complex i did not experience that. i was here. i was out with my son fishing. we did not know anything happens. no movement of the ground. it had to do with the geology. it reinforced the lesson to me that said -- that geology matters. it matters where you are during an earthquake and whether you experience any ground shaking. it matters was beneath you? what is in the past?

that really matters for nuclear facilities. we have to make sure we get this right. we have to make sure we really understand all the issues and we have to make sure we understand the uncertainties. the size of the earthquake at mineral, va. was not predicted and the size of the earthquake at fukushima was not predicted. so, we need to sit down and rethink these issues. we need to ensure that given a variety of situations that nuclear plants will be safe. that helps me segue into my third area of focus for the agency. that would be the back end of the fuel cycle. geology matters with a operating plans but also matters with repository sites and the kind of thing. the back end of the fuel cycle is broader than that. we're nearly out -- we're now dealing with waste company stages.

i'm not able to say about a court ruling because it is in active matter but let me just say that we know this is a pressing issue. it is a priority for us that the commission. we are now looking staff documents which is laying out some options for going forward. we will deal with that promptly. we'll have a plan to move forward quickly. that is where we are going. there will be other issues though,. we are paying more attention to issues associated with fuel. my final goal for the agency is to improve communication. an agency like ours, an independent regulator, does not do well with the public and ensure a public will still have public confidence unless we communicate well. my initial impression is a

breeding nrc documents and some of them are rather opaque. there followed acronyms. these are difficult to figure out. there is no loa- list of acronyms associate with them. when i say loa, nobody knows what i am talking about. every time i get an opportunity to talk to the staff, i emphasize this to them that they get important internally and an externally to be more transparent with our communications. i read these documents and i imagine a grandmother lives in nearby nuclear power plant trying to slog through these documents to understand what some of the issues are. i just ran my hand. i think about grandmother is trying to open bottle tops.

how do they get the ball clubs open? -- how they get the strength to open the jar? we need the public to have confidence in her work. that is an area of focus for us. there are a number of issues that will come up at plants and we will continue to maintain our focus on that. i have been very impressed with the staff at the nrc. they are a strong group of people. i am happy to debate the issue and -- and i am convinced their main goal is also ensuring public safety. i will be happy to entertain your questions.

>> if you could please identify yourself -- >> i'm sorry. steven dolly, still. i want to thank you for hosting the chairman for coming today. your predecessor took a broad view of the power particularly in the area of developing the agency budget. you have told a cole of congressional committees that he will strive to improve collegiality and things on the specifics. to what degree do hope to involve your fellow commissioners in the development of the agency budget and more generally, will you take a broad view of matters that are

administrative and under exclusive control the chairman verses issues that are considered policy and need to be taken to other members of the commission? >> thanks for your question. it is good to see you here. i always see you everywhere. he seemed to show up all the time . i feel very strongly that the commission only operates well it operates as a collegial body might get background is from academia. i see the commission as similar to an academic departments. it is a group of pierre =, one of whom has been elected chair. the chair has some more powers and the rest of the faculty but in the end, they are peer equals. before i was sworn in on july 9, i sat down with my fellow commissioners for one hour and

had a discussion with them about what their concerns were and what the issues they thought were important for the commission. we are continuing that. we need on a regular basis and discuss these issues. if there is an issue that is important, i am happy to run up to their offices. that is how i see this working well. my staff has similar direction to work closely with the status of the other commissioners. -- with the staff's of the other commissioners. i think that's where we want to go. i will leave it there. we're actively working on the budget now. i cannot say much about it but

we are working on it together. we are working on it in a collegial way. we are sharing information. >> the gentlemen over here? >> good morning and thank you. going back to one of your calls about improving communications -- i was wondering if you personally have had communication with your counterparts in japan? can you tell us what the level of information sharing is with the new york task forces for is their recommendations and findings? do you share that information with a japanese nuclear tory regular commission? >> right now, i have not yet had any direct communications with any of my colleagues and where in the world. i'm just a few weeks on the job. i know i will be having more

communications with my colleagues all over the world, with other nuclear regulators. that will come. our commission hearing last week was webcast and is available, is that correct? yes. it is available for anybody to look at. we have a very active office of international programs that work very closely with our colleagues around the world. >> the gentle man right here. >> i am from hearst newspapers. you indicated a preference for dry cask storage on site as opposed to yucca mountain solution for the back end of the fuel. what role do you think the nrc

can play an urgent operators to move more quickly from cool storage to dry cask storage? >> thank you for your question. let me clarify something. i have always felt, and i think many people in the nuclear industry understand well, we need a repository for high- level nuclear waste. let me be clear about that no matter what. every country needs a repository. in the interim, you have some options of how to store your spent nuclear fuel. every actor absolutely requires a spent fuel pool. you cannot have a reactor without one. many reactors find that they use dry cast. i have been impressed with the performance of the drug cast

in the recent earthquake. - - the dry cast. at the nrc, we are one of the tier 3 activities to look more closely at the issues associated with moving more quickly from the spent -- of the spent fuel and to the pools from drying cast so we will be looking at this issue. >> the gentle man right here. >> hello, chairman. your predecessor expressed some concern that the seismic piece of that might be go beyond his goal of five years to implement an area that all the recommendations going forward. what is your view on how quickly seismic revaluations are slated to happen?

do you think that is happening quickly? i think the seismic evaluations are happening quickly enough. they are beginning to happen right now so we should have some information fairly soon at the nrc to evaluate. there are other issues -- these are not hard and fast issues. this more complicated is to have to wait for a shutdown to evaluate what you can do that is where the five-year period comes from. >> [inaudible] >> that was under way before fukushima. this is absolutely in progress. we should be seeing the results

of this very soon. as far as i can tell, it is happening quickly enough. we could push people to move faster. >> i wanted to go back to david's question on the spent fuel. there was some controversy about what the term expedited means. it sounded like you're interested in moving more quickly and staff said they thought expedited means anything quicker than what industry had planned. has that met your understanding? >> that's a good question. i think the staff is looking at this and i will be working with

them closely to express my concerns about how quickly things should move. we have to wait a little bit until we get through some of the tier one activities which the ongoing activities that i explained in my opening remarks. then moved to these tier 2 and tier 3 activities. that is the current question about the schedule for that. that is something i am working with staff on. >> thank you. >> i want to come back to the targets you mentioned about spent fuel. do you think the agency

previously did not spend enough time on this? there is the spent fuel issue and the intersection of geology. >> i want to focus more on the intersection of geology and nuclear issues. this is something where i am directing my personal staff to spend some time on it and we will be bringing it up with agency staff as well. >> and the nuclear waste? >> i'm not completely aware of the nrc before i got there. the nrc is restricted. we don't make policy. we regulate based on existing policy.

we cannot set policy on look here reject nuclear waste disposal. that is the job of congress and the administration. we deal with issues that come to the table. >> over here? >> a was hoping to get your reaction to the milk bone shutdown. what is your perspective on the potential effects of climate change on reactors? do you have concerns about that? >> nice to see you. it is not the first time this has occurred as far as i understand. a water outlook gets warm enough to have to shut down for a little while. i have actually asked the staff to look into the issue of what

are some of the climate change -- potential climate change impacts coming down the road. one of them is the issue of water sources getting warm. hopefully, we'll have more to tell you on that. >> [inaudible] >> yes, and there are a number of other issues. >> thank you. >> in terms of the waste confidence suspension, how long is that likely to last? it seems like it could be significant. can you give us an idea of how long this will take? >> this is one thing we are actively working on now at the commission.

the staff has sent a paper to the commission giving us a number of options on how to go forward and timing and, in general, the commission feels we should work on this as efficiently as possible. we have not settled on an actual number yet. >> it sounds like you have a lot of choices. lote probably don't have a of choices but we have a few. >> if no one has a question, i will take an opportunity. >> please identify yourself. >> i'm george. some have said that the nrc is not tough enough and have had numerous lapses because the nrc has not been vigilant enough.

you have had the opportunity to see what the operation is like on your blue ribbon commission. chairman yazko appeared to support these kinds of suggestions by suggesting that some of the turmoil on the commission was caused by the fact that other members of the commission were not sufficiently tough on safety. he was supported by some members in congress to support your nomination. do you agree with chairman yazko among fellow commissioners? is that criticism not on target? >> thanks for your question, george. i have just been on the job a

few weeks. i have some strong initial impressions of the agency. i have been very impressed with the staff and their dedication to safety. they have a willingness to stand up to industry and they believed a situation is not safe. i am quite sure that the agency is completing its mission of protecting public health and safety. they take safety issues very seriously. they take their role as regulator is very seriously. the public should be assured that they have the public's best interest in mind. >> chairman azko was mistaken? >> i think the agency is carrying out its job.

from what i can tell and i was not here before july 9, from what i can tell so far, i am reassured that the agency is continuing its mission and i intend to encourage them in that direction as much as i can. >> you talked about the importance of communication and communicating what you're doing. is part of that geared towards reversing the perception that the agency has been a victim of oversight. >> that ends up being part of the message. that would be fine. if that is the public perception that the agency has been captured -- my impression so far is that is not the case at all.

i want to insure that as an agency, we take the public concerns very seriously. that will certainly come out when we have public meetings and public hearings. i want to hear from the public and what their concerns are. some recently spoke about efforts to address going back to stop supporting, making sure the support staff. it is an agency environment

issue. i want to know what are some of the things that might be done to make sure they feel they can come forward? >> i am still learning some of the recent history. i am impressed that some of the values are open transparency across the work. there emphasizing that. i think it is interesting when any kind of incident happens at a particular facility they take the time to go through in gather lessons learned and how we can do things differently and do we need to change rules.

it is a self reflected agency. >> i have to ask. what was the agency's reaction to senator read's comments a couple of weeks ago. it was surprising to a lot of us. >> the agency had no reaction. i heard nobody discuss it. i think that speaks to the strength of the agency that we're focused on the mission and not distracted by events outside. >> thank you again. we're getting to the end of the press conference. i thought i would ask more abstract questions. many members of the house and senate wanted to see them be a

bigger supporter of nuclear power. this is nothing new. it has been going on for a long time. i thought it was interesting to have a geologist. but don't think there has been another one. when you have appeared, they ask a lot questions about your qualifications. one applying the had never been to a power plant. can you defend why this is a the time to have a geologist in this position of leadership? >> absolutely. geology matters. if that was not one of the main lessons, i do not know what was. there is a massive earthquake. an earthquake that was not

predicted. why was it not predicted? geology is an area of dynamic knowledge. before the 2000 for earthquake that traded at huge tsunami, seismologists had no understanding but even get a mega quake. we could get their reduction almost zones. now we have that understanding. it is reemphasized by the earthquake that produced the tragedy at fukushima. geology certainly matters. in matters that we keep up-to- date with your logic -- geologic knowledge. it is always changing. if we are dealing with the back end of the cycle, a geology

matters again. let me just say that the nrc is a regulatory body. we protect the public health and safety. we do not make policy. job.is congress's we do not promote the industry. we regulate the industry. we do not look for solutions to the nuclear waste problem. that is the job of congress. >> will the new focus on geology mean that real licensing examination of the facilities like indian points, or some of these issues have post- construction, will it be different now? are you planning to be more rigorous?

>> i am not planning any new roles right now. frankly, because all of these plants are required to update their seismic hazard analysis, i think everybody will be at a good place. we have to ensure that it continues in future and that nuclear engineers check in with geologist's every now and then and see how the state of knowledge has changed. >> thank you. >> hello. >> you asked a number of questions about the mountain. he said you keep an open mind. house wondering if you could talk more about what he meant on? on that and meant what may have changed to cause

you to take another look. >> you know, i did most of my research and technical analysis in the early 2000's. i have not read the license applications. i do not know what has changed. that is still to come. any to spend some time with those documents. we do not have any issue at yucca mountain. there are no decisions to make. >> a using conditions may have changed or that the research they have advanced and there will be new things that maybe you did not see when you're doing your work? >> i do not know.

i know they were going to look at a number of issues that i have been interested in. i just do not know what has changed. i will have to see. >> what is the possibility that real analysis based on the u.s. reanalysis readiness of reactors will react in some of the older ones closing? this is a rough time to be in that business. natural gas is cheap. do you think we will lose some of them? >> i cannot venture and guess. i think you can make a lot of adjustments to plants to upgrade seismic stability and flooding stability. you can take measures to make sure that you mitigate the potential risks that are

forthcoming. the important thing is that you need to understand what those risks are carried you need to understand the uncertainty attached to your risk so that you can add enough of a safety margin. they rode out that earthquake very well even though it exceeded the design basest ground motion. it did that because it had additional safety margins. i think we need to ensure that we understand more broadly what the risks are. we can make sure that we are prepared to handle them. >> i was wondering ..wondering a logistic question.

i was wondering what other things have you been doing? in order to acquaint yourself with the workings of the agency? >> the areas that i outlined to you are areas that i am particularly interested in seeing the agency dig into more. in edition, it is like drinking from a fire hose. i am getting constant briefings and update about a variety of issues. i am also interested in having my staff to dig in deeper some of these areas and see what options are out there. >> you were on the commission. both recommendations have been out.

congress hopefully will receive the doe report. i am curious what you think might be in the doe report. >> it is a regulator. we do not make policy. they cannot do anything to move forward to move this recommendations forward. i think we produced an excellent set and recommendations -- of recommendations. i hope that congress takes this seriously and helps us solve this problem. we need guidance and direction. that is what we will follow once

we get it. i want to talk about the transfer of fuel from what pulls to dry storage. i am sure this is an issue. i am sure you had some views that you came to as a result of that. we see that these were a focus of intense concern. now we have some of the key policy makers. feinstein was very much interested in accelerating this movement to dry storage. putting on your regulator had in terms of being a charge, and do you agree that this move needs to be speeded up? do you see significant risks in the way these polls are now

being packed and what we see at fukushima that this represents a risk that needs to be addressed? >> you are right the accident did highlight the spent fuel pools. the public had no idea prior to the accident. everybody got stuck in their mind the image of the helicopter trying to drop water in the pool. clearly this is another one of my areas of emphasis. the back end of the fuel cycle matters. we should be thinking about it all the time. it should not be an afterthought. it has largely been an afterthought. i want to bring a focus to that now. one of the activities is that the nrc is doing another look at

this issue of should there be an accelerated transfer of spent fuel from the pools to the dry casks. i am interested in taking a deep dive into that issue and understanding the risks from all points of view. the industry has said he pushed it there will be more exposures. we have to understand that. we have to understand the full range of issues before we can develop a policy and go forward. >> last week at the commission briefing on fukushima some expressed concern that exploring the recommendations beyond the orders could trade off industry

resources with activities needed to improve and maintain safety of current plans. one of the representatives of the operator expressed concern that they are getting piled on. you need to learn procedure. there's only so much time on the simulators. what can nrc do with the tier 2 or 3 that can avoid these trade-offs? >> we have to make sure that we thatt make so many rolules a turn attention away from maintaining the safe operation. that has to be the primary focus. the continue to operate safely comment that we we continue our regular work.

at the same time, we have learned some lessons. we have to strike a careful balance. we have to work closely with the licensees to make sure that we are not overburdening them in one direction or another. >> de have any early thought about the role of voluntary industry initiatives as one part of the japanese fixes or in the regulation overall? it was a real point of

contention. it is fair to say that the agency was a little too dependent on them and the others were too quick to rely on voluntary initiatives. >> i now i have not. i've not had much of a comment.

>> i want to go back to your experience on the blue ribbon commission. i think you are an unusual chairmen. you can and having had the benefit of a two year review that looked closely at everything nrc is doing party and early on waste. -- particularly on waste. one of the things that was clear is that we are going to need a repository. there is not going to be a repository anytime soon. as you look at dry storage, is that a completely safe thing? can these fuel rods be put in there for a hundred years or 60 years dept? should people feel reassured about dry storage, that there is no surprises in terms of keeping

things in their. -- in there. >> i think dry storage is safe. i am just trying to think of the numbers. i think the first dry storage casks was licensed in 1984. it has already received an additional 240 years. they seem to be operating very well. they are possibly a cold system.

we are the only country with a deep geologic repository for nuclear waste. it is thought for high-level waste. we are the only ones in the whole world doing it. we were able to do it. you're able to get it going and work through all of the issues that came up. it is still very popular. it was supported in the area. i want to provide people as that this can happen.

>> the nrc licenses have dry casks but no reactors. it is the line to say in the dry casks for ever. provincial it has to go somewhere. i imagine it is about how many decades old it can be and you can still put it on a trap. in your role in leading the effort to ensure public health and safety, do you have any advice for congress on how promptly the need to deal with this problem? >> you are right. there are 10 reactors at nine facilities that are shut down. it is the only thing that is their comedy stent fuel. -- there, the stint fuel.

in the end, you need a repository. as he sketched out the alternative of leaving it there, it is not a suitable alternative. congress needs to set policy working with the administration so that they can provide guidance to the nuclear regulatory commission on how to deal with this material. >> what is the level of urgency? >> the blue ribbon commission did its work. it is out there. i do not think it should be relegated to the dustbin. i have a personal view on that. >> going back to some of

thefukushima recommendations, and lots of the conversation about assessing how those are doing has centered on how long it was going to take to implement them. and also whether not they would be considered adequate protection issues. it is whether not they should be done with the cost-benefit analysis.

that seems reasonable to me. in terms of other potential activities, i think we have to look at them one by one. that is what we are waiting on. that is what we have to decide progress on.ill we need to give them due consideration. >> he faced some criticism because they wanted her to recuse herself from the yucca mountain details. if you see any of the word you have done, if you think there is

any need to recuse yourself from the issue? >> there is an yucca mountain issue before us right now. when and if there is, i will consider whether or not i should recuse myself. i will do that in consultation with legal counsel. >> thank you. he said a couple of times the priority of maintaining safety at the existing fleet is one that we have discussed a lot, and the importance of seismic issues. what are some of the other big issues outside of the fukushima

follow up? they had issues with core cooling beyond the recommendations. if you have to pick two or three, what are of most interest to you and you will take a look at? >> plants? >> those in the reactor. those in the office of nuclear reactor regulation. containment, things like that. >> there are a variety of issues that are coming forward that are of interest to me. i am interested in some of the current reactors. they are having some trouble. we're trying to understand better some of the issues

associated with the steam generators there. these are really complex issues. no obvious solutions immediately. working with the plant in trying to understand some of the issues on the table are of interest to me. >> you talked about geology as a dynamic field of knowledge. in terms of environmental oncology, it also seems there is a scenario where research can evolve. intercede asked -- nrc asked the national academy of science to do a study on the safety of

living around nuclear plants. that study is still in draft form. is that something that is a priority to look at? do you feel that is subtle science and we should be moving on? >> i do not think that is an area up settled science. there are very few areas of settled a science, speaking as a scientist. the dynamic is all changing. i think we constantly have to update that, especially the environmental and earth sciences. we are learning new stuff all the time. we have to make sure we are keeping up with it. and understand the implications for what we do. >> i was glad to ask one more question. the chairman suggested new

reactors looking for license may be subject to the fukushima issues. we're seeing a lot of utilities delay construction of some of the reactors because of economic issues. have you looked at this question on whether new reactors should be reviewed the thefukushima lens? but none will be. it will be settled issue. but if we do not have any more questions, i want to thank you all for coming. we look to our next practice which will be with chairman wellinghoff. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> all this week, and look at the national press club speeches. alec baldwin talks about federal funding for arts and education. other guests include the parker, jim cantore, and filmmaker ken burns. right after that, an encore presentation of "q & a." we look at the documentary that it shows men exposed to contaminated water. all this week at 7:00 a.m. eastern and on c-span2. >> joe biden campaigning today in virginia says voters have a

stark choice. see his comment tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies since 1979, brought to you as a public service by your television providers. next, a look at a proposal that would privatize the u.s. postal service. from washington journal, and this is 35 minutes. we want to focus on the future of the u.s. postal service. joining us is a professor at cornell university. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you for inviting me. host: there are a lot of details we want to focus on with the fiscal crisis facing the postal service, but your

recommendations include making the postal service subject to private, corporate law, giving postal management commercial freedom, and congress could move them towards privatized company models. give examples. guest: well, it is useful to take a step back and consider the situation that the postal service is in as the backdrop to that. they just reported a quarterly loss of about $5.2 billion and they are looking at a loss for the current fiscal year that ends september 30, of $12 billion. i think a lot of people know why that is. many more people are comfortable using electronic communications. they're more comfortable paying

bills online, purchasing things online. all of fed is -- all of that is adversely effecting mail volumes and revenue for the postal service. first-class mail volume, which is really its cash cow, they make three times the profit on first plot -- first-class mail than standard, and the volume is down over 25% since the peak in 2005. so, the postal service is facing some serious fiscal challenges, and i think it is time for congress to consider some new financial models for the postal service. what i have proposed is really taking the next step in the process after the 1970 act that created the postal service out of the most -- old post office. what we have now is not the post

office. it is the postal service created in 1970 to operate in a business-like fashion in to break even, cover costs of the rates and fees it charges for the delivery of mail and packages. so, what i am suggesting and what many others have suggested is congress needs to take the next logical step in the process, which is to give the managers of the postal service the commercial flexibility to make the same decisions the managers in a typical private company like the united parcel service, or federal express, or others typically make, and also to be subject to private corporate laws. that is to have a true board of directors that has fiduciary duties to shareholders or a shareholder, and a limited

liability company, etc., in preparation for making it more like a typical business. some people just say privatize the postal service, and i think that is the correct end game for the postal service, and i can explain why that is in a few minutes, but there has to be steps taken prior to that in preparation for privatization. we need to make a private law corp. and we need to give managers commercial flexibility. i have enormous respect for the managers of the postal service, but i believe congress is asking them to do almost the impossible, run it like a business, efficiently, but, do not close these sorting centers over here, the post offices over there, do not change the number of days of the week did

you deliver. all of those constraints keep the cost structure high. what we would like to see is a response to the way a normal business and what, keeping costs in line and continuing to break even, given the lack of flexibility management has at this point is very difficult for managers to do this. i think they are doing yeoman's work in their capacity as public servants, but they are being asked to do almost the impossible. i believe the next step will have to give managers more commercial freedom, and down the road, down the line of little bit, it is important to

realize that even though the postal service has some very serious liabilities on the balance sheet, they also have some very, very valuable assets in the form of an enormous real- estate portfolio, physical structures of post offices, and an extremely valuable brand name. the postal service is a good brand name and have built that up over decades. those things have commercial value. most people believe the postal service on net remains a net positive valuable firm if it is allowed to adjust in the correct way. so, i think congress is either going to have to appropriate funds directly from the taxpayers to keep the postal service going, or congress will

have to give managers the commercial flexibility that they need. host: our guest joins us from the campus of cornell university as we talk about the future of the postal service. in april, the senate voted for some changes to the postal service that passed the senate by a vote of 62-37, reducing the number of processing centers processing252 to 125, but placed restrictions on closing rural post offices and put a two-year moratorium on the suspension of saturday delivery. rural post offices and put a damien, democrats line, in georgia. caller: how're you this morning? let me start off by saying something about bain capital and comparing it to this postal thing. my wife works for the post

office. bain capital goes in, strips company of their funds, filed bankruptcy and blah, blah. if you look at what the public has been doing for some time with these large funds, the senate or the congress made the post office to pre-fund their pension plans, something no corporation has to do but them. now, when we start to talk about privatization, that means republicans want to strip that money. they have been doing this since reagan was in office. they got these companies, and that is what they are trying to do. they know they have the money there. that is why they are operating at a loss.

host: you are a key issue of privatization, and a follow-up from peter, "i recently went to a ups/federal express store, and were many times more expensive for my package." this follow up on the issue of privatization? guest: would you like me to respond to damien's points regarding privatization? there were a couple of useful things he pointed out. one, he is referring to a provision in the 2006 act that we reformed the postal service, and included a provision that the postal service has to pre- fund its retirement costs and make payments annually to that.

that payment earlier this month was the payment the postal service this, which was due to the u.s. treasury. the postal management also explain that they expect to miss a $5.6 billion payment september 1 that is due to the u.s. treasury, so they are technically in default right now. regarding those payments, i do understand the thinking behind those payments. it is probably useful to go back to and april, 2010, general accountability office study that and determined that they have about $88 billion worth of unfunded liabilities on its balance sheet, so those are most retiree health care, pension costs. there are some accounting issues regarding to the federal

employee retirement system, where the postal service over- pays, but they have other unfunded liabilities. the thinking in the 2006 act, as best i understand, it is people believed costs would be paid by the taxpayer directly or out of the revenues of the postal service. so, people negotiating at that time believed that it was better to have mailers the unfunded costs, rather than to put them on the back of the average taxpayer. so, the pre-funding requirements, some of which the postal service has made, have, i think, helped to take that money from the mailers, mostly advertising and commercial, and have them help pay down the underfunded liabilities

identified by the gao in that april, 2010 report. the gentleman mentioned privatization and the prices and rates associated with federal express and united parcel service and he makes a good point. the u.s. postal service, if you compare postage rates internationally, going across countries and adjust for exchange rate, you see the u.s. postal service is one of the less expensive postal services around the world and we have done tremendously good value of the postal service since it was created in the 1970 act, and as i said before, i think the managers of the postal service have done a very good job up until about 2006 of meeting the mandate to break even.

even though they kept rates fairly low, they were still able to cover costs up until about 2006. at that point, i believe there were structural changes in the u.s. economy with regard to the usage of electronic who communication that drove down the volumes of mail, and now we need to have a change. what some people think needs to happen is the postal service has to have more great freedom. in other words, they need to have more flexibility with the rates they charge, and perhaps they would charge higher rates for some services to cover those costs, and that would allow us to prevent going to the taxpayer at this time when we are running very high deficits, as everyone knows. i do not think the average taxpayer needs a further burden of the postal service. we all want the postal service to continue to break even, but

it might be the case that they can only do that if they're given commercial freedom to raise some rates. the other point that is worth making is a lot of people say the reason the postal service has had such success over the years is because of economies of scale, the larger it gets, the bigger its net worth becomes, and the lower the cost per unit. unfortunately, that also works in reverse. when volume is falling, and people using more e-mail, you see mail volume is dropping, which means the cost per unit for the postal service is rising, so economies of scale are working against you. that is another argument for why the postal service might need this additional rate freedom to continue to break even, which i think most people i talk to want to avoid -- big,

direct taxpayer subsidies. i hope that addresses a little bit of damien's question. host: richard geddes joins us from cornell university. a look at the postal service by the numbers, just one quarter last year the postal service lost in excess of $5 billion. the quarterly loss in 2012, $5.2 billion, receiving about $93.5 million in congressional appropriations, but is currently losing about $1 billion a month for the last six months, and has already defaulted on one annual retirement payment and another one is due in october of this year. another viewer says the free market has made the post office and obsolete and i do not want

tax money propping it up so it can send me jump bail. shut it down. caller: i am talking about page 5 in "de new york post." fedex will be laying people off, and these people were making decent wages, and now they will buy them out and bring in two people to work at minimum-wage. if you look at what is going on, as soon as minorities show up in neighborhoods, the republicans run away from them, and it has nothing to do with the post office. if i had half of management trying to tear me down, i would not be in business long. hats off to the post office. that is what i have to say. host: thank you. ann, connecticut. good morning.

caller: yes. i was a post office for a long time, and about one decade ago i said we were going to privatization. everything they did was done on purpose. we would have businesses that come in and buy rolls of stamps, and all of the sudden we would get no stamps in. we had to turn customers away, and they would turn around and say we could not order stamps. one day the postmaster said you could order of the stamps you want, and the next thing i know, the numbers come out, and look how much we lost. every time they cry poverty, somebody gets a contract for them to make t-shirts to

advertise. then you have these late night things that showed shipping and handling, and if you buy one, get one free, they are making a mint on that, paying pennies for what they have to pay for the shipping. then, overseas, we used to do first-class mail overseas, and a lot of people used to send packages overseas around christmas time, and wanted turned to first class mail, everybody stopped sending it. this is been a systematic thing. there is a class-action lawsuit about disabled people removed from the jobs for years going back to the bush administration. host: thank you for the call. we will get a response from richard geddes. guest: many thanks to ann for her public service as a postal service employee. as i stressed, i think that was

an important role. a couple of things -- for the vast majority of postal employees after six months of the job there is essentially a no layoff policy. it is not as though postal management is at liberty to lay off large numbers of postal employees. they do have permanent as opposed to casual employees, a lot of whom are hired from the holiday season. the postal service ramps up around the holidays, keeping excess capacity in the system the rest of the year so let it can handle the heavy load during the holiday season. there are some part-time employee use there. i have to say, again, i have -- employees there. i have to say, again, i have tremendous admiration for being able to do a lot of good things without layoffs, and that was

the postmaster. it is not that they are evil people or mean, but they have to live within the law, and they have to break even, and if your revenues are declining, you have to reduce your workforce. jack potter was able to do that without layoffs through natural attrition in the workforce by not replacing people who retired or people who voluntarily left the job. now, ann speaks to some basic, strategic behavior on the part of the postal service in advance of negotiating labor contracts with the union, and i

am sure some of that happens, but i think overall the postal service has done a very good job of operating within the confines of the laws it confronts now with regards to abilities to control costs. a lot of people believe that postmaster general potter was able to do the simple things, get the low-hanging fruit, and they do not have the structure now, they will have to go and do other things to reduce costs in the states of these steep declines in mail revenue and volume we see, which is optimizing the network in reducing the number of sorting

centers. when i talk about closing rural post offices, that does not mean that services do not have to go away. the postal service might contract with a convenience store, some other outlet to provide window services -- the selling of stamps, the mailing of parcels, etc. -- but it would not maintain physical structures, the rural post office buildings, or the land. it could lease those or sell those to offset its unfunded liability, and is important to note that other countries are ahead of the u.s. postal service in doing this. in england, royal mail is in the process of privatization,

having closed 95% of its offices and has contracted to provide services with local stores. the germans privatized along time ago, and my understanding is that germans have literally two or three post offices still open in germany. they contract those services. they saved a lot of costs just by not maintaining those physical structures. services. so, i think it is important. we all have to realize that all types of firms throughout u.s. economic history have had to adjust to the realities of the marketplace. my grandfather ran a stable in baltimore when people used horses for transportation, and when the automobile came in the

stable was no longer in demand, so we have to adjust to the realities of the marketplace. i view that as fundamentally driven by technological change, and i think that is what we see here. i would note that the u.s. postal service, if you compare to other countries post offices, even though we are using less mail because we are using more email, still the amount of mail we have per- capita is relatively high compared to the netherlands or to germany, etc. we still have a decent amount of mail per capita. i believe under a new business model the u.s. postal service could be financially viable but we have to undertake reform in a responsible way. host: richard geddes a visiting scholar at the american

enterprise institute and a professor at cornell. we are talking about the u.s. postal service. it is a constantly growing drain on the federal budget. on the phones from twin lakes, colorado, republican line, good morning. caller: i have a comment in a couple of questions. first of all, in regards to rural service, it is not only the windows services but the danger of the rural mail carriers. the get eastern colorado, kansas, the dakotas in the year they had all the blizzards. it's downright dangerous when you start having these people driving so far and to increase the distance because you are closing the local post office. my second question is how much

is the bonus is that the postal governors get? why is the rationale that they should even get anything since they have not fixed anything given the financial situation the post offices in? third, when can a postal service person retire? is the pension based on the last three years of pay, five years of pay? that is one way we could fix it is to look over the last 10 years and do it as a percentage of that payment. get a response. first on pension for retirees. when does it kick in? guest: i'm not sure i understood the question exactly, steve. host: many years do you have to be an employee? when does it kick in? is it based on your final two or three years when you are at a higher level of income? guest: i would have to go back

and checked out, steve, to see how that varies. there are different types of postal employees. there are letter carriers, or rural delivery people and they may different types of contracts. there are people who may be under yet another different types of contracts and there are a number of different labor service. it is not as though it is a one size fits all type of arrangement. i would not want to speak out of school on that. i would want to check that out. i believe her name was karen and she brought up a good point. initially, the point about the delivery of mail during rough weather and rural letter carriers continuing to make those rounds even though the

weather was nasty. she gets to a really good point which is what do we, as a country, believe the role of physical mail delivery is in the electronic age? do we continue to believe that we need it to serve all routes states? that is the current definition of universal mail service. the postal mail service says they have a universal service obligation and it essentially is to serve all route 6 days a week including saturdays despite the fact that mail volume is declining and even, as best we can, in rural areas. the postal service will tell you about the difficult route that they serve in alaska in

the world parts of alaska, parts out west, etc. where they continue to do their best and meet their universal service obligations despite the fact that we're seeing large declines in mail volume. iton't have the answer, but seems to me that a rational response to that would be to reduce the number of delivery days per week to relax that universal service obligation to reduce its costs. of course, they have to use a lot of fuel to run the mail trucks around all those routes six days a week. they would save on that fuel. sunday block about cuttingthe lightest day per week is tuesday. it seems reasonable to me to eliminate tuesday delivery and allow the postal service to adjust its universal service

realities. i think that discussion needs to take place and we need to realize that either we're going to allow the postal service to adjust in that way or we're going to be talking about large direct taxpayer subsidies, which is a pre 1970 situation when they got dry subsidies from the taxpayers. i'm not sure taxpayers are going to want to do that in these times of very large deficits, or we have to start rethinking the nature of that universal service obligation in this electronic age. she brings up a good point. host: cutting back of the postal service is the wrong idea adding that email is digital technology and needs standards and setting up.

on the fund in winter park, fla., on the democratic line. caller: i'm very upset at the republicans wanting to privatize everything including the post office, medicare, social security. the republicans always talk about the constitution. well, in article one, section 8, the post office is referenced. they say they will establish post offices and roads. i think the roads and post offices were intended to be a public service. janet. rick geddes. guest: i would just ask her to back up. it is not clear exactly how the politics of postal privatization will be cutting.

we saw an article by peter orszag who, until recently, was president obama's director of the omb advocating privatization of the postal service. he was very clear on why he believed that. that is a very senior member of the obama administration advocating for this. we recently saw an article in "slate" advocating for privatization. a lot of the people who seem to be in opposition to it seemed to be republicans. it's not clear that this is a postal privatization or postal reform is necessarily a clear cut republican-democrat issue. i just view this as a solid, thought through, carefully

considered policy response to a fundamental change in the nature of the u.s. economy. the second point the caller makes is directed to the constitution that it states that congress shall have the power to create post offices and post roads. we have the boston post road and result of that clause. i do not think anyone would begrudge congress that power. of course, that clause does not mean that it has to be provided through a government-owned monopoly, which is another issue we have not really discussed, steve. the postal service continues to have a monopoly over the delivery of anything described as a letter within certain size and weight limitations that are better defined in the 2006 act.

the clause regarding the postal powers does not restrict. i do not think anyone believes it restricts us to a particular organizational firm to deliver those services, nor should it. congress should be able to adapt the organizational form, just like it did in 1970 when it created the postal service. it should be able to adapt the modern organizational form to the realities of the communications marketplace. one thing i will note, in the with the postal service has lost $5.20 billion in its current quarter, more it lost in the same quarter the year before, at also recorded a 9% increase in shipping and delivery services, so there is a bright spot in that report,

which is also, in changes in the economy. people are buying more things online. those things have to be shipped. buying books through amazon have some aspect improving. i'm optimistic that under a new form the postal service could be viable. host: a follow up on the issue of the constitution on twitter. michigan. good morning. caller: i have a brief question. does your guests feel that the post office long term would be better off without the union? host: we have about a minute left. your response? guest: that's a tough one,

george. maybe the postal managers would think they would like the union to go away, but i think the unions to provide a lot of valuable functions. of course, people have that right to organize, so i would not advocate that. i would say that the postal workers do appear to earn a wage premium of about 28% if you control for their education, tenure, etc. i think the unions have served postal workers pretty well over the years. host: rick geddes a professor at cornell university and a visiting scholar at the american enterprise institute. service. thank you for being with us here on c-span. >> tomorrow, wall street's

perspective on the new republican ticket. then proposed changes to medicaid and medicare by paul ryan. after that, bloomberg business week contributors discuss their recent story on drug tunnels running underground between the indicted states and mexico. "washington journal" live wednesday morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. joe biden campaigning today in danville, virginia, say voters have a stark choice when it comes to taxes and spending. see his comments tonight at endicott p.m. eastern on c-span. -- at 8:00 eastern on c-span. >> i started as a copy boy on "the new york times." >> walter pincus talks about

his experience as a journalist and his criticism of the defense department spending parties. >> if you spent $4 million on an elementary school, somebody would raise questions. >> the heritage foundation held a discussion today on the impact of budget cuts on the u.s. national guard. sequestration goes into effect in january and will trigger an automatic additional $500 billion in spending cuts. this is an hour and a half. >> good morning.

welcome to the heritage foundation. we welcome those who join us on these occasions on our website. we're pleased to welcome those joining us via c-span this morning. we ask everyone to make sure that your cell phones have been turned off. we will post the program on our heritage website within 24 hours. our internet viewers are always welcome to send questions throughout our proceedings. the mailing us at speaker@heritage.org. our speaker today is steven bucci. he focuses on special operations and cybersecurity as well as defense support to civil authorities. he served america for three decades as a top pentagon

official, has led special forces in the ponds to east africa and the persian gulf, and assumed duties as a military assistant to donald rumsfeld. upon retirement he continued at the pentagon. prior to joining us, he was a lead consultant to ibm on cybersecurity policy. please join me in welcoming steve bucci. steve? [applause] >> i want to thank everyone for being here today on a rainy day in washington, and to discuss the cherry topic of when the next catastrophe strikes. unfortunately, we always face that. there is always fun to be a next the event that will occur, and the only thing we can do is see

how well we are prepared. this is by the way the first of the event we will have this week for our homeland security 2012 week. this is an excellent vehicle to keep off that serious up panels. the speakers are going to speak for about 10 minutes apiece and the order -- we will start with admiral johnson and then go to paul stockton and wrap up with jim carafano. i will introduce each of them first and turned them loose. if they start to go too much over 10 minutes, i will jump up and they will realize there is something afoot. otherwise i will stay in my seat and enjoy their comments.

normally when you do these it gets tough to introduce people, but with this group it is pretty easy for me. beginning with vice admiral harvey johnson jr.. admiral johnson is one of my heroes. he spent 35 years in the united states coast guard, and coasties are some of my favorites. they are amazing to work with because they are oriented on getting the job done. admiral johnson is an example of that. in addition to his 35 years in the coast guard, he spent three very busy years as a deputy administrator and chief operating officer of fema. i like to say he is one of the people who put the m, the management, back into feet when it came to disasters because he did that. i know that because i was

usually on the other side of him in the middle of hurricanes and wildfires, figuring out how dod would support his efforts. in addition, admiral johnson has been the commander of the coast guard pacific area. he was the assistant commandant for operations capability and for operational plans and policy. he is a go-to guy. he did that for many years. he is working as the vice president for abe systems -- for bae systems. he is very excited to come back to have a discussion about something that he poured so much of his life into, which is supporting his country at risk. next we will have the man responsible right now for these things, the hon. paul stockton,

who is the assistant secretary of defense for home led the 30fense and america's affairs. he owns -- security affairs. he owns security defense, and he is responsible for all homeland defense activities for dod, which includes support of civil authorities cannot domestic crisis management, and he deals with all the countries in the western hemisphere from a policy standpoint. he actually established his bonafides by working at the naval postgraduate school for a long time. i was the benefit of the program that he established out there. i got to teach out there several times. it set the standard for homeland security education in our country, and has catered to

chiefs of police, chiefs of fire departments, people on the ground dealing with those issues. it is a wonderful program, and they still talk very fondly about you out there. assistant secretary stockton is a coat-editor of homeland security, a graduate text in the subject, and is on the board of homeland security affairs. he is the guy in the seat today for the department of defense dealing with the issues. lastly, we will wrap up with my boss and my classmates from the united states military academy, jim carafano. he is presently the acting director of the katherine and shelby davis institute for international studies. he is a career army officer who

ended his career -- wrapped up his career as the speechwriter for the chief of staff of the armory -- army and was the executive editor for "joined forces quarterly." he is one of the most energetic thinkers i have worked with. i get emails from every day -- from him every day of the week. he is an ideal guide to wrap up the formal presentations because of his breath of thought. with that, i will ask admiral johnson to begin and we will go 10 minutes apiece with each of them, and then we would do questions, and i will remind you, if i do not hear a question mark at the end of the second sentence, i will ask you to stop because we have a bunch of folks

we would like to answer. we will start right now. admiral? >> thank you, steve. . as we pull the levers of power and policies in washington if it results in the outcomes that affects citizens. many of them never would expect they would be the recipient of federal support. on september 1, to designate, a hurricane is headed right to new orleans. it was almost a replicants of katrina. a category four storm. if you recall, the biggest element of disaster is there is no evacuation. but with the mayor, the streets of new orleans were a ghost town

before the hurricane arrived. there were several million people evacuated on their own, but there is always a group that needs assistance. there were 35,000 people who needed assistance to get out of new orleans at the time. 5000 of those were evacuated by air, and they went to cities like knoxville, louisville, and how could we bring in enough airplanes into the airport and get these people out? it was only done by transcom, who did an amazing job to fight excess aircraft. the number of aircraft waiting for some assignment today is almost zero. at the other end of the state, where it is more difficult to evacuate by ambulance, there were 66 patients who were critical care patients.

doctors were making life or death decisions. might they died by the process of a decoration? i was on the phone with a general, plugged into a commander on the deck in louisiana, past the point in which the wind was heard in the back, waiting for the last ambulance derived, and they were met by critical care transport teams. 10 of those teams evacuated 66, a small number, but every one of them survived. very well they could have died if they had stayed in the hospital and lost power and care. 12 days later, a hurricane season, and we were at hurricane ike, a category four was headed

for houston. talk about a complex catastrophe. had it that a hurricane stayed on its depicted track, and gone up the houston ship channel, that could have had a devastating effects on the economy for a long time. that hurricane john to -- jogged to the right. the island was almost inaccessible, and where there was little management of the evacuation, they were on it like white on rice. the government was dissipated, operating out of a hotel, and accessible, and how would they take the first steps to recover galveston island? fortunately, in our discussions, the uss nassau, an

amphibious class ship, departed hampton roads under the prospect of the hurricane striking gavin -- galveston island. on september 18, the mayor arrived back in galveston and rode in on the nassau. if came in with two helicopters, when thousand sailors, and they provided medical care, something thousand meals, and they were credited with reopening the airport and port which they had done. the recovery of galveston island would have been extended for an enormous number of days if they had not been able to get the airport or ports open. those are two examples within 12 days of each other of something that took a long time to coordinate. it was true learning lessons with katrina where we were able to engage policy formulations,

and gauge leaders. -- engage leaders. both secretaries involved, secretary chertoff, fema, a number of players were involved. it is months and years in advance that planned the policies, to do the exercises, to develop the capabilities to respond to those disasters. there were mission assignments, and it took weeks to conclude. we had assignments developed after katrina where we had gone through both the dhs and dod policy approval system so forces could be activated, much more quickly. when we met out in the corridor, physics will not allow

that nor will the activation of forces. it takes time to get a ship from hampton roads to galveston, time to activate air rescue teams, but in a short amount of time, we were able to put forces in place quickly. weather is a national disaster or some complex catastrophe that we will talk about in a couple of minutes, the nation relies on dod support of dhs. fema is an agency with a huge check book, not with a lot of capability, and when disaster approaches, it is the expectation we can reach across the river to the pentagon and find those forces in place. there are no other agencies in the in thedhs and dod who do any sort of hide-consequence event planning with a capital p. no one takes a look at what these scenarios might be or to

allocate resources that can respond. we seriously exercise those plans and learn lessons. no one has the level of readiness we see in dhs than dod. when the rubber hits the road, it comes back to very few agencies that are capable of responding. northeast did inhalation of dod capability -- any reductions of dod capability --what kind of time delay? what kind of capacities? i am concerned to see sequestration that might hamper the operations that we have come to expect from the department of defense and dhs. thank you. >> thank you.

thanks to the heritage foundation for hosting this discussion. thanks to my colleagues at the table, and thanks to the women and men serving on the front lines to preserve our security. i want to talk to you about the understanding we have now of the problems. what would constitute a complex catastrophe, building on your argument here. i got a big wake-up call thanks to fema in the national level of the -- national level 11 exercise. it was built around a scenario of a 7.7 seismic event, an earthquake occurring along the new madrid fault, just as occurred in 1812 and just as could occur and any moment today. that scenario would have produced destruction on a scale

that would differ from hurricane katrina in two important dimensions. on a quantitative swale, it would have many more casualties. over a much wider geographic area that occurred in that terrible catastrophe of katrina. any quantitative scale, much greater devastation. there is a second dimension that i believe is more important, and that is a qualitative difference between hurricane katrina the national 11 exercise. in 11, other partners determined that a seismic event of that scale would produce a long-term loss of power, and loss of electric power for weeks to months over a multistate region. katrina, much less disruptive in that regard.

in le11, imagine the loss of electric power over a multistate region from weeks to months. gas stations will not work because every gas pump runs on electricity. water is gone to be in short supply. in memphis, the offer is 300 feet below the service of the city. electricity brings that water so citizens can drink it, and so firefighters have fresh water to put out the raging urban wildfires that would be created from conflagration due to burst gas pipes. we would have a situation that looked much more challenging even than the terrible tragedy of katrina. that he is the problems that we're looking at, and let me thank you, jim, for the analysis he provided, looking at the lessons learned from fukushima,

for understanding the radiological and aren't in which we might have to operate and the difficulties that posed for providing support to civil authorities. dod will always be in support of civil authorities in these activities. the challenge is how can we better positioned to do so? there are two activities we have to strengthen that prepared us, under the leadership of secretary of defense panetta. the first i would talk about is getting ready for the devastating effects of such an event before it occurs and building resilience against it. especially in this realm of failing critical infrastructure. in the scenario and other some areas we can imagine, including a cyber attack that took down the functioning of the electric power grid or a similar event, anything that will create a

large-scale failure of infrastructure, our responsibility in the department of defense is to ensure that we can still execute the core missions of the department that the president assigns to us, even if critical infrastructure goes down that we do not own, because the electric grid is owned by the private sector. the challenge we have is assuring mission assurance in the department of defense. we have a new strategy to do so that takes into account the need to build resilience not only within dod installations and facilities critical to executing our missions, but also understanding that dod depends on all the private sector's critical and researcher, that allows the investor base to function, to get to work, to serve the nation. we need to not only continue to

strengthen its insurance, but look far beyond facilities and partner together with dhs, department of energy, all the lead federal agencies, and especially partner with industry to build resilience in the electric power grid and prepare against the cast keating failure of critical infrastructure that would undermine the responsibility we have in the department to execute our core missions the matter what. second initiative we have under way is -- is not a question but if a complex catastrophe will start, the question is when. we need to continue to improve our business practices, our capacity to provide support to civil authorities when the call comes. it is a core responsibility of

the department of defense, to provide support to civil authorities when we get requests that come in. that is the commitment we take seriously. the secretary recently approved a new initiative that is going to enable us to bring all dod capabilities to bear in support of civil authorities, from all components of the total force, so that we can be faster and more effective in meeting the life-saving and life sustaining requirements that we are going to get from fema or whichever federal agency is giving us those requirements. in the past, we have not been able to utilize the title 10 research, even though they have terrific engineering and medical capabilities. we have not done enough to imagine how the skills of our regular infantry personnel might

be able to apply in extremis when american lives are at stake. we have a range of initiatives that the commands will be leading out to figure out how to take advantage of the total force to save lives when a complex catastrophe strikes. we look to all of you for assistance in this effort. we reached out to fema, to all our partners, because we will always be in support, but to be able to partner together under fema's leadership which industry, with faith-based organizations, which everybody who will partner together to save lives, let's figure out how to continue to improve that today so when the inevitable happens we will be better prepared. thank you. >> thank you, mr. secretary. mr. carafano? >> i think a legitimate question is what are we talk -- why are

was talking about this, because i do not know anybody else in washington that is discussing this. we could not think of a clever way to tie into the olympics or something. ironically, if you are paying attention to the news, there has been lots of news this summer that would say that this is actually something we ought to be talking about. one example i often point to is this such croatian -- is this situation where 600 million people in india lost power, which in india is not a big deal. large portions of that population are not dependent on power. 600 million people inconvenience. if we had an outage on that scale in united states, population, 300 million, it would be a complete catastrophe

because unlike india, the population is totally dependent on the electrical power. the irony here is when you think about large capacities, modern societies with all these interlocking systems would be much more fragile and much more at risk in large scale catastrophes and societies that are more basic. ironically, that is not what the evidence shows. the studies i have looked at, to the logic gate sophisticated, -- technologically sophisticated, are actually more resilience. why is that? it is because they are developed, because they have these enormous capacities, they do rebound much more quickly in many ways.

that was validated by the reports we did looking at the responses to disaster in japan, which, if you scale that to something equivalent in the united states, it would really be something much bigger than a katrina or a hurricane and a tsunami simultaneously. japan was pretty resilient. when you have deprivation or a large-scale failure in a highly developed society, it is your fault, cuss the capacity is there to recover, and what we saw in katrina and what we saw in many ways in the shortfall from the japanese response, it is the failure to use the capacity you have in an efficient manner that makes the difference. that is where this subject becomes so vitally important, because the military capacity that you can bring into a large

scale contingency makes that difference in terms of efficiency and the speed of recovery. in many cases, like katrina, you would recover any we, but it would take longer and there would be more casualties. to get back in the game faster, the military is one of the few things you could throw at the society which allows you to ratchet back much more quickly, and we saw that in katrina. -- in fukushima. in the respects, with maybe some technical capabilities in the weapons of mass destruction, radiological and chemical issues, there's nothing that you could have their in the civilian capacity that could not bring the same thing to the table. when you look at -- of the worst things he can do in a disaster

that to help survivors is to send in people to help survivors, because those people are competitors for food and -- if you are here to help, you have to be able to help. whether you are a faith based organization or fema, three characteristics of a good helper. there are always the same. what is accountability. you have to be able to know where everybody is. you have to be able to control and know they will do the right thing. as a big deal. the second one the sustainability. when you send somebody else to help, you do not want to be taking food away from the survivors to feed the responder. as we saw in katrina, we cannot put the survivors and the hotel rooms because these responders have the hotel rooms.

who is paying, who will take care of that. these are things we really struggle with what we look at volunteer response. normally -- one of the great things about military responders, those are three questions you can forget about. they will have accountability. it will sustain themselves. it is a package of resources that in terms of technical skill you can throw at a large scale problem. it is not for all problems. i think we all agree this is something the military will walk in and take over. in terms of helping a modern society to jump-start back to where it was, at this is one of the most important aspects to can bring to the table. i think it is a very important discussion always to have a we talk about prepared this and

resiliency. this is a report done for us by paul's predecessors -- predecessors. we ask paul to go through, and i think he did a great susman evaluating where we are today. he raises some concerns that i think are valid. he has recommendations that i think are important. why a think it is is important to have this discussion, where do we go in the future, that will be dependent on the defense budget and what it is. there is a significant lesson from vietnam. one lesson is, regardless of what you think about whether we

should have gone to iraq, afghanistan, everybody regardless of what side of the debate there are on, they would have thought we would have done the counterinsurgency mission better at the beginning. in a large part that did that happen. after vietnam will let that declining budgets in the 1970's, having really struggled with flooding the counterinsurgency in vietnam and figuring out how to do that, we said we will not do that again. we purge the experience, the capability, the training. i know that. we were commissioned in the military. part of the reason we did that was not just because of vietnam and not wanting to do counterinsurgencies again, it was because river going through a hollow force. -- we were going through a hollow force period.

the reality was, the u.s. military will always serve its nation in many capacities. you always wind up being a swiss army knife. in said, i want to be the blade and the knife. you will do the other missions whether you want to or not. if you're not prepared for them, he will do them poorly, at least a first until you catch on. we experienced that in iraq and afghanistan have been lost a generation of experience. you are facing a. going forward that can be difficult. this is not just talking about the sequester, these are the automatic cuts. it is much as $55 million a year, it is cut across all the programs and everything we get. if you look at the 10-year budget projection, it does look to reclined resources --

declined resources and r&d. it was very difficult and steve can talk to this and so can paul, with the many missions that we have for the defense department today, to get them to remember this is a core mission as well. even though it was stated in the strategy and all the defense reports, when it comes to the end of the day if there are not enough resources to go run something will pickup. if history is any exemplar, this mission will get cut. we are not going to have the robustness that we need to do that. you would say, how big of a deal is that? in fairness, before we got into the current unpleasantness i used to ask people, what do you think about the third infantry division. if you think about the third

infantry division, between 1930's and 1990's we use them about three times. we use them about one year and a half in world war ii. we use part of it for about one day and a half and the iraq war. we had this division sitting around for almost a century and we only use them about three years. nobody ever said, that is not a good investment. people realize to have the military force there because when the nation needs than they need to get it right the first time. we can have catastrophic defense forces. we may not use them a lot. i am telling you, when we have a catastrophe in this country, we will want to get it right the first time. the price of preparedness is maintaining and sustaining the forces when you are not thinking

about the problem. i think that is a strategic challenge that this country and whoever the next administration is is going to face in the years ahead. the answer is, we need a robust defense that meets all its missions. if we cherry pick what missions we will need, we know how that will end up. >> we will not to the question and answers. if you can prepare. i will exercise my prerogative and answered -- and as the first question. is no fair answering yes or no. the question is, is the nation today ready for the next big at -- catastrophe. i will throw a little extra piece and the.

is dhs -- eyed not asking you to pick on dhs, are they ready to face the catastrophe with diminished help? >> i would have to say that after katrina, they are always asked, are you ready for another fell in the blank. the answer is always yes. once you give the answer is yes you think, what did i just say? when you think about the total consequences it is enormous. i think at this point in terms of planning and preparedness and relationships between dhs and the department of defense that has just grown in the administration in terms of the capabilities of in the national guard, i think the forces there

to make it response whether it is timely, that is a good question. the nature of the response was much broader than a few years ago. states have been heavily impacted by their budget and they're backing to the federal level. i am concerned about a hollow force and a hollow capability to say yes and mean it in terms of a large complex catastrophe. my answer is, yes, we are ready today, but i think a lot of the credit for that goes outside of the pentagon. administrate -- fema, the governors of the nation who have led the charge in making sure we have unity an effort between federal and state military forces, that is so important. it is hard to exaggerate the

degree that will enable a lifesaving environment like a tramp. i think we are ready today. the credit deserves to be applied to other folks outside of my organization. within the pentagon we are mindful of further progress. with leadership in the initiatives we will press forward very aggressively. >> i would say we are not as ready as we should be 10 years after 9/11. i say that not because of things that the in the may have done, i would hope in terms of integrated planning and the local state level, we were a lot further down the road. we have much more ambitious plans in terms of being able to implement the plan across state and federal, that did not go as

far as i had hoped it would go. you always show up with what you have. it is a crime and you cannot be as efficient with what you have. i think we lost a lot of the momentum. i think part of it is because the states became -- we did not think about this at the front and, there would be periods when the states would be flushed and the with our interest at this and there would be periods when they were not here the water to cover more back on the federal table. we did not plan for a sustained -- a system that would be sustainable in periods when we were throwing money at the problem. we should be a lot further on that we have been carried here is a good example. integrating the reserves and to the response. the debate back and forth between the governors. it is hard to believe it took that long to resolve.

shame on us for not being further down the road. my concern is not so much the answer today, but the answers a couple of years from now. what happens if we continue not to make the progress we need to make in terms of the integrated federal and state and local response and we are in an era of diminished are in the resources. that starts to look a lot like september 10, 2001 as opposed to where we should be. >> let's start with a gentleman back there. please identify yourself and ask your question. >> thank you for putting the panel together. the cyber attacks can demonstrate about of consequences to align from what you experienced from a hurricane. with those hazards there is more of a defined beginning and end

it. we can see it and conceal it. what kind of involvement did d &d have and how does dod address the cyber threat amongst a traditional hazard? >> the department of defense played an important role in support of the department of, and security, which is the federal lead for ensuring that businesses get the support they need for protection a critical infrastructure against attacks. it is an important support role that we played. we will welcome an opportunity to extend the support in the future. while i have you, let me thank the entire emergency management community for everything that emergency managers are doing and this nation to help answer the question steve first to give us, to be better prepared. i am looking forward to the

convention in seattle. i will be going out to the convention for the national guard association of the united states. when you talk about who deserves praise for strengthening our preparedness, the national guard is at the top of the list. >> thank you. this is directed to paul but also perhaps to admiral johnson. catastrophes are not going to stop the national borders. we have potential partners and canada and mexico. where are we in the disaster catastrophe management planning relationships with the governor of mexico and canada? >> you made such an important point in this study that the reality that we have one grid between canada and the united

states. we share the eastern connector. and the western powers system is integrated. would you think about building resilience, we need to do more than just within the united states. in north america, it does include canada as well as the united states and a small portion of mexico as well. we need to be prepared for collaborative efforts with mexico and with canada. at the very recent permanent joint board of defense between the united states and canada, the president and ceo of the north american energy reliability corp., the umbrella industry organization for dealing with resilience challenges, he was the keynote speaker for taking this on as a featured effort as part of our collaborative work with can and

that not only between the two defense establishments but with public safety canada and the department of common security and energy as participants. industry partnerships, voluntary cooperation with industry absolutely vital and this regard. >> i think that is an important point. you cannot really talk about the resiliency unless you are having a u.s.-canadian discussion. there really is one grid. that is one. it is not worth having a conversation just talking about the u.s. brig. in many ways cyber is another. to pretend there is a border between the u.s. and canada. the systems are so linked, having a discussion does not make a lot of sense. we are talking about any public health issues, particularly epidemics, a discussion that

this i include all three does not make a lot of sense either. those are things we ought to really think about in terms of our response and how we use resiliency much more broadly. the other issue we brought up which i think is an important issue, the capacity to accept foreign assistance, which is something we do not think about because we are always helping others and taking assistance. we saw this in japan. there were cultural issues, logistical issues. again, in these modern complex societies and with the enormous capacity, you can bounce back much more quickly. the bounceback is based on the efficiency of your ability to pour resources to solve the problem quickly. foreign assistance in some cases and in a technical sense but in

a large catastrophe that could be quantity, if you do not have a system in place before the catastrophe, it is very difficult. this is something that -- we were actually very rigid i always thought highly of the emergency response system in japan. there were some glaring shortfalls, particularly to receive a response which i think offered some experience to the united states. i think it is fair to say we have not come as far as we should be able to come in terms of accepting foreign aid, particularly on large-scale issues. that is something that should be done more. have we ever done a major exercise where people come here? >> that was an important component where we were able to exercise that. let me pour some vaseline on the

fire here. i think we discovered back then and terms of credential in and ensuring that people conduct urban search and rescue from abroad and the way we can understand, we identified opportunities for progress and we continue to work that now. i think we are better off than we were. this is an area we need to be better than we are. there is an opportunity across the western hemisphere to ensure from my perspective the next time the united states, haiti, or some other nation needs substantial assistance from abroad, we built the system and advance to provide for the flow more expeditiously than we have been able to in advance and will be pushing for that at the upcoming conference of the defense ministers of america's in october. >> i echo the comments of secretary stockton and jim.

rather than seem to go it alone in terms of focusing on natural disasters but canada and mexico, we have linked up with north, and found our issues are interlinked with their issues and there's were much more daily and continuous between border countries and canada and mexico. i appreciate the question about things coming in. we are awfully proud of our deployable forces, our rescue teams and they have gone to haiti and around the world. the teams in japan are pretty sharp. there are other teams around the country -- davis spent time in russia that also have deployable teams. in terms of the fault and the description very accurate in terms of five states for the length of time there would be delivered to aided by the earthquake, part of the plans are to bring in other teams from

countries. those issues are not new countries, but they are ones that fit along with the pace of the capabilities. >> thank you. >> my question is primarily directed to secretary stockton, but i am welcome to hear from many other panelists. are we prepared for an emp attack from an adversary or from solar storms? what are we doing to the extent to can talk about to address the threat? >> we take those challenges very, very seriously. there are a little bit different. it is different to what you would anticipate from the large scale solar event. the administration has been preparing -- the occurrence of

an event could have devastating effects. engineers sometimes disagree about the degree to which the effects would be long-lasting. we need to be prepared for these kinds of destructive effects on the electric power grid. it is another opportunity where from may dod perspective, responsibility is to ensure my department can execute the missions that the president assigns to us. either through emp or a solar even, there could be destruction not only through dod electric systems but to the broader critical infrastructure on which we ultimately depend it. it is a big challenge. it is a challenge where federal agencies will need to continue to assist us. and our reach to industry, it again. absolutely vital in this regard. industry is a willing partner in

this. a realize this is a challenge. working together a new collaborative mechanisms to build a shared approach to this event so we can assist industry in developing a design basis for the grid of the future. it not only takes into account the traditional start factors, which they are well efficient to handle, but do threat sectors including cyber threats and including a better understanding of solar events in emp. >>emp is select electromagnetic pulse, the radiation that could be released from nuclear bursts. if you detonated a nuclear weapon high in the atmosphere. instead of a going into the ground it would profligate out. it would be attracted to an

antenna. everything from cell towers to satellites to the electrical grid. part of the theory is depending on the location of the weapon and the altitude and the size of it, the range of destruction it could do in terms of knocking out infrastructure and that kind of thing the, they lost things like major pieces of the grid where you would have to replace parts that could take months and years. you could have large portions of the population without electrical power for long periods of time. in the natural analogy to that is, we continue to have solar flares. we could have large events we have not seen on the scale since carrington was the astronomer the spotted the ones until the mid-19th century. we have not had one of those since the world has been electrified. we are concerned about that. if you're interested in that, there is work in the national

science foundation that put a word out on that. there was a congressional commission on the effects of electromagnetic pulse on u.s. infrastructure. you can find those online. >> people online are listening. they go back and see it later. >> then i will use this. >> force secretary stockton, to work for being here. thank you for coming over and participating. with regard to the military's response to support any kind of several event, what are you most afraid of in the military's to respond and do it in an

effective way or the public is satisfied with the response? i do not mean in such a of a loss of life, but what kind of event most skiers you? what kind of the event would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you have to look at what our ability as with the military force to respond to that? >> that is an easy one, but i would invite my colleagues to dive in. it is precisely the scenario that i described from any hazard. the risk of cascading failure of critical infrastructure in ways that we might not even understand fully until the event occurs, that is what keeps me up that night. the opportunity to strengthen prepare against any event that would evolve -- involves a long- term loss of power.

i know that we are working very hard with the defense imagistic agency and our other partners to ensure there is fuel for backup generators to sustain critical operations. if you look around the nation, many emergency operating centers, hospitals, 48 hours or even more of a fuel stored on site. a large scale outage of weeks to months, our ability to maintain back of generating capacity is at issue. i think we need to know more about single points of failure where we imagine we have redundancy in systems that actually breaks down. there is a lot of port chester be done here. the gap between where we are today and where i would like to be keeps me up at night.

>> i think the nation's psyche is ready for a national disaster. we have been a before. we had 211 different missions over the past decade and the happen every three or four years between 9112005 with katrina, 2000 late -- the 2008. something to come up on that kind of a cycle. to think about spaces in the country there was a huge -- usable again. we made a lot of progress. the things people did not expect to occur, but the nation is unprepared and uneducated. it is something we have not had before. i think there would be woefully inadequate to respond to something like that. >> i agree that you have to focus on large scale catastrophic. things that could stop the

heartbeat of america. the nation can handle anything the luster than that a pretty good form. these are a couple of thoughts. there is a time factor which is one hour, 72 hours and whatever. if you are critically injured they say you have one hour to get to somebody. for some reason i'm totally critically injured and they are vulnerable in the 72-hour window, if they can live past 72 hours, must we're talking weeks and months it will not be a big deal. you have to think about saving lots of lawyers earning on -- early on, you have some type to windows. as wanting to think about. the second thing is legitimacy. we see this again and again in research literature. a lot of the time people do not need help. they can take care of themselves. they need to feel things are

going to be ok. there is an issue of legitimacy. if people feel there is a structure there. somebody will come turn the gas station on again. there is a notion about the stress level much, much lower. the fear factor is lower. in many ways people just go and take care of things. part of the reason we lost that katrina was not because of the 72-hour problem. it was this perception that nobody was in control and things are falling apart. when he saw the military intervention, in many ways the intervention was less about bringing logistics there than it was saying, somebody is in charge now. i feel better about things. you have the time line issue. the legitimacy issue is very

important. we do not what the military to take over. the military is that the answer. you have the capacity to do everything. many of the large complex catastrophes, it would not be enough military assets. having said that, if you can effectively use your military assets under a legitimate political system in which state officials are doing the appropriate job, that also add a sense of calm and restore to power that it is very important. but to go on, but they did a whole thing on rigidly ask people pose a perspective on what is a big disaster look like. do you know what they described? they describe what they saw in the movies. a bunch of military people showing up in gas masks and bayonets. scary looking. the reality is, that is not what the military does. that is not what people actually

see a large scale disasters. it is not a scene out of the siege or something else. they are happy they are there. they bring normalcy to the environment. they bring their restore to its normal state. it is the legitimacy of the response in addition to the time things are important. when you scale those problems to the large complex catastrophes that would talk about, that is a big challenge. that is a huge challenge. it is be difficult for dod to get a ride unless there are resources to do that. we talk about the use of the armed forces and we always talk about the od and we forget there is an armed force in the department of home and security. their assets and capabilities are equally and in many ways more vital and important. we have to worry about atrophy there as well. we're going to decrease the number of national security

cutters that we purchase. have to say, the what does that have to do with:security? that may be one of the best command and control assets you can have in an environment. since most large-scale population centers are near water, that is helpful. he may not be able to base an operation on land and you may have to base it on water, these are very critical platforms. the fact we're buying a lot less the we are supposed to, that deeply worries me. you have to have the capacity there and ready to go before the kind of things to talk about. otherwise it will look like a new tv show on revolution. they are remaking red dawn. that is an emp attack from the north koreans. >> would each of you be willing

to share more about your experience partnership -- partnering with the faith based community? anyone have commentary about assistance? >> we have done a lot of work looking at faith based response. it is very important. if you actually look at the results from katrina and you look at the surveys of people that got assistance, the highest-rated assistance they got was from faith based organizations. in part it is because there are people they know. they understand everything else. the other critical role -- this would be important in a large ecocatastrophe -- faith based leaders are very good at collaborative decision making and collaborative things.

once you get to the immediate issue of, whether we will all die or not, there is a question of, what will the community look like " come back from this? bet is a very stressful and of a cold and hard thing to work through. the entire town is one of the office of the earth on a tornado. one of the real skills of recovery is, the community decided that it is not just about dumping aid. where will we go from here? it is very rarely, let's put everything back the way it was. as collaborative leaders in the community that have a heightened degree of trust, they're very well placed to serve to help people bring stakeholders together to decide where we go from here. >> we focus as an operator. we focus so much of what the responses to any event.

when the response is over, it is like falling off of a cliff. but it's a lot less attention, almost no matter where you are. what lasts longer. one of the values of faith based organizations, which we have had from fema, there are there for the duration. the resources they bring to bear is right down to the individual americans to really need assistance and have been overwhelmed by many aspects of the disaster. whether it is the bat test kitchens, which are phenomenal, catholic charities, the range of the faith based organizations is phenomenally important. i think the value they bring

everyday is a balance. >> i totally concur. i had to convene a meeting disasterema and dod's response folks with some faith based organizations. it is interesting because there were a couple of guys in the room who thought, well, these people will show up for a hurricane. if a nuclear bomb was of the will not show up. we explain to them, yes, they will. these organizations, they are there to make sacrifice to help people. they will show up. it is incumbent on the different parts of the government to harness that. you do not want them showing up for the first time when the event occurs. the wastes assets and puts the people at risk. there has to be pre cresses korea's asian.

we all have learned of the importance of that sector of the response community. >> and jared brown with congressional research service. this question is for paul. what impact if any at all does the revision of the national response from work, protection from work all under presidential policy from marquette on defenses role in the homeland defense? >> it is helpful to us the administration but the integration of all of these lines of efforts including recovery. we knew they were important. we knew where dod could make contributions. reelected overarching policy from work that the white house

needed to lead to provide defense support to civil authorities. we benefited from the oprtunity to participate until the development of the policies. it is grinned when you are in support to be given the framework within which are going to be able to operate and be able to serve. that is what we have today. it is enormously helpful. >> as the government have models so much with the teams and the national football league have and they are preparing to play on sundays, they have a computer system that can go back and analyze every play from their opponents in every situation. the help them prepare a game plan. does our government have a

computer modeling bedticks datapoint from past disasters whether they be earthquakes, 9/11, hurricanes. they mashed them to a game plan. >> we have automated many of our processes. we have a global management system absolutely terrific now at allocating resources, which we rely when the catastrophe strikes. we're facing is slightly different situation. although there is some predictable hazards up there like a new matter, we need to make sure we have enormous flexibility. when we are taken by surprise, we have the ability to have capabilities that can be brought to bear no matter what. that is kind of automated

prescriptive approach will only get you so far. it is useful for the been the soda vikings as they march to their undefeated super bowl season, but here we need to be prepared for predictable events and also for strategic surprise. >> hope is not a plan, right? >> i think there are two things that come to mind. the first is logistics. the fee my approach used to be metal mountain. how much stuff can send someone? it did not matter how much you thought you might need. how much can you send somewhere. we would be competing with other providers. how will over to the censors is to bring the same thing i think the logistic system and fema

right now is just phenomenal and how they can coordinate, plant, prepossession the work they do with how to bring that to a disaster. even now when things to build on what we did with fema is rejected the private sector. craig has done a phenomenal job of linking with the private sector. how to work together to hasten the response. in the second thing is the modeling we went through. when you think about the evacuating the city of new orleans, it did not happen in a week. that was months of planning. we had a buses and trains and airplanes. how many estimate they have no vehicle and would need assistance. i think we did a good job of

modeling that out. i mentioned 33,000 people needed assistance, i think our an initial estimate was 45. the modelling of aircraft and where they can go to and how they can get back in time to pick up another load of people, how far a train can go. all that was done by doing modeling. i think the extent we can forecast goes kind of events we do pretty well. what the flood map program in phoenix, with the models look like for the different elevation of search and how far it will go. something more than meets the eye. there is a lot of work that goes into planning for natural disasters. we look at the time for injun

talked about. all of that has been planned out in advance. there is more modeling and simulation than you would expect to make is better prepared as a nation. >> >> the closest partnership with the department of home and security, we have been working together with fema and the fema regions to part -- anticipate the kind of challenges that are predictable. first of all, in some parts of the nation, there are hazards where we are just waiting for them to happen. the hayward fault in the san francisco area, we have predictable events that we need to be planning together with the mat and the d h s and the coast guard. there is another opportunity for

progress we are working very hard. we are looking at large population centers and regardless of what the source of the catastrophe as, we can begin to plan more effectively for a the kind of large scale life saving and life sustaining resources that will be required based on population size and the threats they're going to face. let's ensure we can get the lifesaving capabilities there fast. let's go fast, big, and smart. we are working very closely with the secretary and the entire state, federal, and local teams to make that happen. the state national guard to are so closely connected with their communities and our tight with safety public -- public safety organizations. that is how we will make

progress anticipating these disasters and why and so grateful to general jacoby for leading the charge. >> i was wondering what kind of challenges exist in sharing of for mission between the federal, state, local, and international level? how can industry continue to assist in the sharing efforts? >> right off the bat i would say what i hear a question like that -- not that i am supposing rigid a lot of people expected as just bad. how can we make things better. from my experience and fema, still special affirmation was almost on the leading edge. i do not think we used it before.

the access to geospacial information. wild fires, aircraft up and down the california coast with looking into the fire, sending the maps in real time to the fire chief's planning on how to employ their forces until the moment. not tomorrow but right now. fema has just expanded that with the technology and the rapid availability of gaea spatial information. the governor has represented that here is almost color coded with the state coordinated office. i think the information is better than most people can expect. there is almost a desire by dod forces to bring it to bear in a disaster. i think we have made leaps and bounds both in declassifying and

making available to whoever needs it. it goes on not just on federal channels but for the state very rapidly. >> when the present director -- when he was the director of the gao spatial intelligence agency he established teams that provide data that they make it maps out of the pictures. they send a big high speed trailer to the disaster site. they show up and say, we are working for you now. what do you need? this start download a more stuff than anybody can consume. >> fema is not a large organization. it is initially stamped by nga and fema and have access to what is classified and what can make

a difference. nothing that extends internationally as well. >> gentleman back there. mark, you will get the last question. >> you touched on the national guard and then the army reserve capabilities. is there any traction on the idea to merge the two components to maximize the title 32 capabilities in these events? >> my personal view is there is no need for such a merger. what we need to do is strengthen the procedures that we have to provide for the mobilization of the title 10 reserves for a no notice national hazard. thanks to the leadership of the governors, the 2012 national defense authorization act, finally it has given us the opportunity to access the terrific capabilities of the

title 10 reserve for natural disasters. we are paddle to the metal and the department of defense to ensure when the real hurricane season begins, the college football season heats up, we will be able to access the title 10 reserves of in communities where the concerts effectively. as of the challenges we're working on very quickly now to meet as opposed to looking at the bigger picture questions that i think might be something to look at in the future. today we can provide better capability through other approaches. >> a lot of people including those at this table helping for a long time to make this possible, one of the lessons learned as harvey can emphasize from katrina is that there was

not adequate coordination between state military forces, state national guard's under the control of their governors, and the federal military forces that came at the request of the governor's through fema. we need to do a better job of making sure that the forces can operate in a seamless fashion but still recognize that under the constitution, the governors are the commanders in chief of the state military forces. at the same time the president is the commander in chief of federal military forces. how come we provide for unity and ever despite the separateness of the change of command that we still need to maintain? the breakthrough thanks to the governors as to have an officer, a general officer, almost always a national guard officer, who will simultaneously served and

both duty status is, federal and state. where two hats. where a state had reporting up the chain of command to governor and simultaneously a federal had up to the president of in his role as commander-in-chief and to provide for the unity of effort to in-state military forces that was noticeably absent in the even so katrina. that was so beneficial last year in hurricane irene. >> the constitution authorizes the state to have militias, everybody recognizes the state component of the national guard as the militia of the state. the 27 -- what is the number? the lost count.

under 30 states also have additional state defense forces that are volunteers that are organized under the state, equipped by the state and fellow whatever the constitution and laws of this they require. these are another asset which are also i think very important. they have done a survey of the capabilities. some of them are very extraordinary. texas is a good example. california is a good example. they provide not just a backstop to the state guard but they also provide capabilities -- nothing there are important pieces of the equation that often gets forgotten on the table. it is something that deserves a lot more attention. >> i cannot think heritage enough for putting this discussion on. it is absolutely essential and we do not talk about enough. there is a conflict.

wanted your thoughts on that. the nature of a think tank and the kind of issues that you, jim, and steve are going over in terms of the things we have to be aware of, the priorities we have to set. the human component, the technology component. to a certain extent he represents both an when he did in the public sector and when he does not in the private sector and was secretary stockton has to do on a day-to-day basis. how do we pay for it? how do we get our budget in line with tightening and the state level, the private sector, as well as the federal level to make sure the priority stay and focus. are we going towards that's what we can and reacting as harvey was talking about? or is there even any room for protection of in the nature of the budget situation that our country in each state and company is in?

cox the answer is easy. congress should enact the president was a budget request. -- president's budget request. >> and mike farrell i and the private sector and i will not talk about the federal budget. -- my role is in the private sector and i will not talk about the federal budget. when they mention that my blood that flows -- my blood goes faster. i am concerned about the coast guard. we talk about a response to a disaster, the coastguard is there instantly. they have ships that are the oldest ships in the world in terms of the size of navy. we have ships that were old in

1965 when i graduated. the budget of the coast guard is in peril and i think about that every day. i think that is magnified larger another we spent. that is a service -- as you take notes i hope you will include the coast guard in your thoughts as well. what's that is the armed services worry about the most. i think this goes back to my comments about very wealthy nations being much more capable of dealing with large scale disasters. we still have the largest economy. we are a rich, powerful nation. our problems are the policies we put in place. not to put a plug in for heritage, but in competition with other think tanks we did a long-range budget plan. it does not raise taxes.

its leaves every class of americans better off than now. balances the budget a denture 10 years. it cuts into the deficit. it is not an idle exercise. the plan was scored by cbo and is legitimate. these are choices that we make. we have done is force people like paul into the worst of possible worlds. have not taken the missions of the table. they are going to make suboptimal decisions that will lead somebody short. you cannot just -- the math does not give you there. the kind of problems on the scale we're talking about regardless of how many hours did it all works or the wisdom of our -- if you do not resource the missions of acrylic, they will not get done. we will only be able to resource them adequately if they are larger than the ones regard

discussing as far as what we will do to texas country. if a -- what we will do to tax this country. no matter how smart we are or how hard paul works, at the end of the day the nation will come up short. >> i will give you one minute each to make any concluding remarks you want to make. >> i yield the balance of my time to the secretary. >> thank you to the heritage foundation for your sustained focus on these issues and for the opportunity to share perspectives looking forward. >> i appreciate the forum. i think this is a vitally important issue. i am glad you and others are here to give focus to it. >> ladies and gentlemen, i think you have seen a lot of candor, openness, and a lot of really

important thought to that has gone into the remarks you have heard this morning. paul is the one still sitting in the seat with the tough job. we all left him and his people up. i have to tell you, i worked in that job. there's not a lot of politics. it is about helping america in the most basic way possible and helping our neighbors as well. i would like to ask you to join me in thanking the panel for their remarks. [applause] tomorrow at 11:00 in the same room will have another panel with the former secretary of defense, paul mchale and the former deputy commander of northcom and the former director of the national guard purer -- bureau who will be discussing the price every statet