plant in veinsville. most people thought you could go from the high school to the g.m. plant and have a good life. that's the conventional wisdom. that's not the economy that we're in anymore. my friends find themselves in their 40's or 50's with nothing. we need an ability for them to go back to school. . in the new business. another friend of mine went back to get a degree in hvac. now he's his own contractor with own business, leading a fulfilling life and making jobs, providing for his family. those kinds of things, that kind of job training scholarship that goes with a person so they could go out in society to me is aa smarter way to go. that's where the federal government has a bigger role to play versus k through 12. we have to stifle that reform in my book. >> thank you. so both parties seem to be worlds apart on the budget debate. are you willing to compromise

with the senate democrats and president obama to get a grand bargain? won't republicans need to allow tax revenues to be part of the conversation? >> i don't think we're going to have a big grand global bargain only because i think we're just so far apart on issues like health care. now, we are putting our budget out there as our starting point. we submitted a budget that literally balances the budget and pays off the debt and reforms entitlement programs to make them safend secure and solvent. we have yet to see anything from e senate or democrat that's comes anywhere from solving this problem. as far as who's putting plans dean tails, we've already done that. we're waiting for our partners on the other side of the aisle to contribute something. do we have to have some compromise in this? of course we do. but the way we look at revenue is if we look at revenues as a source to fix this problem, then it takes pressure off the problem, which is spending. spending is the problem that is a source of the problem. we need to address that. i am for having higher revenues

coming to the federal government. i don't think you get that by raising tax rates. i think you get that through pro growth economic policies and fundamental tax reform that raises economic growth and then you get higher revenues through that way. i subscribe to the gary becker school of thought. i see him here. it's great to see a living ledget in front of us. that to me is the way toin crease revenues and the other problem we have is if we don't -- if we blink in this moment and we show both political parties don't have the courage to actually address this spending crisis we have, then what kind of confidence will the bond markets have in us after that? so i think the biggest mistake we could make is rubber stamping a debt limit increase and showing we don't have any chance of getting anything under control. we've got to have serious down payments on spending controls to buy ourselves time in the credit market so whatever we don't resolve in this episode is resolved soon.

i real bli believe this next election will be the most important election in our lifetimes. it will be the choice of two futures. foyer one we believe we owe it to our constituents, give them an option or choice. what country do you want? historic american idea, limited government economic freedom, you know, opportunities with a safety net or go down theath we're , which is a path to make us more of a european type social democracy, cradle to grave welfare state. i know those are harsh words but i really believe it is the practical result of the path we are on and least we can do is give all of you a choice so you can pick which one you want going forward. >> you mentioned political courag i have seen you in the interview tauged about the third rail medicare issue and you looked as if you were qualia bear grabbing onto this. can you talk about what it means to the political courage and what it means for others? >> you vb to be willing to lose your jobs to be good at these jobs? you just do. i'm serious.

>> [applause] >> the other thing i would say is the public is way ahead of the political class in washington. the probm we have and both rties do this is put something that proposes a change, anything that's bold, the other party uses it as a political weapon against you and that fear of that political weapon palyzes the political system. we had this political paralysis for a long time. are republicans do it to democrats, democrats do it to republicans. i foreone, what we're trying to do is break through that. put ideas out there and, yes, grab thosehird rails. a, i think the country is head of us. b, i represent -- my district goes from janesville, long the border to michigan and including seven milwaukee suburbs, and lake geneva, you a know. you're chicagoans too. it went for dukakis, for clinton, for gore and obama. it's not, you know, a big

republican area. i put these ideas out there in 2008, in 2010 and again. i for one believe that people are ready to be talked to like adults, not like children on these issues. when you give people the facts, when you show them what we're trying to do, i think people want to see us fix this problem. so political courage simply means worry more about our economy and the next generation than you are about the next election and it will all make out -- it will be fine at the end of the day. >> great. let's get into the medicare a little bit more. your budget included significant med medicare and medicaid reforms and calls for a full repeal of the alth care law. how do you address the uninsured? what about rising health care costs for businesses and are you still committed to replace and not just repeal the health care law? >> yes. for sure the answer is yes on that especially. so what our budget does is we -- given that medicare, medicaid are the greatest drivers of our debt went have charts that show that.

those two programs alone a the biggest contributors to t you have to restructure not only how these programs worko save them the bustees gave us a new warning last week medicare is going bankrupt a lot faster than we thought it was. what we're saying is if we do this now, we can do ton ourwn terms as a country. meaning you don't have to pull the rug out from under people who retired. people who are on medicare, they've organized the retirements around this program. people who are ten years away from retiring are preparing for it. our whole point is don't change their benefits but in order to do that, have you to reform this program for the next generation. for those of us under 54 and you make it a solvent system so you can cash flow the current generation and make good on the promises the government made to them. wait to do that is we believe it's not by giving a panel of 15 bureaucrats the authority to micromanage, rass and price control medicare. and that is in law now and that is being imposed on current changes. we repeal this. we say let younger people when

they become medicare eligible select among a list of medicare guaranteed coverage options medicare provides. it works like a system members of federal congress have. in this case you subsidize the person's insurance f they're poor and sick, subsidize them more. if they're wealthy i. subsidize them a lot less. give support to the people who need it the most and less support to the people who need it the least. doing it this way, according to the budget office, makes the program solvent and secure so my generation can count on it when we retire and helps solve our de crisis. quet is, can this be done? well, look, i hardly think this is some radical idea. this is the same recommendation president bill clinton's bipartisan commission said to save medicare in the 1990's. it came out of the brookings institution with the left center think tank. it works like medicare benefits

works today. prips drugs, medicare advantage works like this, buying supplemental insurance works like this. private providers competing against each other for our business. that runs to the earlier part our question. we believe the best way to get at this issue is help inflation is by giving the patient the power, consumer directed system where the providers, hospitals, insurers, doctors, compete against each other for our businesses as consumers. we spent over 2 1/2 times per person on health care in this country nain other industrialized country. we spend a lot of money on health care but we don't spend it very intelligently. and so we need staple like all other market-based sectors of our economy where you have transparency on price, transparency on quality and economic incentive to act on those things so apples to apples metrics to compare so we can shop. do believe ultimately you need tasme exclusion. have i several legislation to do that. we subsidize people in the

higher income brackets a lot more than lower income brackets. i think that's upside doufpblet more importantly, we want a system where the individual is in the driver's seat, not some bureaucrat. and subsidizing pre-existing conditions so they don't get bankrupt when they're stoik have the preventive medicine that i think are risk pools and we bring more competition, more choice to the health care sector. i think we will be fine. not only grow t economy but the point i'm trying to make, we can have insurance for who've doesn't have it and do it without breaking the bank. without taking the entire sector of theommofere by the government. >> and in a speech you gave on january 25, you addressed the house budget committee and you said, our debt is the product of acts of many presidents and many congresses over many years. no one fern or party spom for it

and americans are skeptical of both parties and it's justified. can you expand on the notion on the problem we face here as a product of both parties and how do we get past and move forward collect collectively? >> both parties -- look at what politics rewards. the politician who makes the prom esto the empty voter. it's simple. want to get evicted, promise somebody something. you get elected. we have to stop that. what we're trying to achieve, and we will see if this works, turn the political rewards system away from rewarding the politician that keeps making the empty promise to the political leader that speaks honestly about where we stand as a country and what it will take to get this thing fixed. that's what we have to address. both parties have done this but we're on borrowed time. the way i look at this, one of the mos unpleasant experiences hi was tarp, financial crisis in

2008. i was in the meetings with ben brian: -- bernanke and henne paulson. it was an awful situation. that crisis caught us by surprise. we watched the spreads and money markets meltdown that.s0 caught us by surprise. let me ask you this, what would you think of your member of congress if they knew it was coming, if they knew why it was happening, when it was going to happen and more importantly knew exactly what to do to prevent it from happening and had the time to do it but chose not to because it was just bad politics. what would you think of the person? that's where we are right now. this is the most predictable economic crisis we ever had. the thing that is stopping fruss fully and fixing this thing is politics. we have to get through that. that'shy some of us are pulling these ideas and plans to try to move this conversation to the level it has tgo to.

we're not there but we're sure going to keep trying. >> you clearly touched a nerve in the natiowith the ability to convey this message and you got the respect of the president. you said you respect the president as well. mutual admiration society. can you talk a little bit about what it's like to be the voice that discusses these issues with someone of that stature and how you take that on? >> i don't think about it too much like that. my job, i grew up studying electronics. i wanted to go into the field of electronics and then independent up being a politician. that didn't go so well, i suppose. i'm joking but i'm chairman of the house budget committee whfment you get a job like this, it is your job to look at the

physical finances of the country and they're downright scary. the thing is most people have been involved think of budgets like they thought of at the beginning of the decade or 1990's. because of the financial crisis and recession, the numbers moved up and it's really a scary situation. went don't have a lot of time left before we have a debt crisis on our hands. all of these things with take for granted. world reserve, l.v.o.'s are threatened. think it's my job, elected by my colleagues to take this post, to do whatever i can to address this issue, to be a paul revere and get this country having this kind of conversation. with respect to the president, we just have very different philosophies. i have a lot of respect for him but i don't respect the political tone that's been injected in this conversation which i think is counterproductive. not productive. at the end of the day i think we have to make a choice two of theories government or

philosophies. one i characterize as the traditional american idea where the goal of our government is to protect our natural rights and promote equal opportunity. we can make the most of our lives where we are defined by the characteristic of equal opportunity, up ward mobility and prosperity. first is a different vision and philosophy. one we have seen on display in many other nations where the goal of the government grows to try to equal lies the results of our lives. that to me is shared scarcity and managed decline where we delegate so much more decisions in power to unelected people in bureaucracies and they try to micromanage these things,usy things in our lives. i don't think it works and fatal conceit. >> you mentioned the debt ceilings. what what conditions are attached to a raise and if you require a dollar for dollar in each dollar of debt, where do

you envision the cuts coming from? >> we put out $6.2 trillion in cuts. we also pposed budget process reforms. there are three reforms that are in our budget what we call statuary caps oniscretionary spending. we had it before but got turned off in the last decade. we propose debt targets and limits with enfcement limits meaning your debt rises above a certain level, we call it sa quester that kicks in. we also propose a global spending cab on government as a share of g.d.p. this is often referred to as corporate bipartisan cap in the senate. we are not taking anything off the table but if certain entitlements are taken off -- first i think we should no dot that. i disagree with that. we also proposed $719 billion in savings from other mandatory programs, farm programs, many other areas that are in dire

need of reform. discretionary spending went up 24% the last two years. the government just gave a number of executive agencies triple-digit increases in their budgets. that's tally us sustainable. there are a lot of areas where we believe we should be cutting back sponeding and capping spending going forward. so i think what you're going to see at the end of the day is a mixture spending cuts measured in the trillions and caps on spending to lock in those gains and keep those cuts going into place. then wherever it is, we don't have agreement on, and whatever big issue did may be, we owe it to go to the country with our plan to fix thi versus say the president's plan. i think that's what we will end up doing. >> let's get it to defense, just a quick question here. have you been critical to putting war on off budget, as you scay. emergency supplements have been a poor way to do this. can you talk about your path to prosperity and how it deals with defense? >> we budget for the war.

to president obama's credit, does he too. the last obama -- administration didn't do that. we were in the war for a couple years and they kept using emergency funding legislation, outside congress's limits to budget for the war. i didn't agree with that. izz think we have consensus betweenresident obama's budget director and ourselves, it's a tradeoff and call it like that. number one. number two, you can't throw $700 billion at any government agency and not expect there to be a lot of waste. so nothing should be immune from the budget scalpel. we cut $178 billion in defense spending. we dedicate 100 to our troops to modernize equipment we have been burning through and $78 billion for deficit reduction. that's basically what secretary gates recommended as well. i would love nothing more than fwounlt for a peace dividend.

here's the problem -- we don't have peace right now. we have our men and women out there fighting on two, maybe -- argue libya's a third front. we can't put the rut out from under them. we have to back them off. they have to have the resources they need to do their jobs. that doesn't speak to foreign licy decisions or not but they're there. we can't underfund or defund them. we have to go after the waste at the pentagon. propose doing that and yes, that, too, should be a contributor to deficit reduction. >> a couple more questions. some of your critics, "the new york times" columnist paul krugman -- >> never heard of him. exactly. >> i had to bring "the new york times." there's a lot of "the wall street journal." you said you izzwo raise taxes for 95% of the population and produce a $4 trillion revenue loss over ten years. also on "meet the press" newt gingrichad a few comments on your budget. how do you defend these issues? it's open debate, and some of people have been voicing

concerns. >> for off for the tax portion, that's not an accurate statistic. we use c.b.o. numbers, not somebody else's back of the envelope calculations. we're not talking about cutting tax revenues. we're talking about revenue neutral tax form. let me explain it this way -- this is where all of the class warfare gets into it. the people who enjoy the big of the tax deductions are the folk in the twop brackets. you have a dollar of income parked in a tax shelter. that dollar income is taxed at zero. if you tnk away the tax shelter, lower everybody's tax rates, that dollar is taxed so by broadening the tax base, depriving tax shelters, you're supporting the income two taxation, albeit a lower rate, and here's the key, just like the president's fiscal commission, which i served on, supported by a majority of democrats, they too agree, you need to lower tax rates to make us competitive globally to

create jobs and broaden the tax base. our tax reforms are page taken out of the book of the fiscal commission, broaden tax base, lower the taxates. again, we are taxing our employers, our job creators at tax rates higher than our foreign competitors are taxing theirs. whether it's a corporation or successful small business. the president has in law, his budget, a plan to raise the top tax rate to 44.8%. don't know what illinois' rate is now. ours is between 7% and 10% and i know yours is higher or just went higher. excuse me. the point is we're going to tax all of these subchapter s corporations, l.l.c.'s, partrships, over 50%. ohio on earth do we expect them to thrive, survive and compete in the global economy? drive around wisconsin. go to kenosha or racine, el corn and look at the outskirts of town and there's going to be an industrial park. that industrial park will have a lot of businesses that have 50

to 500 employees. odds are they're paying taxes as individuals. that's where most of our job come from. if we keep cranking up their tax rates on the guise of class warfare, we're going to shut down job creation, stifle economic growth. [applause] on the newt thing, i would just say these ideas are the most gradual, sensible thing we can come up with. name me another government program that came in 41% below costs. medicare prescription drug program did. why? because it gives seniors the power. seniors get to choose which among competing private plans did they select from for their drug benefit. and e provider knows that the senior can fire them if they don't perform. if they don't give them competitive prices, good quality service. next year they can fire them and

get somebody else. so they compete for the senior's business. that brought premiums down, saved taxpayers, brought 41% down. what we're seeing is replicate that kind of reform for people 54 bean low when they become medicare eligible. this doesn't take effect for ten years. hardly is this radical in my opinion. what's truly radical is status quo. kicking the can down the road, going tens of trillions of dollars deeper in the hole every year we don't fix ts situation, means we record a debt crisis and then awe terty, cutting indiscreme knitly against senior where's you're giving them no time to prepare or adjust and taxing to slow us down, that is the result of the political paralysis if we keep it up, if it happens. >> let's talk about the kicking the can down the road analogy, and you spoke about the importance of the generation to pass on to the next generation a better america.

can you talk a little bit about that and what it means to you as leader in today's economy and nation and political debate on how can you improve that thinking? >> i will talk to you about it as a dad. look, jan and i have three kids that are 6, 7 and 9 years ofmente i ask the c.b.o. to run numbers all the time. i asked the c.b.o. what will the tax rate have to be on my children when they're my age ising their children if we just raise taxes to athleticism this problem? that will take us a while to figure out. we have an intergenration 58 accounting model. we can do that. they got back to me. here's what they said, the lowest income bracket that lower income pay which is 10% goes up to 25%. middle income taxes goes up 66% and then top tax bracket, one all of the small businesses pay i was talking about goes up to 88%. then in the next sentence the c.b.o. said this could have negative effects on the economy at that time. they did it there at c.b.o.

their model forecast comet going forward. their model a year ago crashed in 2054 because the computer simulation couldn't envision any way in which the economy could continue because of debt. this year the computer crashes in 2037. our governmeneconomic estimators conceive of a way in which oueconomy can continue past that year. when our children are in the midst of the prime of their lives. they're telling us without a shred of doubt that we are giving the next generation an inferior standard of living, lower living standards, less prosperity. we've never done that before. look, you know, like the ryans here, my family came when they stopped growing potatoes in ireland and made a go of it. earth movers in southern wisconsin and northern illinois. and made something of ourselves. each proceeding generation

sacrificed, worked hard, took on challenges whether it was depression, world wars or wa what this is not so the next generation could be better off. that's what we dofment all of the authorities telling us that's not the case anymore. if we don't turn this thing arrange, we will be giving our kids a lower standard of living, less secure, less prosperous america. the point i keep thinking it's not too late to turn this around. we know we can fix it. we want to fix it and that's the whole point. >> last question just to pick up on that point -- [applause] you obviously have a great sense of midwestern ethic and that's why so many people are supportive too. >> it's the packer fan thing. >> the packer fan, we he to work on that part. dog about your political mentors? you mentioned jack kemp earlier in where you derive a lot of your political thinking and authenticity and how it drives

you going forward? >> ideas. i lost my dad when i was a young guy so had mentors in my life. jack kemp and bill bennett were my professional mentors. my mom a big mentor to me. ways a big reader when i was younger. i read a lot of people of chicago. i read gary becker and steegler and all of those guys i grew up on and those ideas. i grew up with aptitude and intest in economics. when you get into public policy, the whole idea to ply to lessons to the problems of the time. 's not as if we have to reinvent the wheel. we know what ideas built this country. freedom, responsibility, limited government, self-determination, all of those things made us great. they will continue to do so. we just have to reapply those founding principles to the problems of our time. that's what we try to do with

is budget and we're going to be fine. that's what makes me sleep soundly at night because i really think americansant america. i don't think they want another country. so it's those mentors and those writers inspired me. i'm a big churchill fan as well. we're in a churchillian moment. it's not a foreign threat. it's an internal threat, it's debt and economic stagnation. i think we will turn it around. i really do. i think this country is not done with exceptionalism. so thanks. >> great, appreciate it. >> thank you.

>> house budget committee chairman paul in yesterday in chicago. he said today he will not be running for the senate seat being vacated by herb kohl. representative ryan says he feels he can have a bigger impact our remaining in his current position rather than running for senate next year. the associated press writes that his decision not to run may open the door for a bid by former wisconsin governor tommy thompson. we were planning to bring you a briefing with the chairman of the joint chiefs and his chinese counterpart. they are meeting today in washington. that news conference has been postponed. if that happens, we will get it to you live or record at -- record if possible. but as of now, that has been

postponed. in about 45 minutes, the senate will dabble in to continue deliberations. before they broke, they approved the nomination of susan carney to the second quarter of appeals. the vote was 71-28. they will return later this afternoon with a bill to curtail tax breaks for the oil industry. a procedural vote on that coming up a 6:15 eastern. you can follow the senate debate when they return at 2:15 on our companion network, c-span2. >> policies and's "washington journal" on twitter -- followed c-span's "washington journal." you can tweak questions to our guests and add comments to the conversation theory did not miss any updates. start your twitter account today at twitter.com/cspanwj. >> this june, the balance

between security and to become the difficulties of a climate change treaty and the limits of international law. your questions for author and university of chicago professor eric posner. live sunday, june 5, on c-span2 's "boaoktv." >> you are watching c-span, bringing a policy and public affairs. every morning, "washington journal," connecting with elected officials, policymakers, and journalists. weeknights, congressional hearings and policy forms. also, supreme court oral arguments. on the weekends, you can see our signature interview programs. you can also watch our programming any time that c- span.org, and it is all searchable on our c-span video

library. c-span -- washington your way, a public service created by america's cable companies. >> former cia director participating in a panel discussion yesterday on whether the u.s. military action in libya is constitutional without an authorization from congress. other panelists include the former deputy 60 -- assistant attorney general in the george w. bush administration, and louis fisher from the constitution project. the event is moderated by the director of the wilson center's congress project, and the discussion is about two hours. >> good afternoon and welcome to the woodrow wilson international center for scholars. i am director of the congress project here and your moderator today. for those of you who are not familiar with the wilson center, and we have quite a few people in our c-span audience that will be watching this also on our website at another time, let me

tell you a little bit about us. the wilson center was created by an act of congress in 1968 as a living memorial to our 20th president. woodrow wilson is still the only president to have earned a phd. he was a professor of history and government before he became a politician in 1910. when he was the president of princeton, he ran for governor of new jersey and one. he served two years in that post and ran for president and serve for eight years. wilson was a great believer in bringing together the scholars and politicians, the thinkers and doers, with the belief that both would benefit from an exchange of ideas on issues of the day, and that is the spirit in which the congress founded this living memorial, rather than just one more marble statue on the mall. we have about 800 meetings a year in this facility. the congress project is just a small drop in the bucket, but we are very pleased with the type of programs we do. we bring together members of

congress, former members, government officials, journalists, and scholars the study congress, and we talk about specific policy issues and how the process plays out on the hill. hopefully, we in light and the public a little better as to how the congress really works. today is the final in a two-year series we have been holding on the general theme of policy- making, the media, and public opinion. next fall, we will launch a new series on congress and foreign policy making, so that should be of interest to many of you, i'm sure. i should mention that the series is sponsored in part by a grant from chevron, for which we are very grateful. today, our program is being co- sponsored by the international securities studies program. thank you very much for cosponsoring. the program today, as you know, is on the subject of congress, the united nations, and the war

power from correa to libya. what prompted this, of course, was the u.s. participation -- first of all, the authorization approving -- approving the authorization in the security council for enforcing a no-fly zone over libya back in march. the president and set up a letter to the congress in compliance with the war powers act, but they can say they are doing that voluntarily because the war powers act is unconstitutional. it was signed into law over president nixon's veto back in 1973. what those presidents have the biggest problem with is the provision that says it they do commit troops to hostilities without authorization of congress or without an imminent threat of attack or attack on the u.s., then they must withdraw those forces within 60 days. that deadline comes up this friday. it will be the 60th day on the 20th of this month. it will be interesting to see

what the president does or whether congress will move in the interim to authorize the continued presence of the u.s. participation in the no-fly zone enforcement. that is what really prompted me to think a bit more about the subject and what our relationship is with international organizations that do use troops from time to time, either for humanitarian or peacekeeping purposes. also, the relationship with congress. the president did not ask congress for authorization for this particular mission. this has been the case in many instances in the past. we have a table in your hand out that points out what some of those instances where, but we are pleased to have a stellar cast, today, you might say, making presentations from their perspectives on this topic of congress, the united nations, and the war power, and we are pleased to have as our keynote speaker, amanda for about 16 years from 1989 to 2004, served

as the representative to the 14th congressional district in florida. very lovely place where he lived. my wife and i visited. he was a member of the house rules committee, which is where i met him, being as that person on that committee. as many of you know, he was also the chairman of the house intelligence committee and from there became director of the central intelligence under president bush from 2004 to 2005, and was appointed under the terms of the new intelligence reorganization as the director of the cia from 2005 to 2006. he currently works on the farm and is also the chairman of the office of congressional ethics, which is an independent bipartisan screening body that the house uses to screen complaints and pass them on to the house ethics committee. so that is keeping him very busy as well. he is chairman of that bipartisan organization. our second speaker today, and you have more details and

biographical information in your hand out, so i will not go into a lot of detail on each of these, but our second speaker is a professor of law at berkeley -- the university of california in berkeley. he has been there off and on, i think, since 1993, but in 1995 and 1996, he served with the senate judiciary committee. in 2005 and 2006, he was at the office of legal counsel and the department of justice, and he is currently a visiting scholar at the american enterprise institute. i think he came from a program there this morning, in fact. but he is the author of several books. one of which is open " the powers of war and peace: the constitution and foreign affairs after 9/11." we have shared also in your hand out a recent op-ed that he did for the "wall street journal" on the case of libya and the president's actions appeared both his statement as a senator and his actions and statements now as president, which i think many of you will conclude after

hearing some of the presentations today, the old washington axiom is alive and well. where you stand depends on where you sit. things look a little different ones you are on the other end of pennsylvania avenue then when you were on capitol hill. our third speaker today i had the pleasure of working with over several decades in the congress. he is a senior specialist in separation of powers for the congressional research service, and he has since retired and is now with the constitution project in washington, d.c. he has also offered more books that i have had a chance to read, but they are all on my shelf, and i have read many of them, including this one, "presidential war power it was called to my attention that i have the 1995 power, and there was a more recent addition in 2004. our fourth speaker is a cleanup hitter, a journalist, who is currently the senior editor for

national security at "congressional quarterly weekly." he had 20 years as a foreign correspondent all over the world for a variety of news organizations -- a.p., the san francisco examiner, "chicago tribune," nbc news, and in such hot spots as the root, and they are all listed in your hand out, but you can see he has been at the center of a lot of action around the world. returned to d.c. in 1990 as the washington correspondent for " the census the examiner began in late march and early april, he did two outstanding cover stories on the whole proposition of congress and the war power and the president looking at it since the libya crisis arose. we are pleased to have jonathan here as our cleanup hitter. with that, i will sit down and turn the microphone over to quarter.

[applause] over to porter goss. >> thank you. this is like church. the applause starts and from the back and comes forward. that makes me feel comfortable. i started on this subject and read the works of these men sitting on this panel, including the works o dpm. i am very impressed, because there is plenty of information. i have come to the conclusion there are more opinions than questions and more questions than answers, and it is not going to end anytime soon. you can probably come bac anytime and have the same discussion. i want to set a context because we will talk about this, in context, the first context, i will make stipulations which i will ask you to agree with. the first is the world is a sorrmess. the second stipulation is we are a superpower.

the third submission is we're gonna to be asked to help out to do all kinds of things. the fourth stipulation is politics are more partisan than they have ever before in my life and perhaps years as well, and we do nothing to doing better than that. we no longer have the old practice of partisan politics stopped at the water's edge. partisan politics have gone global. the last stipulation i would make is something we all have known is relations between congress and that hill will all vote -- always have this version in them, where we cannot decide how many members of a different root committees we will brief from the white house and congress on a given subject or how many we will release classified information to and can have another debate about that and stop legislation from going forward. you can see that evea small minutia of what goes on on that daly relations have great significance. that is since it was meant to b

-- separation of powers. i will ask you to participate for a moment and this is a question i asked every time i speak about which is quite often these days. it is the question -- are we at war? how many people in this room think we are at war? by your neighbor. how many really think we are at war? it is divided. it looks like more think we are at peace. the fact of the matter is we not know whether we really are at war or not because we have not answered all the questions get about what he is that is a war into the's context that i have given you. declaring war is one thing. congress -- we could talk about congress declaring war all along. what do we mean when they declare war? is it an incursion or world war ii or something like that with the next thing has to do when you start talking about things like war, you have to start

looking at things like if we are having a war, who is the enemy? do we have an enemy? can we identify an enemy? a state, a despot, a militant etiology out there, a group of rebels, freedom fighters, pirates off the coast of all of these things suddenly are manifest t us and we try to find out what are we going to do with these people who are making trouble? the next question you have to ask is where is the battlefield. we have come across this one recently -- is the battlefield that we thought we approved in 17 september in 2001 just iraq and afghanistan and that area, or is itlsewhere? it is the battlefield global because what we're doing is fighting an enemy that believes that at least the -- part of the globe is the battlefield, and i

do not think it is restricted to th caliphate part, the people whose not thinking about things the way we see it. where the battlefield, and did you get to the hard part, the part that i have lived, difficult, what are the rules of engagement what are the legal rules? what is the policy that works those are important points because it is no longe a world war ii. we're not in a conventional war. unconventional operations. the idea is no longer go out there and sap the energy costs will to fight. that used to be the way we w on wars. the people we fight against the they say the only way you can stop me is to kill me. if i don't kill myself first with a bomb and but you ought

to. this is different. this is a philosophy that we have got to deal with and think about, and there are not a lot of conventions. we go along and we take a look at the fact that there are big conventional threats out there and you have to be prepared, so maybe me of the old dialogue about war powers is a good dialogue that have. we still have russia, china, we do not know exactly what the future is gone to be, but this might be an area where we have something more conventional in terms of organized militar that we are facing off against. we do not know a lot of things about how we are going about dealing with this enemy. let me take one second to explain. this enemy is a brutal enemy. as the enemy fix on innocents. steny utilizes terror and brutality the score points, and usually penske the most vulnerable -- and usually pits

the most formal targets. they take advantage of our freedoms and decency. they exploit our tolerance of them, and they are not tolerant of us. i'm lking about radical islam, of course. i am not talking about the great religion of the world which is is live. i'm talking about the ones who have hijacked it, and a conclusion is there is complete incompatibility between radical islam and gao-christianity as we know it and understd it in this country. does this matter to us? it does as we start going along. when we start trying to have decisions made about how to go about this war and deal with these kinds of people, we find we have come to unsettled times. we have a lot of a decision,

hesitation, that has been going on for a lot of years now. it goes across the board because this is new. do we treat these guys as lawbreakers who are the combat that? i am in the intelligence business. the idea of mirandizing does not help me with my intelligence mission a lot. you have these things out there that we have got to deal with. perhaps the most lucrative flow of information we have got about the enemy has come from professional interrogation, and i mean professional interrogations, down lawfully and properly. that is for the great body of her mission has led us to the successes we have had and the

protections of america that we have been able to exercise as well. the problem with this is, this is all created now a great debate and we do not know when we talk to our front line up for this whether they are special forces or intelligence agents or people out there. we did not know what to tell them what the rules of engagement are. we end up witsituations like we just had with ubl. shoot him, bring him back here, and deal with the complex problems out there. where do you try him, can you talk to him, what can you do? it is a nightmare. this has become a marty. is in decision has led us to point where we are not getting the best advantage of the sister that confronts us. i would have loved to have had a couple of days with osama bin lawton, questions about his

operatives, where the money come .rom sequoi we're not going to find out all the personal aspects of this that he has engendered with so many others out and about the world today. the last thing that goes on, and when i talk about the decision is congress in its wisdom said the cia is out of control. these weapons of mass cistercian stuff did not do too well. we need a new organization. we will create another organization, and we will overlay it over the cia because they are out of control, and we will call at the directorate of national intelligence, and they will solve the problems and coordinate everything beautifully. that way everybody will share affirmation and nothing can go wrong. it is interesting, the hallmark of intelligence is agility, speaker, to be able to respond

quickly. the whole purpose of the director of national intelligence to coordinate, make terested parties have a chance to look at something. from the time you see your enemy, say i could do something, but i have to go back to washington and get 15 agencies to sign back on it. how long does that take? it is hard to get osama bin lawton or anybody else to stand still for that long. we have created this problem, and if our mission is to find a needle in a haystac the solution is washington, d.c., idea that the way to complete this is at work they did a haystack and pay a lot of money for the they. that is pretty much what we have done with the national intelligence director at the idea. it isupposed to be a smooth functioning coordinated rapid exchange of information. there is that what will benefit

from that. it is far from her. if you doubt it, what the -- one of the other parts of intelligence is sharing information is a no-no. you only share with people who need to know. the trick is knowing with whom you need to share. that is the trick. which he expressed to us that when you decide to open the door and say let's put this up out there for everybody to have a shot at, you see what happens. we have some embarrassment's gone on because of wikileaks, because we have that entsiasm to get that information out and the overview on intelligence and make it work has a downside. something we used to call unintended negative consequences. we got to the next question about congress, and i will try to boithis down to what is the question for congress on war

powers. it is how much blood and pressure for how long is going to bout there. that is what members of congress have to think about and go back talk to the constituents about. you can lead, make people understand what the policy is, u can and line, and do a great job as a representative, but there is a te when you listen at town meetings and what you hear coming back at you is we do not like this. then it becomes we heat this. then it becomes stop that. and then soon we will pick you if you do not get it right. when we talk aboutongress responding and in the transmission to what our great society, the free democratic open society, wants, that is the hallmark of our democracy and freedom, but it is inefficient. congress has to get involved in dealing with these little brushfires, andome of them are big fires the state, that crop

up and say, how do we deal with what the people want, what the administration is what to do, and what is our job? how do we look at the many different things? i would say it is hard to be a member of congress these days. it is not about declaring war. we have not had that situation. limits of the purse, i wiltell you flat out, denying our troops overseas money or armor or anything they need to do their job is an absolute non starter with most of the american public as it should be. the power of the person really is not just in the congressman's hand, it doesn't lie with the people, which is where it should be. as for questions for the president, i would say what the president is looking for and understanding he is not a hill with committees and chairman, and because we have redefined national security, i cannot tell you how many committees and

subcommittees and german and vice chairman and ranking members are involved. it is a long list of people that the president has to take into account when he talks about who does he notifying congress about at he is going to be doing. who does hery to bring in as an assistant to help his cause, and who does he have to andun to get around what he wants to do. the president's goal is can he get done what he wants to get done? that is his issue. i have to deal with this, can get this done, and how wide to get that it's the first question is defend theation, and highs prairie, and we understand that. the question becomes is it necessary that this bill blood? does the british fleet have to be at that riv and the white house burning before we understa we areer attack? do we have to have a 9/11 before we get it so we can say we do something because there is a real threat out there, or can we ok at what is in front of us,

and the most of all decision a president of a united states would have today is making a pre-emptive nuclear strike. a pre-emptive nuclear strike because they had solid intelligence that something was want happen, and all the conventional wisdom and the war said so. you could very easily have a serious miscalculation, and that is one of the great worries in the nuclear world that you have this this calculation. i'm not talking about that. i'm talking about lesser matters. do we commit for some overseas for things like instability? we did not what areas to be embroiled. do we go into countries, bomb belgrade for 72 days because it is the best way to deal with a small problem over there, named milosevic? do we cocoa saw the destruction of commerce problem by doing something about pirates or do we not do something about the pirates pulled it is odd to me that we are not doing more about

the pirates because it seems to me our navy was started because we were trying to do something about pirates. i'm wondering when we are going to do something serious about pirates. are these reasons to launch -- those are imrtant questions that we have not answered yet. there is so much going on, the libyan thing. we have talked about that. is it possible that people who are yearning for freedom and reaching out and so forth- i give you a situation where an authoritarian relatively evil dictator, even though he poses as a democrat, is developing a nuclear weapon siegele, providing technology that works, and propagandizing heat against americans -- is thaa reason to do is something? that is iran today. shall we acknowledge that or do

something about if they are reaching out for freedom in egypt, libya, everywhere, which ones do we help, and on the basis of what, and who makes that decision? you could down the line in using, if we went to libya to stop a bloodbath, why aren't we doing something in damascus what are we letting assad get away with shooting his own people? you go into these questions. these are very difficult questions, and when do we commit the force of the united states, because we can. we're the only force out there that can do that. they get to that extent. just for humanitarian causes -- should we commit for humanitarian causes ?

shame on america for sitting on its hands when that was happening. why weren't we they're protecting those people from those of extraordinary acts of atrocity? i ask the question that way. these are all totally legitimate questions that come right down under the question of who is the the site her? it is now fashionable to talk about regime change. regime change did not use to be t.shionable to talk about ahea regime change might be the reason -- not the legal reason we are in libya -- but the fact is the president said we would like to get rid of that guy, we want regime change.

when we start down this road -- who decides what regimes are ying to be changed? w is king abdullah in saudi arabia ono feel about that? the president in yemen might be useful, but this guy assad would seem to be a candidate, but what are the consequences of whom are making the decisions on regime change? how doou accomplish regime change? what is your equipment to do that. that is going to involve the congress of the united states. then you come to the rest of the question of who is the replacement for this regime change? any idewho will fill the seat? i remember papa doc?

it turns out he was better than some of the people who followed him. finally, the question of who decides all this and who picks and how the regime change happens -- that is a totally legitimate debate for the congress and the president have. the problem is the're usually there is not time and not clarity about how to go forward. we have situations that are new, policy uncertain, and we have a mechanism that is designed for last century. that is a problem, and we cut all go home and not worry about it anymore, thinks colors will ce it, but wrong because will wake up tomorrow morning and figure out there is another challenge. my answer is simple -- there's something called military cia action agent program cooperation. it is -- this is being able to

deal with these brushfires and conflagrations lawfully, with policy, with understanding of members of congress, and you can make it work, can do things in the hours that takes weeks to do if you go to the big box, checking grafts, to safeguard it. i suggest that is the wave of the future, and my advice is to more fully develop that, and my view is that the work on the war powers will be endless because the will never ever be a settling of per. nobody will ever have as much as they deserve or want or need to do their job, so consequeny, everybody's future is going -- is guaranteed for a long time who is involved in this debate. thank you. >> john, you can present from

the podium or at your seat. it is your choice. c-span would prefer you at the podium. >> lou and i agreed to speak at the podium. it is the last thing we will agree to today. i to thank you for joining fort -- for inviting me to join you the wilson said today. this is the 17th anniversary of the date when we first started the bidding war powers, and you will see 17 years that i have not been able to change lou's mind one bit. it is a great pleasure to be here with lou again and with mr. goss, and mr. broder. it is a pleasure to meet you today. i will give you a chance to

leave one wonderland which is the people of republic of berkeley and visit another one which is to come to washington, d.c., and defense the obama administration, which is not a position i'm usually used to being in. i'm happy to do it on this one occasion, although not for reasons that the obama agonists -- obama administration wanted. this friday the 60-day limit will pull on the obama administration, and that is the war powers resolution which says a president cannot have troops abroad in periods or informants of potential hostility for more than 60 days. unless he gets authorization from congress, they have to remove them. that means the libyan intervention is this friday. i think this puts president obama in a very tough position of his own creation.

when he was campaigning for the presidency at the end of 27, he told a press and there was a nice piece that had a quotation, he said, of what the president does not have power under constitution to authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an imminent threat to the nation." i would think as a candidate, president obama would have to think that the libyan intervention will be unconstitutional as of this friday. unless somebody here who thinks that the civil war going on in libya actually constitute some kind of threat to the country, i do not think it is, and i have not heard people make that argument, but that would be the only way that would be consistent with his earlier statement. i will say, when he took office, his views on executive power have changed, not just in areas

that -- most prominently in the areas mr. goss referred to, issues on terrorism, where many people have criticized by many people agree his policy started out very different from the former administration, and now they have circle back to be similar to the bush administration. let me read you the sentence from his letter that he sent to the congress reporting to the . " i have directed these actions pursuant to my constitutional authority to condu u.s. foreign relations and as in chief. of candin

i am providing this report to keep the congress fully informed and consistent with the war powers resolution." he did not say he was acting in pursuant to it. this ithe same language ever president has used since it was passed because every president has taken the position that the war powers resolution does not constrain their ability to use force of rot. what is going to happen on friday it does not look like he is on to receive any. it does not look like congress is gone to spend a funding bill. he will somehow how have to withdraw our operations, which i think would be quite q -- which would do a harm to the nato alliance, and britain and france would have a reason to be upset

for leaving them in the lurch, or he will take the position of president before him since nixon that the war powers resolution is an unconstitutional restriction on the set of bridgett's abity to use force abroad. in the paper they're spending all kinds of tricks to get out of this. it is suggested that the president is thinking of stopping the war for a day and restarting it. the president loves basketball, but it does not work that way. when it comes the war powers, people talkbout withdrawing but leaving an american command and control of the lovely, because that is what mr. goss refer to, in the past, nato has had trouble controlling these operations without command and control. where still telling the british and french were to drop the bombs. is that not going to be war?

in the time remaining, i would like to make the case that the president has the authority to continue the war and does not need congress' permission. congress could cut off funding and in with and tomorrow if it wanted to do that, but i do not think congress will do that. congress will do what it is done in these situations, which is do nothing. the salsa dance. he says you go to the left, right, and you are in the same place he arred in. the same idea? congress is not going to do it in living, but it gives congressmen and congresswomen the ability to criticize the president. what they do not want to do is take responsibility for the decision. the safest thing is not to take a vote at all and that the

president the other on a limb. three basic ways to interpret the constitution. most lawyers agree with its factionalism, and original -- functionalism. functionalism advises the courts to defer to the arrangements that have been arrived at for exercising powers. it is the great justification for the delegation of power for the administration state from congress. here it is functional and it is hard to say the should overtur what had been decades, if not centuries, a practice where presidents have used force without any congressional permission, and waited afterwards for congress to authorize it, not provide funding, but the congress' role

has been usually to give permission afterwards. the reason why is because congress' incentives are not to take any role before the war starts. i would say that the nationalism and an-- fu nctionlism -- the threat environment has chand. you could say maybe the constitution originally had a system in place to prevent the president from engaging in adventurism. i think that would be called the error, designed to prevent mistakes being made from commission. type two errors, mistakes of

omission. rwanda is a type two error, because we did not do anything. thousands and thousands of people were killed because -- obviously if the world war i generation, the great mistake was not stopping hitler and japan. with the threat environment of terrorism and nuclear proliferation and human rights crises, our president and congress have moved to a system where the president can act quickly, rather than a system that slows down how fast the country can act, which is why we have a standing peacetime army for the first time in our history, one that if you look at it is built undertake offensive operations in other people's countries, not to defend the territory of the united states. second example, textualistm --

what can you learn by reading the text of the constitution? it is not that clear. the president and congress have to share pow, appointments, treaties, it has a detailed provisions explaining how it is the happen. this is not the point mr.'s was making, but there is constitutional basis on it, because the constitution this is a party to the president and congress and expects them to fight it out. does not create settled congress ident goes and present this a second. the constitution is silent. the reason why that i is because in the constition

there is a procedure for going to war that is detailed and specific. it does not apply to the president. it applies to states. for some reason i always thought that this is the most clever thing i ever found in the war powers area because i was reading my constitution in my office, you all have your heritage foundation constitution is on you, and look for any mention of war, and i found this provision that people never read about, which is about states making w. it says the state shall without the consent of congress engage in war. the framers wanted to have subjected the present to the same limits, they could have copied that language and apply it to the president, then they had something for sudden attacks. even though the constitution does not say that, if you think you have to declare war first, paone unless the states were

actually invaded or uttered danger that would not have allowed eight the lake. they knew exactly how to write a constitutional provision for that. if they want to have that same process, why did they not copy the same language? they created a different kind of process to be bui on potical fighting between the executive and legislative branches. i am at the end of my time, and i what to wrap up my time. you think that the people are wrote the constitution should understand it to govern, what was the practice of making war

at the time of the riding of the constitution. here i will point out a lot of other arguments. article 1, section 8 -- which is what everyone says congress can declare wars, it is not a domestic provisioned about who ts to decide whether to go to hostilities. it has another purpose of what is the state of our international relationships. the reason i think the original case for that is, go back and look at when wars were declared in the 18th century. we got the idea from great britain. it gave the power to declare war to the british crown. if you go back and look, the declare war power was not seen as some kind of domestic provision, it was about notifying the other country were

at war. i think one way to check that is, when did they declare war in the 18th or 17th century. i went back and looked. in only one war of all the wars that britain fought in the 1600's and 1700's, and there were almost that were more often than peace, they only declared war and once before hostilities broke out. it seems to me the original understanding was not that you need to declare war first before you could have hostilities. to me, the ratification debates were funding powers. when the constitution is challenged during its ratification, is giving power to the president and more time. the defenders of the constitution said it will work like it has in england. in england, it is the power by

the purpose, not any other formal powers we are talking about today. i will conclude by saying that it seems to me we have had many decades now since world war two, i would say earlier, at least since the korean war tha we have had without congressional permission. that have worked out the arrangement. if you work or to overthrow the decades of practice, you ought to have 100% certainty that you are right about the constitution. in my view,here are a lot of arguments that point in the other direction. the last people i think will decide this in our lifetimes is the supreme court of the united states. they have avoided this question like the plague. i am afraid that means it will really get fought out on panels like this. there will not be any permanently winning party. thank you very much. [applause]

>> john and i talked earlier that our first contact with his article in 1996 in the california law review. if you look at the people that johnson's thank you for looking at the draft, lou fisher is there. i did not keep my notes from the time. but i would suspect at that time, we differ radically. if john was to make the case that after world war ii, we are moving in some kind of fashion, i think the facts would support him. where we differ fundamentally is the period from 1787 up until world war ii, or the framers knew all about marquee and it rejected it. -- monarchynd rejected it.

i am going to focus on authorization. president obama says the authorization for the war in libya comes from the security council. you have to ask yourself, what kind of the system is that where the president does not come to congress for authority. i will say fm 1789 up until 1950, that is the korean war, over the period, every major war the president either came to congress for a declaration or came authorization. all of them were either acted by statute, authorization or declaration, and there is nothing unusual about that.

in 1798, it was authorized by about 20 stat sheet. everybody knew they were born to go to war against france. that got to the supreme court. ople say the supreme court does not get involved in war issues. they left it up to congress. alexander -- alexander hamilton said it one of the federalist papers. this occurred -- the supreme court's authorization, that is what we did. john talked about defense of acts, the framers understood that at the philadelphia convention. they recognize that when congress is not in session, the presidt may have to repel certain attacks. that was understood. but to go from defense operation into office operation to take

the country from a state of peace into a state of war against another country, that was done either by a declaration or authorization of congress. always. a couple of sentences from president obama. he talked to the nation on march 28 about libya. he says that the united states hadone what we said we would do. the united states? no, president obama. congress has nothing to do with it. courts have nothing to do with it. president obama is the united states he didn't talk about some supporting institutis. had a unique opportunity to stop the violence. a broad coalition prepared to join us. the suprt of arab countries, a

plea from the libyan people themselves. completely missing from this picture is congress and the american people. "history has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the legislative branch. it is always preferable to have the conformed consent of congress prior to any military action." and we can start to talk about how the constitution is structured to go to war. the framers knew all about the executives not just holding all of the war power but foreign

affairs. that is what john locke would have supported. the better to of powers is what we would call the foreign affairs. john locke had this totally in the executive branch. the legislative had no role at all. the framers knew that model. william blackstone and his commentaries did the same thing. look at these powers, blackstone give them all to the executive. that would include the power to declare war. blackstone gave the executive power to make treaties, declare war, appoint ambassadors, raise and support armies and navies, power over the military regulations, the power to issue

letters, mainly to have private citizens help in military activity, then look at the u.s. constitution. it is very clear. the president does not receive one of those powers. not a single one. they either give them expressly to congress and article 1, or he has to share them with the senate. so the framers knew of that model, and for many reasons spelled out -- he said,, "the president will have all the qualities, but will not make war but support it." you cannot give that power to the president in a small "r" republican government. that goes for the people. it is not for the president.

a lot of people have viewed the federalist papers. one that does not get attention is no. 4. if anybody would have been sympathetic to a strong executive role in foreign affairs, it would be john jay. that was his specialty. listen to this language. he expresses here what the amers learn when they studied all the other constitutions and histories and experiences. he said ," absolute monarchs for often make war, the nation ought to get nothing by it. but for purposes nearly personal such as a thirst for military glory, revenge for personal friends, or support for their particular families.

he's in a variety of other motives often leads him to engage in war is not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of the people." i would say particularly after world war ii when we have gone into war is not declared, we have gotten to a succession of wars that are costly to the nation. so i do not think any of us would say, oh, what ever the framers believed, we should follow. the framers got a lot of things wrong including slavery, not giving women the right to vote. on this one, not putting it to the president in one voice, the framers got that right then. what they thought in the 18th century applies even more, to me, now, in the 21st century.

let us look at the korean war. the same thing that obama did going to the security council to get authorization or harry truman did in 1950. my paper has a lot of details on this. the u.n. charter never gave the power to go to war to the security council as an authorizinbody. you cannot do that. the un charter is a treaty that the president and the senate cannot give away article one powers to an outside body. it is impossible argument. the un charter di not do that. the un charter had no police force. the only way the security council could call upon a military force would be to have

the nation's who belong to the un contribute troops, equipment, and anything. they would do that. it meant that every nation who would do that would have to look at their own system and see wt the constitutional process was. at that time, when the senate was debating the the u.n. charter. truman who wasn't pakistani, he pledged to the senate "when any such agreement or agreements are negotiatedith the security council, it will be my purpose to ask the congress for appropriate legislation to approve it. everybody knew it. they did not go on the basis of truman's pledge, it put that in law. the un charter would be implemented by the u.s.

participation act of 1945. it is that these agreements should be subject tthe approval of congress by join resolution. i have in my paper the background of what happened to woodrow and wilson, the league of nations, the got into fights over reservations having to do with war power. wilson knew there was nothing objectionable to the lodge, reservation on war. he got into a personal dispute. as the newspaper says, he strangled his own child. everybody in the un charter new ite the united states did not join the league of nations. we want to make it very clear that congress only has the as we all know, five years later, truman goes to war, never comes to congress for authority.

dean acheson, secretary of state, said that truman had done his "utmost to uphold the sanctity of the charter of the united nations and the rule law ." in fact, truman violated his own pledge that he had made five years earlier. i am sure some you rememberhat he was asked i think you know what he said. he said he would call it a police action. secretary of state madeleine albright was asked by a student, how can the president go to war against iraq without authorization from congress?

she said you have to understand the rms. this is not war. it is military operations. they all make it very clear that for some reason, war they know is congressional, and they will call it athing other, humanitarian intervention. it was released on april 1. you can delay it by a day or two. i don't know why you have to go out on april fools' day with a legal analysis. one of the things i have not seen by any legal analysis yet that obama was justified in using military force against libya, because after the security council passed the resolution and libya

did not comply with this in full, then obama had to use military force against libya because otherwise, the credibility and reputation of the securi council would be damaged. we care more about the reputation and credibility of the security council at than the u.s. constitution and the u.s. congress. that is a new one to me. john is probably right. there are hints of that in earlier documents -- earlier documents from the administration. coressional support for the war in libya -- on march 1, 2011, the u.s. senate passed by unanimous consent senate resolution 85.

a senate resolution is not legally binding, it is just from one chamber. toward the end, it talks about the no-fly zone. that is a big deal, military activity. unanimous consent, that is really something. what picture do get from that? all the senators out there on the floor debating this an so forth, and there is not one person opposed. i go into detail here in my paper as to what that was. it was introduced on march 1. passed on mah 1, and the early version had nothing there about the no-fly zone. you can watch it on c-span.

senator schumer is handling it. senate action starts at 4:13 a ends at 4:19. no hearings, no committee report. it was just brought up. the no-fly zone was not there originally. when was it added? about 10 mutes before shimmers update, this is added. then there is a senate procedure called hot lining where when something is shooting through like a senate resolution, you tell the senate leadership what you are doing by automated phone call or by e-mail and people say there is nothing in the offline procedures to say we just added on a no-fly zone. nothing like that at all.

watching c-span, it could be anybody on the floor except center schumer and the presiding officer. no one objected, possibly because there was nobody there to object pick the senate deliberations took less than a minute. i would just end with this. presidents do have discretion to use military force without prior congressional authorization such as repelling such attacks, rescue american citizens. that h nothing to do with what happened in libya, no connection. america was not threatened or attacked by libya. obama has called the military

operation a humanitarian intervention that serves the national interest. one person decides what is in the national interest. launching hundreds of tomahawk missiles, bringing air strikes in hopes of helping all liberals under throw gaddafi, that is war. under the u.s. constition got there is only e source for authorizing war. it is congress. to restore constitutional government, if that is what you want, other countries should take up democracy and self- government if you want it here, some say. the public has to be willing to coro president to commit troops to foreign wars without seeking legislative authority.

i am not calling for impeachment hearings, but i will say no action by president would more warrant impeachment and removal than usurping the war power from congress and undermining representative government and the syem of checks and balances. members of congress need to understand their institutional duties and those of constituents who brought them to washington d.c. they take an oath to support and defend the constitution, not the president and not the supreme court. thank you. [applause] >> walz jonathan is coming to the microphone, i will say that i was watching hillary clinton on a sunday talk show just after we began the bombing, and she said the senate had voted unanimously for a resolution calling for enfcement of a no- fly zone. i was surprised to hear that, so i went and looked it up.

the paragraph says "including the possible imposition of a no- fly zone over libyan territory." >> thank you very much for inviting me to this. as don mtioned, i spent quite a few years is a foreign correspondent, mostly in the middle east, about 20 years there. when i came back to washington and beg to work for congressional quarterly, my editor said that, given your background, probably the best way to approach covering congress, and i had never cover congress before, she said the best way to approach congress is to look upon cgress as like a foreign country. it has its own language, its own rules, its own culture, and has its own traditions of behavior,

which we have heard some of from the previous speakers. i would like to drill down and focus on one of those characristics of congress. that is that they tend in these kinds of situations where they have to make a decision on military powers, they tend to sort of punt on these things. as john said and as congressman goss mentioned, the idea of the 60-day limit, the idea of cutting off funds to troops that are already in the field clearly is a no-no, and is never going to happen. as don pointed out in one of the papers that you have in your

packet, congress does not like to take positions on military issues where military defeat is a possibility. they don't want to be on the record. it is much easier to criticize from the sidelines, and what i would like to discuss today is, we have heard very good arguments for andgainst the war powers act, whether it is constitutional or not, from mr. fisher and from mr. yoo. probably the most important advice that we have all heard here today comes from congressman goss. he represents not so much that the radical or the academic, but he represents the empirical.

in other words, he was a congressman, head of the cia, he has dealt with these situations. as a journalist, my inclination is to listen to those who do, rather than those who teach. since this whole war powers issue has come up in libya, and i will restrict my remarks to libya, you see the perfect example of congress being all over the map on this thing, and they really look like they are doing a lot, but in fact they are going 60 miles an hour but really standing still. we have this deadline on friday,

anas others have said, the 60- day deadline comes due on friday and we will have to see what the president does in terms of going forward with military action or ending its or seeking authorization. we do not quite know yet what he will do, but i will address what i think is going to happen. right now, we have a bill that has been written up by senators mccain, kerry and levin, respectively the ranking republican on the armed services committee, the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, and the chairman of the armed services committee. what this bill would do would basically arthritis ex post

facto the american military operation in libya. mccain, who i have talked to about this, he agrees with john when he says i don't even think that the war powers act is constitutional. to followat he needs this deadline or come to congress. if such legislation would be needed, we have drafted it, the three of us and here it is, you can use it. so is ready to go, should the president need its or should harry reid believe that the president needs it. not all republicans agree with cain on this. the party is split within the republican party. you have centered john cornyn of texas. he has introduced a bill that

calls on the president to provide congress with a detailed description of u.s. policy objectives in libya both during and after gaddafi's rule. the cornyn bill would also require the president to provide congress with his plan to achieve those objectives and it would require the president to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force in libya. there is another proposed republican resolution on libya in the senate. th one is a non-binding senate resolution authored by the recently departed senator john ensign of nevada. this resolution declares is not in the vital interest of the united states mitary to be in libya and the job should be done by nato and the arab league. it does not address the fact that the united states is a key member of nato.

the house alsos has several pieces of libya related legislation, but both parties in that chamber are just as divided as they are in the senate. last week, the house foreign affairs committee marked a resolution by oklahoma republican tom cole that directs the secretary of state to provide the house with copies of any documents, records, memos, correspondence that deals with the white house is consultations with congress on libyan operations. last week the house armed services committee marked of the second bill that directs the penton to provide the same materials. i think we can see where congressman coal is going with that. there is another two republican measures that express the sense of congress that the president should adhere to the war powers

act and obtain specific authorization from congress to use force in libya. one more republican measure would require the president to recommend specific reductions in non security discretionary spending in fiscal 2011 to offset the costs of the libyan operation. that measure is now before the house armed services and the budget committee. despite all the grumbling about the president's acting in libya without first consulting congress, despite all the measures that have been introduced, house republican leaders have resisted holding any votes on the authority to bomb libya. as i said before, the reasofor this i will defer to our moderator who wro last month ", when congress is confronted with exercising its war powers under the constitution, it is

also a sidestep, four steps left and four steps to theight and a lot of swaying back and forth. this is especially true special request to use force. members of congress prefer avoiding political risk when military failure is possibility." interestingly, the anti-war democrat, dennis kucinich of ohio, says that he will force a vote on ending the u.s. mitary operation in libya when the house returnsrom its weeklong recess next week. as soon as congress returns, he says he will introduce a bill pursuant to the war powers act to halt american military participation in the nato-led libya campaign. if the house foreign affairs committee does not take up this bill within 15 legislative days

, it could then move directly to the floor for debate and of boat under the war powers act. that ought to be interesting. the white house says it welcomes congressional input on the war in libya, but like previous administrations, officials hedged on whether the president needs congressional authorization to maintain military operations there after this deadline expires on friday. meanwhile we hear that the house is considering two possible options that officials there say would keep president obama in compliance with the war powers act. these are the things that john mentioned earlier. one would involve halting all the operations for the day wore a short time, and then they start the clock all over again. or, halting just used of predatory drone missiles, which is really the only offensive

combat weaponry are using right out in libya. stop using those, and therefore we are technically in compliance that we stop combat operations. those are the options that we hear the administration is considering. there is also the option of simply saying we think it is unconstitutional and we are going to go forward. with american troops involved in this operati, and was so much prestige on the line, realistically it is not likely that we are going to stop our operations there. the only thing that remains a mystery is what the justification would be. that is where things stand on capitol hill regarding libya and the war powers act. i am sure it will surprise none of you, the members of congress are in no more of agreement than

the members of this panel. thank you very much. [applause] >> what i would like to do before we open up to questions from the audience is to give our panelists a chance to follow up on any comments that were made after they had a chance to speak. >> i appreciate the comments about the scar tissue had picked up over the years, and is accurate. there is plenty oft. we just have a couple of things going here. we are talking about this power, but the other aspect is even more important, given the way the landscape looks today. it would be wonderful if we could figure out the procedures we were going to use to grant the authorities and everything ahead of time, but i have great faith that presidents in this country and the people of this country will tolerate a

president who does the right thing for the united states of america. that is not written down and is not in the constitution. it is just something you take on faith, because we are an extraordinary country and i tend to feel we will get it right. i don't think we will ever sort all this out, because when you go through all the details, there are so many wonderful arguments. you can go out and take a stand of -- on an issue, but you cannot tell everybody how you are going to vote on everything. you do not know because you don't know what the vote is going to beat. -- what the vote is going to be. you were born to do what is best for that nation d the people at home and abroad.

-- you are going to do what is best for the nation. it is a dangerous world and we aren't the people who deal with most of these problems -- we are the people who deal with most of these oblems. whether we saw this to everybody's satisfaction, i am not worried. what i am worried is that we step back from the authority to do what is best for the rest of the world. i cannot talk abo something called drones. that is a classified matter and i am not allowed to talk about classified things. if there were such things as drones, it would not surely substitute for the debate we are having, because is a drone of targeted assassination? is using a drone that will probably get you some collateral damage better than a sniper, troops on the ground, or

something else? these are all very legitimate debates but it comes dow to the same thing every time. it is the judgment based on the good, moral value of doing right and wrong in doing the right thing for this country. that is where i would always want to end up in the debate like this, because you are never going to resolve the fction on the hill, and i don't think we should. what would you do all day if we did? >> there has been some progress in 17 years. i agree that the un security council's authorization cannot replace what is required under the constitution for domestic authorization of work. even i the un charter has said it was doing that, it cannot replace whatever our domestic

ocess is for deciding on more. i did not go into with great detail, but there is a separate part of it. if you look at the opinion, it makes a claim that it libyan intervention is not a war under the constitution. it says that congress's power to declare war is not triggered because what we are doing in libya does not constitute war because it is too small because there are noround forces involved. this is similar to the rationale used in the clinton in ministration for the haiti and in kosovo operations. it does not draw a distinction between gund troops and air wars. it would be a great surprise to

muammar gaddafi who is currently trying to hide from these mysterious flying objects that we cannot confirm the is -- the existence of that we are not in war in libya. i don't think -- think about that military operational incentives this creates. presidents are just going to over use airpower even when it does not make sense. that might be part of what happened in rwanda. there are plenty of areas of disagreement. i quite agree that when the americans wrote the cstitution that they were anti-monarchical. but historians say is that in the time betwe the revolution and writing the constitution,

there was a view that it had gone too far, that our framing generation had gone to far over to the legislature. if you look at the state constitutions, there were provisions that said only the legislature can authorize war and the governor cannot carry it out unless he receives legislative approval. look at people like gordon wood it was a fellow here several years ago and other scholars of the revolutionary period. they say the framers wanted to -- they thought we had gone too far in the other direction. the other thing about offensive versus defensive force is whether that line really makes sense. if the constitution allows for a unilateral presidential action for defensive force but not offensive force, what about

anticipatory self-defense? what about when you attack because you think the other person is about to attack you? there was and is a pejorative sense about weapons of mass destruction -- anticipatory self-defense in iraq. the last thing i will touch on it is the thingr. goss mentioned, which is consequences. if we do have a choice of systems, which system actually results in the best outcome for the united states and the world? people who have set up the national security system we have to date for making decisions are shaped by the world's warii

experience. if the united states and executive branch had been able to act faster, that we might have been able to ensure the war faster and that hitler would have been brought down a lot earlier. it is not the case that requiring the president and congress to agree on everything produces better results for the country when it comes to foreign affairs. loss of wars have been bad for the country where the president and congress agreed, where congress was pushing for war and the president was reluctant. >> office of legal counsel, legal memo. "since at least the korean war,

the u.s. does not asecognized the continued existence of the united nations as an effective international organization is of paramount uned states interest." what is this language here? the u.s. government has not recognize that. some people in the executive branch recognize that. on some days you are speaking for the united states. that is what you do on the executive side. i think john would agree that what it does is the typical laundry list, the report that -- none of those have anything to do with libya.

hardly any of them have anything to do with the security council resolution. here is an example. robert jackson, former attorney general and justice of the supreme court, saying the president's authority has long been recognized as extending to the dispatch of armed forces outside of the united states, either o missions of goodwill or rescue or for the purpose of protecting american lives or proper or american interests. of course that has nothing to do with libya. a law professor about three or four weeks ago in an analysis of the memo said that the department's sweeping support for independent presidential power derives primarily from

unrelated dicta pled contexture leave from apposite cases. two other point, i think about five or six weeks ago the house armed services held a hearing on libya, and i watched it. it was a pretty important hearing. secretary gates was their ad admiral mullen, the chair of the joint chiefs. one of the house members asked date if some nion came to our short can sent tomahawk missiles into new york city, would that be war? gates said something like probably so. we can guess what the next question is. when the united states since some of missiles into libya, is

that war? gates says i am not a constitutional law person, that is too complicated. i think the kucinich action makes procedurally more sense than some of the other things. he used that procedure with regard to afghanistan, but that was authorized. >> it is only supposed to be used if congress doe not authorize the action. in this case, technically it is available but it is a concurrent resolution which the supreme court would say is unconstitutional because it affects parties out of the congress. it does not go to the president for his signature. this goes back to 1983 decision on an immigration matter. >> on cause of all, that was one

of the stran things. -- on kosovo. clinton goes to nato and under that procedure, he has to get approval from belgium, luxembourg, italy, germany, bu not from congress. but when the house and senate debated it, it debated house concurrent resolutions, which has no legally binding meaning at all. at least the current one is not authorized. it iexactly what the war powers resolution had in mind. >> thank you very much. jonathan, anything you want to follow up on? >> there is the world of laws

and treaties and the fine print, and then there is the way the world really works. often they do not match up together. there are two definitions of diplomacy. one is, the art of letting the other guy have your way. that is one definition. another definition is, the art of saying nice doggie until you can find a rock. this whole discussion about war powers and what happened in libya, you cannot divorce the president's decisn, and we do is let him to make decisions and to make tough calls in difficult times. that is what an election is really about. you nnot divorce that from what else was happening in e middle east previous to libya.

i live in the middle east for 20 years. 1970-1990. i saw a lot of wars and a lot of liberation movements and i saw lot of terrorism, but i never saw anything like what we are all seeing right now in egy, tunisia, syria, and all these places. the era of awakening, these are historic times. is is as historic as the collapse of the ottoman empire after world war i. it is comparable to the berlin wall coming down. prior to the demonstrations in libya, you had the revolution in egypt, the largest arab country.

you had the fall of mubarak. relatively peacefully. i think a total of 800 people died, largely at the hands of the secret police, but the army did not get involved. that is a very big deal. you had to need to that preceded egypt, and that ignited the protests in egt. now you have egypt here and tunisia here. what is in between them? libya. libya is the bridge between those two countries. i was not in the room when the president decided this, none of us were, but i would imagine that anybody who knows the middle east that was briefing him would tell him that what happens in libya can affect the success or failure of the revolutions in egypt and tunisia. tunisia may not be as important, but egypt is really important. anchor of pro-ge

western, modern arab politics in the middle east. after the revolution it may not be as pro-american as it was, but we are not talking about iran here. but egypt has certain elements that we have to hope will not take power. a lot of this is out of our hands. you have to at least tryo rect things if you possibly can in a direction that is most advantageous to u.s. intests. yes, it is true that if you take the view that mr.isher does that you cannot go to war without some authorization from congress, and if you are going to go to war, as we did with

libya, and i can say that firing tomahawk missiles into libya from off the coast is an act of war, i think you have to consider -- you could look it that for the world of legal documents and treaties, which i am not saying they are not important. they provide order in the world. but there are more things going on here than just war powers. there is a u.s. foreign-policy considerations in the broader middle east which have to be taken into account. you do have to take those into considerion. >> i think the president's letter and his address indicated stability in the region, but the larger issue was the possible humanitarian disaster that would ensue if there were aassacre that did take place. i think the three players that were most influential were those

who were around at the time of rwanda, and that weighed heavily. i am talking out hillary clinton, susan rice, and samantha power who was writing about it at the time. starttake questions and out with the lady next to marty. >> i have two questions. i am a professor at george mason university. my question is, didn't congress by passing the war powers resolution violates the constitution in away, because they have -- only congress has the right to declare war. i think it is a ridiculous piece

of regulation. they are giving themselves 60 days. you can blow up the world in two days, so giving them 60 days is ridiculous to a member of the public like myself. i am a child of the vietnam era. it seemed to me also that if you had required -- if congress would real doing its job and a pole in his responsibility to declare war, you might have had more public support for this particular war. has anyone done a study correlating in recent times the growth of executive power and the unpopularity of force? i think vietnam was theirst war that i remember -- we have had a series of unpopular wars, protest, aside from kucinich.

i just wonder if anybody has correlated that. >> i think the war powers resolution is a fundamentally dishonest statute. yet to make a compromise between house andenate and you go to conference committee. something says 90 and something says something else, you can do something else in the middle without violating the constitution. what came out of conference committee was a bastard because section 2 of the war powers resolution says this cortex the framers intend and ensures collective judgment. obviously it does not do that. it opens the door for presidents to go to war on their own for up to 60 to 90 days. it hasothing to do with collective judgment. it is a very dishonest -- this

came at the end of the vietnam era. i think they made a mistake by saying they are asserting themselves. they are surrendering their powers. i think members of congress felt under pressure to do something, and this is what we got. it is a terrible, terrible statute. >> i agree it is a bad statute for other reasons. i agree if you had pro-congress reviews, why cannot congress delegate its authorities to the president? i would say we tolerate those delegations and lots of areas in domestic life. is the delegation more unconstitutional than a lot of the other ones we allowed to go

on every day? on vietnam, i quite take your point. even if you had my view, you still want to get congressional approval. we did recommend that the president get approval for afghanistan and iraq. there is a weird phenomenon where a congress asked us to draft statutes for them authorizing the wars in afghanistan and iraq. it did not happen in the house, it only happened in the senate. when i went around and visited senators, the major theme i heard was, why are you making us vote on this? they did not want to vote on the iraq war if they could help it. the president more often than not would like to get congressional approval. political incentives are such they do not want to vote on it. vietnam was different. there are many people who criticize war powers who think

vietm was constitutional because of the gulf of tonkin resolution. some say lyndon johnson lied to get them to pass the statute. every year there were significant increases in the military voted by congress and appropriations. the president and congress agree on vietnam for a long time, and congress acted every year. how did the vietnam war end? congress cut off funding, and the war ended just like that. sometimes we confuse lack of political will for some kind of constitutional defect. i think the house and senate just did not want to use that ample powers they had in vietnam. >> nixon said it was unconstitutional, and that is why he vetoed it, but for a

different reason than you indicate. i do not think it says the president can do anything he wants for 60 days. it just as the constitutional powers of the president to introduce troops -- hostilities may only be exercised pursuant to a declaration of war or national emergency created by an attack upon the united states, its territories or its armed forces. it does not say the president is authorized for 60 days to go anywhere he wants and do anything he wants. >> i forgot to mention, i tnk obama does not withdraw this friday, he would be the first president to actually be clearly in violation. even in kosovo, and there was a special appropriations bill, and the clinton administration said

by passing that bill and giving us money, you have approved it. this friday will be the first real test if the president just says i am going to blow through the first 60 days. >> when we look at vietnam, and since then wars haveeen generally unpopular, i do not think the intensity has been the same since we got rid of the draft. >> i was chief counsel of the committee when the marines went into lebanon i1993. i think there is a misunderstanding about the purpose of the war powers t. it ito make congress register its will. it is a -- my question is why does that procedure not provide precisely what you want to have happen? you want to give the president powero act in an emergency under his judgment.

when he react without authorization, we want congress to come in and say, do we agree with this or not? it would be unconstitutional to say that a no vote would require him to remove the troops. this is a political matter. you want congress to stand up and say, are we with you or are we against you? the war powers act provides exactly that proceeds you -- procedure. congress voted to support that partular action and that probably should have voted against it. but congress registered its view. it wouldave a significant effect on presence deciding whether to go or not. constituents want to know, where do you come down on this issue? do you support the president or

not? this procedure allows that. >> every president at election time will say i am not about to send american troops into a war. fdr did that in 1940. lyndon johnson did it in 1964. presidents note going into war is not a signal to send at election time. the problem with the war powers resolution, congress has to act. once the present engages in military activity, all the arguments that we all know will come up. it cannot cut off funds with dark men and women in combat. -- cannot cut off funds with our men and women in combat. once you are allowed president to go out and take the initiative, your opportunity as

a legislative body is pretty well taken away >> you are saying congress has not provided the president with the obvious tools that they want him to use in case of an emergency or where he thinks the national interest is at stake? you want congress to say that in a given situation, we do not like that one. he is in a much different position. texas from his position for congress's en the president has to go and get authority. >> it is in order, you have to vote on it. >> i think technically in terms ofhe statute, i would agree with you, but i do not think it is going to work that way. you cannot force congress to do anything it do not want to do.

>> it takes precedence in both houses, so they have to vote. >> we will see. >> there is a congressional response to this. it covers all the bases. members of congress do not want to be painted into a corner about events they cannot foresee. it is not going to work, because they will do a work around. i assure you, there is more energy expended -- they can find more ways to get the impossible accomplished. >> they have given it to him when it was not authorized by the actual statute because they wanted people to have an outlet. it did g a vote, but it could have been blocked just as easily. this gentleman right here.

>> i thought a lot of the questions brought up today were very important. the practical aspects of at the end of the day, everyone can say congress should do this or that, but the practical reality is that they might not do anything. the question i have with regard to this matter is, when we killed osama bin laden, it was done without any congressional authority. it was done because the present did as being highly important u.s. interest that we take care of the matter. often when we engage in conflict, there is always a large debate in the media as to whether we should or shoul not engage. i think that detracts from the

president's ability to go and do as he knows best because of all the intelligence that was passed to him. to what extent should the media -- to what extent shod we entertain dialogue about the moral dilemmas of engaging when the reality is if actions were taken early enough, we are preventing us from being able to act. should we continue to allow mass dialogue to occur or should actions be taken earlier rather than later? >> is basically confronts the libya situation where the rebels have driven into tripoli. we've probably had a good opportunity to take care of libya, but we waited for the un. >> i have not heard one person say that congressional authority

would be required to go after suspected terrorists. no one to my knowledge argues that way. >> i would just say that we have a free pressere. people can say whatever they want as long as it sells advertising. >> i am going to try to get into the title 10-title 50 distinction because it is critical to what is going to happen tomorrow morning when the next situation like this comes along, if we get lucky enough to get good intelligence on more high-value targets. we are talking about a couple of different things here. i would say that what the president did, under the way they conducted the operation on bin laden, he used his title 50 authorities with a lawful finding that had been properly

notified to congress. that was supported by special operations forces under title 10, but the delegated authority under title 10 went to the title 50 authority, which was superior in th matter, and the president was covered by the finding on this. what is different about pakistan, for the first time in my living memory, a covert operation is called a covert operation for a simple reason. there is always plausible deniability. within 3 seconds of the time obama was that -- osama was dead, everybody puts their hand up and said we did it. what we have now done is taken a tool with a very good arrangement with the defense and

intelligence people to take action on actionable targets, and we have now screwed up another mechanism which we are going to need tomorrow morning. thatoncerns me a great deal, and i am surprised nobody brought it up. >> i think the legality of the strike is based on the 9/11 resolution that was passed on september 18. it does not say he is allowed to attack any responsible for the attacks. the second point about covert action, relating back to the question from our veteran of the war of 1812. the covert action area is an example where you might like what has happened. it is unclear who has the authority to authorize covert action in the first place. i think thomas jefferson is the first president to authorize

some kind of covert activity against the barbary pirates. he did on his own. he asked congress for money and they gave it to him and he did not tell them what it was for. he had to g the funding from congress for it. the way the covert action system works is a good example of congressional-presidential cooperation that is very process oriented. it does not lead to all the recriminations we sometimes get about war powers. congress has to see some kind of finding to get a covert action blessed by congress. it's all built on the funding power. congress says you do not get any money for a covert action unless you tell us about the finding. that system seems to work in a more harmonious way that more powers. it is a good example that

congress can do all this if it wants to. i think jonathan is right that all our focus on the legal issues detracts from the policy choices and the moral choices. having been a subject o this in a smaller way, i think sometimes in the u.s. will allow these arguments about legality to detract one -- from what is a good policy for the united states. just because something is legal does not mean you should do it morally. we get tied up so much in the legality, we tend to forget about whether libya is a good war for the ninth stage, which is a basic question. >> when you are dealing with sovereign nations, territories that are set out, that is one thing. when you are dealing with the group of people that are

wanding around like nomads and looking for sanctuaries and finding mischief, then you have a real problem. how do you bring some kinetic response to control them without getting into a sovereign situation. that is the duty of the title 10-title 50 operation, but it is no good if everybody is saying yes, those are our bombs. we use our military to drop bombs in a foreign country. how would we feel about that? we have trouble with nato overflights here. imagine how we would feel with boots on the ground doing that to american citizens. >> the barbary war is a good example for jefferson did go into that mediterranean. there was military activity. he came back to congress an said what i did over there, and

then he said be on the line of defense, i cannot go. anything of an offensive nature must be authorized by congress. congress passed 10 statutes for jefferson and madison, d there is a senator, when clinton wanted to go into haiti in 1994, the senator said of course he can because jefferson did with the barbary wars. i wrote a paper explaining what jefferson did. a year later, clinton wants to go into bosnia, and the senator says of course he can, thomas jefferson did with the barbary wars. >> the first attack by jefferson was not authorized. you say might have lied to

congress about it, because he had a which authorized naval training exercises, and jefferson ordered them to attack the bar worry pirates which they did, and afterward he reported that our peaceful fleet had been attacked. i think it is an example of the president acting without congressional authorization, but then congress authorized it later. the pirates at the reception. one more question. >> there is a couple of parallel issues. i am thinking of the u.s. army special forces in 1983 in el salvador. they were allowed to be advisers, but could not fire the weapons. could they call on a mission to help direct but not engage in firing? then the dustup over discovery

in congress about the belfort's. some people believe they cou have been used to do operations and not just collect intelligence. robert issue of categorizing things, not as covert actions, but as something else so that -- you get my drift. advisers under kennedy. >> we have a great debate about peacekeeping operations, what i call humanitarian relief operations to help out mankind around the world. we're not talking about a war like situation with good on the ground, but they are on an errant of mercy. that is a distinctly different question, and usually it

involves being invited the end. this is not usually done without they're willing or at least their diplomatic approval of coming on to our territory, because the sovereign territory is the sovereign territory, and guess we help out in lots of ways and use military to do that does not mean we are doing it against the will of the sovereign. uslly means we're doing it with the will of the sovereign. covert action -- the reason we have plausible denial as we do not have to have the discussion about upsetting the sereign. i would say that we do not want to give up the tool because the types of things we are being asked to do around the world these days, whether or not the resolution going back to september of 2001 covered it or not in the battlefield debate,

ever applies to, or all these guys, does it involve -- that it -- in matters because if you read that book that john brought out from the heritage -- wherever it came from -- there are similar versions around and available. the issue and it's as often in thr acceptance, war or in times of war. things change. it is important if you are at war or not. we took questions at the beginning of that conrsation, where half the people think we are at war and half the people do not. imine how congress feels about that. i am interested in the tools to deal wit the problem. that is where i am coming from today. we're all talking about trying to work out the horrible questions and the separation of powers.

i would like to have the road map. it would be wonderful if congress could react regularly, dependably and reliably. >> that is the last word. please join me in thanking our panelists. [applause] you are all invited to reception outside this room and we will contender of our conversation. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> all this week on "washington journal" we're looking at the functions of the homeland security department. earlier today the focus was on civil rights and civil liberties. tomorrow the protection of critical infrastructure, including food and water supplies. thursday we'll discuss the use of technology to monitor and secure the nation's borders. and friday we'll wrap up with a segment on how we'll prepare for biological and chemical attacks. live at 9:15 a.m. eastern on "washington journal" and again at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. well, half the hill is working this week. the house is out, the senate's in. they're working today debating a democratic bill to appeal tax breaks for the largest oil and gas companies. a procedural vote on moving that bill forward is set for 6:15 eastern.

it needs 60 votes to advance. a similar vote is set for wednesday. a republican-backed energy bill, which would expand opportunities for domestic oil production. that republican bill is modeled on the three house passed drilling bills concerning permits, lease sales and opening up more offshore territory for drilling. follow the senate live now on c-span 2. follow the house and senate when you want. c-span's comprehensive resource on congress, congressional chronicle, makes it easy to find information about your elected officials with daily schedules, a full list of members, each day's committee hearings, plus video of house and senate sessions and progress of bills and votes. congressional chronicle at c-span.org/congress. now available, c-span's congressional directry. a complete guide to the first session of the 112th congress. inside, new and returning house and senate members, district

maps and committee assignments and information on the white house, supreme court justices and governors. order online at c-span.org/shop. amtrak's washington home is union station here a block away from the u.s. capitol where earlier today senate appropriations subcommittee looked at 2012 federal spending on the nation's rail programs. topics included the obama administration's high-speed rail plan as well as security for the nation's trains. materials gathered during the operation that killed osama bin laden in early may indicated that the al qaeda leader was looking at the u.s. rail system for a possible attack. witnesses at today's hearing include the heads of amtrak and the railroad administration. patty murray chairs the meeting. it is an hour and a half. >> the committee comes to order. the federal railroad budget request and the national

railroad corporation or amtrak. want to welcome administer of the federal railroad administration, mr. joseph szabo. and amtrak's president and c.e.o., mr. joe boardman. thank you both for being here this morning and we look forward to your testimony. we are now at a pivotal moment for our nation's transportation policy. over the last several years we've made important investments in our rail infrastructure. the recent focus in congress on budget cuts has created a race to the bottom that will make it difficult to continue those investments. rail offers an environmentally sound and efficient alternative to move people and goods, creates jobs, reduces the price of goods being shipped and helps commuters across the country get to work. if you think travel on our roads and airports is crowded today, just wait. building more and more roads won't be enough.

we have to look to other alternatives such as passenger rail for the future. but we need to be smart about building intercity passenger rail in a way that works with our systems and road and aviation. we need to make targeted investments where it makes economic sense to improve mobility options in between america's congested cities. i know communities around the country value their rail service. i know the people of washington deeply love the cascade line which has record ridership for the second year in a row which is why i'm disappointed that the republicans in the house of representatives have targeted rail transportation for their budget cuts. a year ago we sat together in this room at our last hearing on rail and discussed the financial constraints of the fiscal year 2011 annual appropriations. a year later we have instituted the largest one-year reduction in discretionary spending in our nation's history.

these budget cuts have had a severe impact on our rail transportation programs. capital grants to amtrak were cut by $78 million and new funding for inner city and high-speed rail was eliminated for f.y. 2011. but some in the house say these cuts are not enough and they're clamoring for more. it would cut amtrak for $150 million resulting in furloughs for up to 1,600 employees and taken back over $2.5 billion for high-speed and inner city rail grant. i agree that leaders here in washington, d.c. need to tighten our belts and work together to get our nation's debt under control but we cannot be reckless about this. we cannot put together a federal budget that will put our fragile economy and jobs at risk. we need to make our economy more competitive long term. as we develop the bument for fiscal year 2012 the bar has never been higher for concrete

results to justify federal investments. the administration used its budget request to show its vision of rail placed on car without any modes of transportation but in today's environment a big vision just won't cut it. we need to see realistic alternatives to the kind of slash and burn politics that have taken over our budget debates. i'm disappointed that the budget request doesn't offer that. significant competition for very limited resources in the department of transportation. transit systems are suffering across the country shutting down services and unable to make operating costs under constrained state budgets. the nextgen air traffic control system is costly and fundamentally necessary for transportation as well. that's why i need more from you, mr. szabo. i recognize the hard work that you and your staff have done to have the rail safety organization and to build this capacity to oversee multibillion dollar investment choices.

it's no small task and i commend you for your efforts. but i need you to improve transparency in work. we need detailed and compelling answers to basic questions about the awards that f.r.a. is making to states like what market make the most sense to target rail investment and why, what will it cost to build, what are the benefits to investment and what will it cost to operate? a march, 2011 g.a.o. report on the program found the criteria and evaluation of the grants to be sound. g.a.o.'s only recommendation was that f.r.a. provide more detailed information of its record of decisions, and i couldn't agree more. as this program matures, transparency about the analysis and consideration of projects can only aid in resolving the criticisms about the integrity of the program. we also need to dispel some of the myths that seem to plague some of the inner city and high-speed rail programs. there should be no question

about states. in the recent $2.4 billion grant competition, f.r.a. received more than 90 applications from 24 states, the district of columbia and amtrak for projects along the northeast corridor with preliminary requests totaling nearly $10 billion. this includes the state of wisconsin's application for $230 million. that was the state that previously returned a recovery act award. i support investment in inner city and high-speed rail, but it is now time to address the program's critics head-on and it's time for the program to produce and communicate tangible results that congress and the american taxpayers clearly understand. i'm sure mr. boardman can sympathize with the difficult decision you're in, mr. szabo. i remember a point not too long ago when there were discussions about the end of amtrak. this committee saw a series of budget requests coming out of the previous administration that would have bankrupted the railroad. i worked hard for adequate funding for amtrak and to see

reforms of its financial management. the passenger rail investment and improvement act of 2008 helped put amtrak on the right track for success and a new management team has done so much to improve the way amtrak does its work. amtrak has a new level of cooperation between its board and management teams. they've worked diligently to complete a new strategic plan, develop a system to prioritize capital projects, built a plan for fleet modernization, improve the transparency of the annual budget and develop a comprehensive business plan. as the leadership of f.r.a. and amtrak face significant challenges in the years ahead, i cannot emphasize enough the importance you administer your programs and manage their them effectively and responsibly. finally, i look forward today to discussing with you the security challenges that you face and what steps you're taking to safeguard our nation's rail passengers. as you well know, there is no

higher priority and with details of the terrorist plots against rail targets emerging for the raid on bin laden's compound, i want to make sure you have the resources you need to protect our railways and the passengers. thank you very much and i now yield to senator collins for her opening statement. >> thank you. good morning. first, let me join the chairman and welcoming mr. szabo and mr. boardman to this important hearing. i want to begin by thanking the administer -- administrator for working with me and state and county officials to preserve critical rail freight service in northern maine. the 233 miles of rail line serving this area of my state had been proposed for abandonment, and that would have been -- have endangered some 1,700 jobs.

now, thanks to a cooperative effort, we can begin the important work of upgrading the tracks to preserve and actually improve this important freight rail service. so thank you, mr. szabo, for coming to maine for all that you did to make that possible. over the past few years, f.r.a. has begun to transform itself from essentially a safety oversight agency to one with the added responsibility of allocating and overseeing billions of dollars in high-speed rail and inner city passenger rail projects. i combre with the chairman that we need to have a better understanding of how money is being allocated under this program. many, however, have questioned the basic economic efficiency

of building a high-speed rail network in our country. several states have already rejected funding for which their states had been awarded. with looming budget shortfalls in many state, the cost of building and maintaining high-speed rail lines is proving to be daunting. f.r.a. has an ambitious national rail plan in place. however, the agency has yet to provide cost estimates on what it would take to build and maintain a new network of this magnitude. in march, secretary lahood approved the latest designated high rail -- high-speed rail corridor, the northeast corridor. this designation now allows amtrak to apply directly for high-speed rail funding. amtrak has projected that the

planning and construction of the high-speed rail lines for the northeast corridor could cost upward of $117 billion over the next 30 years. i can only imagine the cost to complete a national system when the other 10 corridors are included. the administration's budget also calls for a significant change in the manner in which amtrak is funded. under this proposal, the direct appropriation for amtrak would be eliminated, and it appears to force amtrak to compete for funding through a.f.r. i'm interested, as a lock-time amtrak supporter, in better understanding how that would work. would more -- with more than 28 million passengers in the last year, amtrak ridership has

increased with, i believe, by 5.5% with more than 137,000 passengers from march of 2010 to march of 2011. i suspect thatess can lating gasoline prices will push ridership levels even higher. amtrak's service between portland-maine and boston has become very successful, and last august we celebrated the arrival of the first shipment of rail for the down easter, pangs project which will expand the line from portland to freeport to brunswick. and i appreciate the administration's -- administrator's participation. this infrastructure project is particularly welcomed in the brunswick area given the closure -- the recent closure of the brunswick naval air

station. federal investment plays an important role for amtrak, but in this time of budget constraints it must be done in a fiscally responsible manner. i do commend amtrak for cutting its debt levels substantially from $4 billion in 2002 to $1.8 billion today. but there still is the net operating loss which for fiscal year 2012 is some $616 million which is nearly more than $200 million than the fiscal year 2010 operating loss. this stems larmingly from the unprofitable long distance routes that continue to prove unsuccessful from a dollars and cents standpoint. finally, let me just add to what chairman murray said. only a few days after our

operation in pakistan removed osama bin laden as a threat to our country, d.h.s. and the f.b.i. released an alert about rail security. this was the result of the intelligence that was gathered from bin laden's compound. i was pleased to see the quick turnaround that intelligence gathered from halfway around the world was analyzed so quickly and an alert issued. although this intelligence was not connected to any particular city or rail line and was stated from early last year, it demonstrates that mass transit remains a tempting target for terrorists. and, of course, we all know that based on terrorist attacks on trains and subways in madrid, in london, in mumbai and in moscow. we're all thankful that there

has not been a similar attack here in our country, but we cannot be complacent as al qaeda or even homegrown terrorists could launch attacks, particularly given the warning that we've received from the intelligence from bin laden's compound. with an eye toward ensuring that taxpayer dollars are used as efficiently as possible, we must be certain that adequate security measures and technology deployment are implemented throughout the passenger rail sector. and although that is primarily the responsibility of the transportation security administration, i look forward to getting the thoughts of our wenses on -- witnesses on this issue today. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator lautenberg. >> i want to thank you, madam chairman. it's good to be sitting with

colleagues who understand the urgent need to get on with investing in rail systems and amtrak particularly and improving the opportunity to get cars off the road and improve air quality and save money on fuel. trains have helped move america's economy forward since the 19th century when the transcontinental railroad was board and the engineering marvel that captured the imagination for the rest of the world. more than 150 years later, railroads are an example of economic success but the u.s. is no longer leading the way. i recently returned from china. 9% of its g.d.p. was on infrastructure. more than three times the amount we invest here in the united states. china's investments are paying off. when i was there i rode on a

train that moved faster than 200 miles an hour. also, i might add, without, mr. boardman, rattle, shake and move. hard to write as it is now on amtrak. i use it twice a week. it -- i don't want people to think my handwriting is a product of age but rather a product of ride. but by comparison, our fastest trains travel 150 miles an hour and that's under optimal conditions over very short distances. and to remain competitively globally, america must strengthen its high-speed rail network, give more people access to faster trains. it's going to help spark job creation as businesses flock to communities served by new train stations. we see that. we've seen it abundantly in new jersey where we added a couple

of new rail sections and within a very short period businesses will move to places convenient that the train travel, better for their employees and customers and staff alike. so we found also that it boost property values in the areas that were served by good rail service. in our state i'm working with amtrak to help build the gateway tunnel that will expand high-speed rail in the northeast corridor. each region this corridor takes 30,000 cars off our highways and 243 flights out of the skies. and i can't help but repeat something that everybody can understand. that is penn station handles more passengers in a day than all three major airports that

serves our -- services our area. that's a fantastic thing. more would come if there was more and speed and comfort. i commend amtrak on the success of the northeast corridor. demonstrates when americans have access to trains they will gladly take them. and i came down last night and the train was pretty much full and i see that more often than not. president obama recognizes this, and the administration's made nearly $1 billion investment in improving high-speed rail in our renal. it's the president's bold vision to mr. a world class high-speed rail network will carry america in the future. faster trains giving america a better alternative than spending time in traffic, absorbing the air pollution and waiting in endless lines in the

airport. some say we can't support high-speed rail right now and they're determined to slam the brakes on our progress but i say we cannot afford the cuts proposed in the house budget without combaring a return to a more robust economy. it's part of the plan and we must do it. this short-sighted view has great achievements of the past like the george washington bridge built during the great depression, created jobs but also created travel opportunity between new york and new jersey and highways going north and south. so, madam chairman, i look forward to hearing from today's witnesses about how we can reclaim our role as the world's leader in rail, get our economy back on track. thank you. >> thank you very much. we will now turn to our witnesses for their opening

statement. mr. szabo, we'll begin with you. >> thank you, chairwoman murray, ranking member collins, senator lautenberg and members of the subcommittee. i'm honored to appear before you today on behalf of president obama and secretary lahood to discuss the president's proposed fiscal year 2012 budget for the federal railroad administration. to put that in context, it is like adding the population of another new york, california, florida, and texas combined. this budget proposal details call strategic investment will build an innovative -- innovative national rail network to move people and goods safely. railroad safety remains a top priority and i am pleased to report that the record for 2010, achieving all time lows in the

number of accidents, and this is a direct result of the multifaceted approach of bringing about change. to continue this progress, the budget proposes $223 million for safety and operation of. this funding remains as to remain focused. while we remain focused on safety, the momentum and the groundwork of the program continues. over the past year, we've obligated more than $5.8 million from the recovery act in annual appropriations, bringing dollars to states and rail projects across the country and putting americans to work. states have entered into ground-

breaking agreements with partners in four major corridors that ensure that investment will produce quantifiable performance out comes while preserving our world class freight system. the demand is stronger than ever by states competing to get into the rail business. we announced $2 billion in high- speed rail awards for 15 states and amtrak. the competition was tough. 24 states submitted more than 90 applications. for our fiscal year attend funding request, we received 132 applications from 32 states. since these elections in october, we have been dizzy but these projects. response to the program has been overwhelming. it is no wonder that states are clamoring to be part of the movement, gas prices are on the rights and future population growth figures are skyrocketing.

we know that our existing systems are among the best and the world, but congested and traffic threatened to stymie the american economy and our productivity. we have to provide americans with new and enhanced mobility options. the president's budget strategically invest $8.2 billion in fiscal year 2012 for the continued development of high-speed intercity passenger rail. $8.2 billion will lay the foundation for the passenger railways of the future, consolidating passenger rail into account the transportation trust plan, now or development and system preservation. the budget proposal places passenger rail on equal footing with other surface transportation programs. funding for amtrak, new corridors, keep us on track by providing 80% of americans

access to high-speed rail network within the 25 years. our goal is to create a balanced transportation system with highways, transit, aviation, in hand with a passenger rail, developing a network requires a long-term commitment at the federal and state levels. the strategic investment in a rail that were made in at 2009 and 2010 are paying off. we are enhancing the global economic competitiveness of america, boosting domestic manufacturing, reducing reliance on imported oil, and creating a new base of low-paying jobs. if we are establishing a pipeline of all rail projects for future development. for decades, investment in transportation have connected cities and states from coast-to- coast and served as a foundation for economic growth and prosperity. by providing a long-term

commitment for high-speed intercity passenger rail today, we are taking a bold and different approach to addressing the nation's passenger and freight mobility demand and ensuring future generations will have access to high-quality rail transportation for decades to,. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much. >> before i get into the 2012 funding needs, i want to take a second to discuss some of the revelations -- level late -- revelations that have come on the demise of some of the mountain. we have worked with domestic security organizations -- i have our vice-president with us today who has taken an active role, john o'connor, in making sure that we are keeping an eye on

what is happening in this country and in europe in terms of the way that this is being investigated. we are most concerned with the possibility of an external attack on a train at a vulnerable point and we are seeking additional support to find warning and detection systems that would help us in the event of such an attack. if you look at some of the technology that is available, adopting it for the future, we think that has real possibilities for us. i think it is important to think about what people are threatened with, rather than some of the other ideas that expressed. but we are really looking at today is riders shift that has increased month over month for

the last 18 months. we see people flocking back to using a rail and there is standing room only in many of our train today. it has grown 36% since 2000 and lasted, department of transportation awarded as a grant to improve speed and are northeast corridor. i do not have the schedule yet, senator. that improvement will be one of the steps in recognizing a vision for a greatly improved northeast corridor service that we just talked about this morning. amtrak has passed for a total of $2.2 billion, divided into $660 million, to support our operations. $1.2 billion for capital programs, and 271 million for

debt service. we are working hard on debts, as you've already recognized. he would the exception of about $50 million in funding, and the additional debt service money to buy out leases, at these are levels that are authorized by the passenger rail investment and improvement act of 2008. we detailed many of our major programs in the written portion of our testimony, but we have just updated the fleet plan and we have placed orders for new electric locomotives. we need to i capacity to the services that we expect to be able to add 40 cars to the existing 20. this investment will generate about $100 million of additional revenue once we deploy it. we plan to begin that procurement with these cars in fy 2012. amtrak is focused on

controlling its costs. we've cut our dead level from $4 billion, to 1.2. we are the most cost-efficient roads in america. we are improving how we are doing our work. point-of-sale solutions, with e-ticketing, with wi-fi. i understand that there will be difficult fiscal choices for you to make. as you know, continued capital funding will allow us to reduce or eliminate problems that translates into increased operating expenses. over the long term, an effective program can translate into permanent reductions and

expense. i also look forward to questions. >> thank you very much. we have discovered specific documentation about how can a's interest in launching an attack against our national rail interest-- al qaeda's in launching an attack against our national rail network. we have got to take some active steps to secure our passengers. can you please comment on the steps that you were taking to protect your passengers? you're a partnership with the department of homeland security? >> we have a very strong partnership with dhs and tsa.

vice-president for security and chief of police had a daily conversation with tsa staff. security grants total almost $200 million and we have used those for infrastructure protection and also to expand our k9 program. it has grown from about 23 animals and handlers to about 47 today and we believe that we are the best in the united states. even one of our recent competitions, our dogs and team handlers came in first, third, and forth across the country in terms of our ability. we have the ability to train and we do every single day tuesday at a high level of readiness.

-- every day to estate at a higher level of readiness. we have had a public outreach program and have worked diligently with dhs and the secretary. see something, say something. it is an effort to immediately mobilized and provide assistance from all the community resources that are available for security and enforcement and we have been able to demonstrate being able to set that up in a very short period of time. we are able to help alabama with our own mobile command post and our employees by providing went -- them with assistance during the recent tornado. we have an entire team of amtrak police that provide that assistance. tsa on with the regular screenings on and your

regular basis. we proposed at looking out a patrol on things that we are trying to provide across the country. the no-ride list issue is one that is very difficult for everyone. it is very different than aviation security. even on the northeast corridor, ridership ut deetehe being 28 million. most of the facilities that we operate, we handle and manage and control. we are well into the millions that depend on amtrak possibility. -- amtrak possibility. ability.'s

we have worked with new york police to make those extra checks at penn station. we have had many of our team is providing that. >> be want to comment? >> -- do you want to comment? >> i think that he did a great job articulating it from the amtrak perspective. we talked at least weekly with tsa, who has primary jurisdiction here. we meet with them at least quarterly. more often than necessary to ensure that we have the proper level of coordination. we are deeply involved in the next -- in the inspections and implementation programs to protect hazardous material shipments. we work very closely with tsa on that. one of the most important things we can do for the future is to ensure that we have appropriate funding for research and development. there is quite a bit that we can

do through enhanced technology to make sure that there is an interference with the crowd right of way -- is not interference with the railroad right of way. we have some research and development under way that i think would be helpful. insuring programs like that move forward with the very important. we do require and regularly inspect both the rail carriers and shippers, plans for their personal security, what guarantees do they have to prevent unauthorized access to the property. >> i appreciate the comments from both of you. i want to reiterate that a real security going forward is going to be very important. long before potential plots were

uncovered, security officials have been warning the u.s. but our railways or potential terrorist targets. they did that because we have had attacks abroad, but also there were failed attacks on our transportation systems. congress passed the 9/11 commission and implementation act, which required tsa to address these security issues. unfortunately, there are many unfilled requirements of the act that are of concern. tsa developed several risk assessment to address public transportation at high risk of attack, but they have not done a comprehensive assessment risk of all modes of transportation. i am concerned that deacons -- the security plan for freight rail focuses -- despite nearly

doubling the surface transportation security budget, these issues do remain unaddressed and unanswered. an article recently pointed out the fact that for every $50 base spent on aviation security, the budget $1 to protect surface transportation. these issues are not totally under the jurisdiction of our witnesses today, but they are very critical issues moving forward. i want to work with my friend and colleague, she and i wrote the security act, i think that is very important that we focus on this. thank you very much. >> thank you. but we follow up on the chairman's question.

humans into that -- you'll mentioned that it is far more difficult to deal with train security dented is to error concerned -- that it is with air security. trains can be vulnerable at every step of the journey. my question to you -- when you receive the joint intelligence bulletin about the data that was confiscated in osama bin laden's compound, what specific additional steps did you take to improve on a rail security for

amtrak? you talked about the inspections and canines, but those of been around for some time. what additional measures did you put in place in response to this intelligence? >> the answer to that is we needed to think about how this may happen, and where it might happen, for example. you've already pointed out that it could happen anywhere. it could happen anywhere across the country. one of the things i looked at was, being in the former role " the administrator, was to look at what does fra and the industry have on its plate and looking at development of the detection devices that we might be able to employ it? it is mostly development in the

areas because fra is primarily a safety organization. to see where there might be a potential for a derailment based on some flaw in the rails that exists. the technology began to come forward with ultrasonic testing and laser based production of -- projection of that technology to see ahead of a train, to see how far ahead we could investigate whether a rail had to the ability to sustain the train, and maybe even if you are looking ahead and looking at the gates of the track, whether there was any narrowing of the gate -- gates in some fashion. the first step was, let's think about what it was that we could do for the future to detect it

through technology. if there is some potential -- right now, they're looking at it at 40 miles per hour. that is a pay for freight, but it is not ok for passenger. there needs to be improvement for that not, there is not binding there to do that. -- there is not finding their to do that. the second thing was that we needed more patrols so that we could look out and find out whether there was any difficulty at a vulnerable locations. para been studies in the past two identifiable terrible -- there has been studies in the past. we began to look and catalog what those vulnerable locations are. some of that has occurred, more of it needs to happen. we are working with dhs and tsa

to find a better way to do that as well. >> one of the lessons that we have learned in the homeland security committee is the importance of the partnership among all levels of government. it occurs to me that given the challenge that you face, in addition to looking to technology, maybe we should look at some sort of program, like operations don garber -- stone garden, where the border patrol works with local law enforcement to do patrol along the border. federal officials, federal law enforcement, homeland security, amtrak officials cannot be everywhere. it is simply impossible. if you have -- if you tap into state, local, and county law enforcement, it really says a

force multiplier. the operations down garden program has worked very well in that regard. i would be interested in your taking a look at whether we should create some sort of similar program for train security where you can work in partnership with state, local, and county officials to do some of those patrols along your railways. i think that would be a way to expand coverage in an economical way direct the partnership is absolutely essential if we are going to increase security of our country. >> may i respond? >> yes, please. >> i absolutely agree with you. a few years ago, amtrak had lost its way in terms of what it was going to do for security.

we now have the direction of a very strong relationship that begins or helps with the kind of thing that you are talking about. the one caveat is that we have to be careful with having untrained people on any kind of right-of-way along be railroads because of the danger that it involved. even our own folks have lost their lives. yes, i agree with what you are saying. yes, i think we can do better and do something different. i will talk to our staff about doing that. it needs to be people that are knowledgeable about the environment they are in. >> thank you. >> thank you for the work that you do and the leadership that you provide.

we see a really good progress being made, but it is not enough. we are now devoting enough attention to what the circumstances are with rail. last year, we saw 700 million airline passengers. 10 billion on transit and rail. yet, we spend 90% of our money on aviation security and 2% on real security. we know the risks are real. if you look at the experience in madrid, london, moscow, we know that these are soft points for carries great that is confirmed by the information obtained as a result of the osama bin laden information that has come out.

we had a job to do, and it is frustrating, and i'm sure that you feel as we do here. why isn't this subject overwhelming to get basic funding for these projects? george washington bridge was built during the depression. when we talk about the population growth that might come in 30 or 40 years, when i see it -- when i get there, i want to feel like weekend handle it -- i want to feel like we can get there would ease. 40 years and now, you'll be able to move around.

apart from that attempt at humor, i commend the administration for recognizing the importance of the any charter by awarding amtrak nearly a half a billion dollars in high-speed rail funds. i asked specifically -- how will these funds help advance the president's national high-speed rail plan? >> it is about remaking those improvements. it reduces trip times, and improves reliability, and provides for additional capacity. the improvements that were announced last week, those investments and the power supply, do all three.

they have been a source of reliability problems, historically, and so they will help fix that problem. it will allow for speeded up to 160 miles per hour. with that, it is reducing trip times. the ability to expand utilization of the northeast corridor has historically been hindered because of the power supply. it provides that additional power that will allow for future enhancements. it has to be viewed as -- these are only first steps. they are very important steps that do those three things. >> amtrak included $50 billion for the gateway tunnel project. what will be the impairment to

the ability to develop a more reliable system? what would be the impairment if we do not build that day we tunnel? >> i think we are out of capacity in the northeast corridor. we have tunnels, signals the end approaches, power, we have nowhere to put the new jersey transit trains that come into penn station. the long island rail road trains come and go to the west side yard and get out of the way. we do not have the ability to find a place to put the new jersey transit trains. it is fully capacity and that is beginning to constrain the ability to add service and its validity of high-speed service. if we're really going to have high-speed service that works, and we have three hours between boston and washington, d.c., we

need not to have new york to be even more of a bottleneck that it already is. >> that is a key item in the development. >> critical. >> without question. that tunnel is essential, and we have had a few attempts of other designs, but this one looks like it fills the bill. it will improve >> you will have an opportunity to submit questions. thank you very much.

>> the reported recently you have done a good job of developing criteria in a merit based review program for high- speed rail. at this point congress is looking for more detailed information about the designated quarters. for example, we want to know where it makes sense to focus investments in the short and long term. what are the tangible benefits. when you have answers -- when would you have answers for this committee on questions like that? >> first off, let me say we are very pleased with the report backing up to that. it was the first time in more than a decade that the term "good" has been used in the

report. it happens only once every 12,000 reports that the issue. so we appreciate that the report was complementary in our selection process. you made a statement in your opening address that is imperative. that is that we show that these corridors make economic sense. we absolutely have to provide the business sense that we are not just making high-speed rail to make high-speed rail, but we are selecting corridors that makes sense from an economic standpoint as well as a transportation standpoint. we are in the process now of putting together both what i call a broader business case that will analyze and to quantify the benefits of high-

speed rail for the nation. and then to a second component of that, building the business case on the high-speed rail projects for the corridors. we intend to have information out to you in the next couple of months. >> we need to be able to show exactly what we are doing and why. if we can get that sooner rather than later and have a clear. an idea of how you have the benefit for us. we will need this as we put the budget together. the high-speed intercity grants that have been awarded so far publicly supported capital projects. obviously, they are associated with operating new rail services. one of the reasons that florida and ohio pulled out of the program are concerned by the newly elected governors about the cost for operations and maintenance and services.

can you tell us how fri are ensuring the that states will be able to keep up with investments? >> i think it is important to know that while there is a lot of chatter that three states chose to pull out, one of them chose to get back in. more important than that, 32 states in the district of columbia and amtrak continue to move forward with projects. the vast majority of states are choosing to move forward. to your question, first off, there is an old saying that the more you capitalize, the less you have to subsidize to relative operations. having modern infrastructure, equipment, a good on-time service, you can actually drive down the operating subsidy to the point that in many cases if you choose the right market, you can eliminate it entirely. i think the northeast corridor is a good example.

there is a level of service, frequency, reliability, that allows them to generate a net, operating profit. if you take a look at the president's 2012 proposal, we do propose in their transitional assistance for the states. with the understanding that some of these corridors go to their initial startup period, it does take a period of time to grow the writer ship. so we are in fact proposing in the 2012 budget for the states to be phased out over a period of time to the point that either they become self sustainable or at least the state knowingly went into a position that they would have to cover an operating supported because of other public benefits that they are receiving. that is part of the application that we review from the states, the business plan.

the understanding their commitment, they have to cover the cost of operations should there be a deficit. >> i wanted to ask you about some recent criticism about amtrak or excessive overtime payments. we try to put together a bill in this very tough environment, we need to know that every expense is justified. i want to ask you today if you can explain what the corporation faces the expenses or whether it is more cost- effective than increasing the work force and what steps to are taking to manage the costs. >> the particular area of overtime cost and the capital work we are sustaining, it is not a new problem for amtrak, it has been a series of problems over the years. very difficult to control, initially, because it requires training for the people that are

involved from 24 to 30 months of training to do the work that expects to be done. it is difficult to do that planning. i think that is part of what the administrator was talking about in his proposal of having a different way of giving amtrak money for the future on a 12 month timetable that we operate on. for example, when we got the additional funds, one of the things that increase the overtime costs is the demand to get some much of that work done as quickly as it needed to be done. in terms of hiring staff or not, and it takes a couple of years to train them, the overtime is actually at a lower cost from a burden. there is about a 54% or so benefit package that goes along with full-time employees. the overtime comes out to about 18%. even though the numbers of

overtime dollars look high, and they are, there actually would have been an overall higher cost if we would have been able to get people on board, train them, and get them working at that point in time. when the funds went away, we would have to lay them off. we would not have gotten it done in the same amount of time. all of that being said, we were not doing as good a job managing the overtime as we could have with the work pools that were available. even though some of them are not very flexible for us. so the percentage of the amount of overtime paid as opposed to the percentage of straight time paid was escalating beyond where it should be. that is back down now already with a focus on that. the chief financial officer and engineer have made great strides in making that happen. i know this happened because the number of grievances has gone up in the work force because of their concerns about having some of that overtime down.

>> thank you very much. i appreciate it. >> thank you. let me ask you a fundamental question. in your testimony, you noticed that can track has enjoyed 18 straight months of year over year writer ship increases. yet as i noticed in my opening statements, your projected deficit, you're operating loss for this year is actually projected to be worse than last year. so reconcile this for me. i do not understand how you can be serving more passengers than ever before, and it is not just a quick bullet. it is every month for the past 18 months. that means that you are getting more revenue and fuller trains by everyone's experience.

how come you are losing more money? >> it is a difficult thing to understand, but i think i can explain it. it is the long-distance trains. it is almost entirely the long- distance trains. there are several reasons. wages have gone up, fuel costs have gone up, the expenses for us to operate those services has increased. while there has an increase in both revenue and writer ship on the long-distance trains, nowhere near what the increase has been on the northeast corridor. what makes it look even worse is that we have been able to in the past used some of the money we have received over and above the northeast corridor revenues to offset and reduce the demand or need for long-distance train a subsidy. now it is more difficult because we are actually executing a fleet plan. we are using the potential of the revenue that is coming from

the northeast corridor to pay for the debt costs on the 70 electric locomotives that we purchase. that means there is a greater need, again, on the long- distance trains. if the business model for long- distance trains does not work, and the prayer result folks always shorter and worry and get very concerned when i talk like this. that is part of what is necessary for this transparency. it is to understand that you are not going to cut costs far enough on the long-distance trains to make the long distance trains profitable. we can cut costs, food and beverage costs are something we are focusing on to bring down. there is a significant cost today about $60 million that we pay the railroads for on-time performance. that needs to be adjusted. it does not work in every fashion and form the way we would like to do. so it becomes more a question of

policy in the united states about whether or not we are going to have a border to border, coast to coast, surface connection in the united states. the rule isolated and are particularly dependent on the long-distance trains. it is not just a long-distance trains, but $180 million of subsidies needed for the state- supported trains because we have not gotten back from the state's yet the amount that was expected in the legislation. in the corridors that they operate, some of them are part of the long-distance network, some of them operate independently. it is that area where there is a low density that it is difficult to recover those kinds of costs. >> would you consider recommending the termination of some of those long distance

routes that are unprofitable year after year? >> they are all unprofitable. >> all -- >> all unprofitable. >> some are more on profitable than others? >> as soon as we eliminate those, there will be some that are more on profitable as the remaining ones. it is kind of like the store, if you live in a red house and people are coming away to take away people in the red house. people in the yellow house do not care until they come for the yellow house. my recommendation is we either run them or we do not run them. if you do not run them, the first-year cost -- this is a business decision -- is a little over $1 billion. it is putting away the equipment and protecting and so forth. we bring a huge benefit economically to the rural portions of the united states by having a place where people can actually get on a surface

transportation mode of service. the faa itself -- the whole faa is 50,000 people. 50,000 people are paid for for the faa for aviation and about 33% of their salaries are covered back from the aviation industry. but because of the way we are financing compared to -- or subsidize and other boats, it does not stick out like that. >> i assume that you are not a proposal tor gov.'s split off the northeast corridor into a separate private/public corporation because that reduce the subsidy for the other lines. is that accurate? >> i am not.

when british rail spun off, they went to $1 billion a year to $7 billion a year in public subsidies to the time they are done. i think you need a connected intercity passenger rail service in the united states. >> thank you. i was not endorsing it, i was just sang the views of the witness. i am participating in the holocaust remembrance ceremony in the capital which begins very shortly. i am going to excuse myself. thank you for holding this hearing. >> i just have a few more. i really appreciate that amtrak was the new leadership has focused on strategic long-term capital planning. the evidence of that describes how amtrak or replace its real cars and locomotives. i understand it applied for a loan from dot to pay for their

70 electric locomotives back in 2009. however, they have yet to finalize the loan agreements. can you explain why this process is taking so long and when can we expect to have this finalized? >> we are prohibited about talking about pending applications. i will say this, we are incredibly close to having that closed. >> incredibly close. ok. amtrak is requesting $79 billion to fund its fleet plan in fiscal year 2012. of this 16 million, it is to purchase new cars along the northeast corridor. i understand this investment would repay the cost of procurement by 2018. what have you asked for a direct appropriation rather than a dot loan? >> i do not remember. hold on a minute.

it is a backup plan if we do not receive the loan, then we need to get the money. but we need to move forward. >> ok. so you are hoping that is what happens at this point? >> the application for the loan is not in yet. we intended to. >> ok. at our hearing last year, you indicated one reason for the delay in the development of a national real plan was that congress should to this program has a stake driven process. the 2012 budget request argues there should be a stronger federal role. can you define for us what an " enhanced federal authority" means and how it would change the relationship with the states? >> i think interstate system -- frankly, this is based on the feedback that we have received

from the states and from our partners over the past year, the past 18 months in implementing this brand new program. it will always continue to be a strong federal state partnership. it will have to continue to be a strong partnership. but we believe particularly when you start talking about the top tier, you are talking of hundred and 50 miles per hour. because this is going to be multiple states, more regional based in most every case, there needs to be a stronger hand in the development of those segments of the high-speed rail network. in addition, our experience in the past 18 months is showing us that states continue to need a much higher level of support from us that i think we first anticipated. in many cases, a great example would be dealing with the

freight rail industry. who are the hosts in many cases from the emerging realigns. they are national in scope. so the states have been coming to us looking for a much stronger hand from fra. we have basically 70 or 80 years of experience with the u.s. dot and state dots in building highways. we now have 24 months of experience in building high- speed rail corridors. clearly there is a need for a stronger federal hand. >> ok. i wanted to ask you about positive train control. can you tell us where we are? are we going to beat the 2015 deadline? >> it is a statutory deadline. fra is absolutely committed to

making sure that deadline is met. we do believe it is achievable. the implementation plans are in from all of the carriers. particularly for the class ones, they are very strong. there is no question it is an anchor said that timeline. >> you are not proposing any changes? >> we are not. there is a more significant challenge then there are for the class ones for the commuters. we do believe it can be met. >> i wanted to ask you about compliance. can you explain to us what challenges you have been encountering, and how they will meet the compliance? >> i think the challenges, senator, have been first understanding what needed to be done, who owned the station, whether we could get agreement from either the local community or the free grove road to get what ever it was necessary for that particular station -- it

was a bigger challenge than we ever expected across the country with the number of stations we were dealing with. but we are now making real progress, we believe, in terms of making that happen. yes, because of that progress, we are going to meet at least in the spirit of what needs to be done, our responsibilities for ada. >> thank you very much. i do have additional questions i will submit for the record. i appreciate your testimony today. i want to reiterate that safety is a concern for everybody. i look forward to working with both of you on safety and security of our national air race system. >> thank you, senator. >> thank you, senator.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> here is a look at our schedule. remarks from treasury secretary

timothy geithner on the economy and national debt. after that, interior secretary calls on congress to shorten the time oil and gas companies have to begin drilling on public lands. the u.s. senate is talking about drilling and debating a bill to repeal tax breaks for the largest oil and gas companies, a procedural vote coming up at 6:15 eastern. earlier today the senate passed -- tomorrow in the house, a similar vote set for 2:30 eastern on the energy bill which would exceed the and opportunities for domestic oil production. it is modeled on 3 past drilling bills concerning leasing and open to the more offshore territory. the senate is in session following the debate now on c- span to. >> this weekend on both tv on c-

span to, the gaithersburg put festival live with authors on the gulf war will spill. america's largest slave revolts. plus a panel discussion on the book industry. afterwards, one of the most significant standoffs of the cold war era. look for a complete schedule on booktvcorg. >> follow the house and senate when you want. congressional chronicle makes it easy to find information. a full list of members, each day's committees, and progress on bills and floats. "congressional chronicle" on

cspan.org. >> earlier today, he introduced a bill shoring up finances at the postal service. legislation would reimburse the postal service for overpayments made it to its pension funds resulting in billions of dollars of revenue. this subcommittee hearing is about two hours.

>> we need him at his best, that is what we are going to get. ranking republican scott brown. this is not the first hearing we have held with regarding the postal service's talents, it is an important one. this hearing is full of familiar names and organizations, the hearing is likely to be somewhat different from those we have held in the past. it needs to be different because the crisis the postal service faces is more urgent now than it has been in the past. dramatic action on congress, our next year it may be how we pick up the pieces from a shutdown and operations. it is my hope that this hearing will jump-start the development

of a bipartisan consensus around the changes needed to restructure the postal service's finances and to reflect the uncertain future it now faces. it just last week, the postal service board of governors released some sobering data on the postal service's financial performance in the second quarter of this fiscal year which ended on march 31. the board also released numbers on revenues for the fiscal year today. this data shows that as those of us who follow the numbers appeared has happened, they are not recovering along with the economy as a whole. it is likely to permanently reduce mail volume despite the postal service's best efforts to bring in the new customers and preserve those it has today. the period between the beginning of january and the end of this

march, mail volume declined by just more than 2% and the same period last year. this follows two quarters of modest growth. at the same time, the most important product, first-class mail, lost 6% of its volume. these developments are contributing to losses by the postal services. midway through the current fiscal year, the postal service has losses totaling $2.8 billion. its projected losses for the year now stand at $8.3 billion, nearly matching the record 8.5 billion losses experienced last year. these volume and revenue numbers are all worse than the postal service initially projected. if they are as bad as we are now being told they will be, i understand that the postal service will have exhausted all of its $15 billion line of

credit from the treasury by the end of september and will let into the fiscal year 2012 with just the deaf cash on hand to get by. it does not get by a lot better from there. getting by in 2012 will likely mean that the postal service will not be able to make its $5.6 billion retiree payments and may have difficulty making pension and routine payments. on top of that, a major crisis that occurs over the next year or so such as further economic slowdown or a terrorist attack could well push the postal service over the edge into insolvency and result in a shutdown of its operations. that is something none of us want or need it. if the postal service were to shut down, the impact on our economy would be dramatic. as postmaster would testify to