this did not make any sense. so we face the most of this, except for the accounting purposes, and we took the monetary reserve for women's programs and we gave this to the ambassadors, and this fund would be more flexible and as with eliminates the amount of money that is diverted in overhead. this was 15-25-30%. this was a lot of taxpayer money. some of the contractors still disadvantaged, and some of you reported this as if this was an argument. . .

these are not a large part of the overhang. this is not with the corruption lies bis. is very good oversight. but as know. see what the safeguards are. talk to the inspector general. i do not feel this is a critical issue for a lot of reasons. we do not put money through a ministry unless the ministry has passed certification tests. on a handful of ministers has

passed fat. we will increase the amount of money that goes through. this is of great importance to the congress. her concerns were triggered by articles and stuff that she had seen that raised the concern about the diversion, corruptio, and in peace. -- and abuse. she put a hold on appropriations. she fenced it off. it will not be diverted. meanwhile, i talked to her about this. i was supposed to talk to her tomorrow. out is going to testify for her

tomorrow. she postponed the hearing for two weeks for technical reasons. she went to some lengths to explain that she is not doing this tube that the bill and did to gut the -- to gut the bill. i have great respect for her. i think what she is doing is understandable. she is protecting the taxpayer money and she once more accountability. >> is leaving to take a new job. he has been involved in afghanistan in terms of funding. how big a hole dispel the on the civilian side? >> jack and guy certification in

the clinton cabinet together. i worked very closely with him. of the then the secretary of state, he is my closest colleague. i think from my personal point of view, it leaves enormous shoes to fill. he called me before the announcement. we talked about this. he will work till the last minute on these issues. he has been a tremendously viable person. when he goes to his new job, he oversaw six and budget under president clinton, he is going to spend much more time on these

issues and otherwise would be the case. what he is leaving a gap here, he will also bring a knowledge on this issue to t he table at omb. there is another aspect that needs to be of looked at. this job he still 10 -- he filled had been created by congress a decade ago and had not been filled until secretary clinton decided to fill it. talk in my experience, this was a transformative event. back jack brought a appoint new level of state department involvement. it has made a huge difference in

this building. i want today he is not leaving yet. he is being nominated for the new job. i want to pay a strong to beat to him and emphasize how important this initiative that secretary clinton did has been to all of us. it has really made a difference. jack did not run these civilian programs in afghanistan. that was not his job. he did global resources. the management and coordination of the civilian programs was under our office. the interagency represent this -- representatives were under our office. jack was the in this incident -- indispensable person who worked

on the allocation of resources between the needs of afghanistan and pakistan. he has done a phenomenal job. >> you mentioned you have not met the general mattis. he made some comment that we are pretty derogatory about the afghan people. are you concerned about working with him and that it will make your job more difficult? >> i apologize. i am totally unaware. but i can read you one of them. >> you can read them but i made out them. >> you've got guys his love around women for five years because they did the rock where a bill. -- get the women to wear a bill. you got guys like that that ain't got no manhood.

>> i do not know the context of what he said and when he said it. it is clearly not a reference to the people we are fighting on the side of. it is a reference to the caliban -- taliban. the sentiment he expresses is one that i certainly can empathize with. i will take one more question. >> i am not certain it relates to this. are you concerned you want a totally representative government and whether it is through the dealership issue -- there are conflicts over who -- what other alliances can be

built in afghanistan? are you concerned this could still fall into a growing contradiction? >> i am not sure i follow your question. everyone has said there is no purely military solution. general petraeus has said it. the president has said it. we have all said it. there is always a window for people who want to come in from the cold. this is not a war between two foreign nations. it is a war between people who are afghans, some of who may live next door. they are afghans. there has to be a place for them. the lack of history integration program, the lack of

reconciliation was to my mind theocritus single fact in what we inherited. the only reason we did not have this discussion with olive view months ago was because last year we were consumed by the presidential election. it is not possible for the karzai government or the international community to move as rapidly as otherwise would have been the case. i said that to you at the end of last year. people said, what are you going to do about the programs? this is a big deal, this program. it is totally logical. i do not see any contradiction.

thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> coming up next, the white house reveals the hiv/aids strategy. they hold hearings on the environmental impact. they consider the elena kagan supreme court nomination. >> we added a new future to the seas in video library, bill search for do you can search for any congressional bill and what the debate from the house and senate floor. making it as general or specific as you like. it is all online for free.

>> the white house unveiled a document outlining a national strategy on hiv/aids. the president spoke about the policy at the white house. his remarks are 15 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, and the president of the united states. good evening, everybody. >> we love you, mr. president. >> i love you back. thank you. it is a privilege to speak with all of you.

welcome to the white house. let me begin by welcoming the cabinet secretaries who are here. i know i saw at least one of them, kathleen sibelius. [applause] i wanted to recognize our ambassador. his leadership of the emergency plan for aid to the is doing so much to say so many lives around the world. he will be leading our delegation to the international aids conference at the end of next week. i am grateful for his outstanding service.

i want to thank the presidential advisory council on hiv/aids federa and the federal hiv intey working group for all the work that they are doing. thank you very much. it has been nearly 30 years since a cdc publication called oval morbidity and mortality weekly report" wa to five cases of an illness that would come to be known as hiv/aids. in the beginning, it was known as the "they disease." a disease surrounded by fear, misunderstanding, a disease we were too slow to confront and to slow to turn back. in the decade since, as academics have emerged in africa and around the globe, we have

grown better equipped as nations to fight this disease. from activists, researchers, leaders who have waged a battle against aids for so long, we have learned what we can do to stop the spread of the disease. we have learned what we can do to extend the lives of people living with it. we have been reminded of our obligations to one another. obligations that like the virus itself transcend the barriers of race or station or sexual orientation or faith or nationality. if the question is not whether we know what to do. the question is whether we will do it. [applause] whether we will fulfill those obligations, whether we will marshall our resources and political will to confront a

tragedy that is preventable. all of us are here because we are committed to the cause. we are here because we believe that while hiv transmission rates in this country are not as high as they once were, every new case is one case to many. -- too many. we believe they are not viewed with suspicion but treated with respect. they are provided the medication and health care they need, where they can live out their lives as fully as their health allows. we are here because of the men and women whose stories compel us to stop this surge produceat, people like benjamin banks who is planning a family with his wife and deciding whether to run another half marathon. he has been hiv-positive for 29

years. it is a virus contracted during cancer surgery as a child. inspiring others has become his mission. we are year because of people like craig washington here after seeing what is happening in his community, friends passing away , homophobia, discrimination, he got tested, it discloses that is with the support of his partners and family and took up a movement for prevention and awareness in which he is a leader today. we are here because of people like linda. [cheers] linda learned she was hiv- positive about two decades ago when she went in for prenatal care. she decided to turn her life around then and there. she led a life as substance abuse behind. she became an advocate for

women. she empower them to break free from the bondage of secrecy. she inspired her son to become an aids activist herself. we are here because of linda and cried and then because of over 1 million americans living with hiv/aids. it is on their behalf and the behalf of all americans that we begin a national dialogue of about combating aids. it helped 14 committee discussions. we have spoken with over 4200 people. yet received 1000 recommendations on the white house website. today we are releasing our national a jedi/aids strategy. [cheers]

it is a product of these conversations in conversations with american and health-care providers, i think leaders, and the best policies in our country. i know this comes at a difficult time for americans living with hiv/aids. we have cash strapped states that are being cut back on essentials. i know the need is great. that is why we have increased federal assistance each year that i have been in office, providing emergency supplement to help people get the drugs they need. the first goal is prevention. we cannot afford any prevention

of the alum. we are taking a comprehensive approach. expanded testing to education so people can curb risky behaviors to drugs that can prevent a mother from transmitting a fire to her chapa -- transmitting it to her son. >> mr. president. let's hold on. you can talk to me after. we will be able to talk after i speak. that is why i invited you here, so you do not have to yell. [applause] >> thank you. >> we need to make sure every hiv-positive america is the medical care they need.

by stopping health insurers from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition and by creating a marketplace by where people with hiv/aids can get affordable care. it is an important step forward. when people have trouble putting food on the table, it is virtually impossible to keep them on life-saving therapy. the third goal is reducing. we all know the system set. gay and bisexual men make of a small percentage of the population but over 50% of new infections. for african americans, it is 13% of the population and 50% of

people living with hiv/aids. infection rate among black women are 20 women -- 20 times what they are for white women panett. these are the central goals of our natural strategy but a day must be pursued hand in hand of th. must be pursued by a government that is acting as one. we need to make sure our efforts are coordinated. that is how we will achieve results.

the government has to do its part. it does not rest on government alone. it requires companies to contribute funding and expertise to the fight. it requires a seize every source of information. it requires community leaders. and for us to look inward and how we can root out the inequities unwit this skirred thrives. how can we expect her to get tested and is closer diagnosis? the day ended disclose her

diagnosis? we fail to provide accurate medical and formation, how come we expect him to take the precautions necessary to protect himself and others? when we continue as a community of nations, we do not stand up for how women are treated in certain countries. how can we expect to into the disease? it will require more the deciding the disease. it will require making life more livable. i will be committed so long as i have the privilege as serving

as president. to all of you who have been out there in the field working on this issue day in and day out, i know sometimes it is a was work, but the truth is, you are representing what is best in all of us. a thank you for that. i am grateful for you. you have a partner in may. god bless you. god bless the united states of america.

>> kathleen sibelius' talked to reporters about the new national a jedi/8 strategy. she is joined by other officials, including melanie barnes. this is 45 minutes ahe. >> good afternoon, everyone. we are so pleased to have you here at the white house at the launch of the national a jedi/8 strategy. it is important that we put a in context. it has been 30 years since the hiv/aids epidemic first hit our country. it has been 20 years since passage of the ryan white care act b. we think it is imperative that we refocus our attention on the issue of hiv and aids and what

we have to do in the united states to address this issue appropriately. it is important to keep in mind what this means for individuals. there is a human face behind the statistics. 1.1 million people are living with hiv in the united states. we know that 56,000 people are infected every year and every 9.5 minutes -- that is one the when you say its i always have to double check. every night with five minutes someone is infected with hiv. for that reason, president obama promised as a nation domestically we would focus on this issue. as important as it is to focus their attention on what is happening internationally, there hasn't been enough attention focused on what we are doing in this country. and for that reason he went all over thelking aut

this issue and when he entered the white house, he told us that talk wasn't enough, that we have to put actions and deeds and resources behind our words. for that reason, we are launching our initiative, our national plan today. this document is the culmination of a great deal of work and one of the things that i want to do with thank so many f you who were in this room with us today, for your support, for your input, for your thoughts and ideas around this report and implementation plan for without you weould not have been able to get it done. i also want to thank people around the cntry. we went to 14 different cities in the united states, everywhere from san francisco to jackson, from los angeles to new york and philadelphia, all over the country and we talked to people and communities are go as i said theris a face behind all of the statistics. there is expertise in research and communities all over the country and we wanted to benefit

from that. we also benefited in those community meetings there our web site and we asked for their ideas and their opinions and their thoughts. we engage with our federal partners as they also engage with people through panels in three meetin and we eld panels and forums. some of you were there, that i also participated in here at the white house to talk about as different aspects not only of this disease but the ways that we can address it and the way we can do that in partnership with the federal, state and loca government as well as the private sector and the philanthropic sector and ngo's. so we bring all of that information to the work that we have done thus far and it is a part of the report and a part of the implementation plan. i am now going to turn this mic over to secretary kathleen sebelius and because of her work and her leadership in her drive, and i know her well and i've worked with her closely for several years so i can tell you

she is a great leader and there is a lot of drive. because of that work we are here today so i want to thank her for that and she is now going to give you a better sense of the work that is now a part of our national hiv/aids strategy and to tell you the ways we are going to be able to work together so i welcome secretary kathleen sebelius. thank you. [applause] >> thank you melody, not only for the nice introduction but melody has provided as the head of the domestic policy council, an enormous important strategic focus to this effort, and also some real personal passion. this was not something that was going to drop by the wayside with melody's help and support.

she has played an enormously important role, but so have the other two genemen on the stage with me today. jeff crowley who is the director of the office of national aids policy you will hear from and also dr. howard koh who is my terrific assistant and secretary on health who is chargedith actually reading the department wide effort, localizing the all hands-on upport for the initiative we are going to outline and i want to start by thanking the three of them because they do deserve a lot of credit for getting us to this spot today. as melody has already said, the plan is informed by not only those of you in the room but those from around the country who have worked in is area for years, who are providers and citizens living with hiv/aids, family members, advocates, faith-based communities

represented and we wanted the most effective strategies and approaches so we needed to talk to the people who knew about that most effectively. and i again want to thank all the health development strategies. when president obama announced our plan to put together a comprehensive national hiv/aids strategy, he recognized that this actually is a critical turning point. in the 80's, when aids was first discovered in this country, we were very slow to respond, but eventually a coalition came together with government officials and employers, community based groups and health advocates to put together a series of effective approaches for treating and reducing the spread of hiv/aids. in partnership with the affected community, we began to speak frankly about the sexual and

drug use behaviors that put people at risk for hiv and aids. we develop procedures for screening ood transfusions, encourage the screening of pregnant women and supported hiv testing programs for persons whose behavior plays place them most at risk for aids. we promoted community based and clinical strategies for reducing infections among injection drug use and discovered new therapies that were much more effective in keeping the disease in check. combined, these approaches helps turn the tide against disease and a number of new hiv infections among people who inject drugs dropped by 80%. transmissions during pregnancy went from 1600 to fewer than 200 a year. total annual infections went from about 130,000 a year in the mid-80s to just over 50,000 a year in the mid-90s.

and at the same time that length and quality of life of people living with hiv rose dramatically thanks to better treatment and better access to care. and that reversal is a pretty great accomplishment. the unfortunate piece of this story is that since the late '90s, our progress in preventing new infections has slowed. annual infections have held steady in the mid-50 thousand a year-- 50,000 a year. beuse of the number of people living with hiv has gone up over the years it means we are driving down infection rates slightly but not fast enoh or do we are keeping ce when we should be gaining ground, and that is why the president thought it was so important for the first ev comprehensive national hiv/aids strategy to be put together. after a year of information gathering and analysis, conversation with health care providers and persons iving

with hiv and aids, with researchers and health workers, with activists and community leaders, we are announcing a plan today that has an ambitious vision. that vision is the united states should be a place where new hiv infections are rare and when they do occur, every person, regardless of age, gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or socioeconomic circumstances will have unfettered access to high-quality life-extending care, free from stigma and discrimination. that is a pretty tall order and in order to achieve that vision, the strategy is focused on three concrete goals. reducing new hiv infections, increasing access of care and optimizing health outcomes for americans with hiv/aids, and

reducing hiv related health disparities. the goals aren't necessarily new but the strategy for achieving them is new. we know we couldn't keep using the same approach and expect different results. we knew at the same time all of us, the federal government, states and communities, not-for-profit groups, businesses are being forced to do more with less, and we can't expect this to be solved by a huge infusion of n resources. so while the strategy does highlight areas for addional investment, it also identifies ways we can use the resources we have more effectively, to prevent, diagnose and treat hiv and aids. and to do that, we are really looking in areas where we know we can do better. for example, we have been very successful at keeping hiv and aids incidence low for some populations.

if you are a white heterosexual woman, like me, your chances of being infected by hiv and aids are very low, one and 50,000. but if you are a black female, also in injection drug use or your chances of being infected are more than 1000 times higher than mine. one and 35. if you are a hispanic man, your chances are 350 times higher. in some u.s. cities it is estimated almost half the but men are hiv positive. so part of the strategy says we are going to intensify our prevention resources in the communities where infections are concentrated. when it comes to identifying resources, it can't just be one approach. are important, so is testing, especially since we think one in five americans with hiv doesn't know it and therefore spreads it.

what we have learned is that prevention is most successful when we use all the tools available,hether it is educating people about health behaviors or better substance abuse treatment and prevention programs or breakthrough medical research on vaccines. so we are taking in all of the above approach because it is the overlapping layers of prevention that get the best results. and the final piece of our prevention strategy is education. the progress we have made in the last 30 years comes with an unintended side effect, americans have become less fearful of hiv and aids. in 1995,early half of all americans said the hiv/aids was our most pressing health issue. today, it is one in 20. and we can't afford that kind of complacency. not plan, as melody said in the last few minutes i have been talking to you, another american

just contracted hiv. and that is why our strategy calls for aggressive efforts to educate americans about just how dangerous this disease still is and the steps that they can take to protect themselves and their lod ones. earlier this year, we got a headstart on these goals when we enacted the affordable care act, which included an unprecedented attention and public health fund. over the next 10 years, that's fund will invest nearly $15 billion to prevent disease or detect it early before it becomes severe. today we are announcing a $30 million from the first wave of new funding will go to support new and existing efforts to help more americans learn about hiv, particularly in the most vulnerable populations. the funds will be available for community organizations to apply for very soon and they will pride a critical boost to our prevention efforts across the

country. as their implementation of this strategy gets underway. but even as we strive to reduce new infections, the strategy we are announcing today also calls for us to refocus and re-energize our efforts on behalf of the 1.1 million americans who are currently living with hiv and aids, and they will all benefit from the affordable care act too. under the new law, medicaid will be expanded and medicaid has been the most reliable source of support for many americans with hiv and aids. there is also a new consumer frndly health insurance marketplace, where plans will be forbidden from denying people coverage because of their medical condition. a fate that has the fallen too many americans with hiv and aids in the past. these changes won't happen until 2014, but if we were quickly and responsibly to implement the new law, we are also taking some

short-term steps to help those with hiv and aids right now. in the last three months we have been mailing 250-dollar rebate checks to seniors who have fallen into the medicare's description doughnut hole. and 2011, those drugs in the doughnut hole will cost 50% less, a that is a huge help to seniors who were living with h and aids. we are working the states to create new temporary preexisting condition pools to offer insurance plans to those americans who have been locked out of the insurance market because of their medical conditions. and states already have risk pools in place. this will be an additional step. we have announced a new patient bill of rights that will restore some basic fairness this year to those health insurance markets. under the bill of rights, insurance companies will be forbidden from canceling coverage when you get sick or putting a lifetime cap on

benefits, which happens too often to people who are ill and need that coverage the most. each of those steps will help americans with hiv and aids bridge the gap until we get to 2014, and get the care they need to lead healthy and comfortable lives. but that is not enough. under the strategy, we also want to work to lintesting to care since the latest evidence shows that the earlier care is started, the better the results. we will build on the provisions of the affordable care act and strengthen our health care workforce. we wilwork to supplement the medical care with other supportive services like housine assistance that we know can make the difference between someone staying on the treatment regimen or dropping it. this goal is especially important at a time when budget shortfal have made it hard for many americans to get the care they truly need. that is why when they learned

that many states had begun creating waiting list for the aids drug assistance program, we quickly pulled together an additional $25 million in federal resources to meet the demand for the remainder of the year. we want to make sure that our prevention and treatment resources reach the most vulnerable americans a especially in communities with the greatest need. we must continue to change america's attitude. in too many communities today, hiv and aids still carries a stigma. there are still too many people who don't get tested because they are afraid of what their friends might think. too many people who won't pick up a flyer out treatment because they are afraid if they are seen with that someone will make a judgment about their sexual orientation. part of the strategy will continue to look for concrete ways to reduce the stigma associated with hiv and aids,

such as ending sending the hiv entry ban, a long-overdue step, which we finally did this year. for each of these goals, we set ambitious but reachable targets for the year 2015 and the national strategy is not only a document we are releasing today. with it we are announcing the national hiv and aids strategy implementation plans that lays out steps for every department across government to contribute tohese efforts. the strategy isn't a white par. it is a detailed action plan that is going to lead to real changes in our approach and we hope real improvements in our results. it is also a critical partnership. there are a wide range of cabinet agencies and subagencies at do work on hiv and aids from the department of justice to the department of lor, to the department of housing and urban development. one thing we hope to work

together better on as we implement this law is to work together. to that in the implementation plan calls on howard koh, our assistant secretary for health who you will hear from in just a few minutes, to take on the key coordinating role, not just for the agencies within hhs but for agencies across the federa government. howard got a great adviser in dr. ron valdiserri, one of our nation leading experts on hiv and aids who just pointed-- joined our department. this partnership also has to extend outside government to the community and faith-based organizations and employers an business is. the health care professionals and activists who play such an important role putting together the strategy. our only chance of success is if we carry it out together. is we implement the strategy we

are also recommitting ourselves to laboratory research that promises better prevention tools, treatments and ultimately a cure for hiv and aids. under the president's leadership we delivered the biggest boost to biomedical research in american history adding more than $10 billion to nih over the two years as part of the recovery act. last week, we saw some exciting news about how big the payoff from this investment might be one nih scientists dicovered three antibodies that could potentially be used as part of an hiv vaccine. going forward, we pledge to continueur work to promote new discoveries and eliminate obstacles that gets us from microscope to marketplace. when the president took office, we had reached a turning poi. either we could choose to get used to hiv and aids, to accept it is a permanent feature of the u.s. society to be satisfied

with lengthening lives instead of saving lives, or we could choose to redouble and refocus our efforts to put a new emphasis on prevention, to expand access to care, to target hiv and aids in the most vulnerable communities that they are the brunt of this disease. with the new strategy we are annocing today, we are choosing the second path. we refuse to accept a stalemate to dig in and just hold the disease had a. we want to be moving forward. we wantto see infections going down once again, access to care increasing and awareness expanding. the strategy we are releasing today is not an end of our work. it is just the beginning. we have set a target and now it is up to all ous working together to go achieve it. the person who has been leading that effort in the white house is jeff crowley, the director for office of national aids

policy. jeff is absolutely one of the visionaries behind this document and now i would like to introduce him to talk a little bit more about it. jeff. [applause] >> good afternoon. thank you madam secretary. we clearly would not have got here today without your leadership and we thank you in your whole team at the department of health and human services for all the good you are doing. it also like to acknowledge my friend and colleague dr. howard koh. he helped us get to this point and i'm not sure he really understands what lays ahead for him because really his work is just beginning. we are investing a lot of reonsibility in him and his office to make sure we deliver the promise of the strategy. i would also like to express my deep appreciation for melody barnes. it is a gift for the hiv community that they president

placed the policy within the domestic policy council. we could not produce a solid strategy i think we have o engagen the comprehensive ocess to get here if it were not for her steadfast support so thank you. [applause] i would also like to announce the many partners across the federal government including a federal hiv and interagency working group that helped us get here, the president to advisory council on hiv/aids. they are also critical to our work so thank you are a muc [applause] now at the risk of sounding like i'm giving my academy award acceptance speech i'm almost done with my thank you's that i really need to balance the office of national aids policy. it is really an incredible team that has worked hard over many months and this made sacrifices in their personal lives to try to produce the best strategy we could. greg militants are senior policy adviser. [applause]

he is an epidemiologist on details from cbc and he has led the development process working with federal agencies and working with documents. james is our senior program manager. [applause] he led the planning for the strategy's implementati and he has worked with hhs and the office of news media on our new and improved web site so e will also aow me to get and plugs to check out www.whitehouse.gov and it is going live today with new information. del simmons has been our policy adviser. she was on detail from hhs. [applause] she let our women's policy work in her work on access of care. thank you. natalie is my executive assistant and she tries to keep

me in line and she is sort of the glue in the office. [applause] gannett is the guy he was a communications adviser and he spearheads our communicaon. now lete turn to-- [applause] now let me turn to all of you. thank you to all of you that helped us get to this point. many of you will hear are people we met along the way as we travel across the country and others of you posted your own meetings and contribute to the work we are doing in a numeral ways. so many people can judah did what i think was a robust national dialogue and i hope you think the end product reflects our best collective effort so thank you. the strategy provides a roadmap to move the nation forward. i said this before but it is not intended to be a conference of list of all the activities we need to do to address hiv. incentives to be a concise plan that will set clear riorities

and strategic action sets tied to measurable outcomes. now would like to tell you what our key priorities are. to produce new hiv infections we believe we need to do three things. we need to intensify our evention efforts in communities where hiv is most heavily concentrated. we need to expand targeted efforts to prevent hiv infection using a combination and that is the key word, combination of effective evidence-based approaches and third we need to educate all americans about the threat of hiv and how to prevent it. to increase access to care and improve health outcomes we have three key steps to identify. building on the affordable care act, the landmark health reform law that is going to do so much to improve access to health care for millions of ericans but including people with hiv s building on this we believe we need to establish a seamless system to immediately link people with hiv and continuous corrugated quality care as soon as they are diagnosed with hiv. second, we believe we need to take deliberate steps to crease the number of diversity

of providers of clinical care and related services for people with hiv and third we need to support people with hiv to-- w have co-occurring challenges. to reduce hiv related disparitie we believe we need to work to reduce hiv related mortalities and communities with high risk of hiv infection. we believe we need to adopt community level approaches to hiv reduction in high risk amenities and reduce stigma and discrimination against people living with hiv. to achieve all of these goals we added a urth goal and that is achieving a more corrugated national response to the aids epidemic in the united states and we believe we need to increase the coordination of hiv programs across the government and with other levels of government and commuty partners and we need tdevelop improved mechanisms for monitoring our progress toward achieving national goals. the secretary dia wonderful job of sharing her vision and direction for the strategy.

we intend to back this up with a plan. in addition to seeing the strategy and implementation plan today the president is releasing a presidential memorandum to support implementation of the strategy. this memorandum directs the office of national aids policy to continue to provide leadership on policy-setting as we seek to implement the strategy and it also calls for an annual report to the president on their progress. we are going to do this on an annual basis and measure what we are doing. it designates lead agencies a primary responsibility. they are hhs, hud, justice, labor, veterans affairs and social security administration. for each of these it has an immediate requirement and a longer-term requirement. each of these agencies within 150 days to develop their own operational plan from lamenting the strategy and reporting that the president. and it also calls on them to take longer-term actions such as designating a league official,

preparing assistance to collect ta across there in agencies and synthesizing it in taking ongoing steps to implement the strategy. now, the presidential memorandum also gives the secretary of health and human services additional responsibilities for improving coordination across the government and it is my understanding the secretary designated dr. koh as the leading person responsible. in addition to the lead agencies, there's also responsibilities for three other agencies. the department of defense is asked to develop a plan to implement the strategy in the context of the health care system serving the military. the department of state is us to delop a plan and provide recommendations on how we can apply the lessons learned from the pepfar program to the domestic epidemic in equal employment opportunity commission and independent agency is being asked to develop a reporton how we can expand employment opportunities for people withiv and address employment related discrimination. so the strategy and implemention plan demonstrates

the president is serious about tackling the epidemic in the presidential memorandum is a sign that he means business. a couple of days dr. colin i will trap gold to vienna austria to vertus bigamy national aids conference. because a the present obama's leadership the 19th international conference on aids conference will be held in washington d.c. and 2012. [applause] this is the first, we the first time the conference will have been held in the united states in 20 years and we think it will be an opportunity to spotlight her work and show the global community the united states is committed to the domestic epidemic and abroad. now let me introduce dr. howard koh. dr. koh. [applause]

speech of thank you so much for that kind introduction and for your tremendous leadership on this issue. is such a great honor to work with you. let me a knowledge melody barnes who has been such a wonderful colleague and we are so proud to have her in the administration, doing so many efforts with respect to public health in this country and of course the great or wish to work with secretary sebelius of the department of health and human services. thank you for this great honor to be with you today for the unveiling of this important strategy. i also did want to recognize again dr. ron valdiserri. if you would stand up and wave and get some applause. [applause] >> we are very pleased to be with you today because the strategy has been informed by your efforts as you have heard her go the voices of many americans have shaped the strategy, voices of ople

across the country who are advocating for it and living with hiv. and this strategy pays tribute to the many we have tragically lost to this epidemic, but it also represents a commitment for an entire nation for a healthier future. the message is clear, we need the entire country involve. and this epidemic affects everyone. you don't have to be infected to be affected by this virus. i am especially honored to be part of this unveiling because i have had the privilege of viewing this epidemic from multiple perspectives. first i am a physician and in mica rear of caring for patients for over 30 years, cared for many patients with hiv/aids. in fact i was chief resident of boston city hospital 30 years ago when the first cases were being described so to watch this progression has be extraordinary for me on a personal level.

secondly i'm a former state health commissioner so i got to oversee hiv/aids effor in massachusetts and it is great to see many of my colleagues here today. now is the assistant secretary for health it is a great privilege to work with you to move forward and build better systems of care and prevention and insure all americans truly achieve their highest attainable standard of health. as you have heard from my colleagues, this plan stresses several themes to put our resources where the epidemic is hitting the hardest, to put t strategies where they will get the best results and to put evidence-based science firsto those are our themes moving forward. over the next 150 days we have a lot of work to do and it is my great privilege to work with all of you in the department under e direction of the secretary, to map out a plan that has

specific steps for federal cabinet agencies and subagencies and we look forward to working with you and mr. crowley and his office to make this strategy, live over the next 150 days. our office of the assistant secretary has a new mission statement, mobilizing leadership in science andrevention for a healthier nation so this integration is something that we embrace and we look forward to working with you. the secretary is articulated a number of steps, how we can make this strategy concrete immediately and leme just review a couple of them for you. first our office of assistant secretary will be coordinating activities throughout the department and across federal government. we will be connecting with many of you and the community and many of you have been tremendous leaders on these issues for many years. we will start a process of better tracking how each state

and territory is implementing this plan at the local level. we will be initiating consultations with the bisexual and transgender, the lbj lb gt committee to advance health promotion of disease prevention in this critical area. we will be connecting with offices of faith-based and community initiatives to make the strategy, live, and we are again very grateful to members of the presidential advisory council on hiv/aids, many councilmembers are here today. you are national experts in this area and we are very honored to work closely with you to make the strategy come alive for the american people. the job of implementing the strategy is not one that is belonging to the federal government alone. our success requires an entire nation to join together so that every person reaches his or her full potential for health and our vision and our goal is to

have a day soon where hiv infections are are and everybody receives care. thank you very muc for being here, for your presence in your commitment and let me turn this back to melody barnes. thank you are a much. [applause] >> wonderful. secretary sebelius andi were saying this podium is awfully high. [laughter] thank you and i hope that you all have a better sense of what we sought to accomplish in the way we went about ding it, and now i would like to open the floor for a few questions. if you could let us know your name and where you are from we would appreciate it. why don't we start here. >> i would like to-- my name is robin webb from jackson. i would like to see the day the 2000 people living with hiv in

mississippi are the same as other areas of the country because disparities and inequities of the services and it looks like so many folks have lost hope that there will ever come that day. has there have been any discussion about geographic disparities or geographic inequities in terms of services and in terms of how they are going to be delivered and how the strategy will work? >> absolutely. >> thank you robin. we recognize when we talk about concentrating on the community that gratis or s there a different elements and certainly geographic differences is something we consider so the strategy does talk about how effective they are-- the epidemic is concentrated in the northeast and the south, puerto rico and the virgin islands but even if you go a level lower if you are in any state, we know the epidemic is not spread so if yoone-- pick one state maryland, you could say most of the cases are in baltimore and

montgomery, prince george's county but even in the city so in the district of columbia it is concentrated so there is much more hiv is to the river here than other parts. so the geographic issues are something we think the strategy needs to address. >> can i just say also, piece of this puzzle is that i think, tell the passage of the affordable care act, the dealing with health sparities and the gap in access to good care were dramatic, and some of that have different levels of eligibility for medicaid. that will change. states have different outreach efforts with the doubling of the community health center footprint that occurred because the recovery act, that will change. with the pipeline for additional medical providers, particularly medical providers coming out of minority communities.

i think we have some strategies now in place and some funding now in place that goes directly to se of the disparities, some of which are geographic and some of which are economic that have been plaguing this effort for such a long time. >> state your name and where you are from. >> i am charles king, housing works for new york city and not to be too cynical, i just wonder how we think going from one new infection every nine minutes to one new infection every 12 minutes is making infections in the united states exceedingly rare and my second question more specifically is given the voluminous evidence provided to the white house about the efficacy of housing as a structural intervention and prevention why there is no mention of how for example directing hud to target housing

for those most at risk instead of many of the current hud policies that are in opposite effect. >> the first question is really about the goals and we said within five years we would reduce hiv infections by 25%. we think that is an achievable but also very aggressive goal. some of the challenges we face are that for a number of years we have increasing numbers of people living with hiv and we have been able to maintain a steady state of the number of new infections from year-to-year. quite frankly we are a little worried that if things stay the same we are going to start to see increasing numbers of new infection so just to hold steady is going to be work for us. in the past there've been efforts to quite frankly set aggressive goals, cutting incidents in half. i think we went through serious process and are trying to be honest about at is achievable so i think by setting a goal of 25% is aggressive but realistic. i wish i could tell you we could set a goal of 50% or 75%.

i just don't know how we could do that in the short-term but again we are setting goals for the next five years. now your question about housing, you know we travel the country. we have heard a lot abut housing. when we talk about increasing access to care, optimizing health outcomes, we specifically say that w need to recognize some people are challenged in meeting basic needs such as housing so we think there is an important role for expanding access to housing. our point on community level interventions in addressing health disparities is that we think we spent too much time focusing on individual level interventions and we need better approaches we can apply to the community level. we don't think-- we have a start. i'm not saying-- housing certainly has a role to play but the emphasis we place on the community level interventions as we need to develop more and better ones to move us forward and certainly housing has a role in that. >> why don't we take this question right here.

i am sorry. >> i have the mic so i have the floor. [laughter] nancy mann, mac cosmetics and congratulations and thank you all. a question in terms of private donors. i've seen in the history of epidemics we ave not had enough private dollars in the united states so i just wand to invite you to talk a little about how you see private donors making a difference in actualizing the plan and how we could work together to make all these happen? >> nancy as you know, the white house has done a series of specific topics on issues like women and hiv, youth and hiv but six weeks or so we held a meeting at the white house on public partnerships. one of the things we can't say enough is we can do this alone. this is a national strategy. we need all parts of american society to reengage and the business community does and the foundation community does need to support us.

at ts meeting we have really talked about three areas where we think they have expertise and the capacity to help us. one is helping us address some of the short-term challenges abroad access to care and we know many pharmaceutical companies and others are stepping up tohe plate to help provide support of the local level. we think that is very important. when the obama administration came into office we worked with cities to launch the-- business plan before he got here so we are not saying we did it alone but when we launch if it was the first social campaign launched by the federal government in 15 years. to some extent we think we need to as a ountry remember how to do the things we used to know how to do and certainly engaging media. we thi that is where there is lot of credit sector partners that can help us and do a better job than we could do alone. ththird areas the issue i was just mentioning about community level interventions. we don't have all the answers and we need a broad range of private sector stakeholders to

help us figure out what those interventions are. thank you. >> thank you. i which would just add to that participating in that form with you on that particular topic. one, the president has consistently consistently said and you see it here and you see it across the range of different issues we work on, that we have to work in partnership with every sector, that the federal government brings a lot to the table but we recognize the state and local government, the private sector, ngo's, the philanthropic sector all bring expertise and resources and knowledge and experience in one of the things we talked about on that panel was the fact tha the private sector has experience with the communities in which it works, in ich it lives and by building on that expertise, by building on that knowledge we have a better base of information not to mention the resources and just the expertise of what you do, not to mention the people who you employ, the people that you work with so we believe it really is an all

hands on deck moment and we all learn from each other and leverage each other so i just wanted to have that and take a question herunless someone else has the microphone and i missed it. >> first, i want to express my personal appreciation. my name is dr. gets from south carolina and at my state pages recently cut all funding. they cut the only hiv extension faith-based program in 30 years for aids in our state, so my question is, given the rejection of many states around the ideology and evidence-based research, plants and outcomes promoted in this national plan, what strategies are proposed to monitor local compliance or alignment with the president's national plan and will be

outcomes derived from the proposed federal assessment impact federal funding to states who fail to acknowledge or incorporate the strategies into their programs? [applause] >> in response i would say a couple of things. yes we believe that there will always be too limited resources and we can't afford to waste em so how we tackle so many issues is to say we need to rely on the best evidence of what works and make sure we fund them. already when we allocate fun whether it is prevention funds to the cdc or care funds for ryan white given to local committees, so already we make significant efrts to make sure we are funding the right dings and giving to the right groups but we think e need an enhanced effort on that. there are a couple of things. as the departments develop their own plans we will be looking for steps they can take to ensure that we are again only funding the evidence-based approaches that work. the other is that e

presidential memorandum also imposes requirements for the departments to make sure that they consult with omb so that when they are putting forth budget request for their annual budget, that the goals and directions of the strategy are reflected in their request, so i think those things together will help address it. ..

before i do i also just what thank everyone on the stage secretary sebelius, assistant secretary, director crawly as well as his office. i also want to recognize someone who has been a real leader on this issue and just a dog in her pursuit of solutions on this issue who is here with us today. [applause] and again, i want tothank all of you for your input and your work with us this far and also all the things tht we ticipating a plan to do together. thank you so much for being here. thank you. [applause] [inaible conversations]

from the national press club, this is 20 minutes. >> so, we are here today to respond to the national aids strategy that is being put out by the obama administration. i'd like to start by saying that it is not a strategy. if you go to the dictionary, the oxford dictionary, it defines strategy as a plan of action.

you go to webster's dictionary it says but science or art of war, as in directing a large military movement. this plan that has been in development for 15 months -- first of all, it is nothing we didn't already know. but most importantly, you can't fight a war without resources. al's we know from the trillions of dollars we are spending on fighting the foreign war as we speak. so, in response to the worst crisis the aids drug assistance program and many years and request by coalition of community organizations in the state's for $126 million in assistance of the administration

offered 25 million, which would not even be a rounding error in t.a.r.p. or the stimulus plan. but today we learned that the administration also plans to devote $30 million of new money to new hiv prevention efforts. that amounts to approximately 9 cents for every man, woman and child. so, we heard a few interesting things today. we heard from secretary sebelius that this strategy rests on unfettered access to care. well, affordable care not doesn't take effect until 2014. but today we have three films

and people on waiting lists for aids drugs across this country. a person died on the waiting list in south carolina and access to care for hiv is declining in this country. you can't say that this is a new strategy if you don't intend to spend any money on it. the secretary also referred to the slow response to aids in the 80's, and we know that president reagan didn't mention the word aids for the first six years of his administration. well, it hardly says that 18 months into this administration coming up with a plan, which will collect dust on the shelves

of the library of congress has have hundreds of other plans that have been developed over the years is lightening speed. the reality is that the number of people who are currently becoming infected with hiv is rising. the people who are positive and don't know it has been static, and we are seeing that people are not getting the care that they need, and not only does rationing care to hiv patients hurt those people but it sends a terrible message to the people who want to get tested. why should someone get tested if they won't have access to care?

so, to go a little further, right now there is a bill before the senate, s.b. 3401 and the bill appropriates $26 million for the aids drug assistance program from on spend stimulus money. no democrat has signed on to that bill, and the white house is opposed to it. and the reason we are given they are opposed to it is that it is not a proper use of the stimulus funds and also we have the partisan attitude that since the republicans voted against the stimulus as they don't have any right to say how we should be spent, but the reality is that we desperately need this money. the aids healthcare foundation

felt that it was very important to get the drug companies where the primary and beneficiaries along with the patient from the aids drug assistance program to contribute and we led a campaign, vigorous campaign to get them to contribute, and their contribution in terms of increased rebates will exceed $135 million. so that puts into stark how stingy this 25 million-dollar amount of money is. i just want to say that if we look out over the horizon of aids over the last 29 years and where we've had success by the end, the one factor that's been universal whether it's from rich countries or poor countries has

been political will. and the reason why i believe the reason we have not succeeded in fighting aids successfully in this country is that we have never had the political will and today's national strategy does not represent that. and more disturbingly, you have to go all the way back to the bald reagan administration to find the administration more than different to the issue than this administration. so i would next like to introduce brian. >> good afternoon, everyone. my name is brandon. i serve as the ceo of the aids

advocacy organization. we go by the acronym aaa+. we're the only federal seed proven to improve access to care for people living with hiv/aids. we work with patience, advocates, community health care, government, pharmaceutical and other stakeholders to ensure access to care is granted for people in hiv. i'm pleased to join the aids foundation today. the largest lead organization providing funding, cutting edge medicine and efficacy over a hundred thousand people in 22 countries. michael, tom, thank you for letting me come in on your parade and support you and what you're doing. i stand before you today as someone who's been living with hiv for eight years. i stand before you has been on the aids assistance drug program at one time in my life.

and unfortunately, i address you this afternoon conflict by a feeling of accomplishment battled with a sense of defeat. at the very moment we should be celebrating the first-ever national aids strategy in the united states, we find nearly 2300 americans living with hiv/aids that we are aware of waiting to access the life savings medication. the wealthiest nation of the world begs the question where is the justice? who is looking out for the people living with hiv/aids waiting to access care? when will the relief that comforted the banks, financial institutions, although makers and people who purchased homes they could not afford find its way to the most underserved people in our country? quite frankly, what happened to the audacity of help promised by this president? people who were on these waiting lists, there is no such hope. there is nothing but fear,

frustration, and quite frankly there is anger. the crisis is real and it's most definitely dangerous. over six out of tama adap patients are people of color, african-american, hispanic. three-quarters of the applications with between 200% of the poverty level. strength when we come over 86% of the adap patients currently on waiting lists reside in the south. and there has been a 2011% increase since may of 2009 when the waiting list stood at 99 people. the national aids strategy, this very document was handed out by the white house today was supposed to be a milestone achieved by a president willing to expand political capital willing to put the panaria of of poor ahead of the board for the wealthy, willing to inspire the nation longing for leadership

rather than protecting special-interest and quite frankly willing to address the domestic aids crisis long ignored by his predecessor in the oval office. yet today we can all celebrate such a milestone. and michael, i have to tell you, your poster is quite creative and i think it depicts a very accurate picture. we expected more, mr. president. but we cannot, because there are thousands of our fellow citizens trying and in some cases dining to access the free treatment that we know will make them healthier, more productive members of the communities. the national aids strategy can only be as successful was the level of commitment extended by the leaders here in washington, d.c.. if the necessary funding does not accompany the lofty goals to get any strategy is doomed for failure. one final thought. as a nation, how can we send the message to our people, to our citizens to go get tested so

that you can, quote on quote, know your status? and that you can manage this disease as a chronic illness by accessing early treatment, when at the same time there is a likelihood existing that a waiting list works right around the corner. with that, i concluded as it is time to end this week. we can do better mr. president. thank you very much. >> next i would like to introduce tom myers, general counsel of the aids foundation and now chief of public affairs. >> good afternoon, everyone. as you heard of the announced strategy may have some good things come out of it. it clearly puts the promises strategy to prevent new infections and increase access to care.

that clearly puts testing and treatment front and center in fighting this epidemic. that is where it ought to this epidemic is driven people who have hiv and they don't know a. it's estimated 20% of all people, of all americans, so hiv is 70% of all new infections. so that is a good thing. however, in dealing with the strategy creating this strategy to be implemented sometime in the future the administration is forced to ignore the crisis today. and as brandon said and michael said, you can't have a strategy where the first two prongs are to invent dee dee to prevent infections and provide access to care when there is a waiting list for this care. and so the failure to address the issue today is going to severely hamper the ability of the administration to implement the strategy going forward and that is what is so critical about fixing the crisis today said they have the ability to go

forward. that's all i have. thank you very much. >> we will take questions. >> [inaudible] they stated at the white house they are faced with a shortage of resources [inaudible] so they acknowledge what people believe they don't have the resources of the moment [inaudible] do you think there is merit to that? >> welcome the proposal seemed to be in plight was that they were going to take money away from the low prevalence states and give it to the high prevalence states. i think that is a prescription for disaster. i think that when we were trying

to end smallpox we went to the remote village to find the last case and if we try to contain a fire, yes you put out the hot spots of to get a ring of containment are bound the entire thing. do we believe that there could be efficiencies? yes. but on the other hand, the congress passed a trillion dollar health care bill and they said its revenue neutral because it's going to cost money in the out years. right now we are running up a lifetime to have above $36 billion of newly inspected patient said so this is definitely pay now, pay later scenario, and the reality is that it seems like every

initiative that benefits the big business gets a blank check, and everything that meets the needs we underserved there isn't enough money for. >> we mentioned earlier s.b. 3401 appropriates on spend stimulus. i would like an explanation about why biting medications for people for hiv doesn't qualify as a stimulus but bridges and roads to know where does. people employed making medications, they are employed working for the agency's that distribute them etc.. >> [inaudible]

>> don't do the circumstances you don't plan on spending and nickel. it ought to the dog and pony show and invite people to the white house if you are broke and you can't do anything. that sort of adds insult to injury they are trying to get a total of about what they're doing about aids when people are dying on waiting lists around the country. i've got to add there has been a lot of attention paid to the waiting lists because it is easy to understand. that is really not the worst part of it because if you get on a waiting list and you don't die, you will get medication at some point. but if you drop the eligibility from 300% of the poverty level which is $33,000 for medications

that could cost you 20,000 you drop it down to 200% and take 10,000 people off the program who will never be eligible that's a really bad thing. and if states take this formulary for the drugs they cover and cut in half, you know, that's horrible. so, the reality is that medicare and medicaid are entitlement programs, and we have a weird situation in this country where the only way you become eligible for public assistance if you were hiv-positive is a feud developed full-blown aids, which is more costly and then become disabled, okay? and legislation to change that

was intended to be part of the health care reform bill and didn't make it and it's part of the laundry list of legislative initiatives of people who are supposed to be sympathetic towards this community have ignored. we are sort of binging hard on the president but what is even more shocking is that nancy pelosi, speaker of the house, who presents one of the most infected districts in the nation has yet to say a word one or do anything the alleviate this crisis. >> keep in mind the president to advise recounts -- >> come up here. >> keep in mind the president's own advisory council voted and recommended $426 million. the president's own advisory council voted and recommended the only treatment for hiv

michael referenced. and to have and to know that this money is already appropriated and if you go and read the stimulus, if you read the stimulus bill there is language that clearly states that stimulus dollars can be moved to address a public health emergency. i don't know the wording. i don't have it in front of me and they are simply playing politics with this and hiding behind the fact they don't have money. the money is there and appropriated and secretary sebelius said today they acted quickly. we have been pounding the pavement to get this money since before the beginning of the year. so if it takes six to seven months i don't know if that really qualifies as a quick turnaround time. >> one of the very first things this administration did while they didn't even mention the word aids was to remove $400 million in the stimulus package for hiv testing which would have made a major difference, and certainly qualify as a stimulus, given the

fact could have circulated for quickly. other questions? >> one follow-up. i was wondering if "the new york times" as you probably have seen the major story last week i think on adap and reporting on a lot of the problems raised, but it did say something about the waiting list was large whatever that arbor was 1900 or something. according to "the new york times" almost everybody on the waiting list was getting their drugs through the various programs like special programs in the pharmaceutical company. is that true or how many are getting them and how many are lying? >> we don't know the exact number. i don't think anyone can know the exact number but the point, several points here, first of all, it's a very cumbersome process to get people on and if somebody for example for some reason loses their eligibility and they are already on medication there will be an

interruption in the medication flow, beyond that gaslight said to my mind of the eligibility reductions and a reduction in the formularies are the more serious issue. but suggesting that you can run the aids drug assistance program through a drug company donations is pitiful. it stopped that measure. it is not a solution. and again, i would be more sympathetic to the view of the white house if we have not extracted the huge concessions from the drug companies and we will continue to push the drug companies to restrain their pricing for these drugs. anyone else?

>> thank you very much. we will be available for questions after the press conference. thank you.

>> i called the meeting to order. call the meeting to order. first, let me make an announcement as we did yesterday. this is for the benefit of the previous panel as well as this and the next panels. we may well be submitting some further questions if there are areas that are not fully explored today or new issues arise. similarly, if you would like to contact us with any questions that you might have, we will provide you with a point of

contact to do so. we see what is happening today not as one event but as the mitt -- at the beginning of an ongoing discussion as we try to learn from the people who are most impacted by this tragedy and be able to make better judgments because of the information you will be providing as. i wish to extend my thinking. mr. cooper, i know you had some difficulties after day and i appreciate your persistence in that you are here today. we look forward to hearing your comments. since we should have heard from you yesterday, if you do not mind, we will start with mr. cooper who represents the louisiana shrimp organization then we will go to the panel of mayors. >> thank you for letting us come here and say our case. we had a lot of problems yesterday. first, --

>> could you speak directly into the microphone? . have a law in this state that defines commercial fishermen. i requested from wildlife and fisheries this morning and yesterday to provide these names to b.p. to go through a data

base they have and make sure that we get in here and we touch the right people that need to be touched, because everybody wants to get on this band wagon and get a hold of this money, which is not designed for everybody to come in here. we have crew boats and this is not what it was designed for. so we are creating a big problem. i'm the representative from ground zero and i'm catching a lot of heat because they did call me to go to work. and it created a problem because as one of my fishermen told me they cut the head of the snake off, which was me. i took it very seriously when he told me this. it goes to heart. we are not just an industry, but a community. we have heritage behind us that we don't want to lose.

i hope b.p. is hearing us. let's weed out the ones that aren't supposed to be here and get the ones that need to be here. if they need our help, our association to step and i have been telling this from the very beginning, three years of documentation showing that you are a commercial fishermen, produce your commercial license, some shape or form, showing these people that we are truly commercial fishermen because after the fact after katrina, money came down and everybody wanted a piece of this money. so after that is the reason why we did 50% of the income. we have a data base of names that we can go to to show them who's really a commercial fishermen. i hope b.p. steps up and does what's right because i'm going to scream loud and i'm going to scream louder. they need to listen. from the very beginning i told

them this and if we have too many fishermen, let's break it down to 14 days. and i have been working since may 5 and i have been telling them to go if i have to give up 14 days, and everyone who is working out there right now, give it up and let them have them part. and i'm going to scream louder until something happens. something needs to change. we have a couple of different sectors of our industry. one is harvest ters, they call is the harvesters. we catch the shrimp and our processors process them and distribute them. now, the process is versus till. they can work with imported

shrimp. i don't want to be pointing fingers to some that have. they can make money. the ones who aren't doing it, they are having a problem. they have no one else to turn to. they have not received any money to help them. if any part of this link is broken, our industry is going to die. and we don't want that to happen. we need to make sure that every dock, every processor, not dealing with imports, can show their loss of what's coming in, needs to be taken care of. this third-party money, we have a big issue on this. we had that with katrina. some of the money still sitting back in the states that the fishermen haven't received it yet. so we're concerned on that. there are a lot of issues involving third-party monies. when the federal government gives it to the state and the

state gives it to another party. after katrina, five years, almost six, some of these fishermen haven't received their money. this cannot happen now. i tell the world, this cannot happen. we cannot wait a year. right now, the monies, $5,000 they have been giving our fishermen, has stopped. we have to make sure this money keeps coming, because after katrina we borrowed money and i'm 50 years old. i started from scratch again. now, it's very hard to get up on your feet again. how many times must you ask the people to get back up and go again? we are going to come back. we may take time, but we just make sure that we have the help where it's needed. that is one of my main goals in

pushing forward with b.p. we have to make sure these people get provided for. it has to be done. and the ones that are not working, has to make sure they get this money to keep paying their bills. wildlife and fisheries, we seen things in this state that we have never seen before in my life. my father's life. my dad is 74 years old and he's still fishing. my two sons are in the 20's and they are fishing. my son-in-law is a fishermen. wildlife and fisheries closed within hours. we always had 48 hours before they closed the season or open the season. we had a.m.le time to do what we needed to do. some people violated, which closed over that morning, 12:00, two hours later.

you have to go to their website in order to see where the closures are. they have a map and it shows them. when our fishermen are out there, sometimes two, three days, they don't have access to the internet. i can't get to everybody out there. these tickets for violation for fishing in closed waters need to be addressed. i'm going to get with them today and i'm going to speak with them. they definitely need to do something about this, come in and give them a warning and get them out of the area. we don't want to write these fishermen and cannot write them when they have no money to go to court to pay these tickets. they can't even pay their bills right now. this has to be stopped and has to be addressed. come and warn them and get them out of the area, no problem. don't write them up, go to court

and pay a fine for being in closed waters, a very serious fine. what's going on right now, we may never overcome. we as an organization have been fighting imports for seven years, 10 years. low prices have been gone. we are barely surviving. this year, we had a couple of bills passed in legislature for certification of our product. $5 million to start the branding and this happened. we fought hard. this man next to me and myself, we fought hard to try to get our prices up and this was the year. this was it. we had prices we hadn't seen in years. smallest shrimp we caught was $1.35. last year was 25 cents for our

shrimp. our 16/20's, we got as high as $4 a pound. this year it was up. we were getting back to where we needed to be. for them to distinguish what we made last year and the year before last, going to be a high road, because this is our year to come back. this would have been the year to help the docs, processors and help us. this would have been our year. now, we don't know what's going to happen. we don't know if we're going to have next year or this year. we only have may season and august season. and we made enough money to survive the winter time. without those two seasons, this winter time is going to be hard for our industry to survive. if we can't get help, we can forget about our industry. it's on the last road right now and very disturbing to have this come around like this.

i have worked no other job in my life. my boys hadn't either. my father, he's still fishing. >> can i say a few words? >> just a few, please, because we are behind schedule. >> thanks for the opportunity. this is called a hearing and i have been to a lot of them and i would like it to be reclassified to hearing and doing. i got a good friend of mine, george always tell me they don't want to listen to us. they just don't do nothing that we say. this didn't happen overnight. this is years and years of buildup of the incident -- what happened. what happened? what happened in washington and the government agencies? it's like the fox ruling the hen house. they sent all the same people

that caused the problem to start with. and i don't agree with that. i hope to god that we learn from this and we go forward and we can make oversight that works. you know, the only person that lost their job was the head of m.m.s. and rightfully so, but i think this is not just -- there's always bad people in the world. it's the good people that should look -- killers, murderers and bank robbers, we put them in scrail. we have laws in place. we have oversight. it got this bad, that it got this bad says a lot about what we're doing in washington and what we have been doing with government that we are going to let corporations make the rules to govern themselves. i think if one of the lessons learned from this experience is that we, the people, who voted for a change, you can take this back to the administration,

president obama's in office because we all wanted a change and what happened? there was no change. business as usual. and i think it's time for this administration and government in particular to start listening to the people, listening to the people. we demand a change. we don't want this or this kind of government anymore. i'm a third-generation fishermen, i'm 62. that's all my family has ever known. we have been in this -- we have been in louisiana since before it was a state. i'm an arcad inch an american. since 1755, my people have been here. this is not just a living for us, but this is culture, heritage. and for our government to let this happen, you know, it's like

i said, there is always bad people and up to you guys and the people in washington to protect us. that's why we put you there. a lot of these agency people and secretaries come down here and i have talked to some of the people and they think they can walk on water. guess what, public servants, that's what i like to say and we are the public and if you think you can walk on water doesn't hold water with me. there was an incident when joe biden came down and talked to one of the staffers and because one of my friend who was with his sick wife who died, and i was the acting president and i wasn't allowed to speak. he's not the real president. i'm not going to come in the audience and listen to them. >> sir, would you give me your name. >> clint gidrey.

>> president of the louisiana shrimp association. >> the acting president. [laughter] >> thank you very much. ms. charlotte randolph. i should have said a president and two mayors are here. >> good morning to the commission. thank you for your service. and thank you for being here in new orleans. it's very convenient to us. i do want to begin by offering my condolences to the families of those who were killed in this tragic incident. they represent friends and family, people work from our area work on these rigs and

certainly this impacts us on a daily basis. yes, i am the president of the lafourche parish, it is a 100-mile parish populated by 95,000 people. on may 8, oil first appeared on the shores of our parish from the deepwater horizon blowout. i'm going to talk about the shores. mr. graham, we don't have beautiful white beaches and blue water. we are a working coast and energy coast and we have now endured 65 days of relentless effort to protect our valuable wetlands and our wildlife. birds don't fly. fish don't swim and fishermen can't make a living. the moratorium on deep water drilling adding insult to

injury. nine of the top 10 taxpayers are located in our parish, which services all 33 rigs singled out in the original moratorium. we are at the epicenter of the suspension. the spill has december mated the fishing industry. the moratorium and suspension will essentially end life as we know it in our parish. up to 40% of our tax base could be lost by 2012 as a result of the drilling ban. you have heard testimony from rig owners yesterday who stated that they intend to leave the gulf for other opportunities elsewhere in the world. some employees have been offered transfers to locations in other states. families are now making decisions as to whether the husband and father or the wife and mother will live elsewhere while the rest of the family stays behind to finish

schooling. these are the lucky ones. the rest will be terminated. according to the department of interior's own assessment, up to 120,000 jobs could be lost in the coming years. 120,000 jobs could be lost in the coming years. the port has already reduced its rent to its tenants by 30%. in april, 2010, the unemployment rate in the lafourche area was 4.4%, the lowest in the nation. by november 30, at the end of this suspension, the number of unemployed will increase dramatically. in this country, a whole lot of money has been borrowed to create jobs to stimulate the economy. but the people in lafourche parish and those associated with the oil and gas industry and its support services are not

expendable americans. we fuel this country. on may 28, i had the opportunity to personally ask president obama to reconsider his decision on the ban. based on the devastating economic blow we would suffer. he declined. but he did offer to send down an economic team to assess the moratorium's impact on our parish. again, that was may 28. the team will arrive july 26. president obama said in early may, we have announced that no permits for drilling new wells will go forward until the 30-day safety and environmental review i requested is complete. that was the first intense scrutiny of the industry. some of those commissioners disagreed with the moratorium, yet it was established anyway. the president formed another commission upon which you sit

and you have been asked to restudy for at least six months. we will die a slow death. commissioner, you have been quoted as saying that we should immediately halt all oil and gas exploration. based upon the rationale and suspension issued yesterday by the secretary of the interior, i'm asking you to join with me in challenging the president, secretary salazar and the federal government to protect all gulf states from another spill as completely as possible. stop all oil tankered traffic in the gulf of mexico. are we considering all the risks? or we looking at one industry?

statistics indicate that an oil tanker is four times greater chance of spilling its cargo than an oil well has of blowing out. let my make this perfectly clear, the president has said we must -- we cannot risk another spill while all of these resources have been deployed in the gulf. tankers from around the world carrying up to three million barrels of oil, close to what's been spilled by preponderance's well in 84 days, traverse the gulf. louisiana and offshore oil ports are 18 miles off our coast. they offload one million barrels of oil a day. i am not advocating that we stop all tankers from providing energy to this country.

i am also not advocating that we stop all drilling in this country. lafourche is a resilient parish. we have weathered storms, we have weathered good times and bad times with the oil industry. the fishing industry has had its ups and downs. we have survived because we are ready to take on whatever comes next. we can't do it with something we can't control. and we can't do it with what someone is going to take away from us without consideration of the economic injury it's going to cause us. thank you. >> mayor camardelle, how badly did i -- >> you did a good job. >> i'm from a little town, 100

miles from here to grand isle. born and raised on the island. watched my mother and father lose everything in 1965 due to hurricanes. i'm very frustrated knowing another week from now it will be 90 days that i have been fighting a battle that most of the time i get the run-around and it's hurricane season and trying to watch families battle and try to pay their bills when b.p.'s coming across with $5,000 check where their electric bills are $5,800 and other utilities, it's frustrating. we are like the soldier on the front line. we fought many times through hurricanes. i can go anywhere in the world

and fight a hurricane. i told that to the president. i met with the president three times. you know, we asked to put booms out and we were told booms were going to be put out. several miles of booms around the passes. we have five major passes from the gulf of mexico that comes in from the gulf and into estuaries, which produces about four billion worth of seafood, which also is about $2 billion worth of recreation fishing in the estuaries. two million acres of oysters in southeast louisiana where these five passes was wide open for the oil to come in. so between the elected first in jefferson parishes, we have a plan to come in and put barges.

you have seen the barges. you have seen the trucks on top of the barges. we have tanker trucks on top, 18-wheelers with vacuum pumps. we have 56 barges across these passes. in the meantime, remember, it was hurricane season. it's hurricane season now. every time tropical storm alex, thank god it went to the west of us. all the booms are straight out. they were just straight out. after 40 mile an hour winds, we had to take the barges out of the passes because we are on the front line of these passes with ground swells come in and pushing the oil through. we had a plan. we went to the corps. we had two major engineer groups that came in and got together with elected officials and we got a plan to put rocks across

the passes. we went to the corps of engineers. we did everything right. we applied for the permits unemergency. and all of a sudden we get 95 pages of response from different agencies, some agencies i never heard of, coalitions from different areas. but the major agencies work for the federal government. they fight us every day to save our land and we want to do the right thing. the media and wildlife and fisheries, tropical storm, we took them for a tour and being a commercial fishermen and raised as a fishermen, my grandfather, mother, father, all of us fishermen, brought tears to my eyes seeing oil about the size of a pancake coming through. and knowing there's nothing i can do.

250 shrimp boats catching their slim am. the oyster fishermen from grand isle, knowing that the fisher men, crab fishermen, we can't stop the oil coming in to the passes. born and raised as a cajun, working with my counselmen, elected officials, showing the media where we have rocks to safe us, the oil was pounding against the rocks and inside the rocks was water and there was no oil. so to answer 95 pages, we had our engineers working day and night. we submitted three days later. and we got denied. we started working again. called the white house.

and we made sure that we continue working with the corps. tomorrow we are going to meet with the corporation. i'm asking the board to give us a chance and block these passes by 70%. b.p. gave us their credit card and it's paid for. it's sitting in the river. we have $16 million worth of barges paid for. let us try something to protect these passes and i guarantee you we will save five parishes, lafourche par itch, orleans par itch, jefferson parish. four weeks ago, they said it wasn't going to hit the lake. where is it? we have a plan. all our lives have been changed. residents, fishermen, tourists, business. the shrimp docks, the ma inast, $5,000, they can't even pay

their electricity bill. i'm trying to keep the largest shrimp dock, four million pounds of shrimp, trying to keep them open. you know what i'm doing? i'm begging b.p. to try to buy fuel with them. i got to go after them every day. not only, the barges that were tied, we paid rent for the barges and now his dock is empty. the marina is empty. the bottom line is, b.p. is taking too long to come in and pay these people. the residents, business people and there are too many chiefs. you got to go through some of them to get these vessels to work. it's very frustrating. i'm going to go on and on, we saved 475 birds off of grand

isle in the estuary and found 126 of them dead. the moratorium, please, help us, we need to keep on drilling. it kills us. the tourism, seafood is all shut down in my community. please help us. thank you so much. >> thank you, mr. mayor. mr. holloway. >> good morning commissioners. thank you for inviting me here today. i have been mayor of biloxi for 17 years. we have been through everything, hurricanes, recessions, depressions, tropical storms, everything and we survived it all. the common issue is we all had a beginning, middle and end. we can deal with that. but we have trouble dealing with is something that will not end. it's a new oil spill every day, every single day, day in and day

out. and the mississippi gulf coast, we are more fortunate than most. my heart goes out to the folks of louisiana, fishing and seafood is their entire way of life. it took two months for the oil to get to us. we haven't seen the amount of oil that has been seen in louisiana or even alabama or florida. but the impact on segments of our economy has been just as devastating. with the closing of all state waters in mississippi, our seafood industry and charter boat fishing industries have been december mated. imagine that for a moment. no state waters in mississippi are open for commercial or recreational fishing. we have a fleet of about 60 charter boats on the mississippi gulf coast. the university of southern mississippi last month issued an economic impact report on the spill.

the word used to describe the revenue picture for charter boats was freefall. look at it this way. it's as if you are a taxi cab driver and every street in the city was closed. how can you make a living? you can't. it's the same for shrimpers. let me give you eanch idea of the hit on shrimping. we had 233 shrimp boats in the mississippi waters. this year, shrimp season opened a few days earlier at the beginning of june to get a little jump ahead of the oil. we had 67 boats on opening day. two days after the shrimp season opened, the first closure of mississippi waters occurred. a small area closed at first, but it mushroomed until a month later on july 2 when all gulf waters of the mississippi gulf coast were closed to

recreational and commercial fishing. just before the waters closed, we were down to 40 shrimp boats. this created a domino effect. we have 10 seafood processing plants and unloading docks. let me tell you how they're doing. last year in june, one of them had a payroll of a quarter million dollars. this june, that payroll sunk to $40,000. and july is going to be worst because shrimping has been closed since the beginning of the month. wurn of our plants had sales of $120,000. this year it was $190 million that is a drop in sales in one month one plant. that's the story on the fishing and seafood industry, freefall. in biloxi, tourism is our niche. we get about four million

visitors a year, which is about half of what we saw before katrina. we have 13,000 hotel rooms on the mississippi gulf coast. 30% of the 17,000 we had before katrina. our numbers have been on pace with last year, but our revenue is in the non-casino hotels is down 50%, which is about $26 million. let me say something about 2009. it was a terrible year nationally. it was the worst year since 2004 for hotels. we are in a recession. business was terrible. in fact, this year, our tourism folks expected to make the money to pay back that they borrowed. to make it through last year. when you hear that occupies

answery is down and revenue is off that means our small hotels are lowering their rates to get people in their rooms. perception is our biggest problem right now. we have a total of 62 miles of beaches that are open to the public. we have seafood restaurants that are serving fresh seafood. you can fish in our bays and bayous. we are open for business. the problem is people see the national news and they think every place from texas to florida is in ankle deep in oil. the effects of this catastrophe are going to linger for who knows how long. it's going to take time and money to change the perception. leaders of the hotel industry say that will not all of our hotels are going to make it through this crisis. some of the small ones may become casualties. they were on the verge of coming through katrina and weathering

recession. this should have been the breakthrough year. now they don't know if they have the financial wherewithal to make it through this. i don't have all the answers, but i do have some advice and suggestions based on what i have seen and heard. i think there needs to be more local control, local control. let me give you some specifics. we have a string of barrier islands 12 miles off the mississippi coast and a few islands closer in. i would like to have that boom placed around those islands to protect them. they could have and should have been our first line of defense. we suggested booms, but they didn't happen in all cases and when it did, it was the 18-inch boom and not the 42-inch boom. we asked for skimmers for weeks and weeks. and we didn't get them. when the oil came in, we didn't have them. in the 13th hour, our governor had to make arrangements to

lease or buys skimmers. when you see the pelicans, you have to call alabama to report it. i would think local control works better. one thing i will say about b.p. is this, they have followed through on things they told us so far. i don't have all the answers, as i said, and i'm not here to complain. i know my residents are anxious. they are worried about the day-to-day impact on their lafse and they are worried about the long-term impact on how this is going to change our way of life. i don't think a moratorium on drilling is the way to go. but i know we must have safeguards in place so this never happens again. accidents are going to happen, but our response should be not an accident. there needs to be a stronger and better plan and one that can be

triggered immediately and the response needs to be driven locally. thank you for inviting me. >> thank you very much, mr. mayor. several of you mentioned that b.p. $5,000 payment plan. how accessible and responsive has that plan been and you indicated, mr. mayor, that you thought it might be inadequate to meet some of the current needs. how would you alter the b.p. plan? >> well, in the last week, it got a little better. what we're asking for is maybe to get some individuals from b.p. to talk to these business people like to sit down with them and with their wifes and husbands and look at their returns and same thing for fishermen. i just find it's very

frustrating to see in my office coming in and showing me they have an electricity bill for $5,200 and got a check for $5,000 and at the same time have families to feed and continue to pay their mortgages at the bank. to be honest with you, it did get a little better to some business people. but for the representatives to go one-on-one and with my residents it wouldn't take long for them to sit with the individuals. just call by name and make an appointment. boost that up a little bit, because it's not moving fast enough. we need some help in that. >> president randolph, you talked about the impact of the moratorium. yesterday, the secretary issued a second moratorium and we heard this morning that instead of affecting 33 rigs that may affect now 21.

have you had an opportunity to review the new moratorium and have any comments as to how it's likely to affect your community? >> sir, since the initial moratorium was issued, we have received mixed messages. there has been confusion about this moratorium, about who it impacts. we have experienced -- and i know the gentleman said earlier it was not a defacto moratorium but the control is within the department of interior as to the issueance of permits. time will only tell, sir. the support services industry is totally relying upon this deepwater drilling. and as the rigs leave and we heard that eight of them are leaving already, the support services will no longer have a

structure to support. as was said earlier, it's like 33 little manufacturing plants and it affects all the people associated with it. and not just in lafourche parish. the gears for some of these rigs are made in ohio and there are workers on these rigs who come here bi-weekly in shifts from just about every state in the union. it's a lucrative job. it's a job that people feel for the most part feel safe doing. and there are many people involved in this. this new suspension with only 21, i'm still concerned. >> my final question, could you give an assessment of how much this has affected the financial status of your parish and your

two cities. >> well, i have had some figures of how it's affecting our city and the shrimping business and charter boat business, but something that hasn't been mentioned that is beginning to have an effect and it's having a greater effect maybe on louisiana more than mississippi, but we have some health issues that's coming -- mental health. people are getting down, discouraged. they are losing their livelihoods and their work. and i know that there is some concern about that that i don't think is getting enough attention at this time. the economy is rocking a little bit. we have a tourist town and seafood town. both of those are hurting us. >> i was speaking specifically

to the city itself. in a recent tour we took over the weekend in florida, a number of local officials were concerned about the impact this was having on their budgets. many of the communities had already spent their emergency reserves and the hurricane season is just beginning and they were worried as to -- how they would finance the cost should they have an emergency such as that later in the year. >> that's going to pile it on. because our budget was in bad shape from the recession and yow -- we have been very concerned about our budget. this is coming on top of it. >> and again, we wept through the last five years -- we went through five major hurricanes. this was our year to the money. we had the best shrimp season

and also with the tourism. that's the best our island ever looked and in any one of the communities. but the bottom line, talking to our business people and the fishermen in our area, we took about a 75% loss in our registers. and we are trying to keep our beach clean every day to try to encourage the people to come down. but like the mayor said, the whole gulf, you put the television on and you think there is so much oil all over the beaches and we try to clean it up. i get on the radio and television, bring your families, investment is up to -- and i'm telling these people to stop at your nearest store and buy a swimming and enjoy yourselves at grand isle. i had a phone call last night,

yesterday evening, it's very disturbing is, you know, i got a council meeting back in grand isle tonight and it's going to be rough. people like you said, they don't know where to turn. they come to my office and david, if we don't get no help, we are coming to raise hell at the council meeting tonight. we need to get more money in here. we don't know what to do. the waters are closed. let me tell you, it's just like you guys going back home, you get up in the morning and go to your office. picture your office gone for 90 days or a taxi cab driver with all the streets closed. we make our living in the water. everything we do is out of the waters. our tourists come in. minute gas goes up a penny before it started falling down, a family man is not going to florida, no offense to florida,

he has a little pay check, going to take those kids and come down south and enjoy our beaches. no income at all, nobody's moving. everybody's scared to come on our beaches. and it's very -- it works on you. you try -- all i tell our people, we're going to take it one day at a time. stay strong. pray a lot. god's going to take care of us. like the mayor said and charlotte, the fishermen are fighting, we all fight for our recreational fishermen, charter boat captains, they borrowed money after katrina to put their businesses back together. i'm not going to encourage someone to get a loan fl s.b.a. b.p. has been doing good things.

they are working with the community. we took a tennis court, we took a tennis court and built a volleyball and the kids get to play tonight just like you go home with your kids and grand kids, let's go to the movies. guess where our movies are at, a screen in a parking lot every thursday night. so, to answer you, sir, we aren't go to give up. but by taking away everything from us from the waters, i don't know what's going to happen to us. i'm hoping and hoping that we can -- we get some help some kind of way and come across, $5,000 is nothing. and to come in and nickel and dime our people is not the way to do it. and it's hurricane season. all our nurnses are due, flood nurnses, banks are calling every one of our residents to renew.

there's just know money. no money. and fighting agencies to try and protect your people when half the agencies never even looked at our areas and never seen the oil coming in. so i want to get on the boards and throw rocks. our people want to do it, go in the passes. let us show our plan. the government doesn't have a plan. and b.p. pick up the tab on it. let's stop the oil from coming in so you guys don't have to ask the federal government. we never asked a nickel from the federal government to block these passes, not a nickel. and it's very frustrating. and going back, i have 24 messages as i'm speaking now, people, individuals have my telephone number and don't know what to do, don't know how to pay their bills. it's 90 days. tropical storm is going to hit us and what's going to happen

is, the ground swells get bigger and bigger. the little booms are out, they break the anchors out. he'll tell you that. nobody has a plan. meaning the government. let us tray our plan. we are born and raised here. let us try something. we got b.p. to come in and give an additional $5 million in case the rocks don't work, to pull them out. this is crazy. we could save five parishes so the oil doesn't get in the drinking water. are we going to step back and wait? i predicted that five weeks ago it was going to come this way. you know, it's hard. and our budget -- we are underneath right now. i got a lady from north carolina who sent us $81 off of her

social security. $81. i got a gentleman and his wife from ohio sent us $42 off their social security check to help us to help utilities and pay people. if we can start on the front line to prevent anybody else rkts let us try something and help us and we can better our communities. we don't want food stamps. none of our people want to be food stamps. we are hard-working people. but we make our living off the waters. we depend on tourism to pay our bank notes. you have to four months to make it. four months to make it and turn to the oil field. you get off the shrimp boat and go to the oil rig. by stopping drilling, it doesn't make sense. you took everything away from us

-- not you, took everything away from us to make a living. and we don't fema to come in and give us a check. we don't want to live off the government or b.p. just help us, help us get through thed red tape. as far as the agencies fighting, give us a chance, get us on the barge and watch us throw the rocks in. watch the oil come and stay right there in that area. as far as the passes, we aren't going to block them all the way. remember 1930, cooper bell was all one island. today, the opening is 7,100 feet wide. we just want to bring it back and close it to 1,200 feet. we did the studies and models but to have little coalitions here fighting us and have 95 pages when we try to save our lives, something's wrong. i have a lot of respect for the

president. i have talked to him three times and he told me he was going to put this commission together, but we need to fast. we ask you to help us move fast so we can make a few dollars to help pay some of our bills. that's all we're asking for. thank you. >> mr. randolph. >> sir, we are preparing our budget at this point in time. the uncertainty is such that the simplest job to the most complex issue in our budget is being scrutinized as to its necessity. i would like to echo so much of what david said. i had seven minutes so my choice was to focus on the moratorium, because in our parish, it is the retriever wriding issue. but the fishermen are experiencing the same thing and we are so close we should be one

parish. when he is talking about the people in grand isle, he is talking about people in lafourche, too. these families are facing uncertainty in the fishing industry, oil and gas industry. where do we turn? what do we do? we received $33 million after gustav and ike to reinforce our pump stations, build levys, to assess our infrastructure. do we bgerthmake @bcture. do we build

basic services. but the loss of income through property taxes, which fuels our economy will be detrimental over the next couple of years. our businesses will leave and follow whatever portion of it they address in the oil and gas industry. so we will lose the property taxes. and again, it's a domino effect. when we lose the businesses, we lose the houses. when we lose the houses, we lose the taxpayers. whether with it's fishing or the moratorium, our uncertainty, our future is very difficult. >> bill. >> mr. cooper, i have a question about the advisories.

i saw advisories in mississippi that didn't make any sense about beach warnings on a very sunny saturday after noon where the beach looked terrific and the water equally clear. who actually sets them? and this is related also to the point that you made about the closing of waters to fisheries. who makes that decision in and is that decision made because of fear of anticipated contamination or is it made after there is some evidence of contamination in the fish or in the waters? how is that done? >> projection of where oil's going to go and relate to the state. and the state acts on it. and if it sees that it goes into a certain area, it may be open now. so when this projection comes out, they take it from there and close it within hours and so

that is a problem. it starts with noaa and then goes to the state. we make it clear, we don't want to be -- we are going to be out of the waters. we need to hear. we are strongly against that. we want to make sure when we get into the port to sell it's good. and we don't want that to backlash. we already have enough problems. we want to make sure everything is straight. by doing that, you are creating bigger problems. even though they say tomorrow, they stop it today. get out of the area, no problem. and they are willing to do that. so it starts with noaa and goes to the state. >> the shrimping could be permitted in places where it's forbidden? >> sure. it can be any time. i have been here, a bunch of

stuff, we want to work for b.p. people have to understand, we are between a rock and a hard place. if we get called to go get the job and we don't accept it, we may be on the bottom of the list. now, i'm going fishing today, doesn't mean i'm going fishing tomorrow. so i'm putting myself in a situation where i can't make money tomorrow i don't know if i will be able tomorrow. by going to work for b.p., yes, i know i'm going to get a pay check. the perception out here is we don't want to go fishing. we want to go fishing. we do. this is my life. i never had a job in my life. i want to be back out there in the waters. by getting out there, we are protecting our best interest. they have me as a supervisor, i'm running 18 boats around and we try to protect some areas.

i was in it a couple months ago, right now we are on the west side towards the mayor's area from back side west of the river going towards grand isle and some areas have it and some don't. we are trying to protect it now because nothing got in there. we i are laying boom every day. i thank b.p. we have a leader working with us, my boss, that actually made fishermen the rule. supervisors. it gave me enough authority to move around and put boom where i see fit. i know the waters. i know the currents and that's one thing i can give to him and this is the only task force that allowed the fishermen to step up. this is one of the things we have been screaming for the whole time. get us, let us tell you where we need it. we may be wrong, but we know the

currents, the water, wind, clouds. how fast you have to get away, how fast they are going to get to you. we can save lives and save our waters. give us a little bit of say-so what happens and we can do a lot. just like the mayor said, they don't have a plan. let us do the best. if we're wrong, oh well. we have nothing to lose because it's coming anyway. at least gives us a chance. by noaa doing this, main thing, we may not have a job tomorrow. they have to stop saying our fishermen don't want to go fishing. it hurts me deeply because they don't know what we going through. when you do this all your life and out there all the time and then to say i don't want to go fishing. come on now. it's not right. and i heard it quite a number of times. >> haven't heard that one. thank you.

>> don. >> first of all, let me just say president of this region for many years, i know all of your communities well. and i'm very pleased not only through the testimony, but also through the visits that all of our commissioners made this last weekend, we gained first-hand impression of, first of all, the financial difficulties and real pain that the citizens are going through, but also this re ready. . . flu the admiral from the coast guard and we had a discussion with him about their preparedness and plans and actions and what they have learned. one of the things that he told

us echo -- echoed that mr. holloway said, if we look at this after the fact and how our plans developed, what they lacked is a real role for local governments. and he has heard that from across the gulf coast region. we also heard from him and actually got sole similar affirmation on our visits that the commission made that particularly where the coast guard and working with b.p. has been here, been in the parishes and local governments for a while, that they are getting better, the relationships are getting better. on the other hand, some of our commissioners from some of the areas more recently impacted said they are still learning. give us some advice that may be built on what mayor holloway said, what we learn in this from

the parishes and the cities with working in a preparation mode so we are better prepared to deal with these events into the future. any of the three of you. . .

make it that tactical. but also include the people that know the territory. >> and she's right. it took so long to get that done. all we -- you know, we met with president obama. we said, send me one guy, one woman and just make some decisions on the ground with us. we had to go to sheave port, louisiana. i had to drive an hour and a half away and listen to 30 people make decisions of where we were going to do this. we had to get a 48-inch bomb, 18-inch bomb. -- boom. we had so many chiefs. we had to buy stuff maybe up to a minimum of a few thousand dollars and they alternated them seven and seven.

it was like fema. i am not criticizing fema during katrina. we showed you the whole town and all of a sudden they sent francis in. it looked like what was happening with b.p. and they had to start over again with it. one of the things i forgot earlier, bringing about the stuff was, you get mom and dads not making money. what we did is got with b.p. and asked to hire the kids from 14-year-old to 17-year-old boys and girls. we bring them to the shop, put them on a bus and it's litter control and they got their first paycheck last friday -- no, wednesday, i'm sorry. and they were so excited because they couldn't go in their living room and saw their mom and dad frustrated, fighting. they were afraid to ask for $5 to buy ice cream or go to the store. all their values taken away. what happens is they make their own money and you can see talking with the parents now things got a little better

inside the house, that the kids are making their own money. and we make sure we feed them breakfast. they take two hours off for lunch. but that's one of the things i wanted to tell you. every day we add more and more kids, and b.p. is picking up the tab. but the bottom line, to answer your question, it did get a little better but it's still kind of a few more chiefs and a vessel of opportunities that we're all working out. and the coast guard has been working closely with us, learning the territory, not leaving us. so it is getting better in that situation. >> i think i have to give a lot of credit to our governor who stepped in and brought our people down on the coast, the director and some of our staff. d.m.r., the department of marine resources, is located right there in biloxi, as their staff there. b.p., to start with, had people coming in and they were rotating them out, about like fema and mema does, get them in

here for a week and gone, we have no contact. they hired some local engineers that is stationed on the gulf coast there that work with the local people. i think that's made a difference. it's more stable. you know where you with go to get answers. you know who to go to to ask questions. i think that's been one of the stabling thing that's happened in the biloxi area. >> i want to assure you as a former mayor and as a person from alaska where it took 20 years for our fibbermen to get paid. how much i can relate to your comments here this morning. i want to offer a suggestion to you that we learned as a result of the exxon valdez tanker spill that regional citizens advisory committees can be a powerful force in assuring on

an ongoing basis the kind of watchdog role of both industry and for that matter federal and other agencies that can be important partners with keeping your communities safe in the future. i know that this doesn't specifically address the immediate concerns you have, but when we're thinking about the future and things that you might want to consider, a system of regional citizens advisory councils, along the lines what's happened with the prince william sound regional advisory councils, i really urge this region to seriously consider. take a look at what has happened in alaska and model it. i realize you have more communities, more states, more jurisdictions that you have to integrate, but there's something there that i think will be useful to you. because it provides in an ongoing basis, not only an opportunity to create a forum to ask tough questions but also

integrate planning and to engage local people in a way that helps them feel part of the solution, not just sort of helpless bystanders. sco i urge you to look at that. i know that some folks have proposed that in congress to create something along those lines for this region. obviously for local leaders like you to be engaged in shaping that and supporting it might help make that happen. the second piece, i don't know, advice from alaska is that a fairly comprehensive mental health and behavioral health outreach plan was developed and is available as a tool that also could be useful to you. it's sort of a citizens' guide and a community leaders' guide to how you can deal with spom of the stress associated with a catastrophic event like this. and if you want me to give me

your business cards before you leave i'd give you copies of that. it will be tailored to your needs in your region. but, again, it could be very useful so to the extent we don't have to reinvent the wheel, we can take advantage of what has happened elsewhere and hopefully that can help. thanks again for being here today. >> thank you. >> are there other questions? yes, mr. garcia. >> just to follow-up on what commissioner ulmer was referring to, mayor, you had mentioned the need for mental health counseling. have you made a request to either b.p. or to the state government for assistance in that counseling? and the same question to the other elected officials. >> we have to the state, yes.

we have to the state health department. >> not to b.p.? >> i haven't, not to b.p. the state may have. >> yes, b.p. brought a couple, three or four men in maybe the last two weeks and they are visiting some of the communities -- i mean, some of the residents in the area. >> we are working with b.p. but our state department of health and human services -- >> excuse me. madam president, could you speak into the microphone. >> we are working with b.p. but they are also being requested to fund the state's department of health and human services' request for many health services so they will have it on a consistent basis, yes. >> and none of you mentioned this -- perhaps it's not a problem -- but when senator graham and i were snoring in the pan hauntle of florida, several officials mentioned to us their frustration about

getting their local citizens hired to do work in connection with the cleanup. and that workers from outside of their counties, from their communities were being brought in to do work that could be performed by local residents. is that still an issue here, was it an issue? >> we had to baby-sit it every day, being honest with you, we had to watch was going on and go to command post so you don't get contractors from all over the united states coming in. for instance, hopefully today they are going to hire the local tractors, some of the tractors on the island, backhoes to work on the beach. we met with b.p. last week and told them it's not going to work bringing 18 wheaters and tractors to rake our beach when we have people here that can go to work. so you have to stay on top of it, remind them because what happens is as b.p. in some areas they want to help you but

they have some new comers in and they call in buddies to bring in other buddies to bring in equipment. that's kind of like frustration of the vessel of opportunities. you might see four, five vessels in there, fishermen stand by the dock saying, mr. mayor or parish president, why are you letting them come through? with all the issues we have, we can't baby-sit everything, but the fishermen get frustrated because joe from b.p. knows his buddy in wyoming, making that phone call and bring equipment in. so we walk the beach, we monitor the beach. i got a fire chief that's all he does is stay in meetings to represent me to let me know what's going on. if we don't stay on top of it, it will happen. that's what we testified in washington. we are there witnessing it, yes, sir, but we have to monitor it. in fact, we ran two or three contractors out and said it ain't going to happen. you know, our environment has

been changed because the subcontractors coming in and renting homes in the residential area and the residents are upset so last friday night i told b.p. they had to move them out because it's a residential area and they had 40 men and women staying in one home. and it's a whole different atmosphere. we used to live with our windows down, our keys in our car. we all knew each other. if the kids run across the street and play, it changed all our lives. now people are scared. so it's all -- you know, we have -- we don't get a chance to -- i don't know where i am at in grand aisle we needed to get ready for -- grand isle we needed to get ready for the tourism. everything is oil. you go to bed with oil and wake up for oil.

you don't know what contractors are coming in. so he's right what you're witnessing. and we have men and women that monitor that and our fishermen watch that. i had six or seven tractors come up and say i can't believe you made that happen. we don't know until we can go and scream and say, what are you doing? so everything's a fight. it's all about the mighty god. they want to come and make their quick buck. if they just listening to us we can save everybody money. we can put b.p. across the table and say, look at the money you're spending here. it's crazy the price that you're paying. and i think they're understanding that now. but we got to baby-sit them and we got to watch them. and they want to work with us. they're starting to work with us. so it is frustrating to seeing that you got 18 wheelors of tractors coming in your town and all of a sudden your local people have tractors that are tied up. so we have to try and watch

everything. it's not easy. >> we now have a flotel, we have tents, we have various means of housing people that pretty much appeared out of nowhere without any warning and then all of a sudden new people started arriving and said, what are they here for? and they said, to clean the beach. it is a daily monitoring effort to ensure that, first, our residents aren't being shortchanged and that they can supply the goods necessary. and secondarily, some of the people being brought in are not runaways from the law. let's be honest about it. and some of them have been arrested. initially we didn't have a check system. now we do. and certainly we make certain that the people who are now among us are just like us.

>> you're correct on that. i bet you one thing that you're talking about, too, a vessel of opportunity is one of the hardest things we had to keep up with of people coming from all over the southeast coming, bringing boats with three people running around the gulf with just doing -- i couldn't see them doing anything. just riding around, getting a suntan. and the same thing with people working on the beaches. they bring them in with greyhound buses or charter buses and put them in a certain place and move them from up and down the -- nine miles of beach that we have in biloxi. i'm sure the same thing going on the west of me. but the vessels of opportunity is one of the waste of money that i've seen. >> are there additional

questions? >> i think mr. -- >> i'm sorry, mr. cooper. i apologize. >> b.p. just ok'd and is going to pay for a community outreach. we are going to open up an office, and one of the b.p.'s got us -- he's retired. he came to her and now we are going to have a community outreach so we can start hiring our local people to come in and go to work. so they are moving forward on that issue. it is a problem for busing people in. we have more people busing in than we have in our community. our community is so disrupted that it's unbelievable. we have over -- right at 6,000 people that have come into our community. we are only about 4,000, 5,000 people in our community so we have more people coming into our community than what we live in. we have a safe place. we don't -- we don't deal with all this crime and what's going on but now we have people walking the streets all hours

of the night and day. we have to lock our doors. there's one thing i want to talk about. i kept hearing the e.p.a. and noaa talking about it's a tradeoff, it's a tradeoff. to us as fishermen, and it's not just myself, it's all of us, the tradeoff will be our industry. you say this stuff. our fish with bottom feeders and the shrimp are bottom feeders. the only tradeoff is our industry. we've been fighting tooth to nail from the very beginning. we are totally against it. let it come where we can see it. we putting booms out and skimmers out there that get to these. a testimony while ago, they see it. the salt and boom beads it up and erodes it right off of it. for them to say we haven't seen it, we have boats out there

that have seen it. it doesn't soak up. it's all in a ball and it rolls right off of it. the only tradeoff is our industry and our waters. if it's -- how can we let them do it here? is it safe to use it here if it ain't there? what's the difference? it's us and -- they in control? this has to stop. we can't fight something we can't see. we don't know the long-term effects for our saltwater fisheries. just like the lady that said in alaska. it may be 15, 20 years from now. quit spraying it. quit -- we have people saying they've seen planes. i am not going to get into that. i'll leave it alone. the only tradeoff is our fisheries and that's the way i feel. thank you. >> yes, i'd just like to say one more thing.

i don't know if you guys picked up on this. you guys are having a plan and we have to build a plan. because of the way this has been controlled and the people who are in charge of this, we had no plan. i was with this man in plaquerman's parish at a meeting and there was nobody there. we couldn't even get a b.p. man. the state had no plan, the federal government had no plan. we have put ourselves in position where we're dependent on all company plans. i mean, this is ridiculous. i love the community part because we know, we know our land. we know our passes and we know our people and we should have a big input into a plan because there was no plan. we are having to wing it down here, we're having to build our own plans. because the federal government is not supporting us, we're having more issues. not only the rocks -- not only the rocks, but let me give you

a good example of what it does. i live beyond hurricane protection. all the things he talks about is barrier islands. when we get a surge with oil on top of it, i had 16 inches of water for hurricane ike and 16 inches of water for hurricane rita in my house. what's it going to look like? i am 30 miles from the gulf. by not allowing us to go ahead and do what we know what is right and what will work, this is -- it is amazing to me that you can -- people up in washington wouldn't give us more support than that. i mean, this is ridiculous. >> any our question? frances. >> quick question. thank you all. you've given us a firsthand view of how challenging it is to serve your own communities. and in that light, have you been able to staff up in your cities and towns to have

additional capacity to assist your citizens? has that -- is that something b.p. would compensate you for, basically bringing additional help to address the issues that you've race -- raised with us today? >> actually, b.p. is doing a lot of its staffing itself. they're staffing the claims offices. they're running vessels of opportunity. but we are attributing many of the overtime hours and staffing to b.p. right now because it is -- it is a 24/7 job. >> it sounds like it. >> so, yes, the opportunities are there to increase as we need. >> thank you. >> i have total like 56 employees. i think i lost nine of them so far working for b.p. they can make so much money a day driving a boat and they take a leave of absence and

just write me a letter. mountain meantime, it brings down the local stuff for me to big the ditches and clean the streets -- in the meantime, it brings down the local stuff for me to dig ditches and clean the streets. i am down to two girls. we're not -- just looking at those girls saying, go make some good money because we're not making money here. it's very -- we are not going to stop nobody from making money, better money. my employees are scared. they know that they can probably tomorrow -- b.p. will tell them they don't need them anymore. and i tell them the doors are open, you can come back. they're very scared. like the fisherman said, they want to go to work, they want to go shrimping but the

shrimping season, it's open today but closed tomorrow. it's the same thing with the employees. they're scared. they want to make sure it's ok. b.p. say, we don't need you tomorrow. they hired five fisherman last week and made a mistake. they needed speed boats instead of trail boats. fishermen are so excited. when i go back today and tonight and tomorrow, i'll go back at the command center and get these fishermen back on. the secretary said they're devastated. talk about charter boat captains and also some fishermen had some wrong boats. they were all pumped up. wife was excited, got him a job. two days later b.p. said, we're sorry, we picked the wrong boats. terry, to answer you, that's all we do is baby-sit and try to satisfy our constituents every day. you got 2,500 salesmen that can

stop the leak, come clean your beaches, come from all over the world. i got one girl in my office, that's all she does is sorry, mayor, we don't have time to see you. i'm sure she can tell you. the mayor, oh, we got the best plan in the world. we send him to shreveport. i think they get 8,000 calls a day. it's very frustrating. anything you can think of, we have to fight and baby-sit. and watch what's going on. it might take us two or three days to catch what's going on but we have to go back and fight to straighten it up. you know, that's not taking care of basic service. you know, meaning if the old lady calls you at 10:30 in the morning and the garbage man failed to pick up the garbage, they're fussing at us. that's basic service that we don't have time to look at. it's just oil, oil, oil.

it's a fight. >> madam president, gentlemen, thank you for your very informative information. as we said with the previous panels, we hope this will be the beginning of the dialogue. as we have additional questions, we hope we can get back in touch with you. and if you have any questions of us, we'll give you pint of >> you can also connect with

ounce twitter, facebook and you tube. >> the senate judiciary committee met to confirm the confirmation. this part of their meeting is 50 minutes. we have with us here, senator frank and senator coffman. senator ward and senator white house. senator specter, senator fine stein, myself, senator hash and senator cornin. and we're meeting -- i want to welcome you all back.

i hope you all had safe travels wherever you might have been, at home or other wise during the fourth of july. i must admit, i enjoyed that week in vermont. today, we meet to consider the president's nomination to fill the vacancy of the supreme court for the retirement of justice steven. justice steven is the first supreme court nomination that i voted when i came to the senate. and he provided extraordinary service to the country. a hearing on elena kagan was held two weeks a guy. she engaged the courts and the meeting of the constitution. and intelligence hearing and the

law and humor relevant to all. senators agreed to some of answers and were not satisfied with others. that is no surprise. whether a nominee agree us with us does not detest considering the nomination of the supreme court. based on my review of kagan's record what i know of her and her answers to the committee, i know she and i will not always agree. dy not agree with every situation by justice stevens or yus tis o'connor. but i have great respect for her. i have never regretted by vote of each justy. i remember senator barry goldwater came in into my office when justy o'connor -- the office i have now have, i have

been in there 30 years, was senator goldwater's office. he came and said, look, i know i'm mr. conservative. i'm backing her. she is nominated by ronald reagan. i want you to support her. and i said, why? and he said, she will never pay favorites. she will base her decisions based on what the law is. we would be treated exactly the same. i thought that was a good test. i agreed with him. i voted for her. the 100 of us who serve in the united states senate stand in the shoes of more than 300 million americans as we have a constitutional duty for the nomination to review elena kagan's record and listen to the 500 questions posed at the hearing.

i would like to see if general kagan would apply the law. i would like to see if he would support the court and democracy. and with wl she would make decisions with the law. i try to understand why the law matters, whether she has a good sense to appreciate the fact of the case in front of her and consider the kons quengss of the court's decisions in the lives of mempbs, which would be the kind of justy thauld keep faith of the words inskired in vermont marble under the law. these are the standards have i plied to every nomination. the three justice i have i supported and the three i have

voted. kagan, has respect for the democratic constitutions and the rule of law. he may base her approach on the rules of the law and not politician on ideological agenda. he demonstrated a view on congress and judicial impressive. a view some conservatives embrace and still do. she will not have professional preferences and protect hardworking americans pursuant to our constitutional role. she made us one pledge, one pledge that she will do her best to consider every case impartially, modestly, with commitment to principle and accord dance of law. sbli cast my vote in support of

general kagan's nomination. i believe she will fill the seat with dignity and honor. it was my hope that when the supreme court next convenes, three women will be serving among the nine justices. i wish justice o'connor was here before her. i suggest that every member of the committee knows how he or show will vote. i grant a republican request to ask additional written questions. republicans proceeded to propound 00 questions and answers were received last week. it's been 13 days since the nominee completed her testimony. and we agreed to nominate chief

justice robertses in seven days. we nominated justice alito 12 days. it's been 13 days since we completed hers. i hope we saw the time we took for both of those men now serves on the court. that we will not take longer for this woman that has been nominated for the court. a number of senators have already announced their votes. i hope we will not needlessly deny her as we have denied justice roberts or alito. and the know and feel that every member of the committee has made

up his or her mind. with that, i give it to you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i appreciate you allowing at the hearing a opportunity for members on this side to ask questions. and i think all of our members were able to ask the questions they had. and i respect you and thank you. you have been through many of the matters. and you've move it up fast. this is -- will be almost as fast as sotomayor or faster, and we don't have quite at time crunk we had last time. so i think we are moving this nomination in an expeditious manner. and i think one week is appropriate and i ask that we

put it over one week. >> i respect your right to do that. and i note for the record, we have senators cole, fine gold, senator specter, and senator whitewhite house, senator franken in the room so we have the appropriate number. and you have your number to make the arrest and it will be granted. >> today, the executive session, include of thursday that will put us on normal schedule to have the -- i guess the vote next tuesday. would that be your plan? >> it would be my plan. i don't -- i don't want her to be -- have to take too much longer than the two gentlemen

who were in on her before. i would like to keep her some what close to her time. i think everybody's made up their mind. and we will come back tuesday on this issue. and we will have whatever debate we want. i hope we complete the vote that day. >> all right. i would further say that i do think there are serious questions involving this nomination. i had an oil spill in my state. others had things they had to do in their week. and the extra time before we move forward is appropriate. the term starts october 1st. i told the president we would do our best before the august recess. we are well on track to do that. although i note that president obama and vice president biden,

mr. chairman, yourself, didn't seem to worry about filibustering justice alito so i think we're cooperating in a fair way to move the nomination forward. let me say briefly, i'm concerned about the nominee's testimony with regard to the military. it almost appeared to think she was caught up in a series of events where she was not an active player and she was a leading proponent in congress passing legislation to force harvard to have the military have equal act says. i didn't feel that her testimony reflected adequately her fundamental role in that. like wise the partial birth

abortion question, she said she was conserving the president. senator graham was taken aback by that and she appealed to president clinton not sign the document he was about to sign. and her answer, took almost ten minutes to explain why she did not appeal the don't ask don't tell ruling of the ninth circuit or take the opportunity to appeal the first circuit ruling. and it was basically i thought the case would be better and i don't think that was a response a good answer for the solicitor general. and she took -- she wrote a letter to the committee with two deans attacking terrorist legislation. that legislation passed.

and she called it dictorial and she said she was written a letter that day. we have concerns about the second amendment and her role on that. and after make a number of statements, she considered the 5 to 4 ruling in the settle law and i asked what she meant, and she said, all the president debts. so i thought most of us would have interpreted it to be a binding thing. i think that was less than candid, frankly. just to share with my colleagues there are concerns about the nomination on a host of different areas.

fundamentally, the nominee lacks the experience, the rigger that you develop from full time practice of law or from serving as a judge. she is had neither of those experiences and i think it showed in her testimony. you may not agree. in my opinion, her testimony was lack of clarity, the strict intellectual honesty that i think we should look for a nomination of the supreme court. i want to make a couple of points that the florida litigation contesting the constitutionality of the new health care law will certainly make its way to the supreme court. if confirmed, missç kagan wille the desigh tif vote in that case. thus it's critical whether as

solicitor general, she participated in discussions about that. in hur confirmatier confirmatioe was asked if she was consulted on the health care bill. she said simply no. and what she was not asked further, why she asked to map out arkment in defense of the new health care law. and even if she hadn't been asked about the merits of that case, she may have been asked to form late the strategy and arguments to defend the law in that case. it's inconceivable to me when states challenge a health care law in march of 2010, she was active as solicitor general then, she did not participate as a council or express her opinion on the case or participate in

strategies or argue thes. the standard practice at the department to have opinions of key pending legislation and it is not in blas regard to the contusional challenge to the administration's most significant legislative to date is difficult and impossible to believe. federal judges have themselves in any proceeding where they might be questioned. justices and judges that served like miss kagan as government lawers must excuse them semis. they participated as a council advicer or expressed an opinion considering the merits of a case and controversy, if miss kagan was involved, she must recuse herself. it's crucial for the gnat's

advise to reach conclusions as to the facts and to act in a man their ensures the >> live coverage begins at 2

p.m. eastern. >> c-span available in over 100 million homes. a public service created by america's table company. the white house unveiled a document outlining a national strategy on hif and aids. discussing the plan in this white house believing this is 45 minutes. strategy. this is such an important day, and it is important that we put this day in context. it has been 30 years since the hiv/aids epidemic first hit our country, and it has been 20 years since passage of their

ryan white care act, and at this important marker in our history, we think it is imperative that we refocus our attention on the issue of hiv/aids and what we have to do in the united states to address this issue appropriately. it is also important to keep in mind what this means for individuals, and for all of the statistics there is a human face behind them. we know that 1.1 million people are living with hiv in the united states. we know that 56,000 people are infected every year, and every nine and a half minutes, and that is one of the statistics when you say it, i always have to doublecheck it because it is so stunning. every nine and a half minutes someone is it that you-- infected with hiv and for that reason during the campaign for of president obama promised that as a nation, domestically, we would focus on this issue. as important as it is to focus

their attention on what is happening internationally, there hasn't been enough attention focused on what we are doing in this country. and for that reason he went all over the country talking about this issue and when he entered the white house, he told us that talk wasn't enough, that we have to put actions and deeds and resources behind our words. for that reason, we are launching our initiative, our national plan today. this document is the culmination of a great deal of work and one of the things that i want to do with thank so many of you who were in this room with us today, for your support, for your input, for your thoughts and ideas around this report and implementation plan for without you we would not have been able to get it done. i also want to thank people around the country. we went to 14 different cities in the united states, everywhere from san francisco to jackson, from los angeles to new york and

philadelphia, all over the country and we talked to people and communities are go as i said there is a face behind all of the statistics. there is expertise in research and communities all over the country and we wanted to benefit from that. we also benefited in those community meetings there our web site and we asked for their ideas and their opinions and their thoughts. we engage with our federal partners as they also engage with people through panels in three meetings and we held panels and forums. some of you were there, that i also participated in here at the white house to talk about as different aspects not only of this disease but the ways that we can address it and the way we can do that in partnership with the federal, state and local government as well as the private sector and the philanthropic sector and ngo's. so we bring all of that information to the work that we have done thus far and it is a part of the report and a part of the implementation plan.

i am now going to turn this mic over to secretary kathleen sebelius and because of her work and her leadership in her drive, and i know her well and i've worked with her closely for several years so i can tell you she is a great leader and there is a lot of drive. because of that work we are here today so i want to thank her for that and she is now going to give you a better sense of the work that is now a part of our national hiv/aids strategy and to tell you the ways we are going to be able to work together so i welcome secretary kathleen sebelius. thank you. [applause] >> thank you melody, not only for the nice introduction but melody has provided as the head of the domestic policy council, an enormous important strategic focus to this effort, and also some real personal passion.

this was not something that was going to drop by the wayside with melody's help and support. she has played an enormously important role, but so have the other two gentlemen on the stage with me today. jeff crowley who is the director of the office of national aids policy you will hear from and also dr. howard koh who is my terrific assistant and secretary on health who is charged with actually reading the department wide effort, localizing the all hands-on support for the initiative we are going to outline and i wanto start by thanking the three of them because they do deserve a lot of credit for getting us to this spot today. as melody has already said, the plan is informed by not only those of you in the room but those from around the country who have worked in this area for

years, who are providers and citizens living with hiv/aids, family members, advocates, faith-based communities represented and we wanted the most effective strategies and approaches so we needed to talk to the people who knew about that most effectively. and i again want to thank all the health development strategies. when president obama announced our plan to put together a comprehensive national hiv/aids strategy, he recognized that this actually is a critical turning point. in the 80's, when aids was first discovered in this country, we were very slow to respond, but eventually a coalition came together with government officials and employers, community based groups and health advocates to put together

a series of effective approaches for treating and reducing the spread of hiv/aids. in partnership with the affected community, we began to speak frankly about the sexual and drug use behaviors that put people at risk for hiv and aids. we develop procedures for screening blood transfusions, encourage the screening of pregnant women and supported hiv testing programs for persons whose behavior plays place them most at risk for aids. we promoted community based and clinical strategies for reducing infections among injection drug use and discovered new therapies that were much more effective in keeping the disease in check. combined, these approaches helps turn the tide against disease and a number of new hiv infections among people who inject drugs dropped by 80%. transmissions during pregnancy went from 1600 to fewer than 200 a year.

total annual infections went from about 130,000 a year in the mid-80s to just over 50,000 a year in the mid-90s. and at the same time that length and quality of life of people living with hiv rose dramatically thanks to better treatment and better access to care. and that reversal is a pretty great accomplishment. the unfortunate piece of this story is that since the late '90s, our progress in preventing new infections has slowed. annual infections have held steady in the mid-50 thousand a year-- 50,000 a year. because of the number of people living with hiv has gone up over the years it means we are driving down infection rates slightly but not fast enough or do we are keeping pace when we should be gaining ground, and that is why the president thought it was so important for

the first ever comprehensive national hiv/aids strategy to be put together. after a year of information gathering and analysis, conversation with health care providers and persons living with hiv and aids, with researchers and health workers, with activists and community leaders, we are announcing a plan today that has an ambitious vision. that vision is the united states should be a place where new hiv infections are rare and when they do occur, every person, regardless of age, gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or socioeconomic circumstances will have unfettered access to high-quality life-extending care, free from stigma and discrimination. that is a pretty tall order and in order to achieve that vision, the strategy is focused on three

concrete goals. reducing new hiv infections, increasing access of care and optimizing health outcomes for americans with hiv/aids, and reducing hiv related health disparities. the goals aren't necessarily new but the strategy for achieving them is new. we know we couldn't keep using the same approach and expect different results. we knew at the same time all of us, the federal government, states and communities, not-for-profit groups, businesses are being forced to do more with less, and we can't expect this to be solved by a huge infusion of new resources. so while the strategy does highlight areas for additional investment, it also identifies ways we can use the resources we have more effectively, to prevent, diagnose and treat hiv and aids. and to do that, we are really

looking in areas where we know we can do better. for example, we have been very successful at keeping hiv and aids incidence low for some populations. if you are a white heterosexual woman, like me, your chances of being infected by hiv and aids are very low, one and 50,000. but if you are a black female, also in injection drug use or your chances of being infected are more than 1000 times higher than mine. one and 35. if you are a hispanic man, your chances are 350 times higher. in some u.s. cities it is estimated almost half the but men are hiv positive. so part of the strategy says we are going to intensify our prevention resources in the communities where infections are concentrated. when it comes to identifying resources, it can't just be one

approach. are important, so is testing, especially since we think one in five americans with hiv doesn't know it and therefore spreads it. what we have learned is that prevention is most successful when we use all the tools available, whether it is educating people about health behaviors or better substance abuse treatment and prevention programs or breakthrough medical research on vaccines. so we are taking in all of the above approach because it is the overlapping layers of prevention that get the best results. and the final piece of our prevention strategy is education. the progress we have made in the last 30 years comes with an unintended side effect, americans have become less fearful of hiv and aids. in 1995, nearly half of all americans said the hiv/aids was our most pressing health issue.

today, it is one in 20. and we can't afford that kind of complacency. not plan, as melody said in the last few minutes i have been talking to you, another american just contracted hiv. and that is why our strategy calls for aggressive efforts to educate americans about just how dangerous this disease still is and the steps that they can take to protect themselves and their loved ones. earlier this year, we got a headstart on these goals when we enacted the affordable care act, which included an unprecedented attention and public health fund. over the next 10 years, that's fund will invest nearly $15 billion to prevent disease or detect it early before it becomes severe. today we are announcing a $30 million from the first wave of new funding will go to support new and existing efforts to help more americans learn about hiv, particularly in the

most vulnerable populations. the funds will be available for community organizations to apply for very soon and they will provide a critical boost to our prevention efforts across the country. as their implementation of this strategy gets underway. but even as we strive to reduce new infections, the strategy we are announcing today also calls for us to refocus and re-energize our efforts on behalf of the 1.1 million americans who are currently living with hiv and aids, and they will all benefit from the affordable care act too. under the new law, medicaid will be expanded and medicaid has been the most reliable source of support for many americans with hiv and aids. there is also a new consumer friendly health insurance marketplace, where plans will be forbidden from denying people coverage because of their medical condition. a fate that has the fallen too

many americans with hiv and aids in the past. these changes won't happen until 2014, but if we were quickly and responsibly to implement the new law, we are also taking some short-term steps to help those with hiv and aids right now. in the last three months we have been mailing 250-dollar rebate checks to seniors who have fallen into the medicare's description doughnut hole. and 2011, those drugs in the doughnut hole will cost 50% less, and that is a huge help to seniors who were living with hiv and aids. we are working the states to create new temporary preexisting condition pools to offer insurance plans to those americans who have been locked out of the insurance market because of their medical conditions. and states already have risk pools in place. this will be an additional step. we have announced a new patient bill of rights that will restore some basic fairness this year to

those health insurance markets. under the bill of rights, insurance companies will be forbidden from canceling coverage when you get sick or putting a lifetime cap on benefits, which happens too often to people who are ill and need that coverage the most. each of those steps will help americans with hiv and aids bridge the gap until we get to 2014, and get the care they need to lead healthy and comfortable lives. but that is not enough. under the strategy, we also want to work to link testing to care since the latest evidence shows that the earlier care is started, the better the results. we will build on the provisions of the affordable care act and strengthen our health care workforce. we will work to supplement the medical care with other supportive services like housine assistance that we know can make the difference between someone staying on the treatment regimen

or dropping it. this goal is especially important at a time when budget shortfalls have made it hard for many americans to get the care they truly need. that is why when they learned that many states had begun creating waiting list for the aids drug assistance program, we quickly pulled together an additional $25 million in federal resources to meet the demand for the remainder of the year. we want to make sure that our prevention and treatment resources reach the most vulnerable americans and especially in communities with the greatest need. we must continue to change america's attitude. in too many communities today, hiv and aids still carries a stigma. there are still too many people who don't get tested because they are afraid of what their friends might think. too many people who won't pick up a flyer about treatment because they are afraid if they

are seen with that someone will make a judgment about their sexual orientation. part of the strategy will continue to look for concrete ways to reduce the stigma associated with hiv and aids, such as ending sending the hiv entry ban, a long-overdue step, which we finally did this year. for each of these goals, we set ambitious but reachable targets for the year 2015 and the national strategy is not only a document we are releasing today. with it we are announcing the national hiv and aids strategy implementation plans that lays out steps for every department across government to contribute to these efforts. the strategy isn't a white paper. it is a detailed action plan that is going to lead to real changes in our approach and we hope real improvements in our results. it is also a critical partnership.

there are a wide range of cabinet agencies and subagencies that do work on hiv and aids from the department of justice to the department of labor, to the department of housing and urban development. one thing we hope to work together better on as we implement this law is to work together. to that in the implementation plan calls on howard koh, our assistant secretary for health who you will hear from in just a few minutes, to take on the key coordinating role, not just for the agencies within hhs but for agencies across the federal government. howard got a great adviser in dr. ron valdiserri, one of our nation's leading experts on hiv and aids who just pointed-- joined our department. this partnership also has to extend outside government to the community and faith-based organizations and employers and business is.

the health care professionals and activists who play such an important role putting together the strategy. our only chance of success is if we carry it out together. is we implement the strategy we are also recommitting ourselves to laboratory research that promises better prevention tools, treatments and ultimately a cure for hiv and aids. under the president's leadership we delivered the biggest boost to biomedical research in american history adding more than $10 billion to nih over the two years as part of the recovery act. last week, we saw some exciting news about how big the payoff from this investment might be one nih scientists discovered three antibodies that could potentially be used as part of an hiv vaccine. going forward, we pledge to continue our work to promote new discoveries and eliminate obstacles that gets us from microscope to marketplace.

when the president took office, we had reached a turning point. either we could choose to get used to hiv and aids, to accept it is a permanent feature of the u.s. society to be satisfied with lengthening lives instead of saving lives, or we could choose to redouble and refocus our efforts to put a new emphasis on prevention, to expand access to care, to target hiv and aids in the most vulnerable communities that they are the brunt of this disease. with the new strategy we are announcing today, we are choosing the second path. we refuse to accept a stalemate to dig in and just hold the disease had a. we want to be moving forward. we want to see infections going down once again, access to care increasing and awareness expanding. the strategy we are releasing today is not an end of our work. it is just the beginning. we have set a target and now it

is up to all of us working together to go achieve it. the person who has been leading that effort in the white house is jeff crowley, the director for office of national aids policy. jeff is absolutely one of the visionaries behind this document and now i would like to introduce him to talk a little bit more about it. jeff. [applause] >> good afternoon. thank you madam secretary. we clearly would not have got here today without your leadership and we thank you in your whole team at the department of health and human services for all the good you are doing. it also like to acknowledge my friend and colleague dr. howard koh. he helped us get to this point and i'm not sure he really understands what lays ahead for him because really his work is just beginning. we are investing a lot of responsibility in him and his office to make sure we deliver the promise of the strategy.

i would also like to express my deep appreciation for melody barnes. it is a gift for the hiv community that they president placed the policy within the domestic policy council. we could not produce a solid strategy i think we have or engage in the comprehensive process to get here if it were not for her steadfast support so thank you. [applause] i would also like to announce the many partners across the federal government including a federal hiv and interagency working group that helped us get here, the president to advisory council on hiv/aids. they are also critical to our work so thank you are a much. [applause] now at the risk of sounding like i'm giving my academy award acceptance speech i'm almost done with my thank you's that i really need to balance the office of national aids policy. it is really an incredible team

that has worked hard over many months and this made sacrifices in their personal lives to try to produce the best strategy we could. greg militants are senior policy adviser. [applause] he is an epidemiologist on details from cbc and he has led the development process working with federal agencies and working with documents. james is our senior program manager. [applause] he led the planning for the strategy's implementation and he has worked with hhs and the office of news media on our new and improved web site so he will also allow me to get and plugs to check out www.whitehouse.gov and it is going live today with new information. del simmons has been our policy adviser. she was on detail from hhs.

[applause] she let our women's policy work in her work on access of care. thank you. natalie is my executive assistant and she tries to keep me in line and she is sort of the glue in the office. [applause] gannett is the guy he was a communications adviser and he spearheads our communication. now let me turn to-- [applause] now let me turn to all of you. thank you to all of you that helped us get to this point. many of you will hear are people we met along the way as we travel across the country and others of you posted your own meetings and contribute to the work we are doing in a numeral ways. so many people can judah did what i think was a robust national dialogue and i hope you think the end product reflects our best collective effort so thank you. the strategy provides a roadmap to move the nation forward. i said this before but it is not

intended to be a conference of list of all the activities we need to do to address hiv. incentives to be a concise plan that will set clear priorities and strategic action sets tied to measurable outcomes. now would like to tell you what our key priorities are. to produce new hiv infections we believe we need to do three things. we need to intensify our prevention efforts in communities where hiv is most heavily concentrated. we need to expand targeted efforts to prevent hiv infection using a combination and that is the key word, combination of effective evidence-based approaches and third we need to educate all americans about the threat of hiv and how to prevent it. to increase access to care and improve health outcomes we have three key steps to identify. building on the affordable care act, the landmark health reform law that is going to do so much to improve access to health care for millions of americans but including people with hiv so building on this we believe we need to establish a seamless

system to immediately link people with hiv and continuous corrugated quality care as soon as they are diagnosed with hiv. second, we believe we need to take deliberate steps to increase the number of diversity of providers of clinical care and related services for people with hiv and third we need to support people with hiv to-- who have co-occurring challenges. to reduce hiv related disparities, we believe we need to work to reduce hiv related mortalities and communities with high risk of hiv infection. we believe we need to adopt community level approaches to hiv reduction in high risk amenities and reduce stigma and discrimination against people living with hiv. to achieve all of these goals we added a fourth goal and that is achieving a more corrugated national response to the aids epidemic in the united states and we believe we need to increase the coordination of hiv programs across the government and with other levels of government and community partners and we need to develop

improved mechanisms for monitoring our progress toward achieving national goals. the secretary did a wonderful job of sharing her vision and direction for the strategy. we intend to back this up with a plan. in addition to seeing the strategy and implementation plan today the president is releasing a presidential memorandum to support implementation of the strategy. this memorandum directs the office of national aids policy to continue to provide leadership on policy-setting as we seek to implement the strategy and it also calls for an annual report to the president on their progress. we are going to do this on an annual basis and measure what we are doing. it designates lead agencies a primary responsibility. they are hhs, hud, justice, labor, veterans affairs and social security administration. for each of these it has an immediate requirement and a longer-term requirement. each of these agencies within

150 days to develop their own operational plan from lamenting the strategy and reporting that the president. and it also calls on them to take longer-term actions such as designating a league official, preparing assistance to collect data across there in agencies and synthesizing it in taking ongoing steps to implement the strategy. now, the presidential memorandum also gives the secretary of health and human services additional responsibilities for improving coordination across the government and it is my understanding the secretary designated dr. koh as the leading person responsible. in addition to the lead agencies, there's also responsibilities for three other agencies. the department of defense is asked to develop a plan to implement the strategy in the context of the health care system serving the military. the department of state is us to develop a plan and provide recommendations on how we can apply the lessons learned from the pepfar program to the

domestic epidemic in equal employment opportunity commission and independent agency is being asked to develop a report on how we can expand employment opportunities for people with hiv and address employment related discrimination. so the strategy and implementation plan demonstrates the president is serious about tackling the epidemic in the presidential memorandum is a sign that he means business. a couple of days dr. colin i will trap gold to vienna austria to vertus bigamy national aids conference. because a the present obama's leadership the 19th international conference on aids conference will be held in washington d.c. and 2012. [applause] this is the first, we the first time the conference will have been held in the united states in 20 years and we think it will be an opportunity to spotlight her work and show the global community the united states is committed to the domestic epidemic and abroad. now let me introduce