orderly unwind themselves in a bankruptcy filing. we agreed that bankruptcy should be the preferred process. what we have found in the past was that these firms were so interconnected and had international implications, so there was no orderly process available.

if this whole process does not work, there has to be and out of a resolution process. into the senate these firms were basically conserve. we did not have -- in two thousand eight -- in 2008, these firms were basically conserved. the republican leader wants to create a fund that will keep the lights on while there is an orderly and winding -- un winding. the republicans have suggested that the financial industry pre- fund this.

if there are other ways to do this, we would listen. if there are ways to protect the taxpayer to make sure that we never again have a process that leads to these bailouts, we it would like to hear them. we need to hear specific suggestions, not broadbased partisan criticism. we look forward to working with our committee to get this right. we have taken on too big to fail, derivatives, and more. >> the republicans say they have 41 signatures to block this bill as you have written it. how are you going to maneuver around them?

do you think commanding the $50 billion fund would do? >> as senator warner pointed out, i hear these statements and read the press releases, but i have yet to have a knock on the door of someone offering specific suggestions. it is a republican suggestion to have prepayment in the bill. what are the big banks opposed to this? there are fees that small banks pay to protect their depositors. why shouldn't large institutions have a fee payment so that the

taxpayers are not on the hook if they end up in tough shape? i am willing to listen to other ideas, so long as we do not expect the taxpayer to do it. i have received a letter from republicans opposing the legislation. the word filibuster was not in that letter. i do not really believe the republicans want to be in a position of filibustering the bill that would allow us to address these problems. i believe that when we bring this bill up later this week that we will have the votes. we will debate the legislation, consider amendments, and moved forward.

in the meantime, if anyone has a specific ideas, i am happy to hear them. i have been around long enough to know that unless you move forward, you never find up the answer to the question. >> what about cloture? >> that is a good question for the leader, who has been very supportive of this process. my hope is that this week we can get to the bill. there may be no need to file a culture of motion. i do not know the answer. that is a leadership question. >> what about republican objections? >> i have asked democrats and republicans to work together on derivatives and all of the other

issues. i know the republican members of this body are tired of being asked to just a vote no on everything and start over. they want to be part of a solution. they have good ideas, many of which are in this bill already. we welcome more of them if they will come forward. they want to be part of the solution. they do not want to be told once again, "vote no." they knock -- they do not want to have to explain why they are sitting on the sidelines allowing malfeasance from the financial institutions to keep occurring. >> do you have plans to drop the $50 billion fund from the bill? >> and just answered that. the irony of ironies is that the suggestion of this came from republicans. we agree that it made some sense. we should have these fees for

large institutions just as we do for small ones. >> a fund of some size, too large, could create a moral hazard. ultimately, the way you get through a resolution process is with the fdic. there were questions about who would be included on prepayments, but there was not a question about finding a way to do orderly dissolution of these firms. there should be no more conservative ships -- no more receivership.

>> we are talking about applying to these institutions that have assets $50 billion or more, and we're talking about a $50 billion fund. >> i was looking for common ground, and this is one area were common ground was achieved. they have latched on to a proposal here that they were the co-authors of. >> there was a suggestion of the trust instrument, but one of the concerns we all had was that if you had treasury borrowing, if

there had been no pre funded entity financed by the financial sector, you could have this window where taxpayers could be exposed. we will look at it, but we would love to your specific suggestions. >> bob corker made the point the other day the -- the other day that this issue and others could probably be resolved in five minutes. he is right. but we need the five minutes, and we need to find out what it is that they are talking about other than just sort of the accusations. if their ideas that we can do

this in a way that brings people together, i am happy to hear them. this is not a question where i am rigidly holding on to this. one thing i hope we have in common is that the american taxpayer ought not to decide to unwind a firm the got itself in trouble. why should the american taxpayer pay that bill? that is the point we're all trying to make. again, if there are other ideas on how to do it, i am all ears. there are several issues here. my view is that our bill does not go beyond the jurisdiction of our committee. on the derivatives section, a we

are working -- i know we are working to come to some understanding there. let me make it clear that this shadow economy that mark warner talked about is one of the major reasons why we ended up in trouble financially. we need to bear on the side of transparency -- err on the side of transparency. when markets can react in a transparent way, everyone benefits. with we have to begin a conversation with the assumption that transparency is the best case against getting into this difficulty again. if there are exceptions that make sense, i am willing to listen to them. i know there are conversations going on about it.

>> the republicans have broadly argued that if you create a fix for a meltdown, a meltdown will come. can you address that, but philosophically, how you disagree? >> if anyone thinks we can draft legislation that will protect america and the world from ever again facing an economic crisis -- first of all, this goes beyond our borders. look at countries like greece. some of you may recall a few years ago that there was a market in shanghai that declined by 12 points in one night.

within 24 hours, that had an effect on every other markets around the world. this is a global economy, so the idea that we're not going to have another economic crisis -- we will. having an implicit guarantee that you get a bailout, that is what the present situation is. if you're too big, we have to kill you out. our legislation says, no, that is over with forever. those words are gone. never again will you be bailed out. if you can unwind in a way that does not have an effect on other solvent institutions is something that has a lot of work in place. managers must be fired. shareholders lose. creditors lose. all of those things occur under our bill. >> some say you are unfairly

controlling american institutions but cannot regulate what goes on beyond the borders. >> we are trying to have some harmonization of rules. there is an appetite for it both in europe and asia, and i think elsewhere in the world. they would like to see some harmonization so that we do not have everyone rushing to london. i think there is an appetite for that. after this bill has passed, we can start on that. >> i have heard that critique as well. we have put all of these tripwires in place. one of the things that has not gotten a lot of press our plans that will take into account international holdings so that there is a path that shows how you would unwind yourself even

with international holdings. no rational management team would ever prefer resolution. in bankruptcy there is at least a chance he might come out the other end. resolution, you're going down. this approach does take into consideration the international implications of these firms. >> are you operating under the assumption that you are going to have to make changes to this bill or you will not get the votes to bring it to the floor, or are you just planning to take a gamble and see what republicans do? >> that we are working on the presumption that people want to make a good bill. if there are ideas that can make this a stronger and better bill, the door is wide open, as it has been. we will listen to them. again, the ideas are not forthcoming. obviously, bad ideas will be rejected.

remember, this comes down to a basic question. whose side are you on? what more do you need to know? what has occurred as a result of the near meltdown of the financial system of this country, 8 million jobs, 7 million homes, retirement funds lost, credit dried up, and if we do nothing, it will remain as it is. and we need regulatory structure to protect us from that kind of event occurring again. we want to debate this issue. bring your ideas. millions have been spent over the last weeks and months to stop this bill. on wednesday or thursday, democrats and republicans will get a chance to decide which side of the equation they are

on, establishing laws and regulations that will protect us, or the other side which says no, status quo. >> just to echo that, i have spent 20 years on the market. i realized a year and a half and how enormously complex this is. there are plenty of arguments about unforeseen consequences. but the only real argument is that the status quo is not working. thank you. . .

now he oversees every tax, trade, social security, medicare and employment measure that moves through congress. if there is major money involved, the bill goes through ways and means. with the powerful position comes a place in the history books. with carl past -- carl chairing

-- the first brothers serving simultaneously as committee cheers. this year -- he is ready to take on one of the most controversial tax issues of the day, whether to extend the bush era tax cuts. other issues include looming shortfall in social security, trade with china and helping u.s. businesses become more competitiveness. he is the father of four and his daughter jennifer is here at the head table today and also reported to be a means course player and red wings hockey fan which has been doubled in recent days. the national plus -- press club welcomes congressman sander levin. [applause] >> thank you very much and thank you for inviting me and my daughter jenny. i can't remember the first session or meeting or events my late beloved wife of 50 years

and i took jenny to. i am not sure she remembers. but i can remember her at our house in berkeley -- as we had meetings. and she was two or three years old. she would just stay there listening intently, and so she is here today. ask any question unrelated to ways and means, i will turn my cell phone on and text message my brother. [laughter] so, i have it here.

especially if it relates to armed services matters. and others he is investigating beyond arms services today, as you know. as i sat down to write my remarks, i thought, what were the events of the 27 years that i have been in congress? my colleague dennis is here, we served together. butler derrick. and i remember the recession, the end of soviet power and domination. i remember well the debate over the health care bill in the clinton years. i remember very vividly the republican takeover of the house. of course, 9/11, and the war in iraq. i remember also going home in

1993 after the deficit reduction vote that passed, as you remember, just by a sliver. and we made the mistake, i thought, of having a town meeting. i love them all. but in a place in warren, michigan, in a shopping mall with a very low ceiling. and i can still hear -- it was a rather turbulent meeting. as i began to write my remarks i decided that this is the difference. and so, here is what i wrote down. we are at a major crossroad. in a democracy every generation or so, there occurred conditions that can be described by what seems a rather strange label. a perfect storm is defined --

and one of the staff, the internet. a rare combination of circumstances -- in this volatile combination today includes. you all know them and some of the report on them. the deepest economic recession sense of depression, distort financial meltdown receiving more and more attention. the globalizing of our economy is more apparent every day. all of them impacting the families that i represent and the communities in suburban michigan. secondly, bush administration policies that contributed to a historical high level of income inequality is, are for income families billing still better and middle-class families in

essentially stagnant in their incomes. a missed a historic increase in the national debt -- amidst a historic increase in national that replacing budget surpluses. third -- and being on the committee i remember these issues so well. neglect of public programs intended to provide safeguards for families in need. a disgraceful example is so vivid in michigan. the doubling of the social security disability backlog of thousands waiting two or three years or more for a decision. and unemployment insurance system that has too often failed to help jobless workers. last, u.s. trade deficits, the largest in recorded history. twice as large as the previous record in the 1980's and a major

drag on our economy and a contributor to the global crisis. such a combination creates "a perfect storm." from my experience going back decades, the clash has been intensified by the loss of moderates within republican ranks. a few of you may remember, and

jenny does, several decades ago i tried to the elected governor of michigan against a moderate republican who has become a good friend of mine. and if i might say so, he and died today are much closer in ideas than he is to those dominant in today's republican party. and so health care became the every now for this intense battle of ideas and rhetoric. the obama administration inherited a health care system, the best in terms of innovation, and almost the worst among industrial nations in terms of cost and coverage. the unsuccessful clinton reform effort was followed by eight years of inaction, as cost and coverage problems grew still worse. so, we acted. basic change creates resistance.

and the nation heard claims of impending disaster similar to those heard surrounding the passage of social security, medicare, and the staff and i pulled together some of those quotes from the 1960's and 1930's. they are not included here because of the lack of time, but they sound so similar, those claims and arguments of decades ago to those today. it turned out that prognostications were wrong. the clash -- i emphasize this -- is not in mobilized but energized those of us in the majority. this happens, i think, when people do what they believe in. and believe their actions will be in the best american tradition -- spreading the wings of opportunity and of community.

well, we returned last week, and jobs is our number one issue. very much before this committee. the deeper the recession, along the traditional like we know in job creation. ax -- i think there are more and more signs. when i talk to you in the business, the first question i asked, it is it a bit better? and most of you say, gas, a bit better. but clearly we have to undertake additional efforts to spur job growth. so, as in a, the president signed a bill last week. and it has real incentives for small businesses. and the house approved, unfortunately with only a handful of republican votes, the small business and infrastructure tax act to assist small businesses extend their

very successful build america bond program, which experts have called, and i quote, one of economic recovery efforts business -- biggest successes. we had a hearing last week on green johns, and a distinguished reporter who is here was there i think for all of this -- green jobs. it went until 10:00 until 6:00 p.m.. it was a useful hearing, i think, and we are now looking at further legislation. several business spokesperson's had something to say that i thought was so significant from gm and dell, about the need for an active public partnership with the private sector to develop technologies shaping our future. these two people said it could not have happened, only relying on markets themselves. and it was best that -- this

that characterized program so many of you know. the battery grant that helped spark the beginning of a renaissance in michigan and elsewhere industrially. it is interesting because i talk to my colleagues, how many of my colleagues say, i come from the state that is going to be the new center of electric battery development. so many. i look at them and i say, you know, it is michigan. [laughter] no, they say, it is ohio. someone told me, it is delaware. joe biden is from delaware, so i took that somewhat seriously. [laughter] but also this public-private partnership is the underlying premise of the r&d tax credit which is at the hearts of the bill that passed both houses.

these bills are being worked right now into the -- and to anticipate a question on this, i think these extend their bills and small business and infrastructure jobs bill, that together we need to not only work on them but passed them before memorial day. so, let me say a few words about safeguards for workers. i think those who reported no that as i handled the unemployment bill just last week, on i was really disturbed, mild word, the attack on the bill or the resistance to it, first among senate republicans and then most -- if not all of the house republicans. there are today twice the numbers of long-term unemployed compared to any other time on record. it has usually been a bipartisan effort. but the claim among republicans is that we cannot afford it

because of the deficit. these members seem to have discovered fiscal responsibility when it comes to unemployed workers but not when it comes to paying for tax cuts for the very wealthy. so, we have to extend unemployment and cobra. we have also acted in the recovery act for those dislocated by trade. in the recovery act we began some long needed reforms of the unemployment compensation system. all so we included -- and this has been somewhat overlooked -- some important we put -- improvements to provide funding to help states with rising welfare caseloads. and it is really interesting. i do suggest that those in the media look at what the states have been doing with the several billion dollars in this tandem program. some of the most conservative

states have in essentially used the money to put people back to work. unfortunately for the disabled congress has provided increase funding -- fortunately, for the disabled, congress is provided increased funding. in michigan today the average wait for those who are disabled or claim to be disabled is over three years. and there is no health care. these are people we don't see. it is hard to find them. they are covered by privacy requirements. but we need to do better. remember, two-thirds of the claims that are being litigated eventually are approved and people are waiting all of these years falling deeper and deeper

in despair and some even dying before the litigation can proceed. so let me say a word about tax policy. the rumor is ways and means has jurisdiction. just a brief word about the estate tax it expired -- estate tax. it expired. four months into the year without a resolution. i find this uncertainty unacceptable and unfair. i wrote this out and i had to double check. i am a lawyer. i did a bit of estate planning. but i do not think i fully realize all the ramifications. for instance, many wells are written to leave as much to the children as is the load the estate tax threshold with the rest going to their surviving spouse. today, that means that the children may well be left with

nothing. just a word about the expiring tax cuts. during the last again amid stanton from 2001 through 2007, the top 1% of americans received two-thirds of the increase in national income while the middle class incomes in essentially stagnated. the divergence of income we have seen in the last decade means that we should keep the middle income tax cuts and let those for the very wealthy expire. and i think that is going to eventually happened. set by statutory pay go -- and not only sets the course but is a vital step for fiscal responsibility. just a word. once we handle these issues, we

can turn our attention to reform of the tax code. charlie rangel, as you know, months ago unfolded -- unveiled a comprehensive tax reform proposal. and i think we will continue to work on it. just a few words about trade. some of you know, i have been somewhat involved in this and have some deep feelings about it. the bush administration took a hands-off approach to trade policy. those of you who report on it have heard me say it so many times. it was wedded to the view that the more the trade, the better, no matter its terms or content. in my judgment we need to both expand trade and spread its benefits more broadly and be sure that our workers and businesses are playing on a level playing field. that has been the expression most importantly of the president. talking about the need for it to

be reciprocal, not to just a one-way street. and the administration has taken important steps to carry that out. a brief word -- and you may want to talk more about the specific trade agreements. that the administration inherited from the bush administration -- correa, colombia, and panama. -- korea. no doubt they contain important positive aspects but also flaws and when they were being negotiated we made clear to those negotiating that they had to be changed. they were not. and now we need to fix them. last week without a bipartisan meeting of key house members. four of us republicans and democrats, with the new u.s. t our leadership working on the dole hot negotiations -- usta

leadership working on the doha negotiations. we are going to be working together, i hope, on a broad range of issues. we will save it transpacific partnership agreements and all so the issues of currency. we are going to actively offer our support for the administration's g-20 initiative to address unsustainable global trade and financial balances, including addressing currency policies. china's currency is clearly undervalued and it is an important cause of our country's major trade deficit. and i will continue to work with this administration over the next few months as it addresses in the g-20, as it must, the

currency issue. let me conclude with just a few thoughts. so many of the pending issues of 2010 are in the jurisdiction of our committee. moving ahead responsibly and responsive fully -- responsively -- we have held hearings, for example, on china's currency, and more recently on energy and technology issues and we had recently a committee markup of the most recent jobs bill and will continue to do that. just this last comment. much is being reported now about the political outlook for november, and as i look about it, it is true of many of you. congressional democrats know that repairing the damage of the combination of harmful bush administration policies in many key areas and it's in action in

others and replacing them with sound policies require both persistence and patience and a vigorous dialogue with the american people. we know that responding to the dynamics of a perfect storm means resistance as a part of progress. we have confidence that the path forward we are charting builds on the finest american traditions and that we are going to succeed. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, chairman levin. in keeping with a wide range of topics your committee oversees we have a wide range of topics for questions.

i can see that more are still coming in. starting off with one of the topics, health care reform. it is being said the health care reform package use all of the low hanging fruit in terms of revenue raisers. where can the committee look for new sources to pay for new investments? >> by the way -- i welcome your questions, and i know it is the tradition here to have written questions. so, i'm sorry you don't have to identify yourselves, who asked the question. and also i love the back and forth, including the chance to disagree with me after i in answer. but i followed the traditions of this distinguished press club, including r d court that i until late not used to. -- include the red cord i am totally not used to. i did not know how low hanging

it was but it was there. black liquor was used so many times that we almost became drunk. what are we going to use instead? because we have the extender bill that has been renamed the jobs bill. and we have our small business bill over there. and those relating to treaty shopping. and there is some resisting to it. also over there is a bill, with carried interest in it. all of these have been controversial. i met with senator baucus about a week ago, last monday, and we had a thorough and, i think, very constructive discussion

about where we are going to find today for it. i just want to assure everybody that is here that a week -- that we are going to take a serious look at those provisions and others. we have to pay for them. it is required by pay go and buy fiscal responsibility. not the unemployment provisions, cobra provisions, that are essentially covered by pay go. and i am hopeful that as we discussed of this, that the republicans will drop their opposition to extending unemployment compensation unless it is paid for. we have not paid for extensions of unemployment or cobra and pay go, provide, as i said, the structure to proceed.

however, the rest of the provisions have to be paid for. and i am not sure where the fruit is. some people think it is sour. some may think it is riveting. but the main thing -- some might think it is robbing. but the main thing, we will find pay fors using some intelligent discussion going beyond the labels to see where we can find provisions that provide resources with equity. with equity. >> thank you. just to note -- the red line. we know you are popular among the tax and trade lobbyists around town and we tried to keep the paparazzi away from you. out of respect to the speakers. a lot of questions have to do with the various free-trade agreements that have been waiting for some kind of approval or ratification have

you received any signals from the white house that they intend to send you any of the pending free-trade agreements this year? the think the korea free trade and up -- free trade agreement can be fixed, especially with automobiles? >> let me take them in turn. panama -- by the way, we have been working on these four years. it was a year and a half ago, i think, that i spent two saturdays at the panama and is a with a staff person discussing with the panamanians of the free trade agreement. in those days, the administration did not want to negotiate labor and environmental provisions. so east and chile, the democratic trade staff and i -- essentially the democratic trade staff and i did not negotiate. that change. it is up to ustr to do the

negotiating. the issue we discussed with panama then related to their coming into compliance with basic ill worker rights provisions. the tax haven issue was not as prominent then as it is now. essentially what has to happen with panama is to implement what we discussed a year-and-a-half ago and to pass a tax haven provision. they do that, and i think then we will be in a position to move forward. let me say a word about career appeared -- kores. i said -- and i was not the only one -- to administration negotiators that they had to open up the market for our industrial goods. they shipped 700,000 cars a year here. we ship less than 10,000. they have a wall against our

exports industrially. american refrigerator manufacturers cannot sell their basic refrigerator in korea. you can go to lows and home depot and find several korean- made refrigerators. it is a one-way street and we told them it had to change and they have to provide for those changes. they failed to do so. so, they went ahead with a path that was sure to fail. we warned them. can it be fixed? the answer is, yes. unfortunately when are two presidents met, the korean president and president obama, for the first time it indicated a willingness to sit down and talk about fixing a -- and fortunately, when the two presidents met. i want to say a word about

colombia. our trade policy under this administration is essentially says this -- you have to expand trade, but to do so in a way that spreads its benefits. that is better for those countries and better for hours. with colombia and -- and this was the battle we had over tafta -- cafta. latin-american countries essentially into many cases have these deep disparities in terms of income and opportunity. you can't grow middle-class is under those circumstances. middle class is the one who buy our goods, basically. so there is a basic point in worker rights and environmental issues. it is not because anybody is

standing up for any particular interest group in this country. we are standing up for our businesses and workers and and the workers and other countries in need to be part of the nixon ordered to buy our goods. -- part of the mix in order to buy our goods. today there was an article -- you reporters, we clip you endlessly and we stuck them in our pockets the same way. so i stopped this in my pocket, and it comes from "the washington post." colombia struggles to reduce poverty. the gap between rich and poor continues. i went down to colombia myself, like i did when i went to china myself and the cast of countries myself to see firsthand what the

conditions were pared i'd met the people who worked with bus sugar industry. there is essentially workers are totally deprived of their ability to be participants and have a say. they have set up these so called cooperative is that are essentially a dummy outfits, and workers go from cooperative to cooperative, being paid for by some entity, unable to be able to be a major part of the economy. that has to be fixed for their good and our good. i fully understand the importance of opening up the colombian market. i fuller -- fully understand it for our businesses and workers. but we need to have trade agreements that essentially reflect our values, and in the

case of workers, basic international labor values. once that happens, we will be able to proceed. i understand some -- there also have to be gains in terms of diminishing the disparities in income that has so beleaguered the latin american countries. i finish with this. my beloved dad, her granddad, loved and latin america, traveled there. we were raised with that feeling of affection. he was the honorary consul general for honduras in michigan in the 1950's. he wanted to find a country that would make him consul, so he found honduras. he stamped 5 visas a year. but he felt so deeply about the importance of those countries,

fully meeting the needs of their constituents. that is what this is all about. so in a word, i think we need to proceed. we need to address the outstanding issues. i hope we can do that. >> one of the frequent arguments made in favor of ratifying this free trade agreements is the need to support strategic allies. how much weight should foreign- policy decisions be given in determining whether to ratify a free-trade agreement? >> the answer is, some. but they are trade agreements. that is the answer. i mean -- look, we know with korea, for example, the other issues. they are important issues. all i suggest is that they did not totally overwhelm what is the basic purpose of a free

trade agreement. i will finish with this. the rhetoric in this town, of this administration or people like myself being isolationist -- charlie rangel and isolationist? -- charlie rangel, an isolationist? it is people will understand the importance of globalization and want to make it work. work, as the article indicates, not for a minority but for the fast -- they asked people of that country because it is better for that country and it is better for our country. and that was once the foundation of american policy toward latin america. and i wanted to be revived, and i have confidence under this administration that it will be. >> one month ago you chaired a hearing on chinese currency manipulation after which included the status quo was unsustainable. another month has passed but

china bought the currency has not appreciated against the dollar. president obama discussed the issue with chinese president jintao and washington but no promises were made or timeline said. what is congress's role to play? legislation on the currency helpful? should the treasury designate china as a currency manipulator in its overdue currency report? >> the administration is essentially decided on this course, to try to resolve the china currency issue multilaterally. when secretary geithner and i met, two fridays ago, i think, we discussed it at length. and he made clear that that was how they were going to go. the g-20 is meeting in a couple of months. it is clear to me this administration is endeavoring to

try to help bring about a change. china has rigged its currency. it has been part of its overall strategy. it has to change. they are going to try to use a multilateral process to help bring that about. if it doesn't work, the u.s. will act. i have no doubt about it. i think the administration will act and i think congress will act. congressional pressure -- i think perhaps helps the chinese understand that the status quo is unacceptable. it has had it that imbalance, a substantial impact on our businesses and our workers. one can argue endlessly how much is an undervalued, between 15% or 40%, or 10% or 30%? and how many jobs have been

lost? all we know the chinese government -- it is not the only thing -- but the currency is a major tool for them essentially to get an advantage economically over us. it is far from fair for us. i think it is also unwise for the chinese to continue doing it that way. so, in a word, i think it will change by the end of the g-20 meetings. china will make the decisions, will begin to do this, or else we will take further steps. >> several questions relating to the value-added tax, a proposal discussed on capitol hill. could you please discuss the pros and cons and would such a tax by late president obama's promise not to impose taxes on people making less than $250,000?

>> i have been listening to this debate. i saw, waiting for the red wings hockey game -- i should not have waited. i listened to the talk shows and it was adjusting how the value added tax had gained such prominence. i was somewhat surprised. i have heard almost nobody within our ranks discussing it. i know that one distinguished economist in this town did talk about it. but the administration hasn't. so i was somewhat surprised. my guess is by next week it will be a goner. that is for good reason. i think it has been raised mostly by the republicans for political gain, trying to label us as a taxer.

i suggest not only am i wrong but they should read paul ryan's proposal, he is a republican, and he has a value added tax provision in it. so, i don't think it is on the agenda. and so, let me suggest that we can argue the pros and cons. the next time i can come to the press club. >> under chairman rangel ways and means committee put enormous effort into putting together a revenue-neutral package of tax reforms that would broaden the overhaul base and lower taxes on u.s. companies and middle-class taxpayers. given the deficit, is a possible to do a revenue-neutral reform? does any broad package of changes or reforms need to bring in more revenue overall? >> i think, to charlie rangel's

credit, he brought it out, as i said earlier, some months ago -- many months ago. and i think clearly tax reform has to be a major item on the agenda. as to whether it is neutral or not, i think has to be discussed at a time we are able to focus in on a comprehensive tax reform. this isn't the time now. we have it immediately in front of us the estate tax issue. we have immediately in front of us the 2001-2003 tax cuts. we have to address them. it isn't going to be easy if -- it isn't going to be easy. if there isn't a budget resolution with fervor reconciliation possibilities it will take 60 votes. if any of you can tell me how we are sure to get that, tell me.

it will be off the record. i am not sure how we do that. but that really has to be the focus in the coming months. i'm not sure how we do it. i am not sure -- but it has to be the first order of business. and clearly comprehensive tax reform is an issue for next year, not this year. >> is it realistic to believe that individual tax increases can be limited only to high and taxpayers when the bush tax cut to expire at the end of the year? >> yes. [laughter] >> de think all taxes are the same? if not, what kind of taxes serve society best?

>> who wrote that question? [laughter] i meant that almost seriously. that is why i love town hall meetings. because the person who asks the question has to announce himself or herself. obviously all taxes are not the same. by the way, as i was writing my remarks, i was reading some material and talking with the most talented staff, if i might say so, in congress, the ways and means staff. i had a chance to serve on four of the subcommittees over the years of ways and means. now income security -- where i was able to serve as ranking after are much loved -- passed away, then of course, a trade. i was going back over some

materials. my guess is, if i gave you a test -- if i asked all of you to take a piece of paper and answer this question. what percentage of american taxes come from payroll taxes? my guess is, most of you might not pass. because some of the rhetoric in this town is that most people don't pay taxes. people don't say income taxes. they pay taxes. but it is well, well over 40 or perhaps 45% come from payroll taxes which virtually everybody does pay. so the answer is, no, all taxes are far from the same. my guess is that we will continue to have an income tax,

which is progressive, that we will look at taxes like payroll taxes, and try to see if we can make some adjustments. we have social security and medicare to look at. we have the health care bill and its tax provisions to look at. clearly they are not all the same. what we have to do in our society is find ways to make intelligent decisions as to which taxes are the fairest, most equitable taxes. >> any reason the u.s. should not put a tax on financial transactions similar to a tax on stock trades in the u.k. uses? >> let me just quickly cover this point, because i thought somebody might ask about the bank tax and the financial

transaction taxes. i don't think the financial transaction tax idea is likely to be acceptable. we are now thinking about what we do with what is called the bank tax. i think you know, tarp legislation essentially required in the next few years for the administration to come up with suggestions as to how any -- gap, in terms of repayment, is filled. it now looks like 60% or 75% of the tarp funds will sure be repaid, and i think it is close to that already. there is likely to be a gap. and so, it is important to figure out how we are going to fill it.

and the financial regulation provision in the senate has a tax, but different than is being discussed related to the bank tax. i think one way or another, we are going to consider this issue as to a financial fee or a tax on institutions that benefited from the essentials needed to rescue our economy. there are various ways to go. assets versus income, for example. the administration has proposed one path. we have been discussing intensely with the administration the various paths that may be opened. if i might say so, this is the example of the importance of the ways and means committee and the importance of our working with the finance committee, the importance of our working with the administration, and i hope the importance of working with

the minority to try to find out the best way to do this if we are going to do it. that is what we are in the middle of. i expect those in the media are going to be asking us in the next weeks ahead how it is going, and i will try to tell you. at this point, it is not clear. >> moving to climate change -- the think the carbon tax provisions are workable and what are your ideas on climate change legislation? >> you know, i am not sure where we are going because it has become so politicized. i voted for the cap-and-trade provision. by the way, our staff and i put together the provisions in terms of border adjustments. somewhat related to the other

issues, including a vat tax because one of the problems we had with the trade is, as you know, other countries have a tax system that advantage is somewhat directly their producers. our system is more complicated. we had to be sure and the cap- and-trade bill that we had a provision so that other countries did not become a party to a meaningful environmental structure, and therefore gain an advantage over us economically, that we had an instrumentality to react. it was interesting -- i might say so -- how it immediately got caught up in the polarized rhetoric of trade. they said, in quotes, it was protectionist.

what we were doing is saying that if other countries tried to get -- and there had to be a deliberate effort -- to gain advantage in trade through pollution, if you want to put it directly, that we would be able to compete. so, any energy legislation has to include a sensitivity to who is included, and as to what happens if we are competing with those who are not included. so, i think the cap-and-trade bill met major resistance. i think john kerry and barbara boxer and others, working with lindsey graham, may have a way to do this that would work, that was different. all i can say is this. and this gets back to the perfect storm. and it relates, i guess, to the

environment. from my generation, global warming is a threat that we must address in terms of our children and our grandchildren. the assumption is that it will all work out is an assumption that is too dangerous. so, i think this will probably not be the year, but maybe so, but if it is not this year, i hope this country will have enough sense to have a sensible discussion of climate issues and not to be caught up in what has become so divisive within our rhetoric. >> we are almost out of time. before asking the last question we have a couple important matters to take care of.

first, let us remind our guests and members of future speakers. april 30, secretary of the department of navy and may 19 hosting the honorable tim kane, chair of the democrat national committee will discuss his party's prospects in the 2010 elections. second, the moment we have been waiting for, we would like to present our guest with the traditional national press club mugged. -- mug. [applause] >> i will unwrap it. >> the final question. the pew research center released a survey today that found that four out of five americans surveyed distrust government. what has to be done to restore that trust and what role do you fate -- see the ways and means committee planning specifically? >> i heard those reports. and they are very concerned.

-- concerning. i think the first approach has to be integrity. i think that everybody in this country wants legislators essentially to have basic honesty, basic integrity, to be in a position to call it the way they see its after they have talked with all interested parties and with their constituents. i think that anything that undercuts that is a serious problem. so, i think i would put that first. we also -- i also think we have to make clear that we are shutting nobody out from the

debate. i must confess that i find some of the echoes in our present debate somewhat disturbing. however, i think the best answer to that is to listen and to respond. and let me say lastly in terms of how we handle this issue in terms of duty -- i think our citizens in this country have felt somewhat shut out. we have this perfect storm. we have a feeling among the middle income groups of this country that they essentially have been treading water, as they have pared -- as they have. i think we need to respond to what is the feeling of recently

treading water. and it relates to jobs. and also i think it relates to education. this health bill is called a health bill, it has some important education provisions in it. also i think there is a feeling for a need for equity and fairness. i close with this, because i think it is a special charge to the ways and means committee that has jurisdiction over social security and health care, medicare, and trade issues where fairness is an issue and also tax policy. i think we in the committee have a solemn obligation to make sure that there is an equitable opportunity for every citizen in the united states. every citizen in the united states. and while i enjoy so much

serving on this committee -- why i enjoy some of serving on this committee, is it gives me the opportunity in all of the areas i mentioned to try to make sure that this remains a land of opportunity, and add the word, community. i feel what we have been trying to do, our majority, is to keep that promise of opportunity and of community. and my own judgment is, if we will keep at it, if we will have open the years and open minds, but also a sense of commitment and determination, that in the end we will be able to respond to those who are skeptics of the way it is today and skeptics of government.

look, i want my constituents to be proud, not of me really, but of the position i hold. and of the government that i served. i want to go back and convince them that it can be such. otherwise, why run? i want to run in an atmosphere that renews trust and renews faith and renews a sense that it is a government to serve and not to dominate. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, chairman levin. thank you all for coming today. we would also like to thank the national press club staff, including the library and broadcast operations center and for more information on joining

and how to acquire a copy of today's program go to our website at press.org. thank you, and this meeting is adjourned. . >> the vetting process has begun for a new supreme court justice. use this is the library to find information on possible nominees.

search it, watch it, click it, and share it -- every program since 1987. it is the latest gift from cable to america. >> part of why internet freedom is so complicated is that it is an economic, security, human rights issue -- all those things wound into one. >> yes, but the state department hopes to use technology to advance diplomacy. tonight, on c-span2. >> next on c-span, a hearing on security efforts along the nation's southwestern border. they will discuss the administration's efforts to combat the violent drug cartel along the border and in mexico. the hearing of the preparations

committee is about two hours, 20 minutes. -- of the appropriations committee. >> this morning we will focus on the south was border and the challenges the home and security continues to face there. the region possesses a rich history, a shared culture over the centuries, lands of unsurpassed in natural beauty. it is not a far away, alien place, but an inextricable part of the homeland. it is a vital source of the economy. the cross-border trade is an important part of the picture. 80% of mexico's trade is with

the u.s. this excludes the illicit drugs. over 90% of the cocaine passes through mexico, also the largest supplier of marijuana and methamphetamines. the u.s. appetite for drugs has nurtured powerful and corrupting cartels with tens of billions of dollars in proceeds. these international criminal organizations routinely violate our borders to traffic drugs, weapons, money, and to smuggle undocumented aliens. it is their violence and the fear and disruption that they sow that now dominate news. over 18,000 people, including 79 americans, have died since president calderon has confronted the cartels. the brutality, this regard for women, children, and impunity with which the cartels have operated is appalling. the question that we raise in

private hearings and will expire today is whether, and to what degree are we making progress? making our borders harder to exploit? and also reducing the risk of violence spreading? i believe there's not much point in the bidding to what extent the cartel violence has spilled over into the united states. our close relationship with mexico means we cannot ignore the violence, irregardless of when and where it crosses the line. the death of three people in the march, associated with the u.s. consulate, intensified assaults against border patrol agents, including the murder of two. the kidnapping and murder of u.s. residents in texas, and the recent homicide of an arizona rancher all remind us of the threats ofnarco-violence. the truth is, the cartels are engaged in criminal activities every day, in cities and

communities on both sides of the border, not just along the border. we need to focus on meaningful ways to deal with cartels and the violence on the border and beyond. secretary genet now be noted on her recent visit to mexico that the agency's enhance efforts have resulted in record seizures -- secretary napolitano. she also cited unprecedented information-sharing on cross- border communications entry. today from witnesses we will want an assessment of how successful dhs efforts are or can become. we will oppose such questions as, how would you grade efforts to process the cases in mexico, given that mexico has its own immigration issues?

will our cooperation help to improve security items of non- mexicans to enter the u.s. through mexico? does the fiscal year 2011 budget allow the two agencies to sustain long-term efforts to curb the cartels? how affect of our joint efforts, including backing them up and the serious situation when they are out-manned? we also want to know how the investments we have made today complicate life for the cartels. these include the secure border initiative. the task forces. the deployment of air and marine assets. the tunnel detection, and establishment of for-operating locations. our subcommittee is pleased to welcome commissioner alan of u.s. borders and protection and assistance secretary john, the director of u.s. immigration and customs enforcement.

to bring us up-to-date in light of expanded staffing, equipment, and other resources that congress has provided to allow u.s. agencies to work with local partners as well as with the government of mexico -- the assistant secretary appeared last november on this topic. this is the commissioners first time before the subcommittee. we welcome you. we expect that your initial year at the dha along with your unique experience has given your realistic perspective on what can be accomplished. we look forward to hearing from both of you today. we will insert your complete statements in the hearing record. we will ask you to summarize your presentation in a five minute oral issue. we begin with the commissioner, followed by the assistant secretary. first, turning to the ranking

member for his comments. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for this hearing because there is no more important topic for american security than the southwest border. commissioner, as the chairman says, this marks your first appearance before the subcommittee. given your extensive experience working in southern california, in your service as the border czar for this administration over the past year, i look forward to finally hearing your views. welcome back to the assistant secretary. we meet again. i appreciate your being here and look forward to hearing your strong views on border enforcement. as the chairman noted, it has been just over one year since this administration launched its southwest border security initiative, an effort that has

surged resources to further enhance border security and support the courageous actions of the mexican government while this has resulted in some noteworthy seizures, the murder rate continues to soar. the purity of marijuana and methamphetamines remains stubbornly high, and mexico appears years away from sufficiently reforming its customs and immigration services, as well as suspending local law enforcement. in fact, the cartels appear to be emboldened as ever, demonstrated by the continued escalation of violence and the recent assertion of the well-

known mexican drug lord to the media that "mexico's war on the drug trade is futile, even if cartel bosses are caught or killed." that is so boring. -- sobering. according to several published reports, mounting drug efforts have killed more than 19,500 people. that is since president calderon launched his effort against the cartels in 2006. furthermore, the pace of homicides continues to escalate. most notably in juarez for the average number of murders per month approaches 200. more than six murders per day on average in one city on the border. but just as this drug war seems to be reaching a tipping point,

i fear that the we have adequate resolve to sustain the fight, it is on the verge of slipping. the president's fiscal year 2011 budget not only curbs the operational resources of the one agency and reduce funding for border security technology and infrastructure, but it also severely cuts the coast guard and its drug interdiction build these to the point where the amount of cocaine seized will decline. that is by an estimated 11%. explain that. such reductions to operations will undoubtably empower the cartel's, and put more pressure on the border. in the midst of this drug war, with our border under siege, how could we possibly support a budget the is knowingly letting

our guard down, and allowing more drugs, more illegals, and contraband to flow across the border into this country? how can we justify this? and apart from dhs' flawed fiscal year 2011 budget request, there are other pressing questions. how can we accept the administration's recent pronouncements on the troubled program when we have yet to receive the legislative required expenditure plan for the program for the next fiscal year, for fiscal year 2010, the current year. and why does the administration repeatedly assert that "violence is not spilling over? when one, our own justice the permit amidst the court on the

works -- all across this country, into every city, and now into nearly every village. direct cartel organizations all across this land, not just on the border. two, assaults against the border patrol continued to increase, and an agent was murdered in cold blood last year. another with his face caved in a few days ago. a well-known arizona rancher murdered last month on his own property. u.s. consular personnel murdered. another consulate bond just this past weekend. and does "the washington post" reported on april 4, the

cartel's contract killers are operating with near-impunity on both sides of the border, but including the u.s. contract killers hired by a foreign cartel murdering americans. what are you going to do about that? and beyond the surge efforts of the past year, and escalating violence, what are the next steps that need to be taken against this threat? if there is one thing that i'm certain about from my experience as a state prosecutor for 11 years in the kentucky, the d.a., and my years in this body, it is that drugs pose a grave and unrelenting threat to the health, security, and safety of the united states. therefore, we must do all we can to secure that border.

to thwart these cartels, and to put a stop to their savage criminality. and murderous ways. so, the challenge presented to the dhs clear -- my question, which is the same i posed during the hearing last november, is whether or not we are up to the challenge? when i pose this question i am now wondering whether we have the proper resources in place to simply disrupt this organized cross-border crime. i am wondering as i did last november whether we have the will to russia we break its back? i realize that is a mighty tough chore. i'm quite certain it is where the fight, and surely this country has the capability to

protect our border from organized criminal ventures -- i'm quite certain that is a worhty fight. this is a serious problem. securing our border is not a mere luxury. securing our borders is a worthy fight we must win. today i'm not only interested in assessing progress, but interested in what more we can do to combat this clear and present threat to the united states and its citizens. thank you. >> thank you, all right, we will now begin with the commissioner. >> good morning, chairman price

, a ranking member rogers, members of the said committee and staff. i appreciate this opportunity to provide an update. the committee has been extremely supportive at cbp over the years in meeting our difficult mission, and we're grateful for your support and continued guidance. the significant investments you have made in cbp have to protect our country from a variety of threats, including those generated by organized criminal organizations operating trans- nationally and in mexico. before serving as cbp commissioner, a word for many years as a prosecutor on the border, and in other positions

with dha and the department justice. i have worked closely with u.s. enforcement officers on all levels during this time. as well as with counterparts in mexico. the level of cooperation we seek today between the u.s. and mexico, under president calderon, is unprecedented and provides a historic opportunity. president calderon's willingness to address the growing problems of drug cartels is nothing short of heroic. it presents a unique opportunity to expand and coordinate law-enforcement efforts between countries. we recognize this is a journey that will not be accomplished overnight, but the important point is that it is a journey in which the first steps have been taken.

having worked and lived most of my life in border communities, i recognize the concerns of citizens. that regards drug-related violence that has taken place on both sides. it has been, and continues as a deeply serious threat. most recently the tragic murder of robert prince, an arizona rancher and leader in his committee -- is an outrage and a tragedy. it points to the continuing problem. secretary janet napolitano dedicated significant resources to bring this killer to justice. equipment was launched to find suspects. furthermore, there were mobile surveillance systems does best, aerial surveillance, and deployed 64 additional border patrol agents into the area.

while individual incidents of violence and on a new phenomenon along the border, we're determined to prevent the kinds of widespread violence that continue to take place every day in northern mexico from crossing the border into the u.s. in the form in which it appears in mexico. in march 2009 secretary genet appalled tonneau announced the southwest border strategy aimed at preventing spillover violence, and to help the government of mexico to crack down on drug cartels. -- secretary janet nepal tonneau announced the southwest border strategy. technology the jurors coming of this part of the cycle that involves both cash and drugs. to deal with these issues, national security issues for

both countries, cbp has increased cooperation with mexico to coordinate border inspections and law enforcement operations. we have enhanced our information sharing and continue to build on intelligence cooperation. we have developed joint strategic approaches to our common problems, and continue to increase capacity building at ports of entry. just last month cbp opened the center in tucson, arizona. this new facility serves as a centralized location for gathering and disseminating real time data, actionable information to help increase security along the southwest information and put information into the hands since last november, a cbp

continued to enhance efforts on outbound operations to prevent weapons of concurrency that fuel the drive-related violence as part of this strategy we have expanded our license plate reader program, the lpr program. we have invested in non- intrusive technology and have deployed additional agents on the scene. we have also deployed mobile response, a k-9 teams, and other resources to increase operations, looking at what is leading the country as we concentrate on what is coming into our country. these outbound efforts have been successful. they are a step in the right direction. since the southwest border initiative was launched last year, cbp has seized more than $30 million in illicit outbound cash along the border. together with cooperative

efforts with i/c/e/ the numbers are greater and growing. let me take a moment to address the future strategy. in addition to keeping america's border safe and secure come cbp recognize is we must promote economic competitiveness throughout north america. security and trade and commerce go hand in hand. security comes first. we can be economically competitive as we enhance our security. we will adopt strategies and simultaneously improve security and expedite legitimate trade and travel. smarter targeting and risk segmentation allow law enforcement authorities enforcementcbp to focus their energy on the relatively small amount of cargo crossing as a threat to public safety as well as to economic prosperity. we can have enhanced 64 reducing

the cost and inconvenience for legitimate goods and lawful travelers'. cbp has made tremendous strides by implementing trusted troubled programs such as the "fast" program, among other programs. these programs complement the global entry program at airports and the nexus from on our northern border. the expedite traveling for certain travelers while focusing on more high-risk individuals and shipments. working with the public from a private, and international partners, we believe we can have greater security and greater prosperity. finally, let me thank you again for this opportunity to appear here, my first testimony as the then commissioner of cbp

i am honored to share with you the great work of men and women, that they do every day to safeguard our nation's security. >> mr. chairman, mr. rogers, members of the committee, thanks once again for line me to appear before you to testify. let me also take a moment to welcome my new colleague, commissioner bersin. alan has great insight and experience with regard to the border and to mexico. i look forward to working with him as we train i.c.e, and cbp. since i last testified before you we have both the chairman and mr. rogers, we have witnessed several acts of violence against u.s. citizens, and in particular have seen the

of regis killing of individuals with the u.s. consulate and the cowardly murder of the arizona rancher. on behalf of ice i extend our regrets to the family. while i cannot give in to is the six of the open and ongoing investigations of these cases, i can assure you of one thing, that both i.c.e. and cbp acted aggressively and quickly in response to both killings. we're working with mexican partners and in the u.s. to solve these murders and to bring killers to justice. in the one case, i.c.e. is the lead federal agency assisting the sheriff's office.

we have assigned special agents full-time to the case and devoted the full resources of our office in mexico to it. we have offered a reward to bring the killers to justice. my message today to you is simple. the agency shares the concern that many have over organized crime. we are committed to vigilance and to a sustained attack on the criminal networks that seat to smuggle drugs, guns, money, and people to and from moscow. this commitment is more than rhetorical. thanks to the increased appropriations we have received from this subcommittee over the past two years, there has never been in the history of our agency more i.c.e. agents and deportation officers devoted. the results are promising. let me begin with our staffing.

approximately one-quarter of our special agents are devoted to our five offices in the four border states. the same is true of our detention and removal officers. one-quarter of our entire staffing. we now have 10 of the 17 border enforcement security task forces on the southwest border. two in the california, three in new mexico -- i'm sorry two, three in arizona and in texas. the 11th one is being formed in mexico city itself. by the end of the year we will have 40 i.c.e. agents in mexico, both in mexico city and in cities along the border. it is the largest presence we have never had in any country in our history. we had six special u.s. assistant attorney is devoted to prosecuting border cases. i am personally committed to significantly increasing the number. we are in the process of working

with the deputy attorney general to do that. over the past year in houston we have seen a 64% increase in drug seizures. in phoenix, ariz., a 15% increase in criminal conviction. overall, and 11% increase of administrative arrests of criminal offenders along the border. as welcome as these are, we intend to do more. the drug-trafficking cartels remained a serious threat to both mexico and the u.s., feeling unacceptable levels of violence levelsjuarez and elsewhere in mexico. this is a very real, nasty fight, one that will take the results in commitment to win, but we must win it. there is no rest alternative. i.c.e. is aggressively going

after the cartels and other organized criminals and mexico in many ways. -- there is no other rational alternative. we are attacking the smuggling of firearms and trans-national smuggling. we are doing it hand in hand with other law-enforcement partners. second, we will continue to match our powers of investigation and the seizure, deportation with that of the impressive powers of another agency been dy. between us two we can make the most of the border cost of places for criminal elements. we will share intelligence, cases, and improve training. i want to focus on the concrete, we'll cases, real

criminals, real jail time. fourthly, we need to develop better intelligence sharing among all agencies involved. finally, i want to harness the full power of law enforcement partners. all of these are described in more detail in my submitted written remarks. they reflect our absolute commitment. since my last testimony we have stepped up specific efforts around juarez and a passive. this takes extraordinary steps of removing criminals and non- criminals through juarez. we prosecute with mexico individuals for offenses that happened in the u.s. we're working with the mexican equivalent agency. we have begun to see results

from our efforts. we are mindful of the seriousness of this problem and spend enormous time trying to think about getting it right, being more innovative. it is a very serious challenge. alan and i have talked about it a lot. we are sober individuals. we have a long, long history of federal law enforcement. i think that will be an important combination of the power of the federal government and cooperation with state and local law enforcement, and an improved relationship with mexico, that will lead to success at the end. thank you. >> i want to focus in initial questions on something you both

referenced. namely, the cooperative efforts under way with the mexican government. would you elaborate a bit on results produced, what you expect? secretary janet napolitano along with her counterparts in state and defense met with their mexican counterparts in february and march, signed new agreements on intelligence-sharing, air and border cooperation. we are interested in your take on the significance of those. let me be more specific. i would like commissioner, to

ask you about the efforts on the mexican side to greatly beef up military and law-enforcement presence in the northern part of the country. when the president, president calderon took over in 2006, he put the mexican military and the charge of military in policing for juarez and other areas. it was reported at the time that the local police were demoralized, and there were corruption problems. now there has been a replacement of those forces, or at least a number of them, with federal police. they arrived april 8. what can you tell us about that? is that good news in the sense of signaling and enhance capacity from the police? what mix of forces are we

looking at? what is your assessment of the mexican side and the way these forces have been deployed? >> of all the remarkable changes that have taken place in mexico in the bilateral relationship with regard to confronting organized crime, one of the most extraordinary was the recognition and public exceptions by president calderon that much of the law enforcement of mexico and its judiciary, if not all, were subject to corruption. the corruption and tentacles and influence of organized crime had tainted all levels of mexican society. since 2006 they have begun under president calderon's leadership the transformation of law- enforcement into a reliable

instrument of public policy, focusing for the most part on federal police and the federal enforcement authorities. ssp, the secretary of public safety, and the engineer luna -- it is a very positive step, one that over time will produce dividends. secretary janet napolitano, the other secretary, and myself have been to the headquarters in mexico city. in equipment and in a technological sense it is impressive and indicates the commitment made fiscally to build up a federal law enforcement presence the plan is to move toward 20,000 federal police. what we have seen recently in a juarez is the decision that

while the military, with the lack of local law enforcement will have a role to continue to play. the long term solution is to substitute military presence for the long for some presence. that is beginning in juarez in which the primary enforcement duties are being transitioned to secretary garcia luna with the military remaining, but in a protective stance, and i believe that is the way ahead and will show significant improvement. it will show improvement in the near term as well as over the longer term. close your assessment is that is a marked increased, greater capacity on the part of police? -- >> and a second of that is the optimal long-term program?

>> yes, mr. chairman, i believe that is the strategy and is a sound one. >> let me turn to the program that allows mexicans to prosecute drug-smuggling cases that may be declined by the u.s. attorney's office. there is a similar program for alien smuggling. it is the oasis program. secretary, your testimony refers to the first two convictions from this new drug prosecution program. you not reference alien smuggling. what you tell us about the impact under way or that you anticipate from these two cooperative programs? is there reason to believe the

mexican authorities are able and willing to accelerate prosecutions? what kind of specific report can you give the? >> the initial results are very promising here. in less than a year we have gone from having no pilot programs addressing the issues, two two. we are in active discussions with the federal prosecutor's office about expanding it. the idea is this. we have a number of drug offenses that occur on our side of the border, ports of entry specifically, that i.c.e. is able to investigate with assistance from cbp, but are not it's a bid for prosecution. mr. can federal law provides significant penalties for that conduct.

-- mexican federal law provides those significant penalties. their standards of proof are different and allows prosecution's been instances where we cannot. it makes a lot of sense and so far, so good. we have done the same with efforts through a oasis for quite some time. i am cautiously optimistic that we will stop considering these as pilots, and move to a broad- based prosecution program with the mexicans for low-level offenses involving mexicans on their side. they are beginning to convict people and send them to jail. >> thank you. >> by every account, public and private, the thread on the border is increasing. the violence is increasing.

the audacity and bravado of the criminal cartels is growing by the imminent. -- by the minute. according to the department of justice's most recent drug assessment released in february, the cartels are not only "the single greatest trafficking threat to the u.s." but they also have operations in every region of the u.s., and are expanding into more rural and suburban areas, according to the cnn reports. and the cartel's according to the same report, have partnered with u.s. street gangs and prison gangs for drug distribution to such an extent

that "mexican drug-trafficking organizations control most of the wholesale cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine distribution in the u.s., as well as much of the marijuana distribution ." do you agree with that? >> yes, sir. >> the report also says that greater levels of three drugs are flowing across the border than ever before, and predicts the availability of such to increase. have i understood the threat that is there on the border deaths ? >> i think not. >> then how can you justify coming to congress and asking us to decrease the amount of money

and personnel in border patrol faced with this ever-growing threat to security? how can you justify that? >> the fiscal year 2011 request, and border patrol agents have given remarkable growth. that will continue to increase, we saw a slight decrease from 2009 until 2010 from 20,000 -- from about 21,000 cbp officers, including just over 20,000 border patrol agents -- we will maintain a certain amount over 2011. with regard to border patrol, the budget calls for

maintenance of the unprecedented levels this committee has provided us on the southern border. >> you are still cutting the air and the marine, and the coast guard operations the? >> the cut in agents but not a reduction of assets. it is from 891 down to 831 -- 839. >> the first version of your budget request for 2011, in that you would have cut a 1100 bordurborder patrol agents. i'm sorry, 1100 coast guard agents. then when you heard the noise of here of that kind of a cut, you came back with a budget request that restores some of the personnel.

but you are still cutting the air and the marine operations among other aspects. i just wonder how in the dickens you can justify that given the threats we are facing? by all accounts, including your own? you have been silent for a while there. >> i.c.e.'s budget has a modest 2% increase. our budget for this year annualizes the enhancement we received in fiscal year 2010. i am confident the president's budget will sustain us at the highest levels ever, and we will have a modest increase. >> the old fashioned idea of what border control and i.c.e. are supposed to do is to protect us against the traditional threat of illegal aliens across

the border. the problem on the border has evolved into huge changes. it is really all law enforcement problem. i have long been critical of the administration, the previous and this one, for not recognizing the border is more of a criminal problem now than anything else. yet we don't have enough of the nation's law-enforcement manpower on the board. i'm talking about fbi, dea, and those agencies. this is getting out of hand down there. i wonder what he there have been

doing? are we doing all that we can do? commissioner? >> there are always improvements that can be made, but in terms of strategy and resource in that has taken place over the past decade, the past five years, we continue to get better. we improve the mix and alignment of the resources that have been provided. the 21,000 border patrol agents compares favorably to what existed when i first met you 15 years ago, by a factor of nearly six. we have seen dramatic increases. we need to develop the capacity of these wonderful people who now serve as journeymen border patrol agents. we need to build on

intelligence-sharing. we need to build on technology available. we need to coordinate with our sister agencies like i.c.e. more effectively. all this is always a work in progress. i would not for a moment suggest that the work is done, or that the challenges are not supreme. but we stand better resource then we have been. we need to see those that have been given are deployed most effectively, and aligned with technical equipment capacities that are also nearly unparalleled from what existed in the past ester two quick things. one, -- >> one, on your border, facing the criminality that needs to be reflected in a strangand change in strategy --t

is one of the great promises of i.c.e. as you alluded to, traditionally we are often thought of with regard to immigration enforcement, but are the second- largest criminal investigation agency. our sole job is to investigate crime. we need to harness the powers in a focused way on the borderin terms of what can we do better? one of the things you mentioned on the same report from the doj that pointed out the relationship between the cartel's and gang numbers and distribution -- we did something different this year. i.c.e. does a lot of trans- national gang removal. look at ms-13, this gang. are they here unlawfully? let's removing them from the

community. for the first time we took the report you mentioned and said let's focus on those gangs that have a direct connection to the cartel's and distribution of narcotics. and we did it nationwide, and ended up with nearly 800 people. that is the kind of thing, where we need to match civil and criminal powers in a coordinated way. so that we remove not only gang members, but those who for the efforts of specific cartels. >> my time is nearly expired. one brief question. it relates to relatesgangs, the contract killers that the cartel's now engaged with who are apparently responsible for thousands of murders on both sides of the border -- it relates to gangs. what can you tell us of what

we're trying to do to break that cycle? >> i'm not familiar with the level of contract killings that the particular report refers to. i would prefer to see more in private. the relationship between i.c.e. and dea is the closest it has ever been in the country's history. i don't want to suggest it is perfect. but there is a lot going on in that regard that as promising. we need to do the same with fbi, i.c.e.'s role. it has been good, but not particularly strategic. >> "the washington post" carried a story about the heavily

tattooed gang, long operating across the border in el paso. but in juarez, they now specialize in contract killing. that is for that juarez drug cartel. according to u.s. law- enforcement, it may have been involved in as many as half of the 2600 murders in the city in the past year alone. can you follow up on that? >> i would be happy to. >> thank you. thank you for being here today, and for keeping us safe. commissioner, and mr. secretary, as you know, i represent one of the largest districts in the nation, and have over 7,500 miles across the border, seven ports of injuries and

crossings, three border patrol sectors, and when to take this opportunity to invite you both to come to my district. i have had secretary salazar come by. i have it two beautiful national parks ride on the border, the amistad, wonderful bass fishing, and the big bend area. i have 1.7 million people visit the amistad, and thank god we have never had serious incidents there. we have a wonderful relationships working with the border patrol and the park rangers, working together and housing. but i wanted to follow up. i have been told that we are safer when we communicate with the other side, and of lines of communication.

there were numerous crossings closed in the sector from del rio to presidio, some 400 miles. those communities no longer have legal crossings anymore. so, do you see in the value with having border crossings with in the big bend, or at least looking at the feasibility of reopening some of the old crossing's? >> congressman rodriguez, i thank you for that. i have been to your district. i share your assessment of both national parks. as you point out, it in those vast expanses of the big bend country in texas, across from the mexican border states, there is a border we need to protect, but also one that serves as the

community of families and commercial partners. in the wake of security threats, security being paramount, there have been closings of a number of the informal crossings. people crossed back and forth the rivers for generations. as a result of your requests and inquiries, and without sacrificing security which we know you understand that must be a prayer requirement, we are reviewing the feasibility of reopening one more dose. but doing it in a controlled way. it is beyond the point in the american and border history where we can have an monitored

and uncontrolled crossings. but the point you make about facilitating cross-border community life is one we understand and will work to assess with your office. >> thank you very much, and want to highlight a positive thing occurring in the big bend. that is with the diablos, about 38 mexicans that legally -- every year legally during emergency times where we have fires in the parks, who have been trained to help. they come every year in the specific areas where we have serious fires. we cannot get other people there more quickly. it is beautiful the way they go. they could to the border and yell out. these farmers and ranchers on the mexican side come riding their horses, and get into their

gear to fight the fires on our side. they're beautiful stories to tell about that. we want to continue to enhance that beautiful trade that occurs there, not to mention the tourism with the national parks. secondly, quickly come i know throughout history we have used the military on the border. and the have played a very significant role in certain areas. the national guard performed non-law-enforcement duties to allow for more trained border patrol and customs to be able to do some things they can, and get out from behind desks. the military on the border has been a serious source of contention. as you know in 1997, an incident with the young man, a kid --

high school kid in my district that killed. i want some assurance from you. the governor has talked about sending troops to the border by the way, i have no problem if that is what we need to do, but i want some assurance that before any type of action like this is taken the will be appropriate to reach information to the ranchers of their. >> congressman, dealing with the violence, real and threatened, the administration is determined to take on necessary actions to protect border communities and national borders. in the inquiry, all options have been on the table and will be, both in terms of law-

enforcement and any action that is taken will involve the kind of outreach with local communities. and with state authorities. >> if i can just add, i have my ranchers who also enjoy hunting, and i don't want them in danger by our own troops. that communication is essential. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and gentleman for attending today. as mr. rodgers pointed out, the level of violence is continuing to escalate. i went down to seven california and we see evidence of that every day. -- i went down to southern california where i see that everyday. the violence in mexico is extreme. it is not a fightit is a war.

nearly 23,000 people have been killed since 2006 in mexico. i congratulate president calderon and the courage he has in taking on this adversary. the violence is escalating on both sides. not just the media when they point out what happened to this rancher in arizona, but the drug activity throughout the u.s., especially methamphetamine and distributed through the gangs. . .

do you see any value in the deployment of the national guard until we can stabilize this, especially in areas close to war as -- juarez or laredo or other areas where we have seen extreme problems? >> as we confront the violence on our side of the border and the extreme levels of violence taking place in northern mexico

and increasingly in the northeast, the administration is committed to considering all options in order to deal with this threat and to see to it that the kind of extreme violence being experienced in mexico in single incidents does not come over to the united states and affect our communities on the border. all options are on the table in the process of being concerned -- considered. it will be determined in terms of law enforcement and national bar deployment in the near future. >> if the reports i have read

are true that the president of mexico is going to rapidly escalate his battle significantly soon, this probably will have an effect in the united states, especially in the border communities. we should be prepared for that if that occurs. your comment about supporting criminal aliens in the united states, and hope we could identify these involve rigid individuals as rapidly as possible and deport them as quickly as possible. i would hope that is a top priority in your department. >> absolutely. the chairman referred in his opening remarks to whether or not our relationship with mexico has improved.

that is one area where it has improved dramatically. the commissioner and i went with the secretaries to mexico. one of the agreements we signed was to provide information sharing between ice and mexican law enforcement officials on all of the criminals moving up with an eye to streamlining the process. we're working with them on having more centralized removal procedures for criminals. we may be flying them to central places. we do not just take them to the border communities anymore. it is a top priority. >> i would hope they are incarcerated, they would stay incarcerated. i do not have a lot of confidence in the penal system in mexico.

congressional district is in southern california. they've been injured cult in protecting our country from attacked with drug activity and potential terrorists. could you provide an update on how they are utilized in their coordination roles as the environment on across the border has changed over the last year? i certainly share mr. rogers perspective. this is more important than ever to keep this type of program rolling. >> i share your enthusiasm for amoc in riverside. tony crowder and his colleagues have built the critical capacity to monitor movements in the country and across the border in a way that

significantly enhances our awareness with regard to aviation bringing potentially dangerous people into our country. there is the continued reliance and integration of that into our national military and civilian groups operating in a coordinated fashion. that is recognized and supported by secretary nepalitano. >> that is interesting testimony on the border. but you let our committee from tucson to san diego. perhaps we should go from a

passel -- el paso and juarez and brown stsville. it seems to me we have to think outside the box. a lot of the testimony and other committees is about iraq and afghanistan. we're trying to stabilize and area. we're putting a lot of foreign aid into that so that we can stop the violence caused by the taliban. we have the same situation on the border. we just have different names for it. instead of the military, we have ice border patrol. i am not sure we have focused on what we should be doing about infrastructure development, particularly foreign aid to build the mexican side of the border up so that all the pain

is not on our side. just as we cannot win the war militarily in afghanistan, i do not think we can arrest our way out of the border issues. represent salinas, california. it is not on the border. but we have a border war going on. last year, they killed 29 kids. kids killed kids. there were 29 in a small town. it has everyone absolutely freaked. a few weeks ago, a kid got up in the middle of night to get a drink of water and got killed by a stray bullet. he was 5 years old. it could've been anybody's trial. it has brought the city to its knees. we need to have more of a

collaborative effort. i want to ask some questions of mr. morton. you have a background in border issues and education. in education, they know you cannot put all the resources in the schools and expect them to have kids not drop out unless you have wraparound social services in the community. you know that from the airport district in san diego. it was not an island. there have to be collaborative spirit i do not think we're building them enough. i want to ask secretary morton. we have had testimony before this committee about the cooperation with a hefty -- aft.

they're still a massive amount of guns recovered by mexican authorities and ongoing levels of violence that have not been substantially reduced. but understanding is that some of ice's resources have been directed to that. what role does ice play in reducing the southbound flow? what do you see as the central challenge to eliminating the legal flow of arms? what problems are ice facing? how would you execute a program to eliminate the southbound flow of guns? i went with the president to the americas and we stopped in mexico city. it was your department asking these questions of me. they were not seen the kind of collaboration they wanted to see with aft.

perhaps you can answer that question. >> here is what we do now. >> it is not we were doing now. -- it is not what you are doing now. it is what you are not doing or should be doing and would like to do. >> the support that we can bring is to atf in a support role. we do have the authority to investigate smuggling of firearms in violation of the law. we have no authority to oversee or go to ffl's. we work closely with cbp to target specific shipments. often the cbp interdiction at

the border is based on ice intelligence and then we refer it to cbp for actual arrest and interdiction at the border. we are doing everything we can to play the most significant support role we can to atf and cbp. where we have evidence of smuggling, we will do that independently. we're quite limited in our legal authority to do more. >> i know you are limited in your legal authority. that is what my question went to. if you were given sole authority, i have been told there are even restrictions on what aft can do, if we were rewriting all of this, what would you like to see? >> one of the big challenges

that we face right now is harnessing more and more of the southbound inspections. it is taking our intelligence and matching it up with cbp's powers to inspect and doing a more aggressive approach on searches along the border. not just a random way, but once we have developed intelligence from our office in mexico and the offices along the border to look in specific cars and containers. we're in the infancy on that. that is what we're doing. the more we have a broad informant network -- we have a lot of undercover cases and cooperativeors. harnessing the power within the law to direct more seizures is

important. the other part is working more closely with the mexicans. they seized a large number of fire arms on their side of the border, far more than we interdict crossing. >> is the power of the agricultural inspections from the mexico side greater than the cbp fire arms park on our side? you can do more inspections of where it is coming from? >> cbp's powers of inspection are bright -- quite broad and expensive on the border. it is more question of the infrastructure and how it was designed and put together. in the beginning, the structure was mainly on inbound inspections. here we are talking about an outbound inspections. there are infrastructure challenges for cbp and doing the outbound inspections in a

facility that was designed with all the lanes and inspection boosths for inbound. we do search operations with our task forces through cbp where we literally go into the outbound lanes and start checking on individual trunks. it is not that cbp does not have the power, it is building up the southbound inspection capacity. >> thank you both for being willing to take on this tough job. i personally am very frustrated with the whole operation. i have been involved in looking at the southwest border as a member of congress on a committee that can do something about it since 2004. we have tons of resources put

into the border. i see nothing but failure. we've gone from cartels in colombia to cartels within 250 miles of my home. i woke up saturday and sunday finding out that 23 houses in austin, texas, were cartel- owned drug distribution about it. the good news is that we rate them. we made 17 arrests. the point is now it is no longer 250 miles from my house. now it is 5 miles from my house. as far as i am concerned, this is an expanding and potentially pilot situation moving into our state. 23 houses in austin, texas, is probably 50 in san antonio. nobody knows how many in san diego. this cancer is spreading. it is not stopping.

i have talked to border patrol agents were fired upon regularly from the mexican side with no authority to return the fire. we have to recognize that we have to get in the business of fighting these people and not just talking about fighting the people. i want to know how much insurance you have -- assurance you have that they will not be firing in the capital of the state of texas. we have cartels purchasing property in the capital taxes. we're failing at that level. we've seen this movie within 5 miles of my home. i want you to give me an answer. what do you see that we can do to start fighting rather than talking about fighting? we've been talking about this all the time i have been in the committee. i will take any answer. >> thanks to this committee,

there are increased resources. the potential for progress exists. that does not deny the gravity of a threat. when you deal with an issue in law enforcement in one area, it moves and pops up in another. we did see the movement of cartel power once the other cartels were reduced in significance. we saw the growth of the mexican cartels. we have seen the movement into the interior of the united states of drug distribution gangs better based in organized crime in mexico. having recognized the threat, we build the capacity to deal with it. we separate out the need to prevent the kind of mass violence we've seen j in seen juarez and other places from

coming over in that form with that degree of shooed out out in public places that mexico has seen. we have not seen that in the united states. we intend to do everything we must to prevent it. that is not to deny that there are drug distribution rings in every medium and large sized city in the united states. those have violent repercussions. we need to continue to do the investigation, prosecution, and interdiction at greater levels than the past. it is challenged by significant threats. i take your point, mr. carter. i do not see this as an unmitigated failure. i see it as a continuing challenge and the need to continue to ramp up our capacity and our willingness to stay the course on this.

>> i was in the business of putting people in prison for this for 20 years. i know there always have been drug distribution points. it is organized crime, mexican cartels, and better out there buying home and putting people in them. it means they have the resources and expansion to come into austin, texas. that makes it might close to home for me. at some point, we have to recognize that we got them out of columbombia and we need to ph them out of mexico. the colombian government got involved. we pushed them to get those people shoved out of columbia, but they shoved them writing to mexico. we need to get together. i have the greatest respect for the mexican government.

i went to school in mexico. i believe they are first class country with first-class resources. we can assist them with resources. we cannot just talk about this. if someone fires upon american doing his job on our side of the border, we should talk to mexico about shooting back. if we do not shoot back, all the border control can do is duck and cover. >> border patrol agents have the right to engage in self defense. we have the potential and the reality of having federal police officers in arizona that coordinate with border patrol to deal with this. in the tucson-sonora quarter, they have deployed 200 federal police officers in regular contact with our border patrol. we have seen a decrease in the

incidents. we've seen a real time response. i see great potential in terms of coordination. your point in terms of protecting our border patrol agent, i take that point completely. >> these incidents took place in the district of laredo, across the border. >> lucille roybal-allard. >> in the rush to build the border wall, there was the prelude to address some legitimate concerns of affected landowners. the wall continues to negatively impact the border communities by limiting the ability of first responders to reach isolated areas and adversely affecting farms and other businesses.

these stakeholders play critical roles in border security. their views should be incorporated into cbp's planning process moving forward. tell us the steps your agency is developing -- is taking to develop relationships with local landowners. given the fact that in some areas, public information offices have been established in certain sectors of the border to perform community outreach. they have proven to be a very effective means of facilitating dialogue and addressing local concerns before they become a major problem. are you also considering expanding the programs? >> i believe with regard to each of our border patrol sectors, we have a public outreach and

public affairs capacity locally. one important improvement that has been made after my hiatus of 10 years, to see the border patrol and the way it has grown, it has developed a significant and sophisticated our reach capacity in terms of real communications to communities. their art development of relationships with civic and business groups that was not the case -- there has been the development relationships with civic and business groups that was not the case before. that was important the building of the border fence over the past several years. the secretary made it clear when she went in -- came in that there would be this kind of

outreach. we continue to see it in the area of environmental litigation -- mitigation. $50 million has been committed by cbp to the department of the interior. there's regular communication with regard to the mitigation. there's regular communication with local communities. there have been considerable improvements recognizing that we can always be better in terms of public outreach and communication. i believe the extensive as a contact -- i believe the extensiveness of the contact is encouraging. >> the association of landowners feels that more needs to be done. i am glad your tapyou are paying

attention to this issue. we need more progress in that particular area. i want to bring to your attention an issue i have been concerned about for some time. i continue to hear reports about the mistreatment of immigrants, especially unaccompanied children at border patrol stations. according to the human rights group, these children sometimes go without beds or blankets. they fail to receive adequate nutrition. in some cases, they haven' injured physical and emotional abuse. please explain the steps you will be taking to ensure that every individual in custody is treated humanely. please provide this committee with the policies and procedures governing this care. describe the oversight

mechanisms that exist to prevent the abuse of detained immigrants at border patrol facilities. i have asked this question before. i have got responses. i have been told that changes are being made i continue to hear from advocacy groups that go into these facilities in hear complaints from immigrants about their treatment. this is an area that needs attention immediately. there is a lot of work that needs to be done, especially in light of the fact that we are talking about young children. >> the commitment to a humane and lawful treatment of all people taken into custody is paramount and one that takes seriously. for many years, the treatment of unaccompanied alien children has been governed by the settlement quite some time ago. that sets the standard and the

protocols that are required in this case. i have looked into this. there are very established procedures that followed and supervised with oversight to see to it that these minerors are handled with constraint -- extreme concern and care and watched carefully as they are turned over to ice. there then subsequently transferred to health and human services. -- they are then subsequently transferred to health and human services. there's a long established procedure for handling unaccompanied children. i am satisfied that our people understand the importance of observing that. to my knowledge, they are observing it. >> let us know what those

procedures are. in private meetings with some border patrol, there does seem to be some confusion about what they can and cannot do and how to go about it. >> before turning it over to mr. morton let me say that to the extent that you receive complaints in this area or any other, please forward the specific facts. they will be looked into. yes, we will provide you with the procedures required by reno vs. flores. >> as well as the oversight procedures that you have. >> border patrol authority is limited. it does not extend much past a few hours.

in most instances, if there's going to be prolonged attention, they will be transferred to the immigration customs authority. we have a very pronounced overhaul of our immigration detention practices under way. on the question of minors, there is a detailed set of procedures. they come to us only briefly. we turn them over to a child protection services in most instances were to advocacy groups with contracts with the state. >> commissioner bersin, please provide me with some information that my office has been trying to get for some time. it is simple and straightforward. we're looking for the numbers of individuals who have been apprehended sector by sector on the southern border and on the

other border, too. the most serious problems are on the southern border. we want a number of individuals apprehended sector by sector and never prosecuted over the last several fiscal years. could you provide that to me by the end of the week? you have the data. >> i would be happy to provide the data. my understanding is that we do have apprehension statistics and those of prosecution. we will get it to you as expeditiously as we can. >> i appreciate that. all of us in this committee have a keen interest in making sure that the border is secure, those of us from taxeexas in particul. this is near and dear to us. sheila and i have worked

together successfully with others to implement operations and streamlined. it works beautifully. it is not complicated. it combines law with existing resources from law enforcement were using -- for using their best judgment. women and children are used -- handled a little differently. the officers use their good judgment and good parts. i want to affirmed in support -- i want you to a firmer support to see that expanded. >> as a former prosecutor, i understand the importance of consequence delivery. no serious of crimes are prosecuted at 100%.

the application of streamlined as a very important place in delivery in terms of the deterrence of other violations. >> you have seen a decline of the crime rate in some areas. it is a terrific program. it is important that the country recognize that there is an undeclared war on the southern border. mexico is as violent today, northern mexico, as it was 100 years ago. i am going to go back and look at the level of 100 years ago during the mexican revolution and compared to today. i suspect we will find the level of violence is more secure today than it was 100 years ago when president wilson sent general pershing to the southern border to deal of violence that crossed

over into the united states. the department of defense estimates that the mexican army has about 130,000 troops. just the two biggest cartels together have about 100,000 soldiers. the level of violence, the chaos and violence we see in northern mexico certainly meets webster's dictionary's definition of the state of war as antagonism between opposing forces for a particular end. i think what we're seeing in mexico today qualifies as a state of war. there is a lot of talk. we do not see enough action. i appreciate your commitment to expanding operation streamline.

it is important. it works beautifully. it is a law enforcement operation. we need to stay focused on that. the role of the national guard during the bush administration was in support of the border patrol. that is important. they were very successful when they were deployed. we sincerely appreciate the dedication of your officers and the work you are doing. i understand the frustrations and challenges that you face. i know this committee supports you in a bipartisan way. i would like for you to look into what mr. carter has identified in terms of incidents of people shooting from the mexico side at our law- enforcement officers and our officers are under orders not to return fire. that is not make sense. they can shoot in self-defense. i hope you can correct that situation. >> we will get back to you with

the incidents that have occurred over the last three years. the protection of our border patrol agents on the frontline is uppermost in my mind. >> the border patrol in fiscal year 2008 reported that there were three individuals encountered by the border patrol at the southwest border checkpoints who were identified as persons linked to terrorism. who were they and to what terrorist organizations were they linked? >> i prefer to get back to you in response to that issue. i cannot identify this person for you at this moment. -- i cannot identify those persons for you at this moment. >> thank you for being here.

i come from a non-mexican border state, the state of new jersey. there are consequences to the flow of criminal activity across the mexican border into united states but felt in new jersey in terms of gang violence and drugs. in many of my town hall meetings, the subject of illegal immigration comes up, especially the immigration and originated across the mexican border. the issue of a fence, some people say to just build a fence across the border. in the budget, we now have 646 miles of fencing to go up to 655 miles of fencing. will you consider that amount to be sufficient?

should the entire border be covered by a fence? would that be the best use of taxpayer dollars to stop the flow of illegal activity across the border? >> the building of more than 600 miles of fencing in the original directions of the congress as secretary napolitano indicated is that she committed to completing what congress mandated. with the exception of several miles, the commitment has been met. she has indicated she will continue to be advised by professionals on the border, border patrol agents, field officers, as well as ice agents

and others who live and work on the border about whether any additional infrastructure is necessary. >> would it be a fair characterization of your testimony that today and in the fiscal 2011 budget request of your agency, the amount of fencing that you want to build is being funded? >> to this date, yes, sir. >> this is a softball right of the middle -- right over the middle for you to address. there is some chatter out there from various sources saying that the border between mexico and the u.s. is porous and practically open, that there are criminal gangs flowed unimpeded

into the united states, drugs are coming in willy-nilly. your written testimony belies that. for the record, this is being televised, are those statements to? illegal aliens and terrorists practically able to walk in without any problem? -- for the record, are those statements true? >> those statements are not true. >> it is true that these things are happening easily without impediments? >> both commissioner bersin and i was said that while the challenge remains very significant, the resources and enforcement dedicated to our southwest border has never been

greater. the changes profound -- the change has been profound in the 17 years i have been in the enforcement business. >> it is it enough? i appreciate the fact there are more resources than ever, that the threats are real, and that you are addressing the with greater success. is your budget enough? should we give you more money to do more things? >> that is a question that administration officials always have to dance a little bit on. i am noise happy to do everything i can with the good money that the appropriations committee gives me. >> are we gaining or losing ground? >> i think we're gaining. i do not want to be heard as saying that we have solved the problem.

we are in a long-term struggle with organized criminals. they are trying to stay a step ahead of us. they are willing to go to linen gths that we've not seen in the past. our job is to stay a step ahead of them. >> you have the resources to address that issue? the gentleman's time has expired. we will have a quick second round. let me turn to mr. mollohan. >> mr. bersin, there was an abc world news report the year-ago -- a year ago that suggested that most drugs across the border in trucks. i do not know if you are

familiar with that report or not. let me read the introductory paragraph. it says that most of the drug shipments smuggled into united states by mexican cartels are hidden in trucks that drive across checkpoints in plain sight with little fear of inspection. only about 5% of the trucks coming into the country from mexico are inspected, according to u.s. officials. that is out of 3 million travelers crossing the checkpoints last year, 2008. juan zarate dealt with these trafficing issues in georgia. he was the deputy national security director under president bush. he is quoted in the article as saying that it is too costly and

too slow given the volume of trucks to try to stop and inspect each and every track. he goes on to say that any attempt to inspect all trucks crossing the border would have a hugely negative impact in terms of commercial traffic and trade between the united states and mexico. is this an accurate depiction? >> i am not familiar with that particular article. >> due the fact resonate with you? -- do the facts resonate with you? >> it does not. there are sophisticated methods by which we make a judgment about which of the trucks or vehicles coming across the border need to be inspected.

they're subjected to the kind of x-ray equipment that is unprecedented. that is in part because of the resources provided by this committee. there is a higher percentage than 5% that are inspected. sometimes it is done on a random basis. there is very much a sophisticated targeting system based on information available to us in terms of the advance information that we require of trucks coming to the border, in terms of the use of intelligence systems that we have. in fact, it is much more organized and systematic and effective than the article suggests. >> it sounds like you are dealing with a tough problem. are there 3 million trucks that come across the border every year? >> i know we have 60,000 containers in terms of air, sea,

and truck that come across cbp every day across handles. i will give you the specific number of trucks breaking out of that. >> it sounds like a huge number of trucks coming across the border. responses that 5% might not be the right number, -- your response is that by% might not be the right number, but it is small. lycee uses sophisticated process. -- you say you use a sophisticated process. i think this is an important question. how do we deal with that? if it is true, what a transportation vehicle for drugs across the country. this article goes on to say that they have hubs across the nation.

it references atlanta. for the record, please elaborate on this answer and get us some accurate statistics in how you are dealing with it. would you submit that to my office? >> we're trying to honor mr. bersin's schedule for an airline that is not going to wait. we do have time and do have some further questions. we will proceed with a brief second round if that is alright with you gentlemen. i will begin by referencing mr. rogers'comments about these things that have begun to specialize in assassinations. the aztecas are responsible for

incredible amount of numbers of murders in 2009. i would like to ask you specifically about press reports that followed the march 13 killings of u.s. consulate workers and their families. the dea led a sweep called operation not down kno-- knock down after that. there was a report that they had been given the green light for retaliatory killings after that. it sounds like an ominous escalation. it is a type of direct confrontation that could mark a new level of engagement with mexican gangs.

>> to be candid, i would prefer to answer that question off the record. what i can see more generally on that is that we're working very closely with the eight and the fbi -- with the dea and the fbi. we get a lot of information through the investigation. so far, we have not seen that particular information that you referred to reflect actual intentions. >> i would welcome the information you have an whatever setting you need to use.

this was a public pronouncement. it is a green light on retaliatory killings of u.s. law enforcement officers. that is why i bring it up in this setting. it is a very ominous kind of escalation of this. let me turn to the border security task force teams. you have referenced those today. i want to ask you about the value added they represent and what kind of evidence you have of their performance and why this is not more explicitly reflected in the budget request for 2011. we provided $100 million last spring to respond to the drug violence in mexico.

ice received much of this for the teams, and expanded resources, and so on. do you have any measure of success? what kind of difference are these units making? how you measure success? what do you anticipate? we know the 2011 budget request continues the base budget for ice southwest border initiatives. there is no specific funding proposed for the expansion of this effort. it raises the question of whether the flat budget is adequate for what appears to be a problem that is not going away. we hope it is making some headway. >> i think the budget does request a modest increase for that. there would be three new ones.

there would not be on the southwest border. >> could you clarify that? >> [unintelligible] >> there is some team expansion but not on the southwest border. >> i think that is a reflection that our modest increase would focus on the amount of importance we give to the task force. the task force concept was in response to the violence in laredo in 2005. it was very similar to the conversation we have had today. that works so well that we immediately adopted the basic concept elsewhere. it has grown rapidly.

we use them for all sorts of things for criminal investigation to search operations that we do with cbp. we've begun to work closely with the marshals hunting down fugitives. we never turned a number of wanted murderers using the task forces. -- we have returned a number of wanted murderers using the task forces. we would move to 20 if congress were to appropriate the 2011 budget. an office in headquarters with better coordinate what we're doing and make sure that the task forces are working in tandem in their respective fe stepheres so that you could

evaluate the value added and why we think they have been so successful. they have worked really well in the seaport context. we're thinking about having our first one in a major international airport. it has worked well. it brings our federal and local law-enforcement partners together. one thing to make the program a full success is our ability to reimburse state and local law- enforcement partners is quite limited now. cbp has broader authority. we can endorse some overtime and equipment purchases, but it is quite narrow. it is not really a question of money. it is really authority for it. i think that would greatly help the overall effectiveness of this. >> have you requested that formally? >> no, we need to talk to you

about it. it is getting the legalities down in terms of our authorities. it is something that we need to come and brief you about. >> how many are on the southwest border? >> 10. >> the last time you were here, we talked about the advisability of creating a joint intra-agency task force for the whole southwest border. all the agencies involved would be headquartered under one roof to coordinate the defense of the border, much the same as the task force in florida manages the caribbean anti-drug war. it is very successful. are you giving some thought to that? >> blog of thought.

-- a lot of thought. i think most people would agree with your general assessment that it has worked quite well. it makes a lot of sense along the southwest border. mr.mr bersin and i have talked about this at great length. the remodeled something like this along the southwest border -- do we model something like this along the southwest border? would it be dea centric? or would we have an outright structure that is independent? i think few people would argue with your basic premise as to whether something like that would be useful on the border. >> we talked about the/year -- this last year. have you moved at all on this?

>> we have talked about a lot in the interdiction committee. there are many moving parts. to do this right, you have got to get a lot of different federal agencies to come together under one roof to coordinate. cbp and ice are within the same department. we're already moving our intelligence operations closer together. i think the momentum is very much in favor of the general concept that you outlined. it is just a matter of time. >> we are facing problems on the border that are enormous and growing. they're very dangerous to the security of the whole country, for both us and mexico. it seems we need a single place

where all of the agencies, military and civilian, are headquartered. that we can call instantly on any asset of any of the agency'ies and get an instant response. the accord made both the justice department activities as well as dhs and any military agencies. when can we expect a decision about doing this? >> i cannot promise you any timetable on a decision. it involves many more players than me. i spoke to michelle lenhart, the acting administrator of dea , on the way back from mexico. we agreed that i would go down. we were waiting for commissioner

bersin to come on board to take a hard look at it. we need to have that kind of assessment and conversation among the key players now that alan is here, we will move from there. >> could we get an update on your progress within 30 days? is that a reasonable time? should be longer or shorter -- should it be longer or shorter? >> we can certainly give you an update on the coordination among agencies. this would be a major structural transformation. 90 or 100 days would give you more substance. >> what could we expect in 90 days? >> we could report back to you

where the federal agencies across doj and dod would be in serious detail on the notion of unified or joint command mechanisms available. >> to further this process, i hope that we could informally request and report on how we are doing in 90 days. would that be a reasonable request? . .

what can you tell us about those subjects? >> first all, we have a rough estimate of money that the drug sales in this country are netting the drug cartels in mexico. >> $18 billion to $30 billion per year.

>> that is money going from the u.s. to the cartel's across the border. -- and in certain instances to places like colombia. >> how can that amount of money across the border? just a ball club that is something, is it not? -- just the baulk of that is something, is it not? >> the area that we need to do devote more time and intelligence is in this exact place. while cbp and ice's seizures -- they are at an all-time high.

but we are only seizing a fraction of that. >> how much money have we seized? >> this is been a particularly good year. we are on our way -- we typically between the two agencies or north of $200 billion per year. this year we have one of the largest seizures in our history, shipping containers going between mexico and colombia, that we found in about the space of 10 days, package inside very amount. >> you ever covered roughly $200 million out of $30 billion? >> yes with our partners at justice seizing a similar amount. it is by no means the majority of the money. we are not seizing most of what is going south of those estimates are correct. >> that is a very miniscule percentage.

>> congressman, much of the money goes down in bulk cash, as he indicated. and we're working to intercept it. not all of it is all cash, but it is transmitted through banking channels. we need as he suggested a lot more intelligence about the way in which money is laundered and we need to be able to identify with much more precision what the poor portion is in cash as opposed to other kind of transactions, and we need a better range -- $18 billion or $30 billion, so that we can focus our efforts. >> this seems that this is a fertile field for getting at the problem, and that is tracking the cash flowing across that border in rivers. >> if i could add one thing on

that, there are many things that we're trying to do to address that exact point. we are working with the dea, ice, cbp, and the mexicans to study right now the flow of money from the united states to mexico. we're also working with the world customs organization to try to broaden our efforts and we're doing for the first time international search as were last year we had over 80 countries pick a week and we hit every airport, we had every crossing, and we just go looking for trouble. and it has been quite successful. we want to do more of those under the umbrella above of -- that the ec of -- the wco. all large criminal organizations need to move money back and forth and they do it through

smuggling or other sophisticated laundering. >> this committee sometimes back, we made noise about weapons from the cartels coming across that border. have you determined how much weaponry as going north to south? >> i have not. as alluded to earlier, we have very limited authority in the firearms area. we typically go through atf for the testaments and analysis of what is going across the border, because they have the tracing authority. >> i can tell you this -- according to cbp, no weapons have been seized by way of real from mexico to the u.s., only 72 weapons have been seized heading outbound at points of entry,

including one submachine gun, 15 shotguns, 28 rifles, and 28 handguns. considering the weaponry that the cartels have in mexico, these are popguns that we're talking about here. there's hardly any weaponry that has been seized going south across the border. is that generally true? >> i know that those seizures are roughly in the neighborhood of 1500 the year. most of the seizures i am aware of occurred in mexico, and obviously could have come from a variety of sources including the southern border of mexico and elsewhere. >> outbound and points of entry. >> i would have to defer to the commissioner.

>> ladies and gentlemen, we did receive a response to inquiries. i've as specific information about weapons seized at outbound points of entry. what we do not have is a fuller account of the assessment of weapons seized in the country, in mexico, and the company -- and the country of origin of those weapons. >> that is an area of the ink -- a continued inquiry. but the congressman is right, in the year 2009109 firearms were seized by cbp. and thus far in this fiscal year, 72 firearms had been seized at outbound checks. >> those were the numbers that i quoted to you. the question the chairman was talking about of the origin of weapons that have been found in mexico, what can you tell us about those?

>> that is where atf comes in with a tracing. >> that is the information we still need to get from atf. >> i do not have that authority under the law. >> we will pursue that energetically because we do need to fill out the picture more fully. ok, moving right along, mr. rodriguez. >> in that specific area, i know there are 17 million, and it is not sufficient in all honesty. when i was in mexico, a good number they felt came from the u.s. but they were not sure. what they did know was that a lot of the guns did come from the wars that we have had in central america and elsewhere, especially some of the big arms, but we need additional data. i also feel what the congressman was just talking about in terms of following the money. we have not done a good job

there. i know that there's some stuff up in the caribbean and some people doing some things, but please let us know in terms of what else we might be able to do there, because it is $30 billion and that amount has remained stagnant and we have done a lot more capture of a lot more drugs, and assuming that our advertisement -- appetite for drugs in this country has mayor -- remain the same, then we're not there yet. let me also have an opportunity to visit 13 of my 20 counties, one was at fort hancock, and there's a genuine -- of all my counties, there is a genuine fear their occurring and a concern in terms of what is happening on the other side.

i've met with a share of staff on this side and with the border patrol, and by the way, they are doing a tremendous job. all the numbers are dropping in my three sectors and they are doing good works. i have not heard too many complaints were too many concerns except in that specific area, and that fear is from other communities not wanted to send their kids to play ball there and do other things like their -- like that. i know part of it is just what they hear it in terms of what is occurring across the border and what is happening in terms of the ones that are coming across. there are increases locally where we have all 1100 seizures of local authority must, -- authorities there. it's important for us to continue to work with sheriffs and the county officials as well

as the city's, and i mentioned the city of presidio, because they have one deputy they're working for the entire city. they cannot afford any more. that has been very helpful and has been a good program that has been extremely positive. ironically, it is not one of the county's that has received those resources. but it has been helpful. whatever we can do to beef up on local authorities and somehow look at the language and also look at the school districts, because i have a couple of school districts where they talk about people coming over and the kids are dropping out, where there is dialogue about they're picking up some of the kids to do some of the drugs now for the cartels. i do not have any evidence but i know we have had a lot of tall in some eric -- a lot of tall where it may be helping and brownsville.

whatever we might do in terms of those political subdistricts, such as cities and counties, i would appreciate it. the $60 million that we put in there, mr. chairman. it is in the budget? because i know i will be asking the chairman to see if we can up those numbers a little bit. to help out not only on the northern border but on the southern border. i wanted to see how well we might be a work with those communities. all along that border there, and you get lost. they are still unable to communicate among themselves. they have not had operations communication capability. in some areas we are almost there and others we are not quite there yet, where the

local sheriff and local police can dialogue with not only them but the border patrol and other people. that is important. so thank you very much. >> what we ask mr. monaghan to close this out -- why don't we ask mr. mullihan to close this out? >> you requested $40 million to dramatically expand the zero passes center. -- el paso center. part of the justification is that ice is going to be using that. falling on the ranking minority members questions, does ice intend to choose epice as a

primary intelligence center? >> i was unaware of the request in a formal way and a decision by ice because that decision has not been reached. what i have agreed to do is take a hard look at those resources. we do have that ad epic and i do think we need -- we do have a hit at -- we do have it at epic. >> it is a large amount of money. does ice support using epic? >> as we have noted, that is an ongoing discussion and it will be part of "we get back in 90 days. >> 90 days is a long time. we need to make binding decisions much more quickly than

90 days. >> one thing i need to do is look at the request, to the extent that it refers to ice, and that is news to me. and then talk to michelle about it but i am not prepared at this time to say that we have decided that in fact epic is the place to be. it is obviously one of the prime -- >> what would be the alternative to using epic for that purpose? >> one of the other centers or the creation of a new center along the border. >> who would spend the new center representative? >> it could be the department of homeland security. cbp and ice are already practical players across the border. we share intelligence regulate and are moving many of our operations in the same place. and in the military is a key

player to start with. the have a very strong military support and structure to it. >> would you include my office on the updates that mr. rogers has asked for? >> certainly, sir. >> we need to make decisions in real time. >> i don't have very much time here. if i can get one question here -- one more question and, i will be lucky. that is a small number of weapons to be seized going out of the country. are you not screening for traffic going out of the country? why wouldn't you catch more? 18 weapons going across the border into mexico? >> 109 in the last fiscal year. but in fact, we had not seized

any weapons on rail and yet every rail shipment in and out of the united states is subject to an x-ray examination. >> my statistics -- start to be so quick and cut you off. i understand it looks rude and i don't want that. 90% of the firearms in mexico come from the united states. do you agree or disagree with that? >> i disagree with that. that is a statement that has been subject to -- broadly publicized but does not reflect the reality. the most that can be said is that 90% of the weapons that have been traced, they originated the united states, but we don't know what the laws of population of weapons are. >> anything specific to the weapons illegally used in mexico? >> that information, that is more readily available from the atf.

[unintelligible] >> i am sure both of our committees have made this request and nine -- we need to get a better answer. >> it makes it sound like we're not doing enough or at least effective screening on weapons traveling south. we screen a lot coming north. thank you mr. chairman. >> a quick request for the record? >> i know the state department has also been looking in terms of the monday expenditure is going into mexico. -- money expenditures going into mexico. they express something about collaborative efforts in some area that includes the state department and our efforts with mexico, at one point over $1 billion, and maybe we can dialogue further into some reality and form some center

that will respond to that and address all those issues beyond not only the security but what is occurring in mexico, and the train in the judges and all that other stuff. thank you. >> very briefly, mr. chairman, chairman mullihan will be important if we do an organization on the southwest border, because if it will increase funds from the justice department. and i hear him say that 90 days, if we delay the decision 90 days, it is going to be too late for the action of the subcommittees to write into the budget next year's budget for such a setting. >> if i may say respectfully, i think that what we're talking about is such a remarkable institutional transformation that in fact that would not be a matter for this budget year in

any case. while i agree that the issue on epic is improving its service to ice and other and cbp as border agencies, we've made a huge investment in that already years. i don't think in the next 90 days we are in a position to make a radical departure. i take your point that we should be in a position to report in 90 days where the status of the discussion is, and if it is going further, then it has real budgetary implications. >> just be advised that these subcommittees may override you and do this anyway. >> yes, sir. >> whether you like it or not or whether you are prepared for it. >> you asked for my recommendation. i would not make a radical change in that period of time that we have to consider this.

>> with the severity of the problem on the border, radical change may be in order. >> in any case, the request stands for the 90 days' report, as full as you can make it and the state of your present thinking and your interagency discussions. with that, we really have run out of time and we will adjourn the hearing. but thanks to both of you for your testimony and for your good work. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> part of what internet freedom is so complicated is that the security issue, it is an

economic issue, and it is a human rights issue. all of this is wound into 13 >> there are issues but the state department wants to use technology to advance diplomacy. alec ross on all but the communicator's." all this month, see the winners of c-span is studentcam competition. students from 45 states admitted videos on one of the country's greatest strengths or challenge the country is facing three watch the top winning videos every morning on c-span just before "washington journal." at 8:30 on the program, meet the students that made them, and for a preview of all the winners, visits studentcam.org. >> not to the pentagon for an update on haiti. three months after re earthquake that took 30,000 lives, a joint task force coordinating relief

efforts speaks with reporters for just under 35 minutes. >> thank you for joining us this morning. it is my privilege to introduce to you the general, the deputy commander, and and now formal as of yesterday, the joint task force for haiti. the commander for responses. he served as the task force commander in haiti since the 12th of january, and he left yesterday after change of command. he is going to give a brief update to on the operations there and then take some of your question. general, thank you for coming to washington and spending some time with us here. >> good morning. i think i would like to for start by saying -- express my

appreciation for the american people and all the families of our servicemen and women who have served in haiti and are currently serving in haiti. a tremendous amount of support by all americans, every day on the streets of haiti, in the form of civilians who are working for non-government organizations and obvious low -- obviously does that work in our own government agencies and our military there. they are truly the soldiers of humanitarian assistance, the non-governmental organizations, the civilians who are really working day in and out to help the haitian people as they recover from this tremendous catastrophe. as ron mentioned, yester day i turned over command he is also the commander of u.s. south.

i thought that was quite appropriate. he is forming the duties as the deputy of the joint task force since early march. this is another step in the military transition as we move forward. i think i will leave it at that and go straight into questions and used most of our time to address the particular issues. >> could you provide a snapshot of the u.s. commitment, the military commitment in haiti? how many troops are there and how does that compare -- i believe it was at 10,000 or something like that? >> when i left yesterday we had right at 2200 troops deployed in haiti. at the peak, february 1, we had 22,000.

that included about 58 aircraft and 15 ships. most of those troops were on ships. we had an aircraft carrier there of course, the uss vincennes. at the peak we only had about 7000 troops in haiti. today, of course, as i mentioned, 2200 -- and we have four aircraft and no u.s. naval ships, although we have some landing craft from the u.s. army that are still supporting us. that gives you a little perspective on where we stand. >> 7000 troops were in haiti at the peak. you mean on the ground. >> on the ground versus on the ships at the height. we had about 15 ships there, including the uss vincennes, the aircraft carrier. it included the uss nassau and

the uss batone, a included a brigade from the 82nd which was on the ground. so many of those troops are sailors and marines, they were on the ships in support of our forces, but may have been going back and forth. and all of the aircraft initially was naval air that was coming off of the ships. the crew and the support was on the ships. >> general, give us a sense of how much longer we will be in haiti and what exactly is the current mission? and can you give us an assessment on security on the ground right now? >> the current mission remains what it was when we got there, and that is focused on saving lives and mitigating suffering.

obviously the priority of what we were doing in support of usaid has changed over time. our priority is focused on how do we mitigate the effects of the coming rains? we are already entering the rainy season. how do we prepare the populations, the displaced persons aboard of 1 million people in port-au-prince and surrounding areas that are living in various encampments, to prepare for these? we've focused recently on moving those populations, working with the afghan the non- governmental agencies, the un, and others, on getting them out of harm's way. because many of them are in low lying areas, and that is well under way. we have mitigated the effect of the potential rains on some of

these scams that are in the most vulnerable areas, and we have actually moved over 2000 displaced persons out of some of these camps that were in high risk into other settlements that were established by the international community, ngos as well as the united nations. the security situation still remains calm. as it has been since the early days. while there have been isolated incidents of violence, if you will, it has not been to the degree that has impacted the ability to provide humanitarian assistance. we have been very fortunate in that when the earthquake occurred, we had united nations stabilization mission there. we had nearly 8000 u.n. troops there led by the brazilian major-general there recently

turned over command to another brazilian general. we operate within the envelope of the safe and secure environment due to those forces that were there at the time. and have continued to do that. so we've been the u.s. military and the joint task force have been able to focus our efforts on humanitarian assistance, and of course security tasks that were associated with doing just that. >> how much longer will u.s. troops remain in haiti? >> as a nation we are in a transition phase. we started transitioning the size of our military forces, as i said before, dialing it back, based on the conditions on the ground. and we have done that since february with the departure of the aircraft carrier and we continue to do that today. i expect us to, on or about june

1, to stand down the joint task forces. we will be able to do that because of the capability that is being built up by civilian organizations, whether it be usaid cost increase capacity, but more so the increase in capacity of non-government organizations that are really running much of the humanitarian assistance efforts within the country, to include these displaced persons camps that i mentioned, that are being run and supported by ngos under united nations office of humanitarian coordination. as they build up that capacity and get into more of the recovery and reconstruction phase, the need for our military diminishes. so we are adjusting the size of the military accordingly, and i anticipate us being able to close down the joint task force. that does not mean that u.s.

southern command will not continue and have an enduring military presence in haiti. i was in haiti on the day of their earthquake. i was there working with u.s. embassy in on some security cooperation engagement that we were going have a later this year medical exercises, humanitarian assistant construction projects like building classrooms for schools, and also emergency operation centers, and talking to them about how to prepare for the national disasters. that will continue. in fact later this month we're going to have the beginning of a robust new horizons exercise, we call it, led by the louisiana national guard that will continue through the month of september, that will have over $2 million of projects focused on these activities.

worse we will continue with the presence there for that period of time after june 1, i expected to be about 500 within that task force, doing those types of engagement. they have been coordinated very closely with the united nations and usaid to fit within the post-earthquake requirements and what is needed. >> 2200 now, and on june 1, what does that mean for the troop levels? you mentioned 500 -- will the troops be down to that? >> the troops part of the joint task force-haiti would also redeployed. that would include some engineering portions we have there now, and i expect the 82nd to redeployed in accordance with our current plan, and we have some other units there. the troops that are part of the joint task force would redeploy.

i mention this new horizons joint tax force of about 500 troops. they would come and prior to the redeployment or the standing down of the joint task force, doing those activities i mentioned. there would be a period of overlap as the joint task force leaves and this new horizons comes in, focusing on different requirements and support. >> could you step back on the military role and give us a sense on how things are in haiti now and what needs to be done next? you have been there a lot. give us a sense of where things are going to go in the next year? >> i wish i had a crystal ball.

clearly the light of the world descending on haiti. the world has responded significantly to avert a tremendous catastrophe. there were no food crisis or loss of life due to shortage of possible water -- possible water potable water. many were saved not just from our own military but the international community and the ngos i mentioned. as before the earthquake, haiti been the poorest nation in the western hemisphere had tremendous challenges from poverty to education to infrastructure. clearly all of those need to be addressed as the government of haiti developed a strong range

been chin and had been articulated at the donor's conference and talk about in terms of where does haiti need to go to the future and how do they build back haiti better, accusing what former clinton -- paul -- former president clinton stated as thus shorten vision of the government and others looking to support the country there. i saw lots of hope as i walked around the streets, particularly when you look in the faces of the children, the smiles on their faces, the gratitude that they have, certainly from our military and the presence of the international community there. the proof of the ability to -- of the community to realize those hopes is how they air -- how they are able to apply all these donor nations contributions, not only able to build a strategic plan but how the government is hal -- able to

lead ford, because this is about haitians leading haitians. whatever plan is built needs to be a haitian plan. i know the government is working very hard with the international community on just that. i had the opportunity me -- to meet with president of all prava -- to meet with president preval and had some opportunity to spend some time with the prime minister on friday, talking about that very issue, about the various commissions being set up and how they move forward. >> is it fair to say that you expect june 1, this specific earthquake relief operation to end, and in this national guard effort will be back on normal engagement on the type we were working on on your pre- earthquake trip?

>> from the u.s. military perspective, i think that encapsulates it very well. i would not say that the earthquake relief and on any certain date because i think the people of haiti, certainly in the displaced homeless camps, the impact of the earthquake will link or four years on their life -- will linger for years on the light. and the government's response to provide a critical need for them today and will continue to provide that, and continue determine how they move on and build that better, as i said. but from the u.s. military perspective, we will support and continue to support usaid and our u.s. government efforts, but we're reshaping that based on the needs on the ground. >> can you tell us in your unique perspective what lessons did you learn from this effort?

what needs to be done by the military and by other agencies and international community to be ready for the next disaster, wherever it happens? >> as you well know, our military looks very closely at trying to determine how we can learn from each particular operation that we participate in an, and this is no exception, and we have a robust lessons learned the team supported by joined forces to look at this as well as others. from my personal standpoint, i will give you three things that i have taken away from this that we need to sustain, and then to read that i think we certainly can look get an need to improve. the first we need to sustain is respond quickly. i think that our nation, leading the effort here, responded very quickly and provided critical

support at a critical time, and in fact provided hope to the haitian people where hope did not exist. having walked through the streets the morning after the earthquake, that was the question i got most often -- when is america coming? and i could say with a great degree of certainty, america is on the way, because i knew our president and secretary of defense had made decisions to send aircraft carriers and troops are way, a large the people responsible. and what it time to build up the capacity to provide eight, i think it happen much faster than most -- most expected. and the logistical challenges, having only one small airport in the second thought i thought we should sustain, and keep working on, is coordination and collaboration. at the same time, coordination was one of the major challenges that we faced in any operation,

but certainly this one, where as i mentioned we have 140 nations and non-governmental organizations all doing their best to provide help. how do you coordinate that and work with united nations to was leading the humanitarian assistance efforts there? but we put into the place of good leadership of usaid and working with united nations mechanisms to coordinate and collaborate and develop partnerships in places where it did not exist before. i thought that was the sustainment from my perspective. the other is focus on what is important. what was important on the first day after the earthquake was saving lives, and what is important today is still saving lives with some long-term vision of how you move forward. getting together to make sure everyone keeps the focus that we have. we have a lot of people in need and haitians, how'd you avert

crisis -- a health crisis, for example. you don't want diseases that take root in some of these camps. people are working very hard that that does not happen. we have not seen that to this 0.33 improvements i would give you -- we have not seen that to this point. the three improvements i would give you -- we want to respond as fast as we can with as much as we can, and hopefully we can determine the requirements as soon as we can, so we respond with the right capabilities. and that was as much my job on the ground, trying to determine requirements with the host nation, with the haitian officials, with the wind, and i wish we would have been able to do it better to ensure that we get the right capability there at the right time. i think stepping back after period of time, is an area that i would first look at, saying,

how could i do this better and how could we do this in a better -- in the future better, having the right mechanism to determine that? the second is understanding everyone's capabilities through all of our service responders, it was important that the army leaders within our joint task force understood the capabilities of the marine, and our navy brothers, so we could apply these capabilities in the right place. and over time we came to appreciate that much better, but not just within our own service s, because we were fortunate to have a lot of great men and women from all the services working together in a lot of places, and we knew each other well enough to bridge that. but at the same time, what capabilities are there from the civilian sector? what ngos are in a country with

unique capabilities? we found that there was tremendous capability already there in haiti. it was a matter of finding them, linking them together in some cases, or understanding the un? i personally did not work closely with the un before, so this was a unique opportunity to read one of my first tasks early on was to understand the human and how it functions and be able to work closely together with it. the third one was anticipate challenges sooner, anticipating challenges such light, what are you going to do with 1000 homeless haitians as we develop cancer? these camps that developed in the port-au-prince area, nearly 1300 according to the un, they develop spontaneously. they were not obviously set up an organized in any fashion. they just developed spontaneously because people did not have anywhere else to go.

how do you take that and work with the government to provide the necessary life savings support to them in order to move the -- move beyond that and go to where they need to go in the future? trying to anticipate some of that. there were unique requirements -- and you can add up fourth yes. sustenance, sanitation, and shelter -- that was facing us every day in the streets of haiti. they have cestas, did they have shelter, and the sanitation and all the implications of that. the fourth s was security, which we were fortunate to have the united nations forces there and the haitian police, but in the broader sense, all we had to worry about his security and support of the humanitarian assistance. and then i would leave you with three challenges that we work

with every day and had that focus on the logistics', logistics', but justice. any humanitarian assistance efforts are logistics'-base. getting people critical supplies in getting them in the right order and the right magnitude to provide the best assistance you can. the second one is unity of effort. i mention that a couple of times, getting everybody working on the same page, if you will. in the last challenge is what we in the military called the humanitarian assistance, and operating picture. -- common operating pitcher. this was not what you see in iraq or afghanistan. this is where are the hospitals are right, where are the displaced persons had, which roads were blocked, which roads were open, where were the police at or not at?

there may be pockets out there that we did not know about, in existence, and in terms of being able to share that -- we decided early on to make this operation totally and classified -- on classified -- unclassified, and we use google map to make a comment interface said that everybody can accept it. that continues to be a challenge and we were continuing to learn a lot about that as we go forward. >> i understand that there are still a lot of haitians living under tarp shelters. how much will it take to get them into something more permanent? >> the goal of united nations and all the humanitarian organizations is to have every

haitian by the second of may. the reality of the figures i saw, they were 90% there, based on their surveys and contacts and getting everyone under some type of shelter. but clearly a tarp is a tarp, all less reliable shelter, but as you go around the streets of shelter -- that tens of haiti, we see a lot of tense. we see a lot of tents donated. what is happening is that as we move out of the montane yet -- the spontaneous settlements, like the camp moving most of the at-risk displaced persons out of bed this place in persons camp, which is being run by senn penn, they are moving into another settlement. when they arrived there, the family is issued a number of things. one of them is a tent. that is already set up for them.

they received, they get some food, they get some other non- food items, they are led by a haitian boy scout to their tent, and that is their new home. so we're taking them from being under one or two targetps, in a dangerous situation, to an area that is flat, that is graded, that does not have standing water, and issued a tent. but it is going to take time and there is a working united nations plan overtime to go from tends to transitional shelters, and a long-term plan is to get back to developing the infrastructure to accommodate housing plans. but it is a work in progress, and there is no mistake -- we

are into the rainy system and the hurricane season is approaching, and living in a tent during a hurricane is not optimal. they are looking at how you protect the most vulnerable and the population as best you can going into the hurricane season. all of those things are being thought about and addressed as best we can. but the problem and the challenges are significant as they go forward. >> after those 500 lead, how many u.s. troops will remain in haiti? >> they are not just national gardens but reservist. it is a total army effort with the exercise. i think post-new horizons exercise, the termination of engagement with u.s. southern

command will be based upon what we need on the ground and those types of plans are being examined right now with usaid and others. i cannot give you an answer to that question. what i can say is that u.s. southern command-haiti is within that responsibility, and i was there before the year earthquake and i will continue to be engaged with our staff in u.s. army command and general frazier will be there tomorrow to continue to look at how we can continue to support the country team and usaid efforts as they move forward. >> you mentioned requirements, dollars set a specific recommendations for the higher ups about how they should assess

the requirements faster? as i recall, it took the dares so, it seemed, for the military to figure out and have an assessment team on the ground. is there a specific recommendation you would make to try to make that -- compress that time frame? the lawyers and i don't have anything just yet that i can offer to say, except to say that we have the mechanisms in place, i think, for the most part. and we have experts that need to be brought ford, or if they are not existing there -- this is easier if you're looking at a hurricane and you can see storms gathering and think about it before the fact. this being no notice, the level of devastation and destruction presented a unique set of circumstances. looking back on it, i don't know how we could have done it any

better or any differently. but it is clearly something that under ideal circumstances we want to have something in the way to do that to support the government and the country team, and also the unique circumstances of the haiti capacity for first sponsors and an ability to understand better how many buildings had collapsed, and many first responders did exist, how many hospitals were operational that first day? we had to gather that information just -- it was not immediately known and it took, as you mentioned, a number of days to do that. i think we recognize that this is a bigger challenge and we need to focus efforts. not to say that we being the international community, they were out and working towards that end. part of that was how to gather the information to a central

information and have total situational awareness and everyone's expectation on what the requirements are. haiti presented a unique set of circumstances and challenges that probably would not exist if you have the same effect in another country. but i think it is something that we recognize that we continually need to improve. i think if you went back and looked at previous disasters, different places, it would not surprise me to see the same item mentioned as something that we can always do better. but we need to look and see in particular, like you said, can we put in place from the u.s. government a disaster relief response effort overall? hardart team which leads this effort, by the way theour -- our

dart team which was spot -- which responded within hours, was plugged in tremendous -- immediately. but it was a tremendous challenge. mr. tim callahan who led that team, we plugged into them to try to do our best, and it is something that we always have to do better. dollar general, i thank you for taking the time this morning and thank all of you for your interest. >> part of why internet freedom is so complicated is that the security issue, an economic issue, and it is a human rights issue. all of those things going to 1. >> there are issues, but the state department hopes to use technology to advance diplomacy. alec ross, senior advisor to secretary of state hillary clinton tonight on "the communicator." >> tonight, and vice-president joe biden confirmed reports that

two senior al qaeda leaders were killed in afghanistan. he said that the u.s. is on track to withdraw all combat military by 2011. he talked about the financial regulation bill and the president's upcoming speech on wall street. this is just under an hour. [unintelligible] >> good afternoon, folks. i wanted to give you another update on an extremely important development in iraq. early this morning -- october 18, iraqi security forces with the support of u.s. security forces killed the most senior members of al qaeda in iraq during security forces.

the former leaders of aqi are the ones that plotted, plan, and carried out terrorist attacks against u.s. forces in iraq. their debts are potentially devastating blow to al qaeda in iraq. equally important in my view is that this action demonstrates the improve security, strength, and capacity of a iraqi security forces. the iraqis led this operation and it was based on intelligence the iraqi security forces themselves developed, following their capture of a senior aqi leader in the month. they have taken the lead in securing iraqi citizens by taking out both of these individuals. this counterterrorism operation is the culmination of a lot of cooperation and very hard work by iraqi and u.s. forces to

degrade aqi of the last several months and years. my thoughts and prayers go out to the u.s. -- to the family of the u.s. soldier killed during this operation. i do not want to mention their names because it sounds like a line, and the family has not been informed it. we commend all troops and civilians serving in iraq continued to put them what -- themselves in harm's way and service of our country and in the service of a secure and peaceful iraq. to consolidate the security gains and honor the sacrifice so many have made, it is now incumbent upon the iraqis pull it -- are rack's political leaders to take the next necessary step to form an inclusive and representative government that meets the needs and aspirations of the iraqi people.