on the intervention. i think the difference is i would have bounced for volunteers to go in and deal with the situation. the president has sent in advisors. arguably, this is a group that has been responsible for tens of thousands of rapes, murders, and relations over the last -- mutilations over the last 20 years. caller: i want to ask what you do about social security. the cost of living is going sky- high. they give us a $10 or $15 raise. forget about it. host: governor johnson? guest: i heard that question. my hearing is not very good again.

social security is what i heard. host: what would you do about it? he says he only gets a $15 a month to raise. costs are going up. what would you do about social security for seniors? guest: social security is very fixable. it is a system that needs to take in more money than it pays out. it has paid in $3.5 trillion more than it has paid out, but the government has spent that money. it is gone. to reform social security simply, change the escalators built into social security from the wage index to the inflation rate. come up with the means testing

that could be very fair. raise the retirement age. i think there should be t inision for op in -- opti and opt out. i am proposing to drop the entire federal tax system and replace it with a national consumption tax. i am specifically talking about the fair tax. there were no more withholding from payroll checks. you would not have to match social security. that would come out of the proceeds of the fair talks -- fair tax. social security is very stable. i say this relative to medicare. medicare is the 800-pound gorilla that has the country in the state of affairs it is in. i suggest if we do not fix it, we will find ourselves without a

country and without social security. we will find ourselves without any health care. the alternative to a reduction in medicare is no health care at all, a collapsed government unable to deliver any bids and services. host: chris jones writes this. guest: i think one federal consumption talks -- tax ends up being cost neutral over a short time. a can of coke has 23% in bedded tax in it.

you take away that and change it over to a very transparent 23%. coca-cola does not have to sell the coke for $1 to make the same profit. they can sell it for 80 cents. you are doing a with the hidden taxes. they are going away. -- you are doing away with the hidden taxes. they applied a fair tax and in that pocketing the same amount of money. it is the answer when it comes to exports, making them 23% more competitive. it is the answer when it comes to china and jobs. in the zero corporate tax rate environment, if the private sector does not create millions of jobs, i do not know what it will take for the private sector to create tens of millions of jobs. tens of millions of jobs.

a consumption tax by its nature is regressive. the fair tax deals with the regressive nature. the less money may, you will have to buy a certain amount of goods and services to get by on. the fair tax deals with the regressive nature of a consumption tax by giving everyone a prebate check of $200 a month. that would allow all all of us to pay the tax up to the point of the party level. this is held a fair tax addresses did this is have a fair tax addresses -- this is how unfair tax addresses the regressive nature. check out fairtax.org. i think it would improve " we're

currently encountering -- i think it would improve what we're currently encountering. we would not be dealing with the ira's. i think the positives outweight not giving it a try. -- we would not be dealing with the irs. host: terry is up next, a republican. caller: i am glad you got the nomination. i am very happy about it. i wish you the best of luck. people talk about ron paul and knocking him down about legalizing drugs. they do not say it would cut the murder rate in half in this country. it would stop all the drug gangs in the country.

it is ridiculous the way it is now. my son got his jaw broken but a gang member. he would not tell on him for fear of what would happen to our family and property. host: governor, i can tell you are still having audio problems. can you hear me ok? caller: yes -- guest: yes, i think we got it fixed. i apologize. i did not hear anything other than that we are engaged in a fruitless drug war. i would certainly agree with that. maybe we have the sound carried -- cured. host: he said legalizing drugs would have a very positive effect on the murder rate in the united states. guest: i believe that. if we look at border violence with mexico, 40,000 deaths south

of the border over the last four years. this is a prohibition phenomenon. these are disputes being played out with guns rather than the courts. legalized marijuana, arguably 75% of the border violence goes away as a result of legalizing marijuana. that being the estimate of the drug cartel's activities involved in the marijuana trade. host: the next call comes from michigan, outside detroit. jamie, you are on. caller: i was calling because i have a problem with the child protective services right now. i am wondering why in michigan the target of lower income families. they are targeting the lower income families and there is not any fairness in the court system.

guest: i do not have the answer in this particular -- if the state is utilizing discretion in how the funds are being distributed. i get back to the model i think we're going to have to have to fix medicaid and medicare. virtually all existing federal programs, that is going to be to devolve these programs dumped the state. i am hearing you say michigan has real issues with top protective services. child protective services. i cannot speak to those specifically. i will say back to the competitive nature of all of the states, if implemented protective practices that are cost effective and everybody is happy, those are going to be

practices that in related by other states. it sounds like michigan may have issues that other states would do well to avoid. host: julio, a republican. caller: my question links the dust before with this one. what do you think of obesity in this country? what do you think is a good route for the problem to be solved? guest: i think it is about education. i like the notion i can read stories on the menu and be able to determine how many calories are an consuming. that goes a long way toward obesity. you link up a meal is your daily

allotment of calories and that you should be exercising. i think education is the main component. i think if government start mandating -- start mandating and passing laws relative to you willand helalth, see huge bureaucracies that do not make a difference. i was on a talk show the other day abdicating -- advocating government should pass laws requiring restaurants to list calories. i was thinking about in terms of the gary johnson law where the restaurant owner would be able to sit down and reasonably come to some pretty good estimates on the calorie content of meals. that would have been the gary johnson law. i think it would have made a

huge business -- difference. it would not have imposed on business. it would have provided a valuable educational tool to consumers. then i realized, at a point, i would leave office. the program would be so successful. the new legislation that would require stiffening calorie counting criteria. it was going to have to be very accurate and reflect protein, carbohydrates, and fat in the most accurate way. the point being alternately -- the point being 0 ultimately, my calorie counting would lead to the biggest bureaucracy and the government. i do not want to propose legislation to address obesity. education is obviously the key. host: the complex food analysis

required on all foods sold in grocery stores, if you disagree with that? guest: no, i do agree with that. i think that is a given. back to education, it is key to understanding half of the obesity problem. that is your intake. the other half has to do with exercise. host: so that is a good use of government mandates and regulations? guest: i do believe that, yes. host: the next call is from california, lori, a democrat. caller: are you for or against gay marriage? if you are president, would you do anything about the under- treatment of the mentally ill? guest: yes, i do support

marriage equality. i know that has been in the news the last couple of days. i think president obama's position does not change marriage equality in this country by leaving it up to the states. i think it is a constitutionally guaranteed right and that the federal government should be dealing with that. about the mentally ill, i come back to what we're going to have to devolve to with health care to make it work. that is devolving it to the states and not the federal government. that houses in the predicament that we are borrowing and printing money to the tune of 43 cents out of every dollar we are spending. if we do not fix spending, we will find ourselves without any health care at all from the

government. we will not be able to garner health care for ourselves with the collapsed dollar and government. that will be the result of continuing to bar and spend -- borrow and spend what we're doing. host: the last call from gary johnson is from minnesota, clifford. caller: one thing i have not heard mentioned on the fair tax is people who are retired and spending savings will have to pay tax on this. i never hear that mentioned in the discussion of a fair tax. guest: retired, if you are still going to have to file with the irs. that goes away. for those on deferred retirement, having saved money and later being subject to tax,

that would go away. there is the notion this is cost-neutral over a short time. it is not that you will be having to spend more money on these items. i think when you add it up, it gets back to the notion of fair. this is a fair way of rebooting the american economy. going forward, we will benefit from the jobs that will get added with no corporate income tax. our exports become 23% more competitive. i do not know that it is as big an issue that some would say. it only applies to new goods and services.

it is not a compounded tax. for a home builder building a home, everything would be tax- exempt up to the point of sale. that would also apply to businesses. any goods or services used in the final production of a good is not going to be taxed. i think we will find the opposite occurred. this will stimulate the u.s. economy. host: governor johnson is on twitter. you can follow him. garyjohnson2012.com. thank you for being on c-span this morning and taking our viewers' questions. guest: 80.

i wish the sound would have been good the whole time. -- thank you. host: we're going to take a break. we have one more segment left. we will be looking at the debate over immigration and the supreme court hearing. we will be looking at the trends in american society of foreign- born populations. we will be right back. >> i remain optimistic about the future of indiana and the united states of america. the news media and political

leaders spend a great deal of time talking about what is broken in our country. to some degree, that is the nature of their business. but we should also have confidence that the unique american experiment is alive and well and our political system still can work. >> tuesday night, senator richard lugar lost to primary challenger richard murdoch. we look back at his six-term career including his work on the nuclear disarmament treaty. it is all archived and searchable at the c-span video library. >> i have my ambitious to walk where they walked. this makes a rectangular space that would be the chancel.

pocahontas married smith in this church. i guarantee you i am standing a little deeper where she did, but this is where she stood when she got married. >> since the 1994 discovery, the colony has yielded more than 1 million unique artifacts. take the tour and visit the library. join in the conversation answering your questions live saturday at 2:30 p.m. eastern. >> "washington journal" continues. host: it is time for our america by the numbers segment. we will be looking at the foreign-born population. let me introduce you to our guests. elizabeth grieco is the u.s. census bureau foreign-born

population branch chief. welcome back. audrey singer is at the brookings institute in washington where she is a senior fellow on metropolitan policy programs. this study was released yesterday. to get us started, you have a slide with the bullet points. walk us through. guest: there are a few points i would like to highlight. it has increased to about 40 million in 2010. today's fourth-born are concentrated in several states seceded with large immigrant populations. there is evidence to suggest greater settlements outside of the traditional gateway states in the last 20 years. we will be presenting some evidence that immigration has

slowed, especially after 2005 and from mexico. there are some differences between the different region of birth groups. there is a new report on line. it has a lot of interesting results. one thing i find most interesting is the differences in the household size and structure. the foreign-born households are larger, include more children under 18, and are more likely to be multi-generational. host: the increase has got to be in large challenge for cities. how have cities been responding generally? caller: -- guest: organizations that work in municipalities that reach out to immigrants have been doing a lot to make

immigrants part of the communities. other places have felt a lot of pressure from different sources. there have been places that have been much more reactively restrictive of immigrants' access to services. there have been cases where there have been significant flows of immigrants, particularly on authorized immigrants into certain areas. we have a big case being heard by the supreme court right now in arizona about a law that was passed there. host: to highlight your one point that greater movement outside the traditional gateway states, are there few

communities that have not felt the impact of this growth? you can go to small towns and see evidence of this. guest: exactly. the growth after 1970 was quite dramatic. not only the size but also the composition changed considerably over the last 50 years. it shifted more from the european population to populations from latin america and asia. the growth has clearly had an impact on all parts of the united states, even in areas where we do not think immigrants are going, they are there. host: if you would like to talk about immigration policy, this is the forum for that. if you are foreign-born in this country, would you like to tell us about your experience? you can call in. there are lots of ways to get involved in the discussion.

you can talk about the effects on your own community. help us to learn your thoughts on the growth of the foreign- born population and its effect on our society. what does this mean for us? guest: i wanted to show this to give an idea about the numbers in the population. there are 309 million residents. about 40 million are foreign- born. this includes 17 million naturalized citizens. there are also 22 million non- citizens that are documented as well as an authorized. host: about 5.6% of the 40

million people are naturalized citizens. i stumbled through that it got where i wanted to go. let's look at this one. guest: this shows the size of the foreign-board population and how it has increased since 1970. it is shown in millions. the blue line represents the percentage of the total population each decade. there has been an increase in the foreign-board population from 9.6 million in 1970, representing about 5% of the total population to 40 million in 2010 representing about 13% of the total population. host: what are some major reasons for the influx? guest: the primary reason in the. come to united states is for better opportunities. that translates into work and

school and opportunities. we have a tradition of bringing in people from all over the world through our entire history. in the middle of the 20th century, we had a low point in 1970 of the share of the population of foreign born. that was a moment of the post- war baby boom growing economy. when that started to pick up over the next decades, a lot of immigrants had reasons to come here in large numbers. it also coincides with what was happening in countries in the developing world during that time. immigrants from asia, latin

america, and the caribbean, in the 1970's and 1980's, we started to see people having more opportunity to leave. they were being educated. they had momentum and the possibility of leaving their country because of the development going on in those places. recently we have seen a larger flow from africa. this is the fastest-growing group. it is the smallest, but we saw that. another factor is a lot of refugee flows. the u.s. gets more refugees than other countries combined. they come from many regions of the world. southeast asia was a big source. africa and so forth. host: our lines are divided for foreign-born, all others

watching, and for those watching outside the united states. you can also tweet or send us an e-mail. this suggests a number of the foreign-born are growing in the population is growing. the percentage does not look like it has changed much. guest: this shows the growth over the last decade. the red bar is the total foreign-born. the blue bar is the total% -- percentage of the total population. what is interesting about this is you can see in the second half of the decade, the growth in the foreign-born population

slowed. between 2000 and 2006, it grew by 6 million. this does show growth has slowed down over the last decade. host: as a percentage, it has remained steady. to mix some >> and beginning with victor in washington. caller: can you hear me? host: yes. caller: i became host: an american citizen how long ago did you come here? caller: 57 years ago.

i love this country. i want to be part of it. and be a good citizen for the country. the thing is, not many people coming into the country -- they become mostly anti-americans. because they come illegally, most of them. they're breaking the laws of the country. their anti-american. what is happening is millions are being sent here, they become enemies of this country. the country has lost complete control of the immigration process. they just the man everything and take advantage of everything. the government is not controlling that.

any country without control in the people coming to the country, they have no future. thank you for your call. an immigrant and now an -- and nationalized said sen. thank you for the call. you've identified one of the most contentious issues that we have a facing our immigration system right now. it is the truly tough to talk about immigration and changing our laws when come in the present moment, primarily because we've just gone to the great recession and we're still coming out of that. there is still job growth. it is also a presidential and political campaign season. that also brings up a lot of issues. what you have identified is an important issue that we have to

deal with cuba --. people come illegally to work. one thing i do want to clarify is that most of the people who are living in this country are not here illegally. the best estimates which come from the hispanic center showed that about a third of the people present are on authorized. and the rest are legal. the flows in recent years prior to the recession have had high numbers of legal residence. those numbers have gone way down since the recession is a very mixed group of people that live here and that have come here. i think it is something that we have to face and resolve over the next couple years.

when we look at the foreign- born population was born somewhere else -- guest: this graph shows all years between 2000 and 2010. it is 90 about the level of immigrants coming into the u.s. over time. in 2000, when we talked to the foreign-born in 2000, about 1.4 million said there were living abroad the year we interviewed them. that give us an idea that in 2000, about 1.4 million came to the u.s.. we do not have the data on immigration. but you can see, as the graph shows, you can see design for

that 2000-2003. a bit of an increase in 2005, 2006. steady decline between 2007 and 2010. host: would that be because of the economic downturn? guest: absolutely. what we saw as soon as the recession hit -- a tremendous -- let me point out, there was the housing market collapse as well. that meant that construction jobs dried up. a lot of opportunities went away. a lot of opportunities that were here that were big attractors for immigrants went away. host: let us look at where these folks have most recently, are coming from. guest: what this graph shows is

a decline in immigrant inflow by the groups in the country they are coming from. you can see the continual decline in immigration and, through mexico. this is shown in the red. it went down to 145,000 in 2010. what is interesting about this crap is the difference is that it shows. for example, in latin america, which includes all other except for mexico and the caribbean, you did see a decline in integration between a dozen 5 in 2008. it was trending up. that is a little bit different than any pattern that you see in mexico. but look at the foreign-born in asia. you can see that over the whole decade, the concern that the inflow of immigrants from asia decreased from 394,000 to

432,000. we did see the typical pattern of decline increase as and other groups. the main countries of origin and driving the increase for the foreign-born from china and india. host: tony is on the line from modesto, california. caller: hello. local -- legal immigration, the united states has always been a country of laws. and nobody from the president or anyone else has the right to break the laws. the u.s. has always had to do hard things. i have no idea why it is so hard politically to the ground these people up and get them out. they do not be long.

the need to go. they need to go. thank you. response? again, this is one of the most contentious issues we are facing. we have a large population in the west that are not authorized to be here that has grown over time primarily because -- it has slowed down. it is important for people to understand, i think, helpers pervasive this issue is a. it has become a staple in certain industries that rely on these workers for better or for worse.

and we need to fix this issue. host: the viewer is watching us in alexandria, virginia. caller: good morning. thank you. i want to make three brief comments. in 2011, almost 1.5 million visa as were given by the u.s. government professional workers. , no. 2, 75% of all of those in america come from one foreign country. number three, many more americans, especially white americans have moved overseas. no one is talking about this trend. host: thank you. are many more professional americans moving overseas? guest: unfortunately we do not have the numbers to say yes or

no. obviously, there is anecdotal evidence. but we had no hard numbers. host: 1.5 million are granted professional visas? significant had professional temporary immigrants who have been coming to this country for the last 20 years or so. we have seen, actually, a boost in the education numbers in this country. host: remember looking at this, but we're the last -- the majority of professional these immigrants come from? guest: mostly from asia. a great deal from india and china. host: this shows the great change in the state of california guest: this shows the foreign-born population by state. one and four residents --

foreign-born residents live in california. new york, texas and florida when combined add an additional 30%. if you look at just these four states in, they represent over half of all foreign-born in the u.s. host: these statistics, the 25%, is not the percentage of the state's population, but the percentage of the foreign-born in the u.s. next come a call from baltimore. this is ruth. caller: i was born in west africa. i have been here since 1996. host: what brought you here? caller: education. i did steady in europe. i was going to go back into african work. but during that time, there were issues going on in my country. i decided to come to the u.s.

i am actually an american citizen now. the previous talker region caller was talking about immigration. thea big supporter of dream pact. i believe when people do understand the plight of the immigrants, they will not scream and say go, go, go. employees, hired by they will not stay and work. on one hand, we want the cheap tomatoes. but then we do not want to [unintelligible] and sometimes we're so fast to judge. who are my children's friends?

we are everywhere. sometimes we come here, they're not legal, that is not the right thing to do, but some of us our legal -- are legal. it is not about to the government. we have got to follow the rules on regulation. and by the cheap tomatoes and cheap chicken. that is all i wanted to say. host: thank you. i'm prepared to let that stand as a comment. let me go next to rome, ga. caller: good morning. thank you for having me. naturalizedn-born citizen. i worked as a judiciary court interpreter. i straddled between both

cultures. i have seen, with the new states trying to regulate immigration -- many changes in attitudes. i was working as a court interpreter and found that even in the type of interpreters -- interpreters' that are being hired, they will hire those that have the qualifications, the grades, the linguistics capabilities and would rather hire a non-naturalized citizen as long they are white, anglo- saxon, protestant and mail. -- male. the whole goal of coming a u.s. citizen -- and then you get an education and you cannot get a job because of the fact that you

are not a natural born citizen. it concerns me how our country is looking at naturalized citizens and foreigners as a whole. i understand that -- some people are going on greyhound buses and doing spot checks. i signed a petition. my mother has alzheimer's. if she rode a bus and lost her papers, what i have to go and find her and keep her from being arrested because she is being profiled bulike that. i respect the laws of the country during i came, i worked. i think any country -- we should

be educating the people here and try to put money into the education. guest: but of the last to the caller's address, again, really a key component of the future of this country. it is not about legislation and laws. and the issues that the previous caller is raised. and that is the educational opportunities and training of our workforce and the opportunities that exist for current immigrants and their children. if we're able to stop all immigration today, the momentum that we already have the from

immigrants living in this country and the next generation, children born in this country, it is -- the population has changed significantly. we are projected to be a non- white country in the next 25 years or so. it is important that we recognize that immigrants and their children and grandchildren are the future of this country. they are our workforce. they're trying to compete in a globalized work force. and so, education, training, issues like the dream act, there for most. >> here's a tweet from tony irvine. >> many leave filled countries to come here -- does the census bureau track,

the foreign-born speak english? guest: yes they do. i do not have those numbers here today. but they are available in the new report. and about half of the foreign- born population of -- either speak english only or another which at home and speak english well. host: a call from connecticut, good morning to amanda. caller: good morning. a couple points. please do not cut me off. i think that we have enough people already living here in the u.s. i became an independent after being a democrat for many years one of the reasons is because i do not like the democrats stance in congress of being so set on immigration to score political points. it is no longer like it was in the 30s.

when my mother came from poland. the verso grateful to be here like my mother and her sisters that the man that a mandatory. to make english the main language. i remember my mother and her two sisters speaking in the kitchen. that is the only time otherwise. my mother especially was the one that didn't have any accent or anything. the others who could understand perfectly. i get so mad when i go in the stores. there are so many immigrants better over here. cannot understand them. you ask them a question and they do not answer you. you do not know what they are saying. is very annoying. i would like that to stop. we have enough people here already.

if your coming, do it the right way. do it like my mother did when she came. the made english the mandatory language. could understand -- i want to understand everybody. there's nothing more annoying than when he cannot understand people. especially when you ask clerks a question. host: to have anything for amanda? sure guest:. i think, one thing she probably knows. and the rest of the country does not. we do not have ellis island anymore. this was a process in place where immigrants, primarily from europe entered the u.s. they did not have to obtain visas. they had to meet certain health requirements, have a sponsor that they could depend on in the west. -- in the u.s. the more or less looked like the

people -- the less educated, at low income people that were coming in today. by different means, legally or not. there are a lot of parallels to that time. many of us that came in at this way -- the evidence is how well we are doing today. the question is, whether this will hold the next couple of generations in the same way. it is successful, not for everybody, but most people who come here do well and their children and grandchildren do much better than they have. host: i do not know your numbers can answer this question. or the number of foreign-born in america now increasing? guest: unfortunately, the

statistics cannot tell us that. but there are some grass on education and the report if your listeners are interested. host: you can find that on the census.gov website. i have a couple slides. i want to go through them quickly. allah going through this last year. guest: these next two sides are going to be talking about the newly arrived at foreign-born. in this case, everyone who came to live in the u.s. in 2005 or later. about one i sixn foreign-born our newly arrived. the big blue section represents most foreign-born. about 17% of today's foreign- born are new arrivals. but 10% that arrive in u.s. between 2005 and 2007, and the 8% in coming in 2008 or later. guest: this slide shows that a

greater proportion of newer arrivals are from asia. this crap is the foreign-born population -- the year the foreign-born came to live in the u.s. and the region of birth. look at the dark blue squares to the left of the bar chart. among the foreign-born, before 2005, 27% were from asia. among those for rug between 25 -- to those of five in 2007 -- 3% were from asia. and after that, 40%. this was driven by immigration from india and china. both representing an increasing percentage of the newly arrived. compare this to the newly our ride from central america. you can see that the foreign born who arrived --- 30% to 39%

were from central america. host: it is almost a perfect and diversion of the statistics. one more, and we will take a call. guest: this shows the foreign- born population by the year they came to come live in the u.s. and their state of residence. this summarizes the changes of where people are starting to live. a greater portion are living out of these traditional gateway states. i show 6 states here. california, new york, texas, florida, new jersey, illinois. these have been primary destination states for a decade. but us look california. this is to the right, excuse me, to the left. among the foreign-born in the

u.s. prior to 2005, about 27% were residing in california. those that came to dozen 5 and later, only 19% residing in california. you can see the difference in the light green bar come at residing in all other states, it increased. host: pick a couple more critical slides and we will take calls as you do this. baltimore, this is ken. go ahead. caller: hello. i am a naturalized foreign born citizen. i moved here around 1995. there are a couple points i want to make. one, the should be a process. but the way we're trying to do it is not good.

everybody assumes that people with a different color or accent is here illegally. that is not the case. secondly, we come here for one reason, for opportunity. we do not take the opportunity for granted. we worked so hard. most of the undergraduate students -- the number really goes up. it should be a process. the way we're doing it is not the right way. host: thank you, ken a quick call from san antonio. caller: i worked as a census and human nature in the last census. i speak spanish. and another language. i found that people who are not here legally did everything they

could to not be counted. how you account for that factor when you calculated the number of people who are not here with legitimate immigration status. guest: the census bureau does not collect data on this. the only data that we have that shows anything to do with legal status is on non citizenship. this shows the population with health coverage by the region of birth. the foreign-born population is less likely than the native have some form ofthi health coverage. but the percentage of u.s. citizens to of health coverage, this would include the nationalized foreign born, he could help coverage increases dramatically among -- i am sorry, i am on the next slide. you can see that come if you

just with the naturalized citizens commis concede that the percentage to have health health insurance, it goes up quite a bit. one of the most important things that you can show in this slide is the importance of the time. the longer the foreign-born are in the west is indicated by those or naturalized. it takes time to naturalize. host: in both slides, latin america has the lowest percentage? guest: yes. host: we're just about out of time. what message would you like to leave with viewers about immigration trends in the united states? guest: immigration is certainly part of our history. it is part of our present. it is part of our future. there is many dimensions to it. this is who we are and who we are becoming and who we will be.

host: thank you for being with us. elizabeth grieco, the thank you for coming back. to our viewers, thank you so much for being with us. ♪

>> good morning. i am the assistant attorney general for sobor rights at the u.s. department of justice. today, the department of justice did something it has done only once before in the history of

our police reform. we filed a contested lawsuits against unconstitutional law enforcement practices. in our work, we have believed we can work collaborative lee with law enforcement to build better department and safer communities. the county sheriff of office has been a glaring exception to our experience. attempts to forge solutions to address serious civil-rights and public safety issues have proven a list of -- elusive. in 2008, the department of justice began allegations that montgomery county was violating the constitutional rights of people. in september 2007, following repeated unsuccessful efforts to and haves -- ncso's

them provide legal information in connection with our investigation, we took the virtually unprecedented step of filing a lawsuit. this lawsuit successfully caused them to meet their legal obligation, and it was settled in june 2011. six months later, we issued a letter of findings detailing our results. there was reasonable cause to believe that the sheriff had engaged in a practice of discriminatory policing of latinos, a practice of unlawful retaliatory behavior against critics, baseless complaint, unfounded lawsuits, and administrative actions. also, discriminatory general practices against latino residents with limited language

skills. we tried to reach a settlement. the united states is now seeking monetary damages in connection with our case. although title 6 authorizes the termination of federal funding that they receive from the department of justice. we continue to seek to accomplish one important goal -- to fix the problems identified in our investigation, and to ensure that necessary policies, practices, and oversight are in place so that they comply with the constitution and laws of the united states. and that the county become safer and better. we travel to phoenix in early february to meet with lawyers. the man who leads the team was there. another member of the team, to my right, has been involved in these efforts. we met with attorneys for the county and the sheriff, and we

met with them to discuss the parameters of a potential settlement. we made it clear that a settlement would require that they be monitored. we gave the sheriff a 128 page draft agreement, which we hope will serve as a framework for further discussion. unfortunately, the discussions were brief, and negotiations broke down, primarily because they would not agree to any settlement that included an independent monitor. a monitor in a general, and specifically in the case of this nature, is not a new requirement. they have been critical requirements in other police cases from los angeles to pittsburgh to elsewhere. they play a role in insuring reforms are carried out in an effective and sustainable fashion. ronald reagan was correct. monitors do not in short --

there was a provision that stated that "the monitor is not intended to replace or assume the roles of the defendant." monitors were collaborative -- monitors work collaboratively with the office, communities, and the department of justice to provide necessary support and assistance, to insure that the problems are fixed in a sustainable fashion. unfortunately, this provision was unacceptable to the sheriff, and negotiations ceased. earlier today, we filed a civil complaint in the district courts against the sheriff, the county sheriff's office, and the county. the police are supposed to protect and serve our community, not divide them. this is an abuse of power. the police are supposed to

protect them, not divide them. this is an abuse of power case involving a sheriff and a sheriff's office that disregarded the constitution, ignored a sound police practices, compromised public safety, and did not hesitate to retaliate against critics. constitutional policing and effective policing go hand in hand. our complaint alleges that defendants acted in a way that was not constitutional or effective. there are three categories in the complaint. first, the complaint alleges that their police practices unlawfully discriminated against latinos in violation of their constitutional rights. it is the shared cost per -- is the sheriff's prerogative to staff employees. however, they have to do it in a way that is consistent with their obligations. law enforcement of the -- law

enforcement cannot cut corners. the complaint alleges that from 2006 to the present, officers have unlawfully discriminated against latinos and violated their constitutional rights in a number of ways, including racial profiling, unlawful detention, searches, and a raft, and unlawful targeting during home and worksite rates. the complaint further alleges that they failed to adopt oversight and trading practices to monitor these activities, examine their effectiveness, and prevent unlawful activities. despite the fact of the prop -- traffic operations have very low as success rates, the specialized units have received little oversight and inadequate

training. if you look latino, you are all too frequently fair game for officers. the second category of the complaint is that there correctional practices violate the constitutional and statutory rights of latino prisoners with limited english skills. it is essential as a safety matter and a civil-rights compliance matter for administers to administer a jail to make sure their employees can effectively communicate with prisoners who have limited english skills. they recognize this obligation -- in a position statement dated june of 2010, they noted the importance of providing language assistance to prisoners, stating that "is that assistance is essential to the overall safety of the jail, the prisoners, and the officers. the complaint outlines how they

had failed to put this policy into practice. the sheriff routinely failed to provide necessary spanish- language assistant -- assistance to the tiao prisoners. the complaint at lines that detention at officers routinely issued commands in english. when prisoners with limited english skills failed to follow a demand because they could not understand it, the detention officers placed an entire area on lockdown. this obviously insights unwarranted hostility towards inmates, potentially placing prisoners and officers alike in harm's way. their detention officers have forced latino prisoners with limited skills to sign key legal documents that are printed in english which they cannot understand, in which they have forfeited key rights. their failure to provide

services is a violation of the civil rights of a team of prisoners with limited english skills, as well as a substantial departure from generally accepted correctional standards. the third category of complaints flows from the sheriff's practice of retaliating against perceived critics of their practices. the complaint outlined instances where the share of targeted a range of people, including judges, lawyers, and community leaders, who took action or were simply doing their job. these were people they either disliked or perceived were critical of the share. a hallmark of our democracy is freedom of expression. it is equally important that public servant can carry out their responsibilities without fear of reprisal. i find the retaliatory actions

designed to silence and punish critics that they proceed to be against what they were trying to do, with the added effect of chilling would-be critics. the retaliatory actions were targeted at public officials and private citizens engaged in a lawful protest. for instance, the complaint quotes in ethics complaint filed against the county attorney, which found that the sheriff and others were involved in a 0 " concerted effort to wrestle power from the board of supervisors, county officials, and judges, and to instill fear in the hearts of those who would resist." nobody is above the law, and nobody can miss use the least -- the legal process to silence those with different opinions.

all of the alleged violations show a culture of disregard for basic rights that starts at the top and pervades the entire organization. the complaint alleges that and cso in plays -- nsco frequently used derogatory terms such as " wetback" and "mexican bitches." the matter will now be assigned to a federal judge. our goal remains the same. we want to fix problems and work collaborative lee with defendants, the community, and the court to implement a comprehensive blueprint for reform. we recognize the heart and danger -- the danger that officers face day in and day out. our job is intended to make

their work more effective, more rewarding, and to make the community safer and better. i would rather fix the problem than debate the existence of a problem. i have said that many times. it was ironic that yesterday, the same day defendants received our letter, that the sheriff released a 17-page document entitled "integrity, accountability, community." we see these pages as an aid mission of the existence of a problem. -- and admission of the existence of a problem. there is a crisis of confidence within key corners of the community. it is noteworthy that a number of the changes in this document appeared to be taken directly from the 128 page settlement agreement that we provided, but this too little too late

document cobbled together beyond the 11th hour is no substitute for reform. it is time for a solution that includes the effective and independent oversight. today's complaint and the path that will follow is the only way forward. i look forward to taking any questions you may have. >> is this rare? >> the police reform document i'm looking to was enacted in the aftermath of the loss angeles riots. it has been in place for about 18 years. during that period, the department has been forced to file contested litigation, a lawsuit that was -- quite literally, only one.

that case was ultimately settled between the parties. in scores of other cases, we have been able to work collaborative lee with agencies because we have a shared interest in improving the department and making the community safer. this is truly extraordinary, just as our lawsuit in 2010 was truly extraordinary because law enforcement agencies had routinely complied with obligations. the previous time that a lawsuit was forced to be filed by the department similar to the one file to 2010, the previous time a similar suit had to be filed with 1979. there were 31 years between the two suits. the extraordinary nature of this is unfortunate. i was asked by someone how long the process will take. that is entirely up to the sheriff.

that is entirely up to the county. they have a document that conservative blueprint. they may not agree with everything. that is what negotiation is about, but i would rather fix the problem so we can address the serious public safety and civil rights challenges confronting the community. >> why not this town than a list of things to do and revisit the monitor situation? >> we tried that in 1997, when there was an agreement in connection with problems in the jail. there was no monitor there. it was day -- we will trust you and you will do it. we have problems that are deeply rooted here. when you have a prior history of backsliding, it is simply a recipe for history for the repeating itself. i would note that i at -- on the

last page of the report, the sharokina today will concern -- the sherriff noted they will continue to use outside experts. that tells me that they will think that is viable. there are -- they should have nothing to fear from an independent monitor, just like the monitor in los angeles was a very strong force in bringing productive change. >> how much more likely are you to be pulled over? >> the complaint has a number of paragraphs that address that issue. that was noted in the letter of findings. we enlisted the expertise of one

of the nation's preeminent experts in racial profiling. this is noted on paragraph 28-29 -- 28, 29, and 30. depending on where you were, latino drivers were anywhere from three times to nine times more likely to be stopped and non-latino driver is engaged in similar conduct. . if you were latino, you were all too frequently fair game. the majority of people stopped were citizens or permanent residents authorized to be in the united states. >> what is the possibility of the department of justice joining in the current lawsuit

by the a.c. allow the -- by the aclu involvement racial profiling -- involving racial profiling? >> we will determine if this is a related case. then it would be up to judge snow to figure out the appropriate next steps. we will comply with what ever directives he will issue. >> you say this is an abuse of power. are there any criminal investigations? >> i cannot in comment on that. >> why isn't the justice department trying to negotiate this? >> they have access and have received more information. it was a question about a case.

regarding the issues, i would be hard-pressed to think of a department that is on greater notice of the nature and extent of allegations then this department's. it is curious to me that they would faint surprise -- feign surprise when the material that constitute the majority of findings were materials already in their possession. we now have a complaint process, and we will move to discovery. we will move forward. >> >> we started this case in 2008. we had to take the extraordinary step in 2010 because frankly we

were stonewalled. in to -- prior to 2010, it had been 31 years before we had -- since we filed a lawsuit seeking basic information. when you get federal funds, he signed a firm -- form. the forms as, you will comply and provide information. that is why we do not have to file suit, because other jurisdictions understand that. this case was undeniably delayed far longer than i would want, but justice has been delayed, but we are here to say that justice will not be denied. we have reached agreements with police departments across the country, and i read to you in my

remarks the language they have had about a monitor. one of the key interventions in los angeles -- the los angeles police department was trouble in the 1990's. they've had reform in a number of ways. confidence is up, crime is down, remarkable progress. everybody would agree that independent monitors did not take over lapd. it did not take over the pittsburgh police department. it did not take over the cincinnati police department. but they were critical components to that reform. the community need that. the department needs that. it is part of the rebuilding of confidence, having that independent person in there who can help them through a number of challenges.

los angeles is perhaps the best example of how an effective monitor has been able to serve a remarkably important role. monitors are not something to fear. there are something to embrace when you have problems. if he did not acknowledge the existence of a problem, it is hard to embrace the need for reform. >> [inaudible] the sheriff says this is continuing to go on. >> we will go into the discovery process now. the complaint alleges -- the

complaint dates back from at least 2006. the date is 2009. through retaliatory -- retaliatory actions date back to 2006. the discovery process will let us move forward in those actions. we had a letter from the county attorney in response to a letter he had sent in april which was a detailed response to his concerns. we continue to sit down to seek to accomplish what we have been able to accomplish virtually everywhere else we have been. this is a remarkable outsider community in terms of the inability to forge consensus. we have had to take extraordinary efforts to get information. >> you mentioned the lapd.

how do our problems here compare with those? >> every community has different problems. there are overlapping challenges as well. what is overlapping is that in all the cases you are trying to defect culture change. -- effect culture change. it is not easy. the culture change that occurred in los angeles was the evolution to an understanding that affected and constitutional policing go hand in hand. -- affective and constitutional police and go hand in hand. you can enhance your standing in the community well police and safely. we will continue to work if they expressed renewed interest in doing so.

>> be seen to have the allegations but not the evidence. -- you seem to have the allegations, but not the evidence. >> we will comply with all efforts that are issued. >> we do not know what will happen with this. this may take a long time. if the investigation continuously moving? >> this investigation was initiated in 2008. i was not working at the department of justice in 2008. president obama was not living in the oval office at 2 that night. i think the share was an office in 2008. >> you are trying to correct

problems and the department. -- in the department. if he were to leave -- >> the sheriff has been identified as a person who has created this culture that is problematic. this is about the system. we have to have affected constitutional policing that helps to reduce crime and ensure public confidence, and this is something we will continue to be here for as long as necessary. >> why is the catchy name as a defendant -- why is the county named as a dependent -- defendant? >> the county takes a portion of the federal assistance, and be

sheriff office is a sub recipient. when you except that assistance, assurances that you will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin, nor will any subsidiaries to whom you give money. they have liability. when we spoke and wrote to the attorney back in april, we explicitly noted that. he had been on notice. he participated in the february 6 settlement discussion that we had. that is the role of the county in this particular case. >> would you be willing to sit down once negotiations are -- >> they have a 128 page document. we have to show that we have

exhausted all our efforts. we had exhausted them and then some, and that is why we are here today. we are are willing to sit down and discuss solutions. time is of the athens. there are public safety implications to this -- time is of the wssence. it takes two to principate, and we have been unable to get there. and that is why we are here. >> [inaudible] >> that is a question i would invite you to ask the chair. they have the 128 page document. -- i would invite you to ask the sheriff. it would be a wonderful thing

for this community if we could come together and forge solutions. the potential solutions are noted in the 128 page document. we thought about that, we thought about how to fixing the -- how to fix the problem. in other communities, when taken that document and had a back and forth. we said, i agree with this, i don't agree with that, and we can to consensus. the sticking point is that the sheriff wants no independent monitor. i hope he will change his position on that. that, in light of the very serious allegations, is untenable. we will wait and see. we are moving forward. >> are the things still happen

today? -- are these things still happen today -- it happening today? >> we will have an appearance with the court. we will be there, and we will follow, and i am confident we will be there very soon. >> coming up live today on c- span at noon, we will show you a conversation on lessons learned from the japanese earthquake and tsunami. u.s. officials will make remarks on the heritage -- at the heritage foundation. coming up at 3:00, a discussion with eight russian journalist

and member of the opposition about the election of vladimir putin. putin announced he will not go to the group of eight meeting at camp david next weekend. president obama's meeting will take place at a global summit in mexico. first lady michelle obama and jill biden hosted a group of military spouses, mothers, and children at the white house. it was held in honor of military spouse appreciation day and mother's day. >> are all the kids in? ok. i will wait until they get to

their seats. does anybody need help finding his or her mommy? [laughter] that one looks -- whose child is this? we will find your mother. there you are. [applause] the you see did. good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for being here. it is great to have you at the white house. i want to thank my great friend first lady michelle obama, who has done so much for military families. thank you, michelle.

many of you know that i am a proud military mom and grandmother, and i'm always honored to be in the presence of military families. my son is a major in the national guard. when he deployed to iraq, it was a tough year for our family. many of you in this room have faced similar challenges. grandparents, moms and dads, worried for deployment. kids miss their parents. throughout their service, children have to change schools, make new friends, join a new sports teams. it can be hard. i want all of you to know how much we appreciate everything your families do in serving our country. that is when michele and i started our joining forces to initiative, to give something back to all our military families. we're working with americans

across the country and every sector of society to find new ways to show our support. mother's day gives us a special opportunity to say thanks to the mothers who have shaped and supported us. now is my great pleasure to introduce a military spouse and mom -- jennifer pilcher. her husband is a pilot in the navy who have been assigned to six different duty stations in the past 12 years. with each reassignment, jennifer has packed up their home, their two children, and started over in a new community, all while in during her husband's multiple deployment. she recently co-founded militaryoneclick.com, a website

that connects military families with important resources. jennifer, thank you for being here today, and thank you for your service. happy mother's day. [laughter] [applause] >> we are so delighted to be here. good afternoon on this beautiful sunny day at the white house, day for celebrating military moms and our children. i am a proud military spouse and mother. my friend and co-founder is an active duty air force spouse. he has moved 12 times in 18 years. he won the award. my husband ed and i met in college over 19 years ago.

after proposing, he promised me that after his seven-year commitment to the navy was complete, we would settle down with a regular 925 job. sound familiar, ladies? 16 years of active duty service, moving six times, to children born in different states, and countless deployments -- he has yet to find a regular job. we have proudly chosen to continue serving our country. i am grateful for his unwavering service and our children's incredible strength and resiliency. as a military family, moving and deployment is hard. however, the love and support of my husband and our family and friends have helped me be a better military mom. we feel so fortunate to be part of this extraordinary community. i would like to thank the first

lady and dr. baden -- biden for connecting with military families. these amazing ladies spearheaded "join forces," a program that supports our families and a variety of ways. they realize that being a military spouse and mom come first. through "joining forces," they have created a job opportunities for people who understand our crazy life style. they recognize the positive impact we have on their business. the first lady and dr. biden are committed to making a true difference. as mom's themselves, they might agree with the saying that if mom is not happy, nobody is happy. thank you mrs. obama and dr.

biden for highlighting our commitment as military spouses. we need not moms of military members -- we mean moms of military members. we are grateful for the opportunities you have created for us. it is my great honor and privilege to introduce to you the first lady of the united states, michelle obama. [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the white house. it is a beautiful day, and i hope you all like your mother's day surprises, because they work really hard on them.

-- worked really hard on them. if you want to know what the black stuff on their mouths are, they had a few of the cookies. thank you for that very kind introduction, and everything that you do for your family, your community, and our entire country. i have to thank my partner in crime, jill. he has been an amazing friend and role model for me of what it means to be a strong military mom. she is terrific. we have to give both a wonderful round of applause. [applause] day ifd not be mother's i did not thank my own money -- there you are. she is here today. it is a big deal when grandma

does anything, so the fact that she is sitting in that chair is a big testimony to respect for all of you. ivo will say it again -- i will say it again, i would not be standing here if it were not for her. my mom is my rock, as many of you know. she has taught me to believe in myself, and more importantly, to pick myself up when i stumbled. she is always a shoulder to cry on, and i do that a lot. she has always inspired me. she has inspired me to push to dream bigger than anything she could ever dream for herself. she has always done that, and that is true today. when i think of mother's day, i think of my own mom.

this day would not be the same for me without her here. when we were planning this event to honor our nation's mothers, we wanted to make sure all of you could bring along the special people in your own minds as well. we are thrilled to have a wonderful group of moms and grandmas and sons and daughters here with us today. as jill and jennifer pointed out, we have military mothers here, and some of you are in our country's uniform, as you can see. some of you are married to someone who does wear a uniform. all of you are outstanding role models for your children, for your communities, and for this country. i say this a lot -- service is not something you do once in a while during the holidays. it is how you live your lives. whenever there is something

going on in the community -- an opening on the tee -- pta, or someone asks for volunteers and you get that uncomfortable silence in the room. you were the first ones to speak up and say, how can i help. no matter how busy you are with your own lives, you are always filling in those gaps for your families and the broader community. let's give a big round of applause to all our military mama's here today. [applause] another hear hear to the grandmas here today. obviously, you are all mothers, too. that is one of those obvious

points where malia would say, duh. to sarah, my speech writer. i can not begin to imagine what it must feel like to have your --y's be far away from home your babies far away from home and in harm's way. it is a reflection of your love, of your strength, and all the good decisions that you made in raising them. that we know. when a mom or dad is deployed, it often means that you grandparents are stepping up to help take care of your grandchildren. the first phone call when at mom or dad gets tied up, you are

often spending long weekends away filling in. i know that is the case in our household. no matter what, you are always, always there. that is not just important for us as parents, but for the connection you make with the next generation, it is so powerful. for that, this whole country is grateful. that also means that you all have earned the right to spoil your grandchildren as much as you want. which happens in my house. what happens to be grandmothers? yes, i tell my children to eat vegetables and grandma is like, why? why can not they have whatever they want? i am like, these were your roles. don't you -- rules.

don't you remember? how many people have grandmothers like that? to all the grandmothers. thank you, we love you. [applause] to all of our kids. [applause] our kids. all of this day, all we do is for you. all of this. not for us -- we don't care. it for you. you are so cute, and you look so good. i want you all to know how special you all are, really. each and every one of you. for all the kids out there -- you are also special. i know it is not easy when mom or dad are awake for so long.

-- away for so long. i know it's tough sometimes to pick up and move across the country and make new friends again, again, and again. i cannot imagine how tough that must be. i want you to know that what you do every day, all the good things you do, the way you handle your business -- picking up extra chores, taking care of your brothers and sisters because we know you love them, even if you act like you do not. we know that stang -- stan on top of your school work. being a good people. all of that makes you all heroes for this country, too. we are here to celebrate all of you. yea for our children. [applause] keep up the good work. no matter what grandma fez, eat

your vegetables. tomorrow is military spouse appreciation day. may is national military appreciation month. we are just a few days from mother's day. now is the perfect time to thank all of you for your service to this country every single day. you all are an inspiration to jill and to me. whenever we think we are tired, we just remember your story. you all are an inspiration to our husbands, more importantly, and an inspiration to the entire country. today you deserve to celebrate. with that, i think jill and i will come down there and take some pictures with all of you. we will go table to table and say hello to everyone of you. happy mother's day. in joy this day and all those to come. thank you.

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>> is leaving this event as the u.s. house is about to gavel in. members are meeting in a pro forma session today. no legislation will be conducted. legislation [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order and the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c., may 11, 2012, i appoint the honorable latour et to act as speaker pro tempore on this day, signed john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain. >> let us pray, eternal god we give you thanks for giving us another day, once again we come to ask wisdom, patience, peace

and understanding for the members of this people's house. the words and sentiments that have been spoken and heard in these days were borne of principle, conviction and commitment. we ask the members might judge anew their ahad earns to principle, conviction and commitment and let them listen to one another and work cooperatively to solve the important issues of our day. give them the generosity of heart and the courage of true leadership to work toward a common solution with sacrifice on both sides. we pray their work results not in a nation comprised of winners and losers but where citizens know in their hearts that we americans are all winners. may all that is done this day be for your honor and glory.

amey. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal proceedings and pursuant to clause 1, rule 1, the journal stands approved. the chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. without objection, the house stands adjourned until noon tuesday, may 15, 2012, for

in just under an hour, lessons learned from the japanese earthquake and tsunami a year ago last march. that's at noon o'clock eastern from the heritage foundation of. at 3:00, a conversation with a russian journalist and member of the russian democratic opposition movement of the lessons of vladimir putin. that's beginning at 3:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. president obama was in reno nevada to promote housing policies to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. nevada ranks second in the nation for foreclosures and has the highest unemployment. he will visit a working couple selected because they benefited from new mortgage rules. live coverage starting at 3:00 and eastern on c-span 2, our companion network. >> i thought it was important to write a book that took people's movements seriously. the movement that elected obama,

how did those build over time? what was happening? also, the tea party movement, which seemed to come out of nowhere. occupy wall street. i thought those were important things to take serious and look at from a we the people perspective. >> former white house adviser van jones on social movements in america today. saturday night at 10:00 eastern. also this weekend, the american spectator founder contends that modern liberalism is flawed and has no answers for today's political issues. sunday night at 11:00 this weekend on c-span 2. defense secretary leon panetta issued a strong statement to congress intraday regarding the defense department budget after the house passed a bill to change automatic defense cuts into a social program cuts. the bill is expected to stall in the senate. the secretary says congress

risked not only potential gridlock but also could force trade-offs if that will jeopardize national security. briefing is about 40 minutes. >> the afternoon. i spent much of this week reaching out to members of congress and senators to talk about where things stand as congress begins debate a markup and consider the defense budget in earnest. my message to congressional leaders remains the same. congress passed the budget control act. it requires a reduction of defense spending of $487 billion

over the next 10 years. as i said, we do not have to choose between national security and physical security. but that does not mean we do not have to make tough choices. we do. and defense should not be exempt from doing its share to reduce the deficit. what that means is we have to make very difficult decisions. difficult decisions that are tied to a strategy that achieves necessary and real savings and at the same time protect the strongest military in the world. as you know, the military and civilian leaders of this department, server secretary, cheats, combat and commanders,

spent months developing a new strategy. that's to meet our national security priorities and to address our future security challenges. we then crafted a balanced plan that met the requirements of that strategy as well as met the spending caps imposed by the budget control act. my concern is that if congress now tries to reverse many of the tub decisions that we reached, by adding several billion dollars to the president's budget request, then they risk not only potential gridlock -- because it is not likely the senate will go along with what , and if they did, they could force the kind of

trade-off that could jeopardize our national defense. the department of defense -- and i believe the administration -- are not going to support additional funds that come at the expense of other critical national security priorities. its members tried to restore their favorite programs without regard to an overall strategy, the cuts will have to come from areas that could impact overall readiness. .here's no free lunch here there's no free lunch. every dollar that is added will have to be offset by cuts in national security. if for some reason they do not want to comply with the budget control act, then they would certainly be adding to the deficit, which only puts our

national security further at risk. when congress restore its guns to protect particular constituencies, that may not be critical to our national defense capabilities, and the risk having the careful balance that we have worked very hard to achieve. and it could harm our ability to pursue the high priority investments that we think are essential to the force that we need for the 21st century. some examples -- if we are presented the diprivan to and from retiring aging ships and aircraft that no longer fit its strategic requirements, and congress would be forcing us to have to look elsewhere for these savings. areas like reducing

modernization investments and burdening the services with access structure that would risk hollowing out the force. if we are restricted from gradually drawn down the size of ground forces in the years beyond 2013, congress would be forcing us to reduce readiness. we would have to cut training and equipment, all of that very needed to support the force. again, it would guarantee a hollow force. if we are limited in our ability to put military health care costs on a sustainable track, and congress would be making all of this more difficult to invest in new technologies that we believe are critical to the force we need for the future. i don't think any of us in the administration or on capitol hill want these outcomes. therefore, i would strongly urge the congress to work with us to reach a consensus about our

defense priorities, recognizing the budget realities that we face, not the ones that some would like to pretend are not there. i understand from my own experience that congress has the right to question some of our decisions and to make changes. that right is inherent in the legislative process. but congress also has a responsibility to make sure that we protect a strong national defense. the bottom line is we cannot cut a half trillion dollars from the defense budget and not cause some pain. but the price for that plane aoul -- that pain should be 24 century force that can effectively defend our country in what remains a very dangerous world. we can do this, but we have to

do this together. let me say another word about sequestration. again, i am grateful to the house for recognizing the importance of stopping sequestration. but by taking these funds from the poor, middle-class americans, homeowners, and other home vulnerable parts of our american constituencies, the guaranteed results will be confrontation, gridlock, and and a greater likelihood of sequester. again, the key is to work together. each side can stake out its political position. i understand that. but the fact is that nothing will happen without compromise from both sides. before wrapping up, let me take

a moment to announce that the president has nominated general mark welsh to secede air force chief of staff shorts upon his retirement this summer -- air shwartz.ief of staff sh general welch is was possible for an area encompassing 51 countries and the atlantic and arctic oceans. he is a. who has flown more than 3400 hours during the course of his career. he has a distinguished record that includes multiple combat missions during operation desert storm. i had the opportunity to work closely with general welch when i served as director of the cia and he served as an associate director of the cia for military affairs, a position where he

functioned as a critical link between the military and intelligence communities. over the course of our time working together, i developed a deep appreciation for his wisdom and his counsel. a former air force academy commandant, i believe that he has the right leadership qualities and distinguished background to follow his extraordinary predecessor. i will have the opportunity in the coming months to pay a full and proper tribute to the general, but i believe he has been a transformative leader in his nearly a full your years as air force chief of staff. came into the role at a very challenging time. because of his leadership, the air force, i think, is much stronger today. under his watch, the air force has invigorated the starship of the nuclear enterprise, made important investments in the capabilities needed for the

future and excelled in a wide range of missions, from the operations over libya to supporting our ground forces in afghanistan with close air support and isr. i really appreciate his counsel, is guidance, his friendship, and his dedication to the air force and to the united states of america. >> thanks, mr. secretary. good afternoon, everybody. on this day in 1775 is a small force of green mountain boys followed by ethan allen and benedick arnold successfully attacked the british garrison in new york. at the same time, the second continental congress was assembled in philadelphia. their task was daunting. field and it funds an army for a war that was already under way. as we sit here today, the 112th congress has its own daunting task. debate and decide on a defense budget with a war under way and with increasingly complex security challenges ahead.

i appreciate the difficulty of the decisions they face. secretary panetta and i faced them as well and so do the service chiefs and combatant commanders. we came together to prepare and submit a budget that we firmly believe is a responsible investment in america poses security. we stand ready and willing to work with congress to make sure our armed forces have what they need and no more than what we need to keep america immune from coercion. this means working together to preserve the balance that we have built into the budget. keep in mind, this is a budget for a joint force. it should not be thought of as just a set of separate service budgets but as a comprehensive and carefully devised a set of choices, choices that reflect the right mix among structure, modernization, readiness, and benefits. different choices will produce a different balance. so before giving us weapons we don't need or giving up on

reforms that we do need, i would only ask to make sure it's the right choice, not just for our armed forces but for the nation. we all know that america's strength rests as much of the industry and diversity of its people and economy as it does on the might of its military. speaking of the right choice for the nation, i am pleased to join secretary panetta in applauding the nomination of mark wells to be the 20th tipstaff of our u.s. air force. -- welsh. i know about his courage in combat, is accurate and acquisition -- in acquisition purities ready to join the ranks of renowned chairman like david jones and his immediate predecessor. he is the elder statement of our group of joint chiefs. i have been privileged to know him as a fellow chief and now as the chairman. in both positions are encountered on his -- i counted

on his wise counsel. forche delivered and as a consequence the air force delivered for the country. i will simply say thank you to him for being a trust for the wing man. thank you for being our nation's flight leader. with that i think secretary panetta is prepared to take all of your questions. [laughter] >> mr. secretary, the announcement the other day that military trainers are being returned to yemen, what is the prospect of even deeper u.s. military involvement in yemen in the coming months, whether it be air power or ground forces? if i may ask general dempsey, what are we to make of the latest revelations of anti- islamic course teachings at the joint forces staff college? does this reflect the current

thinking among some in the military that the u.s. ought to be at war with islam? >> with regard to the yemen question, as i said time and time again, we will go after al qaeda where ever they are and wherever they try to hide. one of the places that they are clearly located is yemen. we have -- the united states, both military and intelligence communities, have gone after a al qaeda and we continue to go after al qaeda. a recent trip that concern all americans about the possibility of another effort to take down an american airliner has come out of yemen. -- a recent threat.

it is for that reason we will continue to take all of the steps necessary to try to go after those who would threaten our country and the safety of american people. we have operations there. the yemenis have been very cooperative. we will continue to work with them to go after the enemies that threaten the united states. >> are we using ground forces at some point in yemen? >> there's no consideration of that. our operations now are directed with yemen going after a al qaeda. >> if i could contribute to that question as well. we have had a decade-long relationship, security cooperation relationship with yemen. we suspended it during the time of their civil unrest. as their president began to restore constitutional order to

the situation, we are reappearing in terms of our building partner capacity. but it is very much as the secretary described, try to build their capacity, not to use our own. to your question about the joint force of staff college, i have made an inquiry into a particular course that was brought to my attention by one of the students, because he was concerned that it was objectionable and it was counter to our values, our appreciation for religious freedom and cultural awareness. a young man who brought it to my attention was absolutely right. it is totally objectionable. and so, we are looking at how that course was approved, what motivated the individual to adopt that - it was an elected, but what motivated that elective for being part of the curriculum. we are looking across the institutions that provide our professional education to make

sure there's nothing like that out there. did was totally objectionable, against our values, and it was not. academically not this was not pushing back on liberal thought. this was objectionable academically irresponsible. >> how do you reconcile an apparent contradiction in your remarks? since you been in office, is the defense cannot be the sole -- bear the sole burden of fiscal reductions -- does it reductions? you said domestic discretionary had to take part of the burden. are debating this on the floor today. democrats are complaining of the size and scope of the cut on food stamps and other programs. this seemed to agree with the opposition. they are doing the package that you said you wanted, basically. what are you opposed to the legislation? >> i have set this time and time

again and i will say it's one more time. in my experience in the congress as chairman of the house budget committee and later as director of the office of management and budget, there was only one way to deal with deficits of this size. these kind of record deficits that we have never seen in the history of our country. that is to address every area of federal spending as well as revenues. every major budget summit that i was a part of going back to the reagan years to the bush years and to the plan that we developed in the clinton years, every one of those budgets focused on entitlement spending, focused on discretionary spending, focused on revenues. those are the pieces that have to be part of an effective plan to reduce the deficit. when one party decides to go after one area as opposed to

others and the other party does the same thing, that is the kind of gridlock that prevents the kind of necessary action that this country has to take to reduce the deficit. >> would you be one to recommend the legislation be vetoed because it is one-sided? the white house put out a statement to that effect. >> i don't think there's a chance that this president is going to follow the priorities that the house is taking in this matter by basically going after all these domestic programs in order to provide increases in defense and to deal with sequestration on the defense side. it is not balanced, it's not fair, and ultimately the senate will not accept it either. all we are headed for right now is for the gridlock and that's what bothers me. >> mr. panetta, the family of a sergeant spoke out, calling for a transfer exchange to be made

to send taliban prisoners to the afghanistan, start peace talks come and get their son back home. have you reconsidered -- has there been any change in your concerns with the transfer of guantanamo detainees? is there any possibility that restarting peace talks with the taliban on confidence-building measures? >> first, our heart goes out to the birgdall family. we share their concerns about him and the importance of getting returned. we are doing everything possible to try to see if we can make that happen. but on the issue related to

guantanamo transfers, my position has not changed. i would only take those steps in accordance with the law and the requirements of law. at this stage, frankly, there are no decisions that have been made with regard to that. >> mr. secretary, can you both respond and follow-up to the budget issue? the house has added $100 million 4 defense. do you think the east coast needs a missile defense system? today need to do a survey that will cost $100 the pentagon did not request? or is this politically motivated? second question is related to the intelligence leaks related to the revelations about the underwear bomb. this tweet do you think we need an investigation? are you concerned it may turn

out that the leak came from this building? was it helpful or hurtful that information came out about that plot? >> i will address the last question and then led marty speak to the first question. as a former director of the cia, i have to tell you that those kinds of leaks are very harmful to the efforts of the intelligence community. our whole effort is to try to be able to get individuals that can provide intelligence and that can work with us and to be able to do that effectively, you after protect these people and you have to protect the confidence and the classification and the covert nature of this kind of work. when these leaks take place, i cannot tell you how much they damage our ability to be able to

pursue our intelligence efforts. and so, i am fully in favor of a full and thorough investigation of this matter. i'll understand that the director of the dni will do that. >> we went through a strategic review in the fall and matched our budget to it. in my military judgment, the program of record for ballistic missile defense for the homeland if as we have submitted its is adequate and sufficient to the task. that is a suite of ground-based and sea-based interceptors. i don't see that we need one has been asked for. >> is al qaeda in yemen stronger since 2009? they have more capabilities and are in control. of more territories how is it al qaeda is facing a strategic

defeat when they seem to be growing stronger especially in yemen? my other question is to follow on that officer. have either of you spoken to his family? why has the president not call them? fundamentally, are you doing as much defined him as you did to find osama bin laden? but i will take the latter and i forget what the former was. >> yes, i have had the family in my office. i have corresponded with them several times. i understand their concerns and i can assure you that we are doing everything in our power using our intelligence resources across the government to try to find him. if you go to the centcom command

center, there conference room, there is a poster that is 4 feet by 6 feet of him sitting in front of the podium to remind him and therefore us every day that he remains missing in action. i assure you of that. >> with regard to yemen, our efforts have been directed at the leadership of al qaeda and those that have been involved in trying to plan attacks on united states. with regard to our efforts in our operations, we have been very successful at going after the leadership and those that are directly involved with regard to trying to make those kinds of plants. the fact that we continue to be successful with these kinds of threats are evidence of the success.

there's a larger tribal operation called aqap and yemen is dealing with them. they do represent a threat in yemen and the yemenis are the ones pursuing that tribe and try to make efforts to reduce their influence as well. they are a threat. no one in any way underestimate the fact that all of them represent a concern for the united states in terms of our national security. but i do believe we are making effective progress at going after those specific targets that represents real threats to the united states. >> it talked about them as a tribe. you are talking about al qaeda in the arabian peninsula -- in yemen, not a separate

tribal minority? . >> that's -- that's right. >> two suicide attacks took place this morning in damascus. any indication if al qaeda could be behind those attacks? >> i have no information to that effect as to whether or not they are involved. obviously, the situation in syria remains of great concern. the cease-fire does not appear to be working. kofi annan himself has indicated concerns about whether or not parties are abiding by the cease-fire. we continue to urge assad to step down. there must be a change.

they have lost their legitimacy. a huge number of deaths are taking place in syria. again, we are working with the international community to try to make sure we take all necessary steps to try to do what we can to implement the necessary political reforms to have him step down and to try to return syria to the syrian people. this is not easy and there are no easy courses here. the most important thing we can do now is to continue to work with the international community to bring pressure on syria to do the right thing. >> i have not seen any intel to suggest that aq was responsible for those attacks, although there had been extremist elements trying to make inroads in syria. i'm not trying those together. whenever those kind of situations occur, there will be

violent extremist organizations trying to take advantage. i would add one thing. two weeks ago i was in jordan. today my turkish counterpart is in the building and we are trying to gain a common understanding of where we think we are and where we think we want to go. >> in addition to the announcement, you had senator kerrey talk about u.s. involvement and open to create a humanitarian no-fly zones -- no- fly zones for humanitarian corridors and army rebels, have either of your business inposits changed? the kofi annan plan does not seem to be working, so why should the u.s. do more with diplomacy? >> as we have expressed before, the most effective way to deal with the situation in syria is not unilateral but working with all of our international partners to work together to

bring as much pressure as we can diplomatically, economically, and every other way to try to get syria to do the right thing. that is the most effective way, we believe, to address that situation. as far as what we do beyond that, as i have made clear, we at the department of defense continue to make all kinds of plans with regard to possible approaches in syria. if the president of united states asks us to respond in a particular way, we are prepared to do that. >> i don't provide positions, i provide options. >> in your conversations with your turkish counterpart, have been spoken about this and do you expect these specific ideas to come up? >> apsa link. each of the countries in the region have a different concern or different set of their own interests. in some cases, for example,

jordan is very concerned about the potential for increased refugees and there's 400,000 palestinian refugees in and around damascus. so that's a concern that an individual country might have that would not necessarily be ours, but it is important to understand the complexity of the situation. >> a question regarding the joint forces staff college, can the individual lecturer is currently still in his position? and do they say things that say "target civilian populations?" he taught for several times -- he spoke several times and taught several years. >> the individual instructor is no longer in a teaching status.

are you asking am i surprised? yes, i am surprised. i was quite thankful that the young man who did find the course material offensive spoke up. >> [unintelligible] should we understand that this elected course [inaudible] the second question is on al qaeda in syria. you said we don't have any indication of al qaeda being involved in the double explosions that took place in damascus. the syrian government confirms that al qaeda is active in syria. any indication to say al qaeda is actually active and how big it is and is that a concern for you? >> al qaeda anywhere is a concern for us.

we do have intelligence that indicates there's an outside the presence in syria. have very good't intelligence as to just exactly what their activities are. that is the reason we cannot really indicate specifically what they are doing or are not doing. concern.are concerne -- a we need to continue doing everything we can determine what kind of influence they have. >> this is for you both. president obama recently gave his personal opinion on gay marriage. in your personal opinion, should gay service members be allowed to get married on military bases in those states where gay marriage is legal? >> you know, i am not going to render personal opinion on that. i'm responsible for enforcing the law, as secretary of

defense, and for giving the best defense advice we can to the president of the united states. i think that is true for martin dempsey and for myself. there are two laws we are and its "don't ask, don't tell" and we here that's going very well. it's going according to all the planning before it went into effect. it's not impact on morale or unit cohesion. it is not impacting on readiness. and so, because it was prepared --and i give tremendous credit to the military for having laid the groundwork of that going into that-- as a result of that effective planning, this is working well and my view is the military will move beyond it. it has become part and parcel of

what they have accepted within the military. the other law that we have is the defense of marriage act. the defense of marriage and, doma, does that impact with regard to the benefits that are provided to same-sex couples, so we continue to review the benefits, but those have to be provided consistent with doma. until doma is either rejected by the courts or changed by congress, that is the law we abide by. >> personally, i follow the rule of law. when asked for my military advice, i inform with the joint chiefs and the provide that privately. >> the idea that everyone in the

service is to be treated equally, but does it concern you that some service members are not allowed to get married on military bases? >> there are three things -- this has been under review since "don't ask, don't tell" and there are three bins. one of them is self-declared. a young man or young woman can self-declare who will get their insurance benefits. and there are policies. the secretary controls that peridots are a under review. and there's a lot. we don't control that. -- then there is the law and we don't control that. >> it's very clear that state law controls the marriage situation. where state law provides for that, then that kind of marriage

can take place. if the law prohibits that, then it cannot take place on a military base. >> have you discovered any negative impact as a result on the order and discipline as a result of the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell?" if not, what was everybody's afraid of all these years? >> i have not found any negative effect on good order and discipline. to your second, what we are afraid of is we did not know. the way we were given a year to make this assessment to educate ourselves, to collaborate, to build a sense of trust on this issue, given that time to do it, i think it worked out well. >> thank you.

>> in just over 15 minutes we will join the discussion on lessons learned from the japanese earthquake and tsunami a year ago last march. that will be live at noon eastern from the heritage foundation. coming up at 3:00 this afternoon, a russian journalist, a member of the democratic opposition movement, will talk about the election of vladimir putin,. this follows is today's announcement by president putin that he will not join a group of eight industrial nations meeting at camp david next weekend, hosted by president obama,. you can see that on c-span 3 starting at 3:00 p.m. eastern. today the president is in reno, nevada, to promote housing policies to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. nevada ranks second in the nation in foreclosed homes and has the highest unemployment rate in the country. president obama o visit a working couple selected because they benefited from new mortgage rules. you can see live coverage starting at 3:00 and eastern on c-span 2. >> i had my ambition to walk

with johnson at pocahontas. as a poster there and there's one over here. it makes a rectangular space t. john ross inry's this church in 1614. -- marries john. >> this saturday, it tour the jamestown colony dig with the project director. the colony has yielded more than 1.5 million unique artifacts. take that tour starting at 1:30 p.m. eastern. visit the rediscovery alb at 2:00 with the senior curator. and joining the conversation to answer your questions, live saturday at 2:30 p.m. eastern, part of american history tv this weekend on c-span 3. >> institute of medicine has come out with a report on reducing obesity and what role

the federal government, employers, and schools should take a. this morning the washington journal talked with the head of an organization that put out the report. we will show you as much of this as we can until live coverage on the lessons learned from the japanese earthquake last year. >> on your screen is dan, a familiar face to washingtonians. he served as a member congress and was u.s. secretary of agriculture from 1995 through 2001. more recently headed up the motion picture association. right now he is the chair of the food and nutrition committee of the institute of medicine, which put out a study this week on obesity. thanks for being here. guest: thank you. host: on the cover of newsweek just out -- your study suggests, with all the statistics we see about america's increasing obesity problem, some ways to address it. guest: it's a major national

problem, it affects health care costs, the largest driver in health care costs being chronic diseases as it did with aging and weight and affecting children. it affects our national budget. lifestyle people's and everything else. so it is a major national problem. it is not capable of a simple solution, however. it involves all of society and involves the health care system, the schools, if the business community, local governments, and the individuals themselves. but it is a big health care issue and is a big cost issue. we have to deal with it. if we don't, it will be disastrous to our country. host: the obvious answer to the question of why americans are getting fatter is that we as a country eat too much. is there more to the story? guest: much more. many eat too much beer the kinds of foods we eat are high in sugar and high in fat. we exercise too little.

a lot of that is the technological changes in society, like kids not walking to school anymore or watching a lot of television or using social networking devices to spend a lot of their time it. we live a different lifestyle than we used to. people and kids are being bombarded by messages about the foods they eat. by and large, the messages they seeing are not to eat healthy, low-fat foods. so everybody is facing this cosmic problem that all the pressures are to eat more and to exercise less. there is some personal responsibility in this as well. but it is too big to say why don't people just watch their diet. there are too many pressures on people in modern society. we need to address this as a major public health issue and a national debt issue. everybody's worried about the national debt. if the fastest-growing part of our national debt is health care costs. they are going up much faster than anything else.

the fastest-growing part of that relates to chronic disease. host: as secretary of agriculture, you have the responsibility for administrating the food stamp program. will you talk a little about what your organization sees as the role for directing people to use food stamps as one thing and the women's and children's infant program for healthy foods? guest: the food stamp program is called the snap program and it is a large program with well over 40 americans on food stamps right now. there are some restrictions on the kind of things people can buy with food stamps. by and large, we let people make those choices for themselves. the women and infants and children program, wic, is limited to fruits, derek, and we

limit the kinds of things people are eligible for. we also do a lot of education on the two programs to encourage people to consume the healthy foods. there's some controversy because some folks would like to restrict food stamps to certain types of foods. unfortunately, we don't have the data yet to determine whether in fact that is legitimate or not, because the grocery stores have always thought that it. that it tends to stigmatize people that on food stamps. clearly we have to look into this problem in a cosmic way. it's not just people on the two programs having a problem. it is everybody that has this problem. host: how did you get involved in this issue? guest: up probably needed some personal advice myself, which has a lot to do with it. when i was secretary of agriculture, we dealt with the fact that we not only had the farm program, so we provided programs to help farmers deal

with production agriculture, but we also have the nutrition program as well. when i was at the usda, we had the first discussion of what people's diets ought to be. that was in the 1990's. i maintain that interest ever since then. not only with the institute of medicine but on a bipartisan policy center, a washington think tank where we will issue a report soon. it is an interesting issue. i'm very interested in food, the role that food plays in our society, good food, bad food, all sorts of food. how we can get people to eat better and take better care of themselves. host: on twitter, sam writes -- some people in society have been pointing to the increased use of corn syrup as one of the drivers for the american obesity problem. during the past several decades, corn as a commodity has been getting federal support. guest: we did not find this

study any direct linkages at all between farm programs and those that support corn and obesity. it is too indirect a connection. i do think we need to look at our farm programs to try to help folks as we increase our demand for fruits and vegetables, we will have to be producing more those. our current farm programs are not always compatible with more production of non-program crops. program crops are wheat, corn, rice, soy. but they don't provide the resources in fruits and vegetables. we need to be looking at farm programs to increase production of those things. i would say one thing to blogger. that's an old expression said for every complicated problem, there's a simple and a wrong solution. this is one of those problems

where there is no simple solution. i wish there were a magic bullet or drug everybody take to make them helping and then and live 100 years, but it involves too many aspects of society. we need to look at all things including the farm program. host: when you mentioned drugs, yesterday the fda approved one of two major diet drugs under consideration. the diet drugs wins panel approval. this is an 18 to 4 vote saying the benefits outweighed the risks. so you are suggesting all sorts of solutions. guest: yes. one out of three children in this country are overweight or obese. what happens is it is a leading cause of illnesses like diabetes, liver disease, and

cardiovascular disease. what happens is the older you get, these problems become almost epidemic and high-cost items and they change people's lives. we have to look at a multiple number of options. one of them is probably in the pharmaceutical industry. host: you are seeing a graphic that came from this report. we will look at some of the other statistics. that is as we listen to your calls and take your tweets and you can also e-mail your questions about the national response, which includes federal but also others inciting, to the growing obesity problem in the united states. fredericksburg, maryland. this is mike, a republican. go ahead, please. caller: i could say so many things about this whole issue, but really for me this comes down to that people are going to be people. people are going to eat what they want to be ieat.

if you put regulations on school cafeterias and the vending machines, you wind up creating a black machinesin doritos. a black market in doritos. you have a situation now where you pass the health care bill. the federal government has gotten more and more power over the medical profession. the result of that is since the one who pays the piper calls the tune, we in prince on people's freedom to eat what they want to eat. guest: this report does not call for the federal government to take over this issue. we are saying a lot of folks have responsibility in this area. let's take for example physical activity. in years past, most kids had at

least 60 minutes of physical activity in their schools every day. it no longer happens in most schools. i'm not even talking about formal physical education. physical activity is not a part of millions of kids education anymore. that is one part of the problems. the business community, for example, people spend more time in their work than any place except their home. the business community is finding more and more of their employees are either taking days off, productive or not well, because of health-related activity. so they have responsibility to look at this problem as well. nobody is saying all sam is the cure all for these problems. -- uncle sam. the private sector, the health- care community, doctors, everybody has a stake in this. i would say to the gentleman who called, if i understand his point, but when the health care

costs of this country are going to bankrupt america fairly soon, we all have a stake in this. host: you suggested earlier that schools have a particular role to play according. to your according guest: foods andchool vending machines and the role of schools in educating their students so they understand what is good for them and what is not good for them, the relationship of schools to the parents as well, the resources devoted to quality foods in school programs, whether it is breakfast or lunch, some kids have no meals whatsoever except their meals at schools, particularly those who are poor and needy programs, so the schools have a big piece of this issue, but not the only piece. parents have a piece. the business community has a piece. doctors have a piece. other institutions have a piece. and so, i don't want people to think this is a situation with simple solutions.

the essence of this report is that to deal with this problem of chronic disease and obesity, particularly as it relates to di -- to diabetes, cancer, heart disease, which often are lifestyle related diseases, we as a society must all look at this as a major public health crisis. host: by the time and people get to school they have had five or six years and home and learning from their parents. you mentioned earlier about more public education? guest: one of the things we talk about is the need for years before kids get to school in terms of making sure parents know what kind of dietary guidelines, what type of dietary intake is good for their kids and can help them in this regard and encouraging parents on the physical activity side of the picture. you have to look assaulting when it comes to young people as both as diet -- by the way, a lot

of it starts in prenatal care in the wic program. kids who are breastfed tend to be healthier and dinner at a younger age. there are multiple -- tend to be a healthier and thinner at a younger age. host: can food stamps used at a fast-food restaurant? guest: absolutely not. some restaurants would like to see the food stamp program. there are few exceptions for the handicapped, and other things, but for all practical purposes it cannot be used for those things. one of the things we would like to find out, the data needs to be looked at in terms of are people on food stamps or snap

buying different kinds of foods that people not on it. it's premature to start limiting folks of what taken by on food stamps. right now they cannot buy certain things on food stamps, but this is a public policy issue that i'm sure congress and the people will continue looking at. of course i don't want towhen w, we have had callers say there is a robust market in people selling food stamps for cash and then using the cash to purchase what they want. could people circumvent the rules? guest: we do not have stamps anymore. this is a credit card type benefit. there are some issues. in the big scheme of things, it is not significant. host: the next call is from cape cod, angela, independent. caller: as of august 1, the state is going to implement a

ban on cookie and brownies sales at pta meetings and football games. this is a nanny state. people were so outraged they called their representatives. the state representatives have rescinded it. is going to vote in the state senate. the governor is going to sign. it will be up to each community if they want to implement this. these sales are necessary to buy uniforms for the kids. this is the craziest part. it was never on the national media. it was on fox news. it was an embarrassment. we look like a nanny state. guest: i saw that. sometimes in our zeal to do good

public policy things, we do not use the best judgment in the world. that was not good judgment, limiting what people could do to raise money for local school districts. there are certain things you can and cannot do. you have to try to encourage people to have better health habits. encourage the health care profession, business community. you also have to realize human nature being the latest, people do not want to be told to do things that in their own mind might seem ridiculous. >> we go live to the heritage foundation in washington for a discussion on lessons learned from last year's earthquake and tsunami in japan. japanese officials and members of the homeland security department are taking part. >> please make a last courtesy check to make sure cell phones have been turned off. our friends from c-span and my own recording crew will be very

grateful. we will post the program within 24 hours on our website for everyone to reference. those watching the internet are welcome to send questions at any time by e-mailing us. hosting our program is steve bucci, a senior research fellow in defense and homeland security. he specializes in cyber security, special operations, and civilian defense support. he served as an army officer and top pentagon official. he made appointments to eastern africa, south asia, and the persian gulf. in july of 2001 he assumed the duties of military assistant to defense secretary donald rumsfeld and worked daily with the secretary for five years. retiring from the army in 2005,

he continued in the pentagon in a civilian capacity as the assistant secretary for american security affairs. before joining us this year, he was a lead consultant to ibm on cyber security policy. please join me in welcoming my colleague, steve bucci. [applause] >> good afternoon and welcome to the heritage foundation. we're glad to have everyone here. this particular subject is a very important one. a year ago, the heritage foundation wrote a really fine report on the tragedy that occurred in japan. one year later, they have written a new one, which is again an excellent analysis of what went on and what we can learn from our friends and allies in japan in how they dealt with this particular tragedy.

this afternoon, we're going to have our first speaker of who will be mr. yasuhiko iwasaki from japan. i will give his full introduction in the second. he will speak to us. he will be using a translator. for those of you who have not had that experience with a speaker, is a learning one. then we will bring up a panel of three other speakers i will introduce at that time. at the end of their remarks, we will open it up for q&a. i will tell you ahead of time, i get kind of draconian with q&a. if you start giving a speech, i will stop you. you need to start off with something that ends with a question mark at the end of it. we have a fine panel to discuss this.

before we go further, mr. iwasaki is the vice director general of the tohoku regional bureau of the ministry of land, infrastructure, transport, and tourism in the region. this is a key role in the subject we are discussing. a very difficult portfolio in this kind of situation. we're honored to have him here to share with us what he has learned and experienced in the last year. without further ado and to not take up any more time, i will give you the floor. [applause] >> good afternoon. my name is yasuhiko iwasaki. i want to thank you for offering

me the opportunity to attend. i am especially honored to be asked to be on the panel today. i want to tell you about the recovery efforts our translation department was involved in after the earthquake and tsunami. i was assigned to the u.s. federal highway administration in 1997 and 1998. your invitation to come to washington brings me back to happy memories of that time. [speaking japanese] >> i will deliver my presentation in japanese. >> [speaking japanese] >> i would like to give a brief overview of the earthquake and tsunami.

in 2011, an earthquake hit the northeastern region of japan. in the earthquake, it caused a lot of damage in the wider area of japan. also, the earthquake caused a mass of tsunami -- mass of tsunami. the affected area is about the links between -- the affected area is about the distance between boston and washington, d.c.

i have to point out this area is not have a high number of population in japan. but still, this region has 3.9 million people living in this area. more than 1 million people suffered in this disaster. we lost about 20 people in this disaster -- 20,000 people, i am sorry. i would like to show you some pictures that are significantly affected by the disaster. this area has about 20,000 people in population.

this is a before and after picture. a high surf of about 20 meters hit in this area. this is before the tsunami. you can see how large the damage was after the disaster. this is a city with a population of about 16,000 people. the main industry in this area was fishery. a high surf of more than 10

meters hit. unfortunately, we lost about 4000 people. that was the overview of the disaster. now i would like to talk about what kind of activities we implemented after the disaster. >> [speaking japanese] >> we usually have three steps of the activities that are in a white square. when a disaster happens, we will implement activities for restoration and construction --

restoration and reconstruction. something unique to our activities after the disaster, we saw an immediate response. we gave support to the local governments and affected people. also the top priority was to clear the roads because the tsunami caused massive degree -- debris. i would like to mention some highlights of our activities. one effective measure was we were able to have a helicopter

taken from a nearby airport after the earthquake and before the tsunami. there are only two flights that were made from this airport after the earthquake but before the tsunami. one of them was our helicopter which is shown on the left-hand side corner. we were thinking about sending some of our office staff to this airport, but we decided to have only the pilot and crew takeoff. because we did not spend time considering if we should send our people to the airport, we were able to utilize limited time after the earthquake and before the tsunami.

and the second point. another point was we were able to share opinions by this videoconference, including our minister who was in tokyo at that time. in our first meeting after the earthquake, it was held about three hours after. our minister made two points.

he wanted to emphasize beyond our ministry framework we roused to prioritize saving people's lives to do we were asked -- he wanted to emphasize beyond our mystery framework that we were asked to prioritize saving lives. he wanted to let us know we would be responsible for consequences. i would like to also point out this video conference was shared throughout the offices throughout japan. i would like to move on to the third point. this side was significantly

affected by the tsunami. this vertical line shows our national highway core. this was not affected by this and money -- this was not affected by the tsunami. as i mentioned earlier, our priority was to send resources to save lives and supply necessary goods. we allocated massive resources to clear and reopen 16 routes to the affected areas.

as you can see in this picture, it was covered in massive debris and going to be difficult challenge we thought. also, we wanted to be compassionate about the victims who were caught in the debris. not only speedy activity, but we also wanted to implement some careful activity. thanks to the support by the private sector construction firms, we are able to reopen 15 of the 16 routes within days of

the tsunami. i want to say those private- sector workers were very brave to implement these activities. they started their activities on the very day of the earthquake and tsunami, even though the tsunami alert was still in effect. as of this slide shows, were able to reopen 10 ports within 10 days. within a month, we were able to reopen the airports. i would like to mention some

points that were effective for clearing the roads. i would like to go back to the last earthquake before this which was the kobe earthquake in 1995. we had activities that had been done prior to this disaster to some structures. for those bridges that had been done with reinforcement activities, those survived the tsunami accident. the second point is our ministry intensively immobilized. mobilized at our resources --

the second point is our ministry intensively mobilized our resources to reopen the 16 routes. the support given by the local construction companies was very significant. >> [speaking japanese] >> i would like to move on to the fourth part. being the national level government, we were able to allocate and collect resources and get them to the affected area. the satellite devices were very helpful. mlit decided to send our people to the local affected

localities. we call these people liaisons'. 96 liaisons' were sent to 31 localities. these people were very effective to support the localities' leadership of professionals. those needs mentioned by the local leadership were varied, exceeding our normal work scope. beyond our usual work scope, we helped procuring some of the

necessary goods that also included coffins. i like to introduce some other activities. i would like to extend my appreciation for the support given for this operation by the united states. thank you very much for your support. i would like to move on to the lessons learned. i am going to point out some things that were effective the we're able to implement, some activities urgently.

i mention these points earlier -- i mentioned these points earlier. i am going to mention specifically about the second point on disaster management organizations to carry out and secure the functions of a management organization we have to have resources that are not affected by disaster. many of the localities, the leadership lost resources by this disaster. fortunately, we were able to secure our facility after this disaster.

these are some points for the localities. one thing that surprised me was the last point which was our professionalism shown to the localities. i mentioned about liaisons'% from our ministry. for two weeks we thought it was a critical phase. we kept the liaisons staff in the local areas.

they helped make decisions by the localities. also, we were very active in collaboration with our russian -- other national organizations as well. i would like to mention some reasons that were successful in giving support to the localities. first like to mention that our regional bureau has 42 field offices in the region. those 42 field offices have their branches, about 100 of

them. i think our activities were successful through our daily activities and to maintain professional skills by managing the roads, ports, and other infrastructure in the region. also as i mentioned earlier, the support given by the private sector construction companies, that kind of support had been arranged prior to the disaster. because we had such good relationships with the private sector, i think those companies were successful and very active in implementing activities

without waiting for some requests by our government. i would like to point out some issues and challenges we have to address. this is a map of the region affected by the disaster. this shows some highly construction -- some highway construction. this is construction and development. the black line shows highways. you can see some parts that are not built yet.

to reconstruct normal lives for the people and revive the industry in the area, we should be able to complete these highway projects. those are very critical to the restoration. for public works in japan, those were strongly monitored by the public for the last few years. due to the disaster, there was a change in the discussion. people started recognizing the verse infrastructure networks are very important for recovering from a disaster.

we have to recognize we had some difficulties in terms of energy and communications capacities when this type of large-scale disaster occurred. back in march of last year, this is the wintertime in that area. there was some snow accumulation as well. we were lacking some gasoline supplies. there were some planned blackouts for the region. this slide does not mention that

i would like to point out the biggest challenge we have to address. this scale of the disaster is one time in 1000 years. we were not prepared for this size and scale of disaster. japan is more exposed to natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes. however, this type of natural disaster-prone country, and also we have some documents from the past that such a large-scale

disaster could occur. we lack in preparation to fully prepare for this size of disaster. cked inacked -- we laugh preparation to fully prepare for this size of disaster. the most important lesson we learned from this disaster is that we should not limit ourselves in terms of making assumptions for our preparations for disasters. i think we have to think about various possibilities, types and degrees of damage to our country and be prepared for those. thank you very much. [applause]

>> all right. i would ask our other three panelists to come forward. you can take your seats as i introduce you. we have an impressive panel. can you get by me? we are going to start off with mr. ed davis. he is a senior nucleolar industry executive and has been for over 30 years. as an engineering, business management, finance, marketing, and government affairs. he is currently the president and managing director of the pegasus group where he is responsible for providing strategic consulting services to a wide range of clients in the utility industry's and directly

to federal agencies. he will be followed by an old friend of mine, daniel kaniewski. he is the assistant vice president for homeland security and deputy director of the homeland security policy institute at george washington university. he joined hspi in 2008 after having spent three years on the white house staff. most recently as special assistant to the president for homeland security and the senior director for response policy. he coauthored and edited the white house report on the federal response to hurricane katrina and the lessons learned from it. he chaired a domestic readiness group of the white house and managed the presidential disaster declaration process, something i had a lot to do with where i was the deputy secretary of defense for a homeland defense. to wrap of the formal presentations, we will have

dr. kumi yokoe, the visiting fellow of our asian studies at the heritage foundation. dr. yokoe was a fellow at the institute of government and management and a visiting fellow at princeton university. she is our resident expert in japan. we will begin with ed and go from there. >> thank you for the introduction. it is a pleasure to be here to share perspectives on the fukushima nuclear accident that occurred after the earthquake and tsunami. a year has come and gone already. over a year has come and gone already. so much has happened. so much has been reported on the accident, talking about the

nuclear accident to distinguish from the natural disaster the previous person spoke about. it is helpful to do a look back and try to put the event in some perspective so we can process it. i would like to preface my remarks and say on behalf of myself and my colleagues and friends in the nuclear industry have deeply saddened we are about the magnitude of the devastation we have seen on the slides and a large loss of life brought about by the earthquake and tsunami. we certainly regret the fukushima accident that was triggered made things much worse for the japanese people by spreading radioactive contamination and causing the evacuation of large numbers of people from their homes in the vicinity of the site. on behalf of myself, my friends, and colleagues in the nuclear industry, i stand here and would

like to express my admiration for the japanese people for their courage, bravery, resiliency, and determination to recover from these kinds of events. the japanese people and their heroic efforts have been very impressive and inspiring to all of us. i would like to have my remarks not so much about the technology assessment or the regulatory assessment. i am not here to give the nuts and bolts about exactly what happened on the accident chronology. i want to be able to put the nuclear accident in perspective, if you will. today, one year after, i believe we still do not have a full distillation of the accident in a manner that the causes and implications can be commonly understood and communicated.

we have seen with stress tests and near-term regulatory actions that the story is getting lost in all of that. by the story, i mean the essential context and from work -- framework cumins place around an accident to understand it and share and communicate with others. storytelling, even today in this media-driven age, is still the most powerful tool in communications. i was struck by today's contemporary accounts of the centennial anniversary of the sinking of the titanic. i imagine how the story of the fukushima accident is going to be boiled down over time and passed down to generations to come.

i asked myself the question and ask those in the audience and listening in, was the fukushima accident a black swan event? an extremely rare event that has extreme impact and is only explainable and. two people -- predictable in hindsight. was it more like a titanic even where a combination of hubris and complacency conspired for a scenario where you had a speeding passenger ship travelling in the vicinity entrusted with icebergs -- infested with icebergs with a shortage of lifeboats when the unthinkable happened? my perspective on fukushima is framed by an assessment i undertook on behalf of a u.s.

client who wanted to understand more about the accident to put into context to do a comparison, i compare and contrast. under to that shortly after the accident and continue through the fall of 2011. -- i undertook that shortly after the accident and continued through the fall of 2011. i interviewed chief inspectors for the report. i reviewed the iaea report on the fact finding mission to the accident. i reviewed the japanese government's reports. finally, i reviewed our u.s. near-term task force report my preliminary take is that there were a great deal of the similarities between the sites in the u.s. and one of a steady.

i concluded and synthesized the story of the question in my mind -- the story of fukushima in my mind. it was that in hindsight, it was foreseeable. that may sound like a non sequitur to many of you. here is how i recount the accident and share it with my friends and colleagues and neighbors that ask me about it. the plant was located about 110 miles from the intersection of four tectonic plates, the so- called ring of fire. it was originally an imperial japanese before space -- air force base. it was lowered from its original elevation. it was lowered 25 meters exposing the site to the impact

of tsunamis, increasing the tsunami impact risk. the sea wall that was installed in and around fukushima was under-designed for the size of the tsunami that reached the shore. emergency diesels that are the backup in case the power is lost replaced in the basement of the turbine buildings facing the pacific ocean. why? they wanted to protect them from a seismic event. there were some gaps in the regulatory oversight. i might add one other thing. thus the pumps -- the sea pumps were located at an elevation below the revised elevation of a potential tsunami.

in my view, the accident was not the inevitable consequence of the rare act of god. through sound practices of engineering, regulation, inspections, and evaluations -- i think in the future we could prevent something like this. the causes of fukushima were the earthquake knocking out the transmission lines. the tsunami that followed about four in the -- about 40 minutes later. it was a series of seven waves back and forth that knocked out 11 of the 12 diesel generators that were located in the basement of the turbine buildings, again facing the pacific ocean. totally swamped.

this is a point not often mentioned in analyses. the sea pumps are required to remove the heat from the plant. these were basically destroyed and rendered inoperable. the electrical connections between the switch gear, between the emergency power and pumps, was lost. as a result of this, we incurred what is called in the nuclear business a station blackout. what is not talked about is that also occurred in combination with the loss of the heat sink. the sea pumps were lost because there were lower than the elevation of the reactor buildings. there were flooded and destroyed. that eliminated any possibility

to remove heat to the sea. without a heat sink and ability to remove heat to the sea, the only option left was to feed and bleed into the atmosphere. that cannot be done quickly enough to prevent the cores from melting down. we had a hydrogen buildup and explosions. the lessons learned from all this is that the flood hazard and risk of tsunami is just as great as that of the seismic and earthquake event. periodic risk assessments of natural hazards should be considered. data and methods change with time. we need to refresh our design for the protection against natural hazards at least every

10 years. there cannot be complacency about nuclear safety. the plant owner, not the government, this is the point i want to emphasize and come back to. the plant owner and operator, not the government, is ultimately the primary entity responsible for safety. i would like to share an account printed in the "wall street journal" on april 13 about the titanic. the ship carried 2224 people and had only enough lifeboats to squeeze in 1178. yet as this article reports, it was fully compliant with all marine laws. british laws required all vessels above a certain size to

require only 16 weapons. the titanic had four more than 16. -- only 16 lifeboats. the titanic had four more than 16. the build a ship four times the limit associated with the number of lifeboats. the conclusion is author -- the conclusion of the author, he writes that regulated entities tend to comply with the specifics of regulations and not the goal of the regulations themselves. all too often, once government takes over was private risk management becomes regulatory compliance. at the core of the accident is this reality. british regulators assumed responsibility for the lifeboats and then botched it.

with a close reading of the evidence, it is hard not to see the titanic disaster was a tragic example of government failure. why do i mention this? because the nuclear industry and aftermath concluded that mere compliance with regulation was not good enough. the owners were the primary responsible entity for insuring safety. within that recognition they formed the institute for nuclear power operations located in atlanta, georgia, which took collective responsibility by the owners, realizing an accident some place was an accident everywhere. i am encouraged to learn that now the japanese plant owners and operators are forming their own group to improve operations

and inspect themselves. they will be taking full responsibility for safety in years to come. with that, i would like to conclude my remarks. i would be happy to engage in the conversation with the panel afterwards. thank you very much for listening. [applause] >> thank you. i look forward to picking up on a couple of the themes you brought up. risk-management and lesson learned -- lessons learned. i worked in the white house. i started just one month before hurricane katrina. my role was as response director. i was responsible for responding to natural disasters. lo and behold, the worst case scenario happened in august of 2005.

i will say katrina is something that has been with me ever since. not only was i there seen the response to it, but i had an opportunity to be part of the team to look at the lessons learned from the disaster and implement those. when our colleagues at the heritage foundation invited me to be part of this task force about a year ago, i had a bit of deja vu. here was another disaster that had catastrophic consequences. in hindsight, the failures of the response were obvious. as ed mentioned, we called a black swan. it is something we did not anticipate ahead of time but ultimately had catastrophic consequences and in hindsight seemed so obvious. for the sake of argument, i will

make the counter argument. i will say it was a black swan what happened in japan. it is a black swan because it was not just an earthquake. it was not just a tsunami. it was not just a nuclear incident. it was all three of those things wrapped together. the reason hurricane katrina was so catastrophic was because it was not a single disaster. it was not just a hurricane. it was a hurricane, a category 3 hurricane when it came on shore. it should not be catastrophic. what made it catastrophic was the failure of the levees. that is something we know was a disaster within a disaster. those two scenarios, one of which was unlikely, the levees being breached. one was fairly likely, a

hurricane, category three. those things together make a disaster in catastrophe -- a catastrophe. japan faced a disaster within a disaster within a disaster. not only was it an earthquake and tsunami and a nuclear incident. a nuclear incident has such a strong feeling for all of us, particularly the japanese, that can cause physical consequences and severe psychological consequences. one of the things we saw in that disaster was the resilience of the japanese people. we all remember the tv images from hurricane katrina and many disasters we have faced in the united states. americans are not as resilience. how many of us have food stockpiled in our homes, water,

medication? we know we should but most of us do not. how would we react to a terrible catastrophe hitting us? destroying our homes, injuring and killing friends and family, and then to see on tv the japanese people waiting in line for food and water in an orderly fashion after the disaster was remarkable. i can only hope that we can learn from these lessons. part of the report released recently was the need for individuals to take their responsibility seriously. if you think the government will be there to help you in a disaster, you are crazy. you are going to be on your own. the department homeland security tells you you are going to be on

your own. least 72 hours. they are serious. you are going to be on your own. the federal government cannot be there for you in your time of need. on the risks side, we talked about this being a black swan. i mentioned for the sake of argument that it was a black swan. we need to realize we have to be prepared for extremely low probability high consequence events. i would say the japan example is probably the best example i could give you. those three scenarios all rolled into one, how could have predicted that? it seems easy in hindsight, but who is going to allocate resources to that low probability event when you think by definition it is unlikely to happen? the probability is not 0.

what if the probability is one in 100? what if it is one in 1000? as a policymaker, how would one allocate those resources christmas this is the challenge we have faced in the united states for years. is something we call homeland security. homeland security grants were very controversial when we started giving money to states and local governments to prepare for disasters. how you decide which state to give more money to? high population? do you give it on a per capita basis? does every state deserve a certain amount? does north dakota deserve the same amount as any other state? it was very controversial. eventually we came to a solution. today the grants are allocated based on risk.

probably the number one variable is population. but there are a lot of other factors to consider. it is not perfect, but at least we're using science to inform how we allocate resources. it still will not prepare us for the black swan that will be so catastrophic. in hindsight, you can rationalize it. ahead of time, it is difficult to predict. we have to realize basic approaches we have to emergency management will be, and no matter what kind of disaster happens. if even one disaster happened in japan, evacuation is a key component. making sure roads and bridges are cleared is absolutely critical. let's invest money planning for

those hazards, just as we heard japan is now going to do. i do not blame japan. it is easy to say in hindsight japan should have been prepared. i think the japanese government may have been too hard on themselves to say they could have predicted this would happen. i think the japanese have a lot of lessons we can learn. i talked about individuals. in our schools, we do fire drills. we're lucky if we do one a semester. in japan, they have monthly earthquake drills in many places. they do that because they see that as a high probability, high consequence event. we need to be prepared whether

it be the elementary school example or for the public at large. they need to understand that the risk they face, they need to be prepared for. some are obvious. some areas are well-prepared for the risks they face. floridians are well-prepared for hurricanes because it happens almost every year. the florida government, the state emergency management in florida is one of the best in the nation because they always have disasters. they have major hurricanes frequently. i could give the example of california and earthquakes. there's probably no better state or individuals prepared in the united states than the california people and government. they understand the risks they face and prepare for it. i do not fault the japanese. they were prepared for an earthquake. they were probably prepared for a tsunami as well. those two together with a

nuclear incident, i think is unrealistic to expect anybody could have predicted it or allocated significant resources for that particular low probability, a consequence event -- high consequence even. i hope we do embrace lessons learned from this disaster. i urge us to look at it from all hazards approach and not simply focus on this low probability event of three incidents world together happening again in the near future because it could be a one in 1000 year event. eventually, these or other events we do not predict will happen and we need to be prepared for those. thank you. [applause]

>> it is my honor to be here with the distinguished speakers today. i am not an expert on radiation or anything here, but i can talk about public use in japan -- views in japan. in japan when we have the disaster, i walked from a company to my home for three hours. i could not forget what i saw and felt with the fukushima situation. [unintelligible] there was a rare earthquake last summer just after i moved here to be visiting fellow here.

i am kind of a glorified expert of experience. will raise three discussion questions between the u.s. and japan. why has japan stopped all of its nuclear reactors? it is challenging to talk about it, as the japanese. the answer is because it is hard for the japanese to trust the japanese government, especially information. someone had written in a paper, regardless of the economic

benefits, safety must come first. however, the japanese people do not have confidence in the japanese government. the biggest responsibility of government is to protect citizens' life. as an example, why can the japanese people trust the japanese government to bring safety to been reactors now? it was shocking for the japanese people when the news came out that even the japanese government had come up with the estimations of how other radiation expanded. the government gave the results to the u.s. government. in this situation, how could the japanese situation trust the government's? even the government says that

the nuclear reactors are safe. it is hard to believe. and there was news a couple of days ago, and a nuclear safety agency concluded that there was not much that they give the learn from the disaster. first of all, the japanese government has to make trust through information sharing and providing. second, why has japan have an information sharing program? two reasons. one was a unique situation in japan. i understand the japanese government has some reasons for not informing the japanese

people at the time. japan is a small country. japan does not have the evacuations system for so many people to evacuate. the japanese government did not deploy a speedy information because it wanted to avoid the panic in case of the evacuation. at the time, the japanese media had trouble covering it. that did not obtain a speedy result either. they cannot provide the information the japanese people wanted. some of them have the correct information but they could not analyze anything because of avoiding panic in japan. i cannot explain this point of view. there are lots of movies to help us understand the difference between the u.s. and japan.

the u.s. has a lot of movies that describes americans evacuating, running away from something bad. for example, "deep impact." but japanese movies usually do not have the evacuation scenes. i have an example. there is a movie where there is a bomb on a bridge. the result, no notice to the public. this is why u.s. projects have failed. it does not apply to japan. it is not so easy to move around in japan because things are very tight. the second reason is the japanese did not have

information sharing. we do not have systems, some mechanisms. the u.s. created the information-sharing system after 9/11 where the government could share information in the wake of emergency. the u.s. government made the national response proud in 2004, to make information sharing systems for emergencies. it included a guideline for hot lines and what the government should do. the government needed to restore normal operation within one month. after an attack or inuit --

natural disaster, information's sharon system identifies information to the government. as long as i know, when katrina hit louisiana, the government activated c.o.p. i think japan should have learned from 9/11, and from the 1995, especially more information. in the case of 311, local government, it is necessary to have an information sharing system, but japan has not even started to discuss.

as i mentioned, japan is a small country. it has built a tightly knit communities. the community has some advantages and some disadvantages. you mentioned that. one advantage, -- they do not have any place to run away. we must think about that after that. they must collaborate in their community. but on the other hand, such a community, sometimes there are disadvantages, too. there is peer pressure that

prevents people from doing things. there are many things that are taboo in the community. people avoid discussing each other. this is a nationwide program in japan. i think the u.s. does a job of making progress. like the harvard business school used the three-mile island incident and developed the first simulation game on how to control information. i hope the u.s. can collaborate in the process of learning from 311 and from countries all over the world.

the u.s.-japan cooperation helps two areas. making nuclear safety standards and information sharing. thank you very much. [applause] >> ok, now we are or do have the q&a. thank you to all of our speakers. we are on espn live, -- not espn -- c-span. please make sure you have the microphone in your hand before you start your questions so that they can hear the whole question. please stand up, identify yourself.

>> dave fitzgerald. private consultant. i have a question about mitigation. i did not see it mentioned in the report but it involves a lot of money. money spent by local governments presumably, or federal governments, central government's, in the case of japan. it is based on the idea that some people are living in communities that are in the wrong place. they know from experience, from floods, earthquakes, it is a bad place to live. you have to move the community. that is a huge economic cost, political, psychological excursion. how does any government deal with that? we have a problem now in tokyo where they are talking about the landfill areas, liquefaction. you have problems in the gulf with bailing out new orleans --

>> let's allow the panel to comment. does anyone want to go first? >> a great question. mitigation is absolutely essential. mitigation has a high return of investment. just everybody knows, mitigation is spending money now to reduce damages later. some studies suggest if you spend $1 now in mitigation, you can spend -- save $4 on the response phase. so it is a good investment. the problem is, you have to spend the first dollar. it could be very expensive. hundreds of millions of dollars to move a community away from any risk along the shore. from financial terms, you would have to risk a lot and potentially save down the road. two, there is a huge social cause. you cannot just movie community.

it is not realistic in many cases. you could raise homes on stilts, harden them for certain things, like earthquakes. mitigation is key. however, even with a high return of investment, it requires a large up-front cost. >> any other panel members want to comment? ok, a question in the front. >> good afternoon. i am a senior fellow at the homeland security policy institute. a question of the data and data flows in the middle of a crisis. in the bush administration, that was a big challenge during katrina. you have bits of information, sometimes not accurate, but massive amounts of information. i would like the panel to observe how you see the japanese government and society

handling that massive amount of data, what worked and what did not work, and if there are any connections you might draw with the u.s. in terms of the information? >> general, would you like to go first on that? >> [speaking in japanese]

>> i think there are many different discussions, good reputations, battered reputations as well. speaking for my ministry, i think they were very open to give information to the public. regarding the nuclear accident, i think japan itself was in a panic situation at that time. also, we had such a difficult time from the nuclear accidents. we were not prepared to give information and also share information. >> [speaking japanese] >> i also want to think that we did not hide the information but we did not have any examples on how to share the information.

>> from a nuclear industry perspective, after a three-mile island, communications between the operator, the operator is responding to emergency in connection and conjunction with state and local responders, proved to be absolutely essential. many additional improvements were made in the aftermath of three-mile island. today, communications systems are directly linked to the nuclear regulatory agency in bethesda for each of our nuclear operating plants. that is something that we have in the united states appeared from the accounts i read about the accident in fukushima, the communications hindered the deficient response at the site. >> to compare and contrast from

katrina, we have complete destruction of communications infrastructure. we often hear the term interoperability. there was no opera ability. and the situational awareness on the ground was very poor. we did not know what was going on on the ground, the federal government. i remember being at the white house watching on tv, trying to figure out what was happening on the ground. we have so much conflicting information. you never know what to trust and what not to trust. in the case of katrina, we did not have any official channels of information. we did not hear from the local or state ever to managers because they did not have communications. that was a major challenge, something that has been resolved, it sounds like in japan and the united states, with several technology means, like the satellite phones.

in hindsight, it seems simple. in addition to the media and what made the two disasters different is, what has changed since 2005? we have something called social media. that made a huge difference. social media, for better or for worse, provided real-time information to everybody at the same time. the government found out at the same time the public did, but the good news is, they had information. >> even elements like the national guard, people are looking for ways to get communications back up in an emergency. whether they are temporary cell towers, the temporary internet connectivity, everybody understands how valuable communication can be in those situations, even if it is out of the control of the government. but it is not easy in a

situation like we had in katrina where everything was gone. there is lots of effort being thrown at try to fix that problem so the next time one of our countries has a disaster like this we have the means to jump in there and get things back up as quickly as possible. another question. >> social media and private sector internet have helped so much, especially going back from my company to my home, where we could get through, where we could use the bathroom, where we could stay. i was working on electricity issues with the government. we are very behind in a lot of

ways. information sharing companies are learning. >> i recently asked an assistant to the governor of japan who was here, and it surprised me. i have always seen japan as a common-sense culture, and i think this picks up on the point you have made. i asked him, is there any discussion in the media on the underground shelters? if a tsunami is going to hit the shore within 20 minutes, maybe people would need an underground shelter perhaps as an option to get to. he said there was no discussion in the media about that. could any of you pick up on that point?

>> [speaking japanese]

>> japan is very prone to natural disasters, so i think the japanese people have a very high resiliency in their mind, but i have to get it, we lacked preparation for this particular disaster which was a one-time thing in 1000 years. as mentioned by the other panelists, i would like to agree with how education is important for the preparation, not necessarily having physical facilities to evacuate to. for example, i showed some pictures from one of the prefectures. there were some elementary school students, some of them were back at their houses, and they suffered in the disaster, but those who stayed at the school survived. they knew how to behave during

an emergency because they had implemented a monthly drills how to prepare, how to behave in such an emergency time. >> i would add a point in terms of the nuclear plant safety and accident prevention, either move your central equipment required to respond to natural disasters, such as what occurred in fukushima, either move it to higher ground or put them in leak-tight compartments. in japan, some of the equipment was protected and week-tight compartments. there is no reason, from an engineering standpoint, why certain pieces of equipment, like pawns, could not be protected.

>> is there a specific discussion it in japan on underground shelters? we call them storm sellers, that people can get too quickly, rather than running up the hills. >> [speaking japanese] >> i do not think so. i do not think there is discussion about building an underground shelter. >> [speaking japanese] >> i think those underground shelters are effective for tornadoes and such.

we do not have many of those in japan. i would have to think about how effective those underground facilities would be in japan. i also want to point out, this nuclear accident in fukushima was unexpected. >> i would second what he said. in tornadoes, it is great, but during a tsunami, it is the last place you'd want to be. >> i am going to use my prerogative and ask a question. i would like the last general director and dr. yokoe to respond. what do you see is the power of combining a cohesive and disciplined culture, as you have in japan, with a highly developed and technological society, which you also have, in

addressing this type of disaster? it was horrible that you had a disaster within a disaster within a disaster. i am not sure other cultures would have done as well as you did, had you not have those two. i would like to hear your opinion on that. and perhaps what america could learn from that. >> i think this disaster shows how much the beautiful tradition we have.

although we show some reports -- weak points -- this is my belief. japan has the responsibility to make new technology to fix fukushima daiichi. i believe this disaster helped to promote new japanese technologies coming soon to help all the country.

>> [speaking japanese] >> this is such a stunt -- a complex question but some people who are very polite and respectful in japan. >> [speaking japanese] >> somebody pointed out there was no panic in terms of people receiving food and aid. those people, their culture and

characteristic mitigated so much of the panic during such an awful disaster. >> [speaking japanese] >> but it would be questionable during such a large-scale disaster in a metropolitan area, such as tokyo or osaka, whether people would behave in the same manner. >> [speaking japanese] >> i think we can definitely utilize technological advancements to mitigate panic and also risk and damage to the people. >> [speaking japanese] >> i think information technology is such a critical issue that we have to continue

to work on and also discuss. i think if people are given accurate information, i believe people would eventually come to the right decision. >> [speaking japanese] >> because we lost all of the communications after the disaster, i think we have to take this as an important lesson to learn for future disasters. as other panelists mentioned, information sharing is critical,

to be prepared for, and also to execute correctly. >> my comment, directed at nuclear power plant safety and operations -- you ask the question, what can americans learn from this occurrence? earthquakes strike me as a uniquely american word, but we have learned so much from the japanese scientists and engineers in terms of understanding seismic events and how to protect facilities, like nuclear power plants, from these types of things. the word tsunami is japanese. and distinctly japanese. i have no doubt in less than 10 years we will be learned from the japanese on how to accurately protect our nuclear plants in terms of flood protection, tsunami protection, no doubt about it. >> japan and the united states

are similar, advanced countries, technologically so, as well as our population, we are an educated population, public education. i would say we are different in the sense that the united states is much more diverse geographically and we face a much more broad variety of threats, whether it is earthquakes on the west coast, hurricanes in the east, tornadoes in the midwest, it makes it more challenging for states. it is almost like preparing by region as opposed to country- wide. i would say there are some best practices in japan. mitigation would be a great example where the buildings are built to withstand earthquakes in japan. devastation would be far greater had not been built to withstand earthquakes. luckily, we also do the same thing in states that are prone to earthquakes.

the building code is much stronger in california than it is in new york, for earthquakes. however, we remain will marble to the black swan, low probability, high consequence effects, like the one in new york. those buildings cannot withstand a major earthquake. it would be devastating. it would be devastating on the scale of the third world country almost. third world countries have far more damage as a result of natural disasters because they do not have things like strong building codes, as you would see in countries that can afford to invest in mitigation. >> i'm afraid our time is up. i want you to join me in thanking this panel for this very interesting discussion. and my apologies for c-span for

calling them espn. thank you very much, and have a wonderful afternoon. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> at 3:00 eastern, we will be live with a conversation with a russian journalist and a member of the russian democratic movement about the election of vladimir putin. president clinton has announced he will not be going to the group of industrial nations meeting at camp david next weekend but will be sending prime minister dmitry medvedev. we will get the panelists thoughts. that is at 3:00 today. today, president obama is in reno, nev. to promote housing policies to help home owners avoid foreclosure. nevada ranks second in the nation in foreclosed homes and has the highest unemployment rate in the country. president obama will visit a working couple selected because they benefited from new mortgage rules. you can see live coverage, 3:10

eastern on c-span2. house and senate are not in session today. they return next week. the house on tuesday. among the bills next week, continuing the violence against women act, and setting defense department's programs and spending for next year. live on tuesday at 2:00 p.m. eastern. the senate will work on continuing the export/import bank charter. the house passed the bill last week. also, a number of judicial nominations. house speaker john boehner outlined the legislative agenda yesterday for the house next weekend and beyond, and he also responded to the president's announcement this week that he is for same-sex marriage. the remarks are about 10 minutes.

>> good morning, everyone. just last week, the american people received another depressing jobs report. 115,000 americans found work, while three times that many gave up looking for work. wages in the country are flat beer while they have fallen slightly lately, gas prices are still way too high. it is graduation season around the country. today, half of new college grads will not be able to find a job. between a weak job market and falling home prices, and the rising cost of living, the american people are getting squeezed. they are getting squeezed because president obama's economic policies have failed. they feel stock, -- stuck.

last week, the house passed a responsible bill to extend current low interest student loan rates. congress is under way to rebuilding our infrastructure and advancing new energy and projects like the keystone pipeline. yesterday, the house passed the reauthorization of the import/import bank, with reforms, so that it can create jobs in our country. this week, we will pass our first appropriation bill of the season under an open process with real spending cuts. today, i believe the house will pass a reconciliation bill to protect our military from devastating cuts while providing significant -- significant deficit reduction. so the house is doing its work, the house is governing, and with to get from the other side?

showboats in the senate, gimmicks and posturing by the president. i cannot think of a better symbol of how small this presidency has become than looking at the post-it notes that the president has been carrying around. the most powerful office in the world there to tackle big problems, and he has shrunk to the size of a post-it note. my goodness. our economy is stuck, national debt over $15 trillion, millions out of work, and all the president has is a gimmicky to do list. give me a break. if the president is looking for a to do list, he can start with the jobs bill that are sitting in the senate. he can start by putting americans to work by approving the keystone pipeline. he could do something about the gas prices by increasing energy production.

and he could empower small businesses by cutting red tape and reforming the regulatory process. he could deal with our crippling debt by anchorage and democrats in the senate to finally pass a budget after three years. we want to work with the president. but it is about time he gets serious, focuses on jobs and the economy, and enough with the gimmicks. >> [inaudible] >> members of the committee are doing a very good job. when it comes to the fast and furious, i believe we have to get to the bottom of what happened and who is responsible. the committee is doing that and i support their efforts. >> he is in the process right

now of writing a resolution. >> i am supporting their efforts to hold the department of justice accountable for what happened. the committee has work to do, they know what to have to do. they are pursuing a lot of unanswered questions. i hope they would continue with that. >> [inaudible] >> all options are on the table. >> on gay marriage, leader pelosi and other democrats say you are on the wrong side of history on this issue. do you think this is a civil- rights issue? >> i believe marriage is the union between one man and one woman. the president and democrats can talk about this all they want. the fact is, the american people are focused on the economy and they are asking the question, where are the jobs? >> you do not think this is a civil rights issue at all? the senate passed their version of the violence against women act reauthorization. the house is taking it up next week.

it is a different version. if this moves forward comeback as we often see a back-and- forth, does this threaten to hurt republicans politically as democrats continued to show another example of a war on women? >> no, this is another one of the democrat gimmicks that go on around here. there are thousands of programs that continue to be funded through the appropriation process. this is a reauthorization of that. it is getting a review from the house and senate. a lot of that review is based on a gao study that called for more transparency and more audits in this process. i believe it is important for the house to work its will. hopefully, we will be able to it next week. we want to resolve this issue. this is an important issue. but for our friends to be playing political games with

this, frankly, is inappropriate. >> [inaudible] how big of a role would you like to see that issue take? >> the president can talk about it all he wants. i will stay focused on what the american people want us to focus on, and that is jobs. >> a couple of your colleagues have passed, at the committee level, a band of gay weddings for military, and there is a bill coming forth tonight on spending -- doma. are there other steps you want to take? are there are the states that you have not taken so far? >> we have a lot of ideas from members about what is important to them. we see ideas advanced every day. the american people are concerned about the economy,

they are concerned about jobs. that is why you have seen as focused over the past year-and- a-half on jobs and cutting spending because our debt and deficits are like a wet blanket hanging over our economy, so we will continue to stay focused on what the american people want us to focus on. >> [inaudible] do you think he should be relieved? >> i am not familiar with the accusation that you have leveled against him. all i know is what i read to the ethics committee has decided to continue to look of this. i do not know any more. >> the top rung the adviser says they plan to make reader run the adviser says that they plan to make it an issue. >> they are focused on jobs. thank you.

>> both the house and senate are not in session today. return next week. the house on tuesday. among the bills next week, continuing the violence against women act and setting defense department programs and policy for the next year. you can see that live on c-span when the house gavels in four legislative work tuesday, 2:00 p.m. eastern. the senate will work on continuing the export/import bank charter. the house passed that bill this past week. also in the senate, a number of judicial nominations to be considered. at 3:00 eastern today, we will be live with a conversation with a russian journalist and a member of the democratic opposition movement about the election of vladimir putin. president putin has announced he will not be going to the group of eight industrial nations meeting next weekend in camp david. he will be sending prime

minister dmitry medvedev, who preceded him. today, president obama is in reno, nevada. he is there to promote housing policies to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. nevada ranks second in the nation for foreclosed homes and has the highest unemployment rate in the country. the president will visit a working couple selected because they benefited from new mortgage rules. you can see live coverage at 3:10 eastern on c-span2. the center for strategic and international studies hosted a panel yesterday on a u.s.-russia relations. the discussion focused on a host of topics including the economy and russia ' with other countries. panelists include the ambassador to russia and the current russian ambassador to the u.s. this event comes ahead of the g- 8 summit in camp david later

this month. >> [inaudible] i want to welcome you to an informed discussion on bilateral relations between the united states and russia on the eve of the g-8 summit meeting, and during the period leading up to the vote, we hope next month in the russian state duma, to ratify their succession to the world trade organization appeared since 2009, the reset and relations between the united states and russia, there have been many successes in the relationship including a new start treaty, cooperation on afghanistan, iran, and north korea, civilian nuclear power, and other areas. but there have been the little differences over issues like syria, missile defense, and enforcement of intellectual property rights, and conduct of

parliamentary elections last month. both president putin and president obama have called for a deepening of economic cooperation between the two countries. the russian state duma is expected to ratify russia's acceptance to the wto in june or july. we expect 30 days after that roughly that russia will become a member of the world trade organization. for the united states to take advantage of the new market openings in the russian market, congress must pass legislation to grant russia permanent normal trade relations treatment. the panel today will focus on prospects for improving relations with russia, and how the debbie tia process has prompted russia to take measures to open its economy to more international trade and investment. we had time the panel so it could set the stage for the meeting between president obama and president putin on may 18, which we have learned has been

cancelled today. president clinton had decided to forgo his trip to the united states for the g-8 summit meeting. we will hear more about that from our panelists. with the introduction, i want to yield to my colleague andrew, the director of our russian and eurasian programs here at csis. he will moderate today. >> thank you for the introduction. welcome to csis. delighted to see such a full room and such interest in u.s.- russia relations, particularly the economic dynamic of it, and we have a superb group of speakers. let me make haste and give brief introductions and then turn the floor over to them. we will start off with our two ambassadors to each other's countries, first of all, the current ambassador from the russian federation to my light -- to my right. one of the most distinguished

and long serving successful members of the russian ministry of foreign affairs. he has been here in washington since 2008. he has overseen, from the russian side of things, improvements in relations, often called the reset. he has also served as the russian ambassador to brussels and simultaneously as the ambassador to nato, and deputy foreign minister. it is a wonderful pleasure to see you here at csis. our second speaker will be ambassador john byerly, who just returned from a successful stint in moscow. he arrived back in january 2012. from the american perspective, he was implementing on the ground the improvement of relations, the long series of agreements and corporations that have developed over the past three years between the united states and russian federation.

he is one of our longest serving and most decorated members of the u.s. foreign service. he has also served as our ambassador to bulgaria, 2005 through 2008, and many other provisions having to do with the soviet union, russian federation, and eastern europe. john, great to see you today. our third speaker to my left will be ambassadress susan schwab, who served as the u.s. trade representative for several years beginning in june 2006. she is currently a professor of public policy at the university of maryland, where she has a long distinguished history, where you served as dean of the school of public policy from 1995 until 2003. in the biographical material we have, she is the recipient of

many achievements she made representing the u.s. in trade negotiations. the only one i am not seeing is the u.s.-russia bilateral agreement in november of 2006. maybe that was my oversight. our final speaker will be klaus klienfeld, the ceo of alcoa. he also serves as the chairman for the russian-u.s. business council. i want to extend a shout out to the business council and their president, vice-president, who have been working tirelessly for the coalition for u.s. and russian trade, working to promote russia's graduation from previous amendments, being

granted permanent normal trade relations status, which we hope will happen sometime soon this year. so with that, let me turn the floor over to ambassador byerly -- excuse me, my apologies. >> [inaudible] what is the measurement for success. i would say probably at least one thing, to my record would be [inaudible]

[inaudible] coming back with ideas, sometimes money, technology, to work in the country that they know very well.

that is quite normal. i would say we have normalcy in our relations with israel, but we do not have normalcy in the relation of this particular field with the united states over the issue. that is no longer. there is a political context for this. most probably, we will see debate as to whether russia can graduate or not. in terms of russian economic interest, the completion of negotiations of entry into the wto give us an opportunity to become a member pretty soon, before the end of this year. currently, the situation is, if it is not granted to russia, [inaudible] to the united states and russia.

that means the benefits that the wto gives to foreign countries entering the russian market will be less available to our american counterparts than to many others. we do not like that kind of situation. what we think is needed is normalcy in our relations. that is something that is still missing. we tried to measure our relations by the agreements in arms control, one or two agreements which are important in their own right. what is missing from these relations? normal trade. normal interaction between business communities. not all the big companies that have already entered the market and are doing pretty well. i remind you, there are a number of russian companies that have invested heavily in the united

states and are doing well. you a number ofpl examples. tmk has become the no. 1 producer of tubes after entering the u.s. they have invested in four or five padilla -- facility productions. they also invested in the steel mills here. we consider it to be a step toward normalcy in our operations. i would also say that we are a big market, the u.s. is a bigger market. we are a market of 142 million people -- it depends on how you qualify in, countries in transition or developing countries -- but the russian

market is very significant for all parties, including those in the united states. we would certainly stand to benefit from increased operation with the united states, economically, but also politically. the current numbers, if you look at this, reflecting on trade, extremely large. the last year, trade both ways accounted for $40 billion. it sounds impossible, but that is only 1% of the foreign trade of the united states, about 2% of russian trade. that suggests that neither the u.s., nor russia are to each other important economic partners. for example, with our neighboring ukraine, trade is 20% higher. with the eu, is 10 times higher.

so what does this mean? it means we are missing a good economic underpinning for political relations. we are still vulnerable to the politics of the day, to the crisis of the day, and unnecessarily so. we have a lot of things that we have in terms of challenges we face. i once drew up a list. it appeared to me much longer. we do not see eye to eye. we have progressed a lot in the last three years. the reset has brought a lot of new things, new ways of doing things. the commission established by the two presidents as seems to be establishing new avenues

between the governments and also by creating a framework for cooperation. we would like to see if it progressing further. but still, the potential that does exist in our partnership is still [inaudible] we want it to be develop fully. defining the world stability and maintaining the world stability, especially in the nuclear field. we are members of the security council with good relations between the two of us to really translating into better abilities in the international community, focusing on international issues of the day. so what i'm trying to suggest