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transportation, energy, telecommunications systems, not falling behind. yet here we are, business, labor, and government -- we all agree that there's no dispute about the need for infrastructure. and about the danger that it poses to our country if we do not do it. all we want to see is investment made yet this is not happening. we have a jobs crisis. there is massive work to be done to restore our competitiveness. and unemployment in the construction industry is at historic highs. congress has yet to pass any major infrastructure builbill. key congressional leaders have made it clear that they are opposed to funding

infrastructure. there is no profound -- there's no greater profound logjam in america than this right now the idea that the focal process to address our nation's fundamental needs is not just about our future competitiveness or about the potential for job creation. the failure to repair our roads and bridges, our most basic infrastructure needs, is about to cost this country 630,000 jobs next year. if the surface transportation bill is not done, we will lose 630,000 jobs. that is how many hardworking americans will be unemployed if congress fails to reauthorize the surface transportation act at current levels of expenditure. that is 490,000 workers in highway infrastructure and 141,000 workers in public

transportation. at the end of this month, congress has an opportunity to reauthorized the surface transportation act and the federal aviation administration. without these, whose work the airplanes will not fly. we have to stop nickel-and- diming your country's public assets. the surface transportation reauthorization should be multi- year and the funding levels that are relevant to a $2.20 trillion infrastructure deficit that keeps growing. that is what the president has asked for and that is what the country needs. we appreciate very much the

leadership, but it will not happen unless those of us in this room, business and labor, getting serious about overcoming the partisan political art obstacles -- political obstacles that are standing in the way. that is why the afl-cio is committed to working with our pension funds, with project sponsors in the financial sector and the clinton global initiative to a list $10 billion in our nation's public infrastructure over the next five years. that is money we will invest and hopefully leverage with public- proprietorships that we saw at love field. the private efforts, quite frankly, cannot take the place of public leadership in infrastructure. the solutions we propose really must be on the same scale as the

problems that will ultimately face. we can start by raising america's infrastructure grade point average from its current d gray, which i believe is a national -- d grade, which believe is a national embarrassment. [applause] >> our last speaker of this panel is tom donahue, the president of the u.s. chamber of commerce. i want to emphasize something about the president's council on jobs and competitiveness. it is a council that represents business and labor. there is a large number of very important leaders in the u.s. industry and u.s. labor involved in making these decisions.

it is really wonderful today to have an opening panel where we have rich and tom coming together to talk about this very important issue. tom donohue, please. >> thank you very much. i'm very pleased to join others on this beautiful campus. coming out of washington, it sort of soothes the savage beach for a short time. yesterday, the president, with a rich and the chief operating officer of the chamber, began his push for getting the highway bill reauthorized. at the same time, he announced after a little bit of jockeying around, that on the eighth of this month, he will bring out his jobs plan. a number presidential candidates in the other party are bringing out their plans. people that are not even running for office are bringing out

their plans. yesterday, the chamber sort of began to show that jobs plan that we will bring out on labor day. by the way, there are six things we can do that any federal increase in federal funds that will immediately start putting things to work. that is what we need. right now, if you connected some momentum on this, we are in real trouble. so all the people that have put out their comments and their suggestions and all that will have as a part of that infrastructure. and that is because, when you look at the unemployment rate in this country, we know that it is higher than 9.1% because you have as partially employed and those who have stopped looking. but the people who are really hurting in this country are people who were building houses, building infrastructure, and doing that. they are 30% unemployment. if we're going to do something, that is exactly where we have to

start. the real question is whether the benefits? the benefits are clear. we put people to work. we make ourselves and far more competitive. we have to be careful of comparing the numbers. we started this was dwight eisenhower. the chinese started only a couple of years ago. they're moving really quickly. but we need to fix what we have. the only difference we will have -- and i will make a point about this in a moment -- image -- where will we get the money. there are five things we ought to do. first, we need to pass the surface transportation reauthorization. i am concerned about doing a short term and then doing a long term. if you look at what will happen between now and the first of the year, we will have this whole deficit and debt group out doing their thing. everybody will be involved in that process.

it will be very hard to get air time in the congress. this will not happen. but the right thing to do next week is pass a long-term bill. we ought to just do it because that will send the message. when you send a message to the states and to the local community that we just passed a three-month bill and we want 25% from the money from the states and 25% of the money from the local communities, they're not sure they're putting up their money until they know the federal is in it for the long time. we also need to lock opportunities of global capital investment in this whole system. i think the secretary has mentioned that. rich and i talk about it all the time. reduce support and infrastructure bank. but that is a year or two years in the making. by the time everybody figures out how they will fund and what the rules are, what we need to do is right now. if we ever had the courage to go out and do this immediately, --

i even get in trouble on this -- we have not increased the federal fuel tax 18.5 years. we're getting a little bit more miles to the gallon than we used to. we ought to do it because that will put incremental money into the set -- into the system. you went down to love field. that is a great place. aviation is important. we put 88,000 people out of work when we could not get that bill taken care. and there are some issues in that bill which you and i would argue about. but we want to put those people back to work and get some more people to work and stop letting that money go down the street because we failed to collect it. we're big on that. another place where there's a lot of money and there's all kinds of technology -- is there and it is cheaper -- we have to modernize the air traffic control system and that is more jobs. something the people do not talk

about in the infrastructure system is water. we need to renew the water resources development act. it is unbelievably critical to this country. new york city, in some cases, not many, but it makes retelling, are still running on wooden pipes. we need to get under this water thing because it is a serious problem all run the country. although, now we have a lot more water than we did before following the events of last week. and we need to fully use our harbor manus trust fund and leverage private activity bonds water is a great thing for this country and will create a lot of jobs. people talk about rearail. the freight rail system in this country is run by the private sector and they run it very, very well. they spend unbelievable amounts of capital every year keeping it up. there is an opportunity to get

them -- in many places -- we have to build another railroad right next to the one we have. there are some tax things we can do over time to get that done sooner. i would say one other thing. broadband, everything i have learned about it is that it is a very important thing to do, but we ought to let the private sector do it. i am making all these comments so i can get to the real issue. for us to create jobs and do something critical in this country is to expand the electrical grid and to approve the keystone pipeline project. that will put two hundred 50,000 people to work right away. to move forward -- you probably do not know this -- rich and i do -- there are 351 stalled energy projects in this country that have been held up by permitting and "not in my yard" and "not in my town" and "not in

my country. process ising insane. if you want to create a lot of things in this country, build the buildings, building the roads, you could spend six years to seven years permitting. for what? we're willing to give up the few jobs and get your permits to do less things but me and by saying that we have been working on a project at the chamber and it is a transportation performance index. it looks at all of these issues of infrastructure and transportation, energy, and so on. it can calculate, based on the health of our system, what will happen to our gdp. woulwill it go up or down? if it goes up, we hire more people. if it goes down, we hire fewer people. thank you very much. i look forward to the

discussion. [applause] >> let me say a few things before i opened it to discussion turned there are -- to discussion. there are many things in the subgroups. when the president was speaking, he also noticed the council engagement on this issue. the administration is now working on identifying priority projects that have already been financed. the financing is available but held up somewhere in the permitting process. we will expedite -- the administration will be expediting the projects and also introducing a dashboard for interested individuals to actually follow the permitting process. the administration feels that the council has made a recommendation that can be

actionable and have some of the emitted a fax that tom was talking about. so permitting is an important thing to discuss here. financing is an important thing to discuss here. public-private partnerships and how they were, how they can be formed is an important thing to discuss here. and i think i want to start with that set of ideas, opening it up for questions. remember that these are meant to be listening sessions. you have heard from us. you have listened to this group could by the way, one other thing. infrastructure is more than transportation. right now, we have the surface transportation bill that is imminent. but broadband, energy, aviation, water, school construction, building and safety -- there are a lot of important areas in infrastructure. the next panel will be looking at more detail in some of these specific areas. let me open for questions.

i will start right over here. this is becky mueller. >> i am the president of the texas afl-cio. welcome to our state, those of you who came from out of town. i would not be surprised to find that the field trip would be to love field. we have had a long time relationship with southwest airlines. i am not surprised the that is where we were this morning. but i am pleased to see you three up there. business and the obama administration working together tha. in texas, our unemployment situation is not as good as you see on the national tv. we do have 30% folks out of work in some industries. we have some folks, as always, who have fallen off the road. our numbers sound good if you look, but when you look deeper,

we have families that are hurting turn we have families -- that are hurting. we are families who have difficulty feeding and clothing their children going back to school. it makes my heart feel good that we're seriously talking about this bipartisanship. but i have one question. how do we do it quickly? we talk about these families were school is started and they cannot fight -- cannot buy food and clothing. how do we break the logjam in washington, d.c. how do we work together all up and down? you can come from b.c. and say that you three are walking, but how do we get to bernice johnson talking to the other folks who do not care about infrastructure? how do we get that to happen? what is the magic answer? i would like to ask each of you? how can we help you make it happen? what can we do to help you? >> i happen to agree that we

should separate the things we can do very quickly. we get some motion and some momentum and things will happen. i think we should take -- particularly on the infrastructure side -- the things that we can do and do the right now. i agree. i listen to the people in the affected committees on both sides of their talking about how soon they could move this and what they have to do. i did not hear a great sense of urgency. the plan that we will put out on labor day with a lot of ads around the country will suggest that the 3 million companies in america that can be reached my want to call their congressman and tell them that may have noticed -- not noticed -- that this is very important. i think the hard thing for people is to separate what they can do in a big hurry and go do it. it is only a portion. if you put that on the blocks

and start moving and bring everything along behind it. >> thank you, tom. i appreciate that. i to -- i truly agree with that. the country has a 25 million people either unemployed or underemployed. those 25 million people need services. they are not contributing right now. they have to take right now. we have stagnant wages. we have a lot of people who have lost faith in washington, d.c. as a solution. we have one in five of our children living in poverty. and that figure is growing. if you're in the african- american community, it is three times that level. if you're in the latino community, it is three times that level. so there is a crisis out there. for the last 20 some years, when

it came to infrastructure, there has never been a bipartisan fight over it because it is a no-brainer. it is absolutely essential for the country. it is absolutely essential for us to remain competitive. and by not fixing it this year, you make it more difficult and more costly to fix it next year. and if you do not fix it next year, it gets more costly the year after that. and the figures go up until they boggle the mind. i say $2.2 trillion and people say, oh, my god, that is a lot of money. it is a lot of money. and if we do not tackle it next year, it will be even more expensive. and we will be less competitive. talk to your representatives. state, local, federal representatives, and tell them,

for the good of the country, come together and create jobs. but the infrastructure. there is no business that can compete with infrastructure falling down. tom's members get further and further behind every year if we do not fix this stuff. so it is up to us to come together and say enough. let's attack the real problem that we have. it is a jobs crisis. if we do infrastructure, we do the faa, we do the stuff about water that tom talked about -- we lose hundreds of millions of gallons of clean water every day because the systems that they're traveling over right now let them go. so taxpayers pay to clean the water and then it trysts back out and gets lost. if we do not something with infrastructure in the next 15 years, it will cost taxpayers

about $3.10 trillion in increased cost. we can do better than this. talk to your representatives. tell them that the time is past talking. come back and do what has been done for the past 30 years. with surface transportation, with a a, with clean water, and others, -- with faa, with clean water, and others, we will be much better off. >> is there a chance of getting a long term bill right away? on the transportation side? >> i think that the president will stick to what he was saying yesterday for the congress to pass a short-term extension. the current bill runs out and the taxes to pay for it run out on september 30.

as was mentioned, senator boxer and another senator had a two- year bill. congressman mike the, the chairman of the transportation committee in the house, has a bill pending, which has not been considered by the house. given the fact that there is so little time in september when congress will be in session due to the number of days that they will be working, it will be more realistic to pass a short-term extension and work on the long term bill through the months that the extension is going on. i would not add anything in answer to the question. thank you for the question. i really cannot add anything to what rich and tom said. >> i would add a point to what

was said before. working with a number -- working with the jobs council, the administration has really focused on the issue of expediting what is already there. i do think that we will make some real progress on taking some very important projects that have been judged as priority for creating jobs, creating competitiveness, and have financing in place and expediting them through the permitting process. i agree that we have to do everything as quickly as we can. it is the immediate issue and then there will be $2.2 trillion that we are under investing. we have to do two things of the same time. back there. >> i live here in dallas.

mr. secretary, thank you for your leadership. mr. donahue, i agree with you could i think it is time to look at the gas tax. when people were voting, they have agreed to tax themselves for transportation. this is day 3000 company industry. it is about jobs. it is ironic. no, it is tragic. at a time when we have a lot of people unemployed, they need mass transit to get to work. tax drives companies away from this industry. we have invested more toward growth outside the u.s. than in the u.s. simply because the

unpredictability of the short- term funding mechanisms that we are working with. again, i would like to ask the question -- i do not think washington hears us. i do not think washington is listening. use a talk to our elected representatives. what more can we do to get attention? >> i served in congress for 14 years. i do believe that your elected representatives have -- i do not believe they have all been back in their districts during the month of august. i know many of them have had town meetings and many have been listening to their constituents. i believe that most people are concerned about jobs. i think it is uppermost in the minds of people all over america. everybody in america knows somebody that is out of work. everybody in america has a friend, a neighbor, or a relative that is out of work. that is why it is such a serious

issue. that is why i do think that, when members of congress come back, they will be paying attention to the idea that they have the opportunity to help create jobs in america. that is why the president wanted to talk directly to the members of congress next thursday night, a week from tonight. about the issue of jobs and what his proposal is and what his vision is. and then let congress have the debate, as they have always done, and pass a bill that will put americans back to work. on the issue of the gas tax, i will tell you this. the president has said, from the first day i started this job, which was january 23, two days after the president was sworn in, there was a very bad economy and unemployment and 9%. it is very difficult for the president to be proposing an

increase in the gas tax when people are really hurting. that is what the president has taken the position that he is not in favor of raising the gas tax. but he is willing to work with congress on finding ways to fund the things that we need to do, the big things, the big projects. the president has proposed an infrastructure bank, which is a mechanism where you can have a pot of money that leverages a lot of other money, doing what they are doing at love field, leveraging private money against public money. doing what they're doing in denver, where was yesterday at the inauguration of a $3 billion transit program with six lines that connect six suburban areas into grand central station in denver and also >> people from the airport which is all the way at in kingman that -- in kingdom come all the way into denver. this is a classic example of a

public-private partnership. again, public-private partnership. the idea that the president is in -- is against increasing the gas tax, which he has been very consistent about, is also coupled with the idea that he has put out some ideas about how we leverage some of our federal dollars against private dollars against state dollars and against municipal dollars. this is a very bad time to be talking to people, many of whom who have been unemployed for way too long, about raising the gas tax. that is why the administration has taken that position. >> we thought also that people in washington were not listening. so the afl-cio arranged over 500 events out in the field during the recess where our members and

townsfolk came together, union and non-union people came together, and talked about jobs, jobs, jobs to our elected representatives. is there a town hall meetings or at other events that they were having -- either at town hall meetings or at other events that they were having, we met up and said, look, while you are fiddling around, people are turning. we ought to do better than this. this was at home while they were back at their constituents. we hope it will have some positive effect and have some small contribution and break in the logjam in getting some of these things done that will benefit the country. and put people back to work very quickly. >> i just want to make one point. we're talking about jobs and infrastructure. many cities have been done on cost effectiveness in spending a

dollar per job created. it is a very cost-effective way of creating jobs. it is important for us to focus on jobs, no doubt. but we have to focus also on the efficiency of the measures are used to create them. this is a measure that economists have lots of lots of studies to support it. you get a big bang for your infrastructure balk. -- infrastructure buck. you heard about spending more on the onset of the u.s. than inside. this leads to the desirability of creating an infrastructure bank. there are big pool of foreign money out there that would like an opportunity to invest in u.s. infrastructure. we do not have the modality to

allow that right now. we are missing out on a great opportunity. you hear about that in the next session. >> my name is bernard weinstein. i am an economist with the mcgwire energy group. of all the things i have heard mentioned today, i want to endorse mr. don hughes idea about the keystone pipeline. this is a keep peace of mr. structure -- key piece of infrastructure. i do not believe it requires any taxpayer money. it will supply of oil from alberta, a friendly nation, to refineries along the gulf coast. economic security and energy security will be much better off buying our oil from alberta

rather than buying it from venezuela. last week, one hurdle was jumped. i believe the state department approved it, but there are other permitting issues. i want to emphasize that is absolutely critical and needs to go forward as soon as possible. >> thank you. thank you for that. yes, right over there. he is bringing a microphone down. could you introduce yourself? >> my name is rob frank. i am chair of the coalition. we have a 28-mile section that is part of the highway program. we have $192 million of locally generated money to fund this

project -- no state money and no federal money. we are pursuing this as a public-private partnership. what is the policy and the perspective regarding low- interest loans to help close the gap in advance in projects like this that is five to 10 years of construction jobs? >> if this is a perfect project, -- this is a perfect project for the infrastructure bank. it really is. it is perfect when there is a surface transportation bill for bed and bernice to make it known. it is the kind of investment locally necessary. i have no doubt that, if there is a transportation bill, this project will become a high priority and you will be able to leverage federal dollars. right now, you cannot do it because we are operating on these short-term extensions. but once we have a bigger vision, a big plan, and other

surface transportation program, a project like this will go forward. that is the reason we need them. i think there will be a number of ways for you to leverage federal dollars to make this project happen, which i know is very important. toiously, you do not need lobby your own congressman. she is once -- in such a great position on the transportation committee and has worked so hard already this year to persuade her chairman to move the bill. once the bill is passed, you will be in a good position. you will be well positioned to leverage some federal dollars. >> yes, back there. >> my name is breadbox. -- my name is greg bachs.

can you tell us what the chances are of high-speed rail in texas and would avert possible new positions that might create? >> high-speed rail is coming to america. there is no stopping it. we have made $10 billion plus worth of investments in high- speed intercity rail. all federal money. that is $10 billion plus more than has ever been invested in high-speed intercity rail ever in the history of our country. it is thank you to the vision of president obama pick this is something that he -- vision of president obama. this is something that he feels very strongly about. the lion's share of the money, over $3 billion, has been invested in california, where they will really have high-speed rail. it will connect the state and the trains will go over 200 miles an hour. we have made investments in the midwest, a train from detroit to

chicago to st. louis. those investments are fixing up tracks along an amtrak quarter. we have made huge investments in the northeast corridor. i am very happy that the state of texas recently accepted high- speed rail money. there was not a big announcement about it, which is fine with us. we are glad texas is in the ball game, one of the largest states in the country ought to get into the high-speed rail business, connecting houston and dallas. it is a great project. we could not have done what we have done in america without our friends in the freight rail business. matt and others in the freight rail business have been great partners and will continue to be great partners. we do not have enough money in this country to build all new infrastructure. we need our friends in the freight rail business so we can make investments to fix of tracks, to use those tracks, so that trains can go faster because we do not have the

money. we are being out-competed by europe and asia and those of you who go to europe and asia and come back and ask why we do not have passenger trains in america. because we have never made the investment. this is the president's vision. it is a vision that has never been articulated in america before, except on the northeast corridor. people love to ride trains there. the day after the storm hit, you could not buy a seat on amtrak on the northeast corridor. people love to ride trains. texas is getting into the passenger rail business. that is thanks to rail enthusiast in this state and i want to congratulate. we want to be your partners and passenger rail is coming to texas. >> the last question is over here. >> i am mike davis. i am on the faculty here.

i appreciate your comments about bipartisan roads. but i have to observe that bipartisan roads need to be built in places like west virginia and other places where congressman are very powerful. this is not to make a starkey comment. i believe you all are very sincere in wanting infrastructure money to be spent wisely. but what assurances can you give us about what moneys will be spent and that they will be spent on projects that really need funding and not on projects that support a particular congressmen or sound really sexy like high-speed rail? >> because we are in the era of no earmarks in washington, d.c. we are. there are no more earmarks. when the next transportation bill is written, it will not have earmarks. the president is not for earmarks. congress -- most members of

congress are not for your marks. senator byrd is no longer serving in the senate, in case you have not heard that. [laughter] and we are in a new era in america. note iraq's -- no earmarks in appropriations bills or infrastructure bills. they will be approved on their merit, not because they have a powerful congressman. >> if you look at the figures, texas got the largest share of the stimulus money. this state that more money than anybody else. i do not know if that is because of your present the tips or because bobby is no longer with us. but i think that is a good thing. a large portion of the texas economy is pumped by federal dollars with defense and forts and all the military bases that are here, pumping money from the to the government into the state economy, making it grow

and allowing it to survive. i do tip my hat off to you for one very important thing. a number of years ago, you decided to do some very stringent regulation of mortgages for consumers, may be the strongest in the country. that helped you weather the storm. you did not take the hit from the bad mortgages that a lot of other states did because of the strong regulation you had. and i really take my hat off to you for that. >> let me just make one comment. i do think the secretary is right. i do not know what congress will do without earmarks. they will call it something else. [laughter] >> spoken as a true washington senate. [laughter] -- a true washington cynic. [laughter] >> we will see. but i think there is a real serious issue and i think rich

and i agree on this. we have to make the right decisions on where we need to put infrastructure for a totally interconnected countrywide transportation system. at the same time, there are massive pockets of unemployment. the question is, as -- we all started our comments on jobs. if i have five things i can do with whatever money i have available and i have i'm for free, will i start in a place where the greatest number of jobs are needed? in this industry. that will be a real challenge. >> i think we're about to shift to the next panel. we have time for continuing questions there. i ask everyone to give a round of applause for our panelists. [applause]

and now i will invite up to moderate robert wolfe, my colleague on the president's council. he is president of the investment bank of ubs in the united states. i have worked with him for the past few years. he is no more passionate advocate for public-private partnerships. thank you so [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] moving right into the next panel. my name is don graves. while robert is making his way up to the lectern and as they get the stage prepared, i thought it would be useful for folks to understand what this jobs council is doing and why we're actually here. the jobs council was created because the president saw there was a need in this country. we have all seen where the economy has gone. he believes clearly that we need

to focus all of our time and attention on job creation and get people back to work all across the country. the president has said this before and he is convinced and i think all of us who work in the administration are convinced that we will not be satisfied until every american that wants to work is able to get a job somewhere across the country. so the jobs council was created to provide direct guidance by some of the leaders from labor, from business, for macadamia on ideas that will -- from academia and ideas that will help us continue to be the leader across the world. we have a wonderful group of folks who will be on the next panel led by robert wolfe, a good friend and leader in his own the bright -- in his own

right. he is chairman of ubs americas. he is one of, if not the, for most leader in infrastructure investments and the financing of infrastructure in the country. we appreciate all that you have done and that ups has done to make sure that this is an issue that is in the forefront of everything we do. thank you, robert. [applause] >> maybe i could ask everyone to come up. obviously, we had quite a passionate panel. if that group was set the smu game, there is no question who would win that. but i want to thank lohr, who has been my colleague on this for many years. i want to thank you for opening of this great session could dr. turner, we want to actually

thank you for hosting us at peaceful smu. and we also want to thank the staff from both bmsf and southwest airlines for doing the day-to-day work in putting this together. thank you all. over the past three years, the president's council on johnson competitiveness, as well as the president's -- on jobs and competitiveness, as well as the economic council, we have received a d grading. over $2 trillion in investment is needed over the next five years. that just begins to address this problem. as laura stated, economic models indicate that a dollar spent on infrastructure actually boost spending of gdp by 1.6 times.

it is one of the larger multipliers on gdp and unemployment than any of the kind of spending we do in this country. in fact, the milton institute estimates that, for every dollar spent, every billion dollars spent on infrastructure actually leads to approximately 25,000 jobs. it may not be -- there may not be an industry that surpasses that. we know that the recent market volatility and budgetary pressures we face today has forced us to seek alternatives in financing to address this problem. many believe, myself included, that the creation of a national infrastructure bank or a financing authority would greatly improve our nation's ability to attract private- sector debt and equity capital to help raise these important private capital is willing to

fill the infrastructure gap where other funding sources. the burden cannot be on federal funds. actually, many industry consultants predict there is almost $150 billion of equity capital targeted for infrastructure and over $100 -plus billion has been raised to date. it is important to align with long-term private investment that we have with a workable, regulatory structure. the u.s. could take critical first steps towards attracting this capital to rebuild our infrastructure. while the details of a national infrastructure bank or financing authority continue to be worked out and debated, i think we can all agree that we should have a broad approach and funding projects in areas such as

transportation, energy, electricity, water and wastewater and telecommunications and broadband. these would have national significance. decisions would have to be merit-based using a cost-benefit analysis conducted by experts in the industry, not by politicians. to achieve these goals, it's crucial that a national infrastructure bank be chartered with a clear mission, strict operational guidelines and frps via regulatory reporting. it would be complementary to funding programs to infrastructure. we aren't looking to take anything away, but looking to alleviate the burdens we have today and add to this growth. it would have to be policy-driven and aims would be such as releaving congestion,

improving mobility, improving transportation networks or increasing national and regional and national competitiveness and add to jobs. the aim of this panel discussion that we are about to start is really to hear from key decision makers and thirst about the state of our country's infrastructure and their views on how to address it. the first group will be the aviation sector and maybe i can -- [laughter] >> i have a few quees for each panel and open it up afterwards. first with aviation, we have gary, gary serves as the chairman of the board, president and c.e.o. at southwest airlines. southwest airlines is

celebrating 38 years of consecutive profitability. i may be off, maybe 39 and was named number one for customer satisfaction by the department of transportation. next to gary is the first chief federal tech nick call officer for the united states and promoting technical innovation to help our country meet its goals and make government more efficient, and transparent. a few questions. the u.s. aviation industry has struggled for several reasons, including an inefficient air traffic control system and insufficient progress with modernization. gary, to start with you. could you give us background on next-generation air traffic control system and why is it so

important? >> i would love to. [laughter] >> i have to chase down mr. secretary and tell him i can get him from dallas to houston in an hour. [laughter] >> first of all, it's a pleasure to be here and thanks for moderating our session here. our council is on jobs and competitiveness. i would turn that around. i think if we, as americans and as business, if we want to generate jobs, we need to start with competitiveness and every day that's what we do when we come to work. at southwest, we are competing to customers, what is our competitive advantage and how are we going to make that happen. all of this discussion, i think, is framed around that and that's the way we should be thinking about it. infrastructure, obviously, is worth while in generating jobs while we are building a new

terminal at love field. if nobody flies out of love field, it is wasted. we need to be investing in infrastructure that will be used and generate a return. and in the case of the air traffic control system, i'm sure you all know the air traffic control system in the united states of america has fallen behind. we are using 1950's technologies and techniques to route aircraft, aircraft zigzags through the sky. it wastes a tremendous amount of time. it burns a tremmedous -- tremendous of jet fuel and modernization is long past. our best estimates are that we could improve the efficiency of the system by at least 15%. and over the last 15 years you

have seen air travel decline in large part because energy prices have gone up, which, in turn, have caused air fares to go up and if there is a discretionary product or service, i can assure you it is travel. as costs have gone up, fewer people are flying than they were a decade ago. if we want to create jobs, our best idea to offer the jobs council is to modernize the air traffic control system because, number one be, it will reduce energy consumption, which is certainly good. that is good for not only the economy, but it's good for the environment and all of that will lead to better employment. so it's hard to find a reason why we should not modernize the air traffic control system. the other thing i would say is that while we need to do and

make the investments for surface transportation that were being discussed previously, you're talking about a massive amount of money. hundreds of billions of dollars. you don't need that to modernize the air traffic control system. in fact, most commercial airliners are equipped today to take advantage of next generation air traffic control. the f.a.a. has what it needs in terms of gadgets and software to take advantage of the next generation of air traffic control. we simply need to get it done. so a focus, almost like the pipeline discussion, except better, because you don't need to make much more investment, as we need to get through all of the roadblocks and all of the hurdles that exist in implementing new flight profiles

and approaches into airports. safety is paramount. there are noise questions and there is the complexity of rewriting the highways in the sky, if you will. but it's something that needs to take place and something that would be extremely cost effective. travel and tourism probably contributes about $1.3 trillion a year in the united states of america. and aviation, of course, is a significant component of that. it is less than it was a decade ago. and it's time to lower those costs by having a more efficient air traffic control system that makes us more competitive. all the ideas on the jobs council to create jobs in other ways -- i thought lawyer aver made the point earlier -- laura made the point earlier, all

businesses need infrastructure. travel is going to be one of the enablers of growing jobs in every single industry that is out there. it needs to be one of the top 10 priorities of this country and especially if we want our country to be number one when it comes to competitiveness. >> i want to ask you, because i was very surprised by this, g.p.s., it's the only way i get around today. it's used in cars, used in all types of modes of transportation and used in all types of industries, why is it taking so long to transition from our ground-based radar system to a satellite g.p.s. system? >> i thank you for the question and i echo all the comments that gary made. part of the reason that the president has asked us is that our infrastructure and other aspects of government are

injected with information technologies as an important component of the work that it does. you'll hear about that in energy, with the smart grid and impact on broadband and affecting health care. next generation of air traffic controllers is an capital of this. it is not the problem of having a g.p.s. chip in the plane. the challenge is building the level of procedures that sit on top of that information so we can ensure we achieve the safety, the reliability and efficiencies of the routing. and what seems to be frustrating looking whack backwards but going forward, where the airline industry has made significant investments in elements of this program that allows them to run these modernized procedures. as gary said, the air traffic control system has its

capability. we have the socket and we have to stick them together and make them a priority. gary was one of our hosts. we had nearly every c.e.o. that said let's collaborate with the f.a.a. to make this the proirt the president has declared it a priority for american innovation and take advantage of the win-win-win. and glide airlines into the runways with less fuel and we can be much more reliable and in how we go about doing this. we made commitments to do this. we can do that because as gary said, investments have been made, let's put them to use and that's the commitment and secretary lahood has made this as made a commitment. is this a bummer we haven't made

g.p.s., of course and we will see a focus because we have the building blocks in place. >> going back to next gen, everybody talks about it and according to the f.a.a., something like $1.3 trillion of economic activity is driven off aviation. 5%, 6% of the total economy. so pretty big amount. how can us -- waste the case nor next-gen for job creation? >> it's huge. i think aviation is a relatively interesting a small component of travel and tourism. the number you have there is more related to aviation specifically and includes all the aerospace manufacturing

companies and those jobs. you look at airline jobs, airline jobs 10 years ago were around 800,000 jobs in the united states. and there are probably 500,000 today. so just the airline piece of this has the opportunity to restart its growth, get more -- yet more people need to travel. and it is very sensitive to price. so this is simply a matter of making travel more affordable. it is amazing to me how much travel is simply driven by the price of the airline ticket. and people seem to focus less on the hotel, car, restaurants and other things i'm going to enjoy when i go, which is the consumer side. and consumers make up more than half of travel. business travel has actually

wained. so we need to make it more affordable. there is a tremendous potential to grow that entire complex. but this is one of these investments you make for the future. it's not so much having a project to quote modernize air traffic control, it's not going to c one million that's not the point. you want to make an investment that creates economic growth and vitality and that's the opportunity that you have here. look at how many jobs we had 10 years ago. where did they go? we need to make the case more forcefully to modernize air traffic control. and the focus needs to be on aviation. we have a high-speed rail system. it's already in existence and be redirected overnight. you don't have to have physical

tracks. so there is a via strong case to be made that you don't need to make $10 billion worth of investments. you can take advantage of what has been invested. >> i'm going to have you put your government hat on. >> i am. >> and you just talked about yesterday's meeting and the future and the need to accelerate, modernize next-gen but given the lean budget environment, what can the federal government do to make this a priority? >> that's the beauty -- the government was about convening and my colleagues call it a government is an i am patient convener. when you say we have no new money and we have some limits on what we can do in terms of changing the legal environment we are in, engineers can

optimize and i'm pretty confident that there is enough, already invested capital that can be put to work if you think about making the plug in the socket come together in a more effective way. so part of that is the haven't's commitment to more open and collaborative government which means as we make decisions about specific activities we become transparent so the american people can hold us accountable. that happened yesterday. we are going to put up a project dashboard. you will see each and every one of them, click on them, get your input and see the progress, you can have that information at your fingertips because you are going to hold us accountable. that doesn't cost us money to hold us accountable. we will do the work we can in the convening role and that needs to happen, to make sure that the questions are answered,

do this in a safe way, be energy efficient. and the answers are yes and yes and it's about getting the job done and i'm pretty excited that we will get the leadership excited. >> you have how many jobs. there are about 14 million jobs according to the u.s. travel association in travel and tourism. travel did not keep pace with the rate of inflation over the past decade. it is probably below 30%. if you increase travel by 35 percent, it is a gigantic part of the overall economy. >> last question, you brought up noise and i don't want to make this about the environment, but just -- will next-gen have an

impact? >> it's hard to find something wrong with it. it will be different. and you have to rewrite the lanes in the sky where the planes are going to fly. one of the very fundamental aspects of next generation procedures, it's not necessarily technology as you put the aircraft in idle, which is the quietist mode and you gradually and descend to the airfield >> i'm feeling that right now. >> i get that. >> getting one of the simulateors. it's cool. >> you told to descend and go to 10,000 feet and hold, you have to power forward and maintain that same altitude, it is noise year. >> i was on vacation next to a glider airport base and you

didn't hear anything. so you could hear that gliding. >> all the way around. energy, economy, environment and employment. >> we are going to move on to surface transportation and there will be questions at the end. matt is the chairman and c.e.o. of burlington-northern railway. he held various positions in trucking and rail and member of the national surface transportation policy and revenue study commission. to his left is michael walton, who is a professor of civil engineering and holds a chair in engineering at the university of texas at austin and holds a joint academic appointment in public affairs for more than 35 years and has pursued a career in engineering analysis. we heard a lot from the first panel about surface

transportation, so we are going to get into a little more detail with this group. matt, you have always accompanied any conversation about re-authorization about surface transportation programs with the discussion of reforms. and obvious wli the panel prior to us were cheerleaders for passing the re-authorization. what kind of reforms do you think are the most important? >> let me start with when the commission i served on, we looked at the national infrastructure and broke it down to three r's, reform, rebuild was the second and revenue was the third. the commission got it on the reform. the american public has become jaded in terms of how we are spending our money and we can look back at whether it's the

bridge to knowwhere or the projects that were put across these entities for political reasons and there is a real reluctance for the americans to raise the gas tax. if i can reduce my commute time by 10 minutes, would i pay more for that, it polls very well. you have to reform the federal programs. in the transportation bill, there is 107 federal programs and i would tell you, you can't do anything well with 107 federal programs. i believe we are going to go into a period of time. i don't think there is going to be a lot of money that comes to bear and the federal programs have to be specific in casting the federal vision and driving performance and identifying what the future economy looks like. our economy has changed so much from a domestic economy to a global economy. the president has an export goal

to double exports by 2015. we don't have a transportation vision of how we're going to do that and do this with very limited money. so reform is going to be very important. permitting reform, a subject that i know a lot about. i visited the mayor of l.a., and we we have trying to permit a mode alpha silt for 10 years. it was not shovel ready in the stimulus monies because we don't have project reform. so my point is we are going to have limited money. and you will hear people talking about the thing, the thing is to raise the gas tax, the thing is to toll everything. it's not going to be the thing. we are going to need money. we have a lot of projects and programs that are out there in

terms of financing out there already that i always overlooked . private activity bonds. and i think we are going to have to get our heads around as a country how to lay this federal vision out to allow the states and local municipalities to do what they need to do and do it best. >> dr. walton, to follow on from matt's comments, you worked closely with a lot of states. how would you view his idea of reforms? >> well, first, let me say i appreciate being here and discussion began with the president talking about football. i want everyone to know who cares. texas is emphasizing academics this year. [laughter] >> let me make that clear. having gotten that out of the way. matt is absolutely on target and i think the comments that were made by the earlier panel on

infrastructure correct. i do have the privilege and opportunity to work with 30-plus states and they are all unique and very special, but you hear themes over and over again and one is just as we were talking about project delivery, how do you expedite the delivery of programs. and could we not set a time for example where these decisions on personaling or approval process must be made, are there opportunities to push some of the decision process down to the states and perhaps the local level, not giving up any of the responsibilities or the end results or outcome that we need to have, but could some of those decisions be made more locally than not? so that's one area or a couple of areas.

expanded funding options. you hear that a lot. just as you were talking about infrastructure and we can talk about that, too. but the fact is that more funding options are desperately needed and flexibility in the funding options that are there. and matt is swlull right. all the various categories, couldn't it be simplified. i was reminded when we talked about this, a statement almost 100 years ago, ladies and gentlemen we have run out of money and time to start thinking and that's where we are. there are wonderful opportunities of how we structure opportunities. particularly in the funding areas. mentioned one, that is a good example. there are refinements that could be made there. and in build america bonds and so forth, and of course, the

private activity. all of those offer opportunities and have been useful but the public-private partnerships are an example. certain states have been able to leverage that. we can discuss whether that's a major source or not. some would say it's been about 4.5%, 5%, could be up to 9%. perhaps we could squeeze it to 14%. it's not the answer, but it's part of the menu that matt was talking about. and clearly, there is more that can be done with public-private partnerships and we have wonderful examples out there. if it takes an infrastructure to leverage some of that off-shore equity, fine. but we are leveraging that now. that money is coming from off-shore for the most part and not domestically. more clearly defined goals and

performance measures. we heard about that. and clearly, that will continue to be a theme. but strengthening those partnerships, expediting delivery, keeping our eye on the ball and getting the job done. those are the things that i routinely hear. >> not to sound defensive, but when we think of a national infrastructure bank or financing authority, it would obviously be complementary to that existing menu. build america bonds, we think should come back and there is a halt, but it's in addition to, but take away the burden from the government. >> the devil is in the detail. we have a lot of detail for you. are you going to be in the audience asking questions? [laughter] >> matt, if we listened to the first panel, the

re-authorization bill, it was quite a cheerleading -- and i think c-span is going to have something great to go into the president's speech, but -- so we know the program needs to be re-authorized. we know additional funding is needed. but, the big if. there isn't any additional funding, whether re-authorization gets a mere extension. what next? >> i think a large part of the problem we have today, if you were to go into these classrooms or maybe ask these audience how do we pay for our infrastructure, we have done a crumby job of explaining to the american public. and we have a great infrastructure system. every time you go to the gas pump, you pay. and it has worked pretty well. but part of the problem has been our success. we have a dependency on foreign

oil and clean up the standards. we are getting much better mileage. that hurts the receipts coming into the highway trust fund. think about electric cars. thri if you had 25% lick cars running down the highway, what it would do to the highway trust fund. this isn't going to work long-term. and we have to communicate that we aren't paying for it out of our federal income taxes like a lot of people think wer it's been a good system but has to be reformed and refined. if i was faced with no more fun, i would stand up and say, i'm going to be more aggressive on tolling, something that everybody hates, but you have to have revenue coming in to fund it. i'm going to swoop up $100 million. if i was the president, i'm

going to put it in and find $100 million and put it in private activity bonds and do a project streamlining until unemployment gets down ol all projects and relieve nepa -- i said it, until unemployment gets down to 6%. i would take this stuff and find every bit of leverage because that's what it's going to take. the money, you know -- nobody is going to agree to a tax increase. it's not there and we need to desperately. the highway trust fund -- it was not indexed for inflation. so the 18.5 tax, because the cost of steel and concrete. we are going to have a longer term vision how we are going to replace this providing every ounce of leverage to get leverage for every dollar that

goes into this thing is what i would do. >> can i just add a quick thing. there is something about the story that i haven't told very well. when you travel abroad and talk to administrators of other countries, they come around to the fact about how they fund their transportation system and how they envy us because we have a dedicated source of transportation improvements and programs. and that stable dedicated source that has worked so well. so the trust fund has turned out to be a marvelous invention, pay-as-you-go works extremely well for us and other countries

envy. it was never intended to be the last word. it was intended to be the mechanism to allow us to get started and worked well because of the technology at that particular point in time. as you well know, with technology changing, it's not the right instrument to move forward. but user-fee policy is still a good policy and still holds. so, i think having the trust fund, having user pay and the fact that tolls are a form of direct user fees is also more -- >> that actually allows me to go into the next question and topic. but very interesting that we have matt and jim talking about increasing the gas tax and the administration saying no to the tax. that's for a different debate. i think what you both talked

about user fees and you both brought up tolls, but and matt, you have been in front of raising the gacks tax where it is versus where it started. what are your views how surface programs should be paid for. is it totaling are other ideas that come to the fofere front? >> it's a user-based system. and if we get away from that. i think we are going to be in real trouble and will be subto the political process. we need a long view, transparent stream of money and it has worked well. we just -- we haven't done a good job of educating the traveling public. >> i know you have been one of the ideas is to move the money and move it into the account as

a way to get more money. >> i find every available dollar unspent in washington, d.c., and put it into tifia. >> you brought up user fees as well. do you see it the same way? >> i do. both of the congressional commissions came out with a whole host of ideas and opportunities and i know they are being explored. some are relatively simple to do and others are more complex. we need to look at the short-term. we have a short-term need and continuing investment. but there are longer terms options, we need to be looking now of how we transition of what we have in place now to the longer term and tknoling plays a huge role. there are a number of options out there on the table but staying close to the user pay

option, it serves us well now and will serve us well in the future. >> i'm going to end this segment with you. although fraggete railroads pay for their own networks new york city -- networks, but why is it so poor to have a national freight strategy and in the idea of how railroads fit into this national strategy when they are private based? >> if you look at our economy in the last 0 years, 40% of our economy is driven by trade. if you go out to the west coast, these ports, in 2006, when the economy was still moving forward, these ports were choking because of all the volumes and now we want to double exports. if we don't have national

freight vision we won't connect the highways to the ports and the railroads. if you look at the top 30 cities in our country, it equates for 70% of the commerce and if you look at the costs that are studied around the world, it's in these top cities. that's where the congestive costs are going to the economy and a lot of it is freight-driven. we did these listening sessions and what we have heard, we don't have a commuter problem but a freight issue in this country that is causing a commuter issue. we have to have a national vision that i think, lays out what the economic future of how we are going to sell, who we are going to sell, those types of things. >> to stay with the idea that when we think of infrastructure for us, it's very broad-based, not just surface-related but

aviation and transmission and broadband. we have lou who is the chairman and c.e.o. of a leading clean energy company with 2002 revenues of more than $15 billion, 43 mega what thes of generating capacity and 15,000 employees in 28 states as well as canada. next to matt -- lou is lora, senior adviser to the u.s. secretary of energy, secretary chu. she regulated electricity, natural gas and water industries. thank you both for coming. lou, i'm going to start with you. we hear a lot about transmission and frarke. but i don't think we really

understand the problems that the infrastructure is facing today. >> i want to start by acknowledging what tom said in the earlier panel and pleased to hear it and one of the biggest opportunities for new jobs is in electric transmission and unlike everything we talked about today, one thing that is different, we don't need a penny of government money to make this happen. most people can relate to airlines and roads but don't think about electric transmission and our industry has challenged a lot. we had a vertically-integrated system where electric utilities were all local and built their power plants close to where the electricity was consumed and we didn't need a lot of electricity transmission. there are two things that have

changed. one is, many states, it has been opened up to competition and we don't have that vertically integrate the structure and if you owned a power plant, you could sell it anywhere you want. and the second thing is the advent of renewable energy and there has been renewable energy investments made over the years and renewable whether it's wind, solar or geothermal and you have to build it where the wind below zero or sun shines and not necessarily where the people live. we need to get that clean, economical power to our customers. the transmission system hasn't kept up with that and so we have a lot of constraints in the system. any time you have a constraint that is imposing a tax on consumers because it means the lowest cost electricity can't get to those markets and

therefore, higher goss costs, less efficient end up running and there are a lot of benefits to transmission investment in terms of reliket in the grid and also using the most efficient generation resources and all of that will save customers money. our industry wants to invest in new transmission. we have the means by which to do it. but the big challenge has been the way we sighted and paid for transmission. was all based on local community-typed structure. and it doesn't really work for building longer transmission lines, particularly when you have to cross state lines. so it's a very slow, very burdensome process. and to give you an example, and that's about the same amount of

generation that our entire coal fleet in america today has applied for and is waiting for transmission for access to the transmission system and we need more transmission built in order to support that. very fundamental issues that we are dealing with. one is planning, which is where do we put the transmission lines. there is financing. how does it get paid for. and not that the utilities aren't willing to get invested. even thee there is an economic investment and the third is how do you sight these transmission lines. and we at the jobs croum are working on proposals for all three of those and the federal energy regulatory commission is working on these along with the department of energy. >> we are going to come back to questions on the smart grid.

but lauren, the federal energy regulatory commission, ferc, i'm hearing about this order called 1,000, about transmission planning and cost allocation. why is this so important? why are we hearing about it? >> what is it and why is it so pour? >> it accomplishes three things. it helps with the regional planning aspect of transmission. and as lou just mentioned, history keafl with regards to the transmission, everyone was looking and we are the united states and essentially the states were looking only within their own state. and order 1,000 helps put united back into the united states to develop a system that is more integrated, to allow the kind of transfer of electrons that lou is talking about to transform our economy.

so the regional planning aspect of it, it helps put guidelines on that and to enforce to design the system and design it in a much more regional manner. it requires the same entities to figure out how to pay for it. so it doesn't mandate how the grid is going to be paid for but says look, guys, once you develop and pick lines that have to be built to reduce congestion and help power all of these gadgets that you have in your bags right now, you have to figure out how to pay for you and the person who built it pays for it and gets paid back through the rates or anybody who benefits from a line that is being built with chip-in and they would get paid back, so there are a variety of ways to do it but ferc said you have to

get it done. you have to figure out how to pay for it and match up with the lines that you have identified that need to be built. and it opens up the development of transmission by historically the guys that were building transmission were the incumbent utilities and what this does is allow and allow them to come in and build and prevents the incumbent utilities from blocking merchant transmission developers from coming in. >> we heard from two business c.e.o.'s about permitting and regulatory hurdles. besides the cost allocations that you mentioned, what are the other reforms that are needed to spark investment in this new transmission smart grid? what are the hurdles you are finding and what are we needing

to do? >> the biggest hurdles we find today is sighting and permitting and finding where you are going to put those lines. nobody wants transmission lines in their back yards. any time you are talking about a new prospect, there are a lot of people to weigh in. and the system that we use today for sighting transmission lines was developed back in 1935. the world has changed a lot since then and especially as i mentioned forward-building lines that are longer, you start crossing the many state boundaries, so you have many municipalities involved, you have the states, if you cross any federal property, you also have federal government involved. so we need a lot more coordination. and we really need permitting reform. to give you an example of how burdensome the process is.

a.e.p., was trying to build a 90-mile transmission line. that's not a long line. took them 13 years to get it sighted and permitted. another example is a.t.c. corporation trying to build a 220-mile line and took six years. i want to contrast that with gas hype lines and i could give you examples, it took 11 months, eight months to build. we know how to do it. we have a great mechanism in place in terms of how we sight this kind of infrastructure. we need to apply the same framework to electric transmission and away we go. we can generate efficiency for customers and follow that model. and there was legislation passed in 2005 as part of the energy poll sill act that really -- that the intent was to provide

the federal government more of a role and without you supering the states and called it federal backstop fighting, that law was actually written, we believe we can really redesign the implementation of it and get a lot more transmission built very, very quickly without changes to the law, without federal money and that sort of thing. >> lauren, i hit it with your government hat on, not to be surprised there is a follow-up. we know the administration has announced the formation of renewable response team. i guess we aren't going to use the acronym. but it's to improve federal coordination and ensure timely review and i meantimely review.

how is this initiative going to work and intended to move the process forward? >> let me thank lou because i was one of the attorneys that represented them in sighting that line over the seven years it took. so i lived through that nightmare and secretary chu brought me on 75 days ago to comment on and figure out how to build things quickly. we actually have a rapid response team for transmission and that's the r.r.t.t. and how that works is a couple of things. we are going to get all of the federal agencies that are dealing with a large transmission project together and we rg going to have a number of projects we are focusing on. we take our federal agencies and

sit them down and we get a coordinated schedule amongst all of the agencies and put that schedule up on a dashboard and so the public is going to be able to see when the deadlines are and the immediate milestones are. within each agency there is permitting and consulting. there will be specific designated staff that is going to be essentially held accountable for meeting those deadlines and milestones. that staff is going to be trained in transmission shugs specifically. and going to be trained in transmission technologies and transmission economics and transmission development. from my perspective. having them understand is very important so when they are looking at a variety of solutions for a specific prosecute problem, they'll understand the business impacts of picking a specific solution. they are going to have to comply

with the statutory requirements and doesn't mean every program is going to be approved but will help with the communication and get things done much more quickly. that is a snapshot and i know the president issued a memo yesterday with regards to streamlining and making sure we expedite the permitting processes among the agencies which will help a lot. >> lou, my advertisement fee is going to be my last question. we are in texas and next ter after is developing a transmission line in texas as part of the initiative. you might as well tell us about it. >> i'm delighted to be here in texas and texas is a state that has been doing a lot of things right in terms of energy policy. there has been more wind generation built in texas in the last five years than anywhere

else in the united states, just as one example. it's all being built in west texas. it is window and there is so much built and we have constraints going from west texas and northern parts of the state and you see price differentials and wind developers would love to build wind generation and they can't. well, the state figured this out several years ago and they started a process called the competitive renewable energy process and made it a competitive process. my company happened to win a piece of that business. we are building a 300-mile long line from west texas to the northeast part of texas. that's going to involve an investment of $800 million on our part. but the entire process

represents investments of almost really over $5 billion in new transmission, not requiring any state money, no federal money. it will generate -- these assets will be paying hundreds of millions of taxes into the state. but most importantly, it's going to -- the state of texas is determined it's going to lower electricity prices for people who live in texas on average between $150 and $350 less per customer per year. the environment is going to benefit and the state of texas is going to create jobs in the meantime. >> i'm not going to tell you i gave you that lay-up. [laughter] >> not a lay-up for me but for the state of texas. >> go s.m.u. >> broadband. before we open it to q and a, we

want to talk about broadband which people would not necessarily define broadband as infrastructure. david cohen is the executive vice president of a corporation and serves as a senior council, the acquirer of nbc. his experience extends beyond the corporate suite. many of you are familiar with his tenure as chief of staff to then philadelphia mayor ed rendell he is one of the three, alongside mayor bloomberg and governor schwarzenegger of building america. david, great to have you. and next to david is john donovan, chief technology officer for at&t.

thank you for coming, john. and his role, he oversees the global technology and product development, network and engineering operations, at&t labs and the security and intellectual property of the organization. so thank you both for coming. david, i'm going to open up with you. i guess from a macro perspective, talk to us about the role of broadband and economic development in terms of investment in broadband infrastructure and what is your experience will be the most effective in terms of stimulating economic growth? >> thanks, bob and great to be here and carrying through on the football theme, one of my other part-time jobs is i'm chair of the trustees of the university of pennsylvania and i wanted dr. walton to know we are also going

to be focused on academics. [laughter] >> i have to finish, as a guy who played football at the university of pennsylvania and only way i could get in -- [laughter] >> so, and i think that question really helps to tee up the question of why broad broadband is part of an infrastructure panel and it plays a unique role, because -- broadband is infrastructure. the broadband plant, wire line or wireless represents investment and jobs and real, physical plant that is layered through the -- layered throughout the entire country. you have the direct impact from building broadband plant and there have been numerous studies done. you could pick your study done.

within study which the f.c.c. cites is a national broadband plan, for every $10 billion that is invested in additional broadband infrastructure in the united states, you create or retain almost 500,000 jobs. real direct connection by investing in broadband. broadband has a longer term economic and jobs impact. that comes on the a doppings side and comes in empowering everything that we talked about today in the sense of if you went back and asked every person who you have talked to how they would conduct their business, how you would run aviation and run an business and surface transportation business, how you would run small businesses that are the vendors of all these businesses, without broadband, they would tell you it is impossible.

you get a spinoff effect and there has been recent work done around that question and that work has concluded that for every one percentage point increase in broadband adoption, you create or retain another 300,000 jobs. so these are investments that really do produce jobs and really do power the economy both directly and indirectly in terms of long-term investments in the country's future. >> great. john, i think something like 90% of this country, broadband reaches patrol 90%-plus of this country and we are going on those who are declining to participate and getting that type of service, but in the rural areas, in the less populated areas, what role can wireless satellite technology play in lowering the cost of deployment to these currently

unserved areas. >> let me underscore what most of the panel has talked about and that is direct connection between infrastructure, jobs and competitiveness. and before i jump into the wireless, i would transition by saying that like most of the infrastructure that has been represented at this table with air and ground and energy, roads and so on, broadband is just a little bit different, as david pointed out, because broadband has the added effect of not only the effective development but the wireless broadband is becoming an engine in the economy that is allowing us to