bobby kennedy assassinated by a gun in 1968. martin luther king, assassinated by a gun in 1968. and ronald reagan, attempted assassination in his first term and the critical and devastating injure to -- injury to his press secretary, mr. brady, who i thank, has committed himself to gun safety again, not to take your guns away. and i thank you, mr. brady. we have had an opportunity to work together, i thank you for what was done and certainly your legacy of commitment. . . i thank that legacy. and then, of course, let me thank mr. bloomberg who is one

that has shown his passion, so much so that he has received criticism. thank you, mayor bloomberg. thank you for standing up and saying those who would stop gun legislation that is sensible, that they have to have their story told to those around the country and those in their district. so we're not asking for anything. we're just asking for fairness. just an up-or-down vote. let me share these numbers that i think are devastating. in one year on average, almost 100,000 people in america are shot or killed with a gun. in one year, 31,000 and this is from the brady campaign died from gun violence and 66,769 people survived gun injury. 12,179 people murdered. 4,476 people shot in an attack.

18,223 people who kill themselves. 3,031 who survive a suicide attempt with a gun. let me stop for a moment how tragic, the only way out of their misery is by a gun. if a gun is near you, if you are near a gun, if you are near a gun, then that leaves you more open to using that gun for violence against others or violence against yourself. if you make it easy, rather than giving these people mental health services, which should go hand in hand with sensible gun legislation and i'm supporting a number of initiatives by carolyn mccarthy, because it is important to find a balance and to be able to work on issues that would balance the needs of our community and mental health

services, but also the needs of our community in being protected from gun violence. i want to restore the centers control ability whose ability was taken away, they stopped the centers for gathering the research on gathering statistics on what violence does to america, what the sikecolingal costsr and we want to reinforce that. when i was with these children, one of the things that comes up or he idea of teen violence loss of life, teens pick up 80% when they feel bullied or said words to them because they bring the gun to school and have a gun or engage in gang violence. on't say it is a bunch of gang

bangers, they are kids who have guns and the young man that i brought to the state of the union was a redeemed gang banger, was shot at 15. he's here today at 21, 22, about to get married and shuns guns. guns were accessible to him. he was already shot at in a drive-by. and then after he was shot at in a drive-by, then there was a point when they got him. don't condemn the gang bangers, they've got guns that are trafficked, that are not enforced, that are straw purchased and they come into places that even have strong gun laws. why? because we don't have sensible gun legislation and i agree with my friends on the other side of the aisle, republican friends, let's enforce the gun laws that we have. who would run away from that? put a resolution on the floor of

the house. let's enforce the gun laws, but join me in voting for universal background checks to close the gun show loopholes. i mentioned this idea of suicide and let me just finish on this enormous, terrible number, how many of us have read articles, as seen over the last couple of days, tragedies that have occurred and publicized nationally. all i can say is, you have a person who is disturbed, who has given up on life and doesn't have a connection and cannot get a faith leader or a hug from their family member and all they can think about doing is committing suicide. those who take a knife who stab themselves, but yes, they have a gun because nobody was there to stop them and not able to get mental health services. 592 people who were killed

unintentionally and those who survived, there was one time in houston where every time school was out, little ones, two years old, three years old, four years old, accidentally shot themselves, guns not stored. we passed that legislation in texas to hold adults responsible for a child that gets a gun and injuries themselves, kills somebody. that's the least we can do. over one million have been killed with guns in the united states since 18968 when -- 1968. and u.s. home side 6.9 times 22 countries er combined despite nonlethal crime and violence rate. the homicide rate in united states is 19.5 times higher. mr. speaker, we're not imagining

anything by being gunned up. among the 23 countries, all firearm deaths occurred in the united states. on thursday, not only should we get a vote, not only should there be no filibuster, but we should win that vote. win it in the name of somebody in your congressional district that died unfairly because someone who should not have had the gun had it and i can venture to tell you that background checks will have a sizeable impact. somebody said in 1994 when we passed the assault weapons ban that it didn't do anything. there's a big debate. tit for tat, but there is documented that the number of killings by assault weapons went down. of course, you can find other ways to kill people. but the out lization of assault weapons went down.

that's a victory. that's a victory. when i had this listening session with my little ones at the learning academy, we had pictures of these weapons. you know that these little ones that were pre-k could point out -- these were machine guns. little ones. what are we doing to our kids. they should call it a carrot because they never seen one. with the violence on tv, you want to talk about that? and violence around them and the gun talk and the killings on national tv, what do you expect? wouldn't it be nice if the headlines came out on thursday, the senate makes the first step on sensible gun legislation. wouldn't be good? that we came together and we did something that spoke to the anguish and pain.

i was here for 9/11. a memory that none of us will ever forget. and the one thing that i will compare of what is happening with these families is -- the 9/11 families, congress felt compelled after its mourning in the loss in the pentagon and pennsylvania, we just felt so compelled that we had to do something that the pain of these families scattered all over america, we had to answer them. we obviously suffered -- i remember standing on the steps sing "god bless america," but we put away any opposition to issues that had to be addressed. we put forward a patriot act at that time that was bipartisan. we worked in the judiciary committee. we handled the privacy issues because we felt that this was a time for america to shine.

well, i believe this is the time for america to shine. gun violence in impacts society, medical costs, judicial system and reductions in quality of life because of fear of gun violence. these impacts are estimated to cost u.s. citizens, mr. speaker, you have to get out of your chair on this one, estimated to cost, the smile on my face, because you are standing up and i need to sit down because it's knocking me down, $100 billion and that is soaring in medical costs, in fear, in security. what are we going to do about the enormity of gun violence, where there are more guns, there are more deaths and estimated 41% of gun-healthed homicides and suicides would not have occurred in the same

circumstances had no guns been present. higher household gun ownership correlates of higher rates of homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings. mr. speaker, we have within our power to be able to move forward on sensible gun legislation. i will be finding my colleagues to join me in a letter to send to my friends on the other side of this body to be able to listen to our voices as fellow legislators and then as well, mr. speaker, i hope the voices of america will ring. i know my phone will ring who are saying you are snatching my gun away, and i will have a smile on my face. but right now we have to put aside our individual political futures, because i believe when

you do the right thing, your future will be bright. and some child will say look at america. look at the red, white and blue. look at the country that stands for values that we are all created equal. they didn't come away to take away guns but came to enforce good laws and came to ensure that guns are not exploited, that loopholes are not walked through and become open caves. that people are safer in their schools, homes, their places of worship. just think about that. a pulpit where ministers in my state have been shot dead from guns, disturbed members because they have guns. and let's make, mr. speaker, the mental health system a parallel effort, a parallel effort to be able to ensure the safety of us all. mr. speaker, i am hopeful that

this brief discussion, if i may -- is there time? the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman has 27 minutes remaining. ms. jackson lee: thank you very much. i'm so glad the speaker was responding on that $100 billion -- probably got him out of his chair and i think we are allowed to say those things on the floor. thank you, mr. speaker, and i do have a few more points i want to make. but the number of $100 billion is certainly a lot. but i want to spend some time on this issue of gun trafficking and to speak about how gun trafficking can be something that we can find ways to come together. dastardly ing is

because in washington, d.c., strong gun laws, new york, strong gun laws, state of connecticut and state of colorado and i send out my condolences to the loss of their head of corrections, a terrible manner of being shot in his doorstep. the district attorney and his wife are so loved and the other district attorney that were so loved here in the state of texas, that comes out of criminals with guns that they should not have. and so forcing a review of our gun laws to stop gun trafficking and to pass legislation that stands in the gap and speaks to straw purchaseses, using someone else and holding people very responsible for doing that is a smart way to go. the mayors against illegal guns have a very important point, and

that is that when you pass the universal background check, it's a way to stop ell felons, domestic abusers and the seriously mentally ill. that's the answer to people who say it doesn't make a difference. riminals and others, can avoid background checks. that's the back of a trunk. that's the gun shows, alternate gun shows or anonymous online transactions. if my recollection is correct, the shooter at aurora got his guns online. how tragic. and in the course of those shootings, we know that little ones lost their lives in that theater. what a terrible thing to come out for a joyous occasion, fun ing night, fiction and

and you lose your life and never get home. i heard something today that i thought was important that parents who sent their children to school that morning in newtown were sending their children to school, december 14, celebrating holidays like han ow and christmas and -- hannuk ah and christmas and looking forward to toys and family dinners and picking up those children. mr. speaker, they didn't get a chance to do that. and so when you have background checks, certainly in the instance of newtown, a different set of circumstances, mental illness and access to guns, it will lessen the horror of those involved in private activity. allowing millions of buyers to

avoid background checks by going to private sellers. we have to fix that and we got to hold the data and make sure that our law enforcement can check and national data system so that those who would perpetrate violence cannot go from state to state. . . wanted to pass something. we have the ability to protect rights but if are you involved in a criminal activity and you're in the database on guns, your rights are lessened because we have to save lives. the internet has created a vast marketplace for guns, where millions of buyers and sellers can easily identify one another and conduct firearm transactions with no supervision whatsoever. nearly 12 years ago the u.s. department of justice estimated that 80 online auction sites, approximately 4,000 other sites, of gun sales.

no control whatsoever. private sellers are literally involved in maybe not to their own choosing, those guns getting out into the arena and being utilized, being utilized by others to do harm. so this is a time when we don't need a filibuster. what we need is a debate on the pros and cons of sensible gun legislation and finally a vote. a vote. that would move us to respond to the pain of so many americans. why shouldn't this be a democratic and republican effort? why shouldn't the senate vote on something that has substance to it, that our speaker, mr. boehner, does not also put it on the floor and doesn't block it? the reason is because, and there

was regular order on the senate side, it went through committee. but in the instance of republicans, listen to a 2012 survey by republican pollster frank lunts, found that 82% of u.s. gun owners, including 74% of n.r.a. members support criminal background checks for all gun sales. what more do we want? what are we saying here? that we can't come together on a nonwatered-down gun background checks? let me speak to something that i think is so important. we have office it's around here, -- officers around here, this is like a little city, our capitol police, they wear the uniforms, they're here to protect. law enforcement officers all over america, school law enforcement officers, county and city, villages, department of public safety, highway patrol,

drug enforcement, a.t.f., f.b.i., men and women in the united states military are here to protect. the national guard, my friends in the texas air national guard, my friends in the national guard. they're here to protect. what happens when they lose their lives through some untoward violence that's not on a battlefield somewhere but right here in their own hometown? what happens when an officer is fallen because someone who shouldn't have a gun illegally has a gun and we've done nothing about it? close the gun show loophole, stop the gun trafficking. and most of all, get us universal access to gun checks and background checks. everybody should be required. i know that we can't see these clearly, but as a whole load of guns and it says, handguns offered by a private seller in tennessee. handguns offered by licensed dealer. not checking anybody, though.

you got the money? you can just show up. i remember walking into a gun show and seeing children walking around unaccompanied. i believe they should not be able to walk around in a gun show unaccompanied. long guns being sold by a private seller in columbus, ohio. this is what's happening all over america. probably right now as i'm standing on the floor of the house, that is what's happening. that's why i support mayor bloomberg and his commitment to this whole idea of sensible gun legislation. there are currently 18 million assault weapons in circulation. and i don't know -- i don't think most of them are in the hands of the united states military. but they are. i'm just going to add these points and come to a close, mr. speaker. because this is what pushes the wrong direction, this parts us

away from each other. we can't be friends, we can't talk about sensible legislation. and i hate to say it, i don't know how mar carnage we have to see -- how much carnage we have to see. i don't know how much we have to see. police cars running after ambulances because there's been someone who has been shot. what i would say to you is, listen to the voice of a victim that i met just a couple of days ago. i just want to put this myth out. she was a teacher coming home and -- late at night and somebody came up and said, get out of the car. she didn't know what to do. she didn't get out of the car. she bent down and that person shot her in the leg. i asked the question if she had a gun, does she think that she'd be able to do better? she said, no, i was too scared, i wouldn't know what to do. my friends, don't fool yourself, by having a gun is going to make it better for you. we've got to lessen criminal vgs

guns -- criminals having guns. we have to close loopholes. more guns don't lead to more murders. thanks myth, number one. a survey by researchers at the harvard university school of public health found strong statistical support for the idea that even if you control for poverty levelser, more people die from gun homicides in areas of higher rates of gun ownership. you got a gun, you may be in jeopardy. the second amendment prohibits strict gun control. we all know that that is not supported by the supreme court and that we're not talking about taking guns away, we're talking about regulating guns and as many people have said, we regulate insurance, we ask you to have a registration and a driver's license for a car that can be a deadly weapon. and we have you register it and we have you have, if you will, a license.

state-level gun controls haven't worked. scholars recently studied state to state variation in gun homicides. they found that firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation. myth number four, we only need better enforcement of the laws. we don't need new laws. we passed several laws, yes, we need enforcement. but it is well known that you need to keep guns out of the hands of those who would do harm and you need to have universal background checks in order to stop the criminals from getting guns and you need to work on the mental health services so that those individuals cannot have guns. and in some states they have that. we're not blanketing everyone. but in certain instances we need to be able to protect those individuals, protect their families, from the crazed person, the violent abuser, the domestic abuser who goes and

violates a restraining order and has a gun. because they just bought the gun, because there's no background check. and you can't check that they have a restraining order. sensible gun regulation is prohibitably unpopular. and we've already heard of the large percentages from republican pollster about the percentages of individuals, republicans or all americans, n.r.a. members, who believe in universal background checks. not arming parents and arming, if you will, the teachers who are there to have a pencil and a pen and a chalk and to talk about reading, writing and arithmetic. and so i am humbled today to have the opportunity to speak to my colleagues, but i am humbled by the fact that we live in a democracy and there's something called a filibuster.

it's a procedure that's used not in this body, except we have a bunch of members on the floor who talk, talk, talk, one after another. but we don't have the procedure, the senate does. and as i indicated, initially three of our friends and now 13. and i would ask them, i'd ask the minority leader, i'd ask them not to engage, i'd ask the other body to work with us, i'd ask the other body to hear our cry. i'd ask the other body to think of those who ases we speak are being shot by a gun in -- who as we speak are going shot by a gun in america. by someone who shouldn't have it. i'm asking them to think of the little children from one end of america to the next who were shot with a gun. for us in washington, i say that because i'm in washington a lot of the time here, in the united states congress, remember the

sniper of a few years ago, the frightening atmosphere of a sniper, the young man and his father. guns they should not have had. killing innocent people along the highways and byways of this region. the sniper. that's what my message is today. hat we have no time, no time for a filibuster. you may have time for prayer. you may have time for encouragement. we have time for common sense. we still have time for a vote. that will pass. and we have time for the house to take up sensible gun legislation. we still have time. to save the lives of little babes. we still have time to save an innocent woman who may be subject to domestic violence.

we still have time. we still have time to stop the gang banger, we still have time to stop the criminal that may come into your house or come into a bank or cross you on street. we still have time to keep the guns out of their hands. we still have time. who is going to answer the cry? to stop the filibuster and stop the foolishness? i ask my colleagues, if it is not us, then who? if it is not now, then when? in the memory of john f. kennedy, president of the united states of america, in the memory of his brother, bobby kennedy, former attorney general of the united states of america, martin luther king, in his memory, a man of peace and nonviolence. and president ronald reagan who

lived. if it is not in the common sense of those leaders of our nation and the needs of the children and families across america, then whose voices will we heed? there is still time for commonsense legislation and i might say that we should demand, stand up for a vote on this thursday. i hope our voices, not mine, but our voices are heard. mr. speaker, i thank you for allowing this time to debate on the floor of the house and i ask again for those who wish to submit that they may do so into the record. with that, mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman yields back.

does the gentlewoman have a motion? ms. jackson lee: yes. mr. speaker, i here now move to adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the motion is aagreed to. accordingly -- agreed. to accordingly, pursuant to house resolution 141, the house stands adjourned until 10:00 am tomorrow for morning hour debate. as a mark of respect to the memory of the late baroness

senator harry reid announced this afternoon his plans for gun legislation. what did he have to say? he said he will file this evening on gun legislation to allow for a vote on thursday. it wouldn't be a vote to allow it to move forward would require 60 members to support it. it would be the first hurdle that the gun legislation has to overcome. >> does he think he has the 60 votes needed to overcome an expected republican filibuster? >> he admitted that he would have some democrats on a culture

vote might not be willing to vote yet on the bill. but, he's hopeful he would pick up several republicans. some said they would not support gun legislation but they support a debate allowed to move forward so it does appear he might be 60 votes. the 06 -- >> which one republicans? >> they told reporters today ey were not making a filibuster. campbell says he does not support the bill he might allow it to move forward. there's a number of other republicans who could be in the same boat as him. >> we've also seen discussions between democrat of west virginia and republican of

pennsylvania. what are they discussing, what do we know that they are discussing and what are the plans? >> the senator has been working to find some compromise on background checks. he's a member of in n.r.a. you might remember when he ran or the senate had an ad of him shooting. 's been trying to broker a deal. they are looking at the background checks and talks fell apart so they are trying to come to a deal that can get both sides on board that can move a bill that the republican house would be willing to take it up. >> it sounds like an uphill fight when you look at the 13 senators, including mitch mcconnell who signed a letter they would not support gun lgs, it sounded like they were --

would not support the bun coming to the floor. >> it was clear that there is a group of republicans in the senate, larger in the house that would try to undermine to pass gun legislation. most of the 13 senators said they don't want to see debate, they don't want any votes taken on the bill. they want to stop it dead on their tracks and that is what they are working to do. senator reid is trying to get around that process and trying to make sure some votes are held. he said if he's can't get the 60 votes, he's going have to have them vote on each individual bill one by one. >> suppose he is successful. what if he does get the 60 required. how long do you expect a bill debate to last? >> it could last a long time, particularly if they get into an

unlimited amendment process. we're going to see people on both sides trying to get their amendments passed. senator feinstein is going to try to attach an assault weapons ban on it. while senators who are opposed to it, will try to strip it down and make it less effective. >> will it see the light in the house? >> that is the question. speaker boehner said he will wait and see to see what the senate will do before saying one way or another. some are unhappy that senator boehner would not say if he would take something up. this could be one more element of sings that are being discussed with the president pushing as hard as he has to try to get the house republicans to give it a vote. >> you can read hear reporting at politico.com.

thanks for the update. tonight. up on c-span senator portman discusses president obama's budget and other issues in congress. later, senator john mccain on the effective sequestration on the navy and the navy's role in the g.o. political hot spots. >> senator rob portman of ohio who was white house director under george w. bush spoke about president obama's release of the budget. and his support of gay marriage. due to technical difficulties this is a 30-minute portion of wednesday's politico breakfast. >> when the president releases his budget tomorrow, is it important for him to say these

entitlement cuts that are baked in there are there because they are the right thing to do. he's been saying so far, look a what i've done for republicans. does his party know this is the right thing to do? >> absolutely. he has the mega phone. individual members of congress have a role to play. i had a town hall meeting yesterday where i talked about this issue and talked about the realities of not dealing with it. >> so you're going to look for him to say what? >> look to him to explain to the american people we have to address this problem to preserve these programs. second, he has to provide, only he can do it, the encouragement to the members of congress to take these steps. that has been the only way we can address these kinds of issues. back in 1983, that was the last time there was a significant

entitlement reform. t was tip o'neill and ronald reagan and they worked together. the two of them coming together and being able to jaump the cliff togetherle holding hands, en-- jump off the cliff together holding hands enables us to maybe do it again. ronald reagan was criticized by republicans taking on social security because they thought it this would be a tough political issue for republicans. it has been. ronald reagan did what he felt was the right thing for the american people. then he ran for re-election and he won every state expect for minnesota. this is the right thing for the country and communicated it to the constituents. in the end, we were able to

preserve an important program for our seniors. >> mitch mcconnell and republican leaders joining the threat of filibuster on guns -- some of these measures are being discussed as an 90% issue. are you worried about the optics of your party being vizzably on the wrong side of what is being described as at 90% issue. >> i have not talked to my colleagues yet because we are just back in session today. but the comment as it relates to a kind of gun control measure. the reid approach -- we'll see what happens. >> how do you feel about a republican filibuster of the gun billion? >> there are two kinds one is on the motion to proceed, and the other is on the bill itself. we'll see. again, i think --

>> how do you feel on the filibuster on the motion to proceed? >> i want to see what the proposals are before i make that decision. i think that's probably the right approach. let's see what is being proposed. i'm a strong defender of the second amendment, i have an a rating from the n.r.a. and i'm proud of that. i think there are problems with the current system and there's a lot of states not providing the mental health information that is needed to have a system that screens people that shouldn't be getting a gun. there are some ways that the current system can be improved and laws can be tightened that are in kurt use. i think people acknowledge on both sides. >> do you own a gun? >> only 14. >> only 14. >> i'm not going to tell you what they are. i have a gun safe. i have a long tradition of this.

my great grandfather, who is an immigrant came to this country and loved hunting and fishing and did not have access to it in europe. he came from switzerland. he was a poor kid and hunted all his life. he died of a heart attack with a gun across his lap. they found him frozen at the end of the day with a smile on his face. i have that gun. i it was passed through my family, my kids have now used that gun. i shot a duck with it this past fall in ohio. i've grown up with guns and it is a part of our family tradition as it is with many families. i believe that gun safety is incredibly important. i instilled that in my kids. this is part of -- for many americans this is our heritage and our history.

>> what do you conclude on where the republican party is on gay marriage? do you think they get it or is there a ways to go? >> it's understandable and i respect people have a different point of view on it. i had a different point of view until recently. it is a mixed reaction. i was talking about the economic impact, which frankly i had not considered it. i'm sure there are other political impacts of this. for me, this is not a political decision. >> how worried are you? >> i'm not worried about it. i think for most americans, the top issue is what we're talking about here today, which is jobs, the economy, how to get the economy moving? secondary, the deficit that provided to about

us. those are the top issues by far. so i think sometimes we forget that and we're talking about these other issues and they are all important. what drives the issues is that what people care about the most and that is jobs and deficit and other issues like that. >> one of the hats you wear is your a vice chairman of the republican senate yurl committee, what are you hearing as you help with recruiting, help with finance? what are you hearing about the cycle? are people worried or encouraged? >> the republicans in the senate are encouraged. the numbers seem to favor republicans. we have 14 republicans up for re-election, 21 democratic seats are up. one of them is a good state who

won last time and is running again. red e democrat side of the states, barack obama got less than 42% of the vote. it is an opportunity, obviously. it is a good opportunity for the opposition, so for us it should be a good year. what i'm hearing is what we talked about earlier people are concerned about the economy, they are concerned about the direction of the country. they are looking for new leadership. so they think the senate by adding republican seats possibly getting a majority could provide a little more discipline on the fiscal side. ltimately, it will help to set up 2016. >> what are the chances that the republicans will get the majority in the senate? >> i think they are pretty good.

again, i don't want to suggest things aren't going change a lot in the next 18 months, they always do. i think giving the numbers i just talked about, i think the chances are pretty good. no matter what, it is likely that republicans will add seats in the senate. in the house, i think we'll do well also. i know there's been speculation about how democrats are going to make it but i think it will tough. if you look historically at the midterm after the re-elected person, it helps the opposition party. the average loss in the senate is 6.6 seats since 1906. in the house, typically, republicans again, this is convexalism that may not fly anywhere but we tend to pick up

seats. so it should be a good year in the house. >> last question. we were talking backstage i learned a new term what is a card ride. >> a credit card ride. bikes.de bikes, mountain so the ultimate freedom is you take off and you ride with a credit card with you. >> that's it. >> that's it. it sounds weird but i'm planning one for this summer. i take off on the country roads of iowa and going with a few friends hoping that the credit card works at the hotel, otherwise it is uncomfortable then we make it home. >> appreciate it.

thank you. sounds like things i did in ohio. >> last summer i did a 100-mile bike ride. i tell you that hill -- >> that is a tough one. i want folks to know you can ask us questions and we're going to take questions from the audience in just a minute. i want to ask one more before we do that. the next piece of the fiscal fight, if we dote get a grand bargain sometimes in the spring, we'll hit the treasury borrowing again in may. they will have until july or august to continue to fund our borrowing before we run over the debt limit and possibly default. there is some growing concern on wall street we're going to have another summer where we have no agreement on how to raise the debt ceiling. the white house will demand new

revenues in return for any spending cuts and we'll be right back to where we were in 2011, which is markets going haywire, losing steam on the economic recovery because we can't raise our borrowing limit. do you think we're going to have another debt ceiling fight, if not, how do we get around it? >> that's a great question. that should have been mentioned earlier because of the so-called grand bargain. let's call it agreement with the president and the republicans in congress. i think the timing is the end of july and i think it is crucial that we get it done before then to make sure we don't get into another debt ceiling crisis because it could be detri menal to the economy. if you look at what the s&p 500 says about the debt limit they say let's resolve the problem. in other words there is let's avoid conflict at all costs. that does not resolve the issue,

it can make it worse. sometimes there's a notion that if we just get over there everything will be ok. it's not going to be ok. the one downgrade we already had, we have to address this issue. by the way, if you look over the last three decades only the thing that worked to get the debt ceiling under control is a debt limit debate. that's how we got the proposal a sequester-type of proposal. it is how we got through the 1990's, including the budget agreement. that is how we got the 1997 balanced budget agreement between newt gingrich and bill clinton. so the fact we can't use the debt limit to talk about this, is not true. most people think we should raise the debt limit.

because we're talking about credit cards, when you reach your limit, what do you do? you don't just raise it. you're not able to do it you have to deal with the problem. i think this is a opportunity and i think the timing is actually pretty good. let's see what the president has in his budget. i hope it is a serious budget that deals with the spending side because if it doesn't it won't be taken seriously. his last three budgets got zero votes on both the relationship rean the democrat side. the house has passed a budget, the senate has passed a budget. let come together and have our timing by end of the july, that is probably when the debt limit expires because treasury has extraordinary measures they can take us into the end of july. it has to coincide with the august recess. >> and all of our summer vacations. >> yeah, so if this comes

together, if we miss this opportunity we will let down the american people. many are kin call in doing much in an election year of 2014 and that would be tragic. frankly, we can't wait that long. think about it. have another flee years of this financial crisis hanging over our heads. to have investors unwilling to make an invest. that is the worst possibly result. let's deal with it and use the debt limit as leverage. the leverage is that the american people think it is azy for us to brother more without any end in sight. out debt will be $17 trillion that the point. we've never been here this before. we're headed towards greece unless we do something about it. i hope we use it as a leverage

point to get something done. >> do you think there is a realistic prospect to get an original order. is there enough time? are we going to end up with a deal that avoids the bemmingt zilization process? > that's a good -- reconciliation process? >> i was a member of the supercommittee, which ended up being not so super. kind of dread that again. i thinkest to let the process work and see what. if we're not moving forward it may be necessary to take it out of that regular order. this is what the american people expect, they want transparency. this is being done out in the open. these chart should be out in the open for everyone to see and the

alternative. if we fix this year, what will it look like over time? unless we're ready to make serious reductions in spending we're not going to change the trajectory municipal. if you look at what people are expecting for the president's budget it does not go far enough to deal with the problem. we can talk about that if you like. i think there are measures we ought to take where the g.d.p. should be at a certain level in tn years. >> what is your target for that? >> the minimum for the public debt, you know, gross debt close to 90%, unfortunately, even under a scenario that we are doing everything we're talking about. public debt is 70% men mum. what does that mean? it would require $1.8 trillion additional savings on top of sequester and the budget control act.

from what i understand the administration is not talking about that, they are talking about a minimal amount of savings. they are assuming that the sequester did not happen, which is $1.2 trillion. then they are adding $6 trillion on top of that. that is not enough. let's talk about that. let's figure out what that is. that level is still historically way too high. it is higher than where simpson bowles wanted us to get. i'm hopeful we can look at the spending to g.d.p. that we looked at earlier. that is how you have to look at the issue in terms of the objective now. where you want the economy to be? if you look at spending it is usually 20% of our economy, it s now 23%. it is indicated that spend willing continue to go up. in three decades it gets up to

29% -- 39%. no one has a proposal to raise taxes that high. it would result in us having income taxes, which would be a killer for economy and a new tax. so the democrats are saying let's do a balanced approach and split the difference. so instead of 39% and instead of 19%, 20%, which is the historic average. they want to split the difference. one dollar of taxes for one dollar of spending. that ratio is between the two, that's about 29%. again, nobody has a proposal to raise taxes at that level and nobody should. so we need to get at the spending problem. that's the point. this is not a balanced approach -- a balanced approach means to start balancing the budget. that does not mean $1 for new taxes and $1 for spending.

the problem is spending. that's going to be the issue that we address when we see the president's budget. >> let's bring the folks in. we have a question right here. >> uncertainty has been cited as a negative drag on job creation. you've been one of the awful voices on improving the process. what would be your council to the incoming director of o.m.b. to improve the process going forward? >> i talked to the incoming director if she is confirmed, i think she will be. i think she could be flunial in this regard. there's a group that looks at all regulations under o.m.b., made a simple point that there is a bipartisan view here to

look at federal rule making from a transparent point of view but also to provide rigorous cost alysis and look at the least burdensome programs. i may have a little bias here but it seems to be that independent agencies are powerful and they are implementing agencies and those are not subject to even the simple cost benefit analysis. the president has talked about this and he has indicated that half of it he can't do it because their are independent and therefore, by definition ave to be required to do it by statute not by executive order. we've talked about the economy earlier and my view that tax reform is essential, another one

is regulatory reform. there's a bipartisan reform way to do it. i've got two bills to do it. both are bipartisan. i have co sponsors on each one. we have not been able to get the majority threered bring the ills to the floor. he talks about it all the time. i think we can get it through the committee and to the floor. those are specific examples but this is an area that we should make progress and it will help the economy. >> we'll get to james in a second. on the confirmations front, i want to ask you about your fellow ohioan who has not managed to get a full vote. republicans, a lot of them, not including you have signed a letter that says you will not vote for anyone until there is certain structural reforms made.

do you think he should be made as the direct over cfbp and do you think there be a vote on him without the structural changes? >> it is a finance protection bureau and it is part of dodd-frank. a number of us have major concerns about how it was structured. every republican has concerns about it and it has a huge impact on our lives. it regulates all of our consumer financial transactions. so whether you're trying to educate your kid and have a college loan or you're talking about buying a car or you're talking about some other consumer loan you might have, they have unbelievable power over consumers, yet, they have no accountability in terms of their budget. their budget does not come from congress like other agencies and departments do. that's how the founders set it

up. we have the power of the purse congress. they get their money automatic from the fed. it is a percentage of the federal reserve's budget and it is an extremely high number. second they have no accountability in that the director is not removeable by the president and there is no board. there tends to be a board. think of the f.c.c. eastern commissions. because of the lack of accountability on the spending side and because of the lack of the accountability on the leadership, i did. republicansd by 44 at the time. i did not find a new letter for two reasons. i believe we need to have ahead of the consumer protection agency who was confirmed. that would be good because i

think we will not be able to repeal it. we should have somebody there who has the ability to be confirmed and help make these regulations be more proconsumer. a help toi can be encourage some of these reforms that are needed by working directly with richard cordray and with the administration. i wrote a letter outlining a good compromise. i continue to work on the issue because i think there is a way to get there. it will require some republicans who signed the letter this last time to change their view. but we are running short on time. a lot of the big corporate tax breaks benefit manufacturers, is it possible to do tax reform without informing

the industrial base in places like ohio? >> absolutely. one of the things they are concerned about the section 199 . also concerned about depreciation. but these are issues that can and should be resolved. if you are a manufacturer and ohio, you want a competitive tax system. lastited a major ohio tax week. .hey produce globally their top issues are corporate tax reform. it is disadvantaging them because other companies in different countries have a better tax system to be able to compete with them. the specific thing they raised with me which i'm hearing around the country is that when there is an opportunity for expansion, potential

acquisition, if it is a german or chinese company, they have an advantage over the u.s. company. you are seeing relative to what should be happening is shrinking of u.s. companies ability to gain market share. it is happening right now. one of my examples i like to use is beer. there is no major u.s. dear maker anymore. the largest beer company in america is boston brewing company, sam adams. they have one percent market share. all the rest are foreign owned. if you look at it and talk to the executive vice president for finance as to why, they refer to taxes. so this is a real problem and

it is happening right now. you talk to folks in st. louis at anheuser-busch. this is the real deal. there is a strong interest among manufacturers if they complete -- compete globally. if they do not, 35% is the statutory rate. it is still a high rate. even if at 28%, they are still higher than their competitors. toada just went from 16.5% 15%. that compares to our federal rate of 35%. it is a real issue for manufacturers. --to change the subject to the odds of the reds winning the world series this year. what is your view?

>> i am sorry to tell the fans in the room here, the reds beat up on the gnats -- ther nats. i am not saying i enjoyed it. >> you can be that -- you can admit that. >> the reds have an incredible line up this year. as good a team as i seen since the 1970's. was the cleanup hitter. he finished 30. he should not do that. got some great young players. a couple guys who were almost rookies of the year last year who are now coming into their own. chiu, a korean player who played for the indians, is now playing

centerfield for the reds. he has had an awesome start. he is what we were missing last year. are betting average was about .220 last year and we won our division. everybody is healthy except for ludwik. i like the chances. click very good. a list on the reds, not as bullish on the grand bargain. -- >> very good. bearish on the reds, not as bullish on the grand bargain. >> washington works in mysterious ways sometimes. it is usually not very pretty to watch the process but we are all here for a reason, to help make our country successful to get people the opportunities we have had in our lives to get the american economy strong. , worry that if we don't act

that is in danger. i see great opportunity here. this opportunity presents itself right now. between now and the end of july when the debt limit expires, we should put partisanship aside, focus on what is good for the country. if we do that and look at this objectively in terms of what has to be done, we will reform these important programs so they work in the future, we will put in place tax reform's naked the economy a chance to going -- to get going again. it will help ensure this century can be america's century. i love the comments from foreigners who look at america and say it has a lot of problems but it is one budget agreement away from getting back on its feet. if we deal with this problem and get the economy moving, we can get back on our feet again and be that beacon of hope and opportunity for the rest of the world and provide the opportunities we want for our

kids and grandkids. i am not a pessimist. i'm optimistic we can get it done but it will require leadership and the president will have to step forward and talk to the american people about these issues and honest ways, lay it out of work with democrats to give them the cover they will need to make tough decisions. >> thank you to all of you for coming and joining us on a great of her station. there will be more political -- political to come. senator portman, thank you for joining us. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] , the headup tonight of the u.s. pacific command on north korea. then senator john mccain on the effect of sequestration on the navy. and the navy's role in geopolitical hot bath. later, navy secretary ray made

this -- ray mabus. ask coming up on the next " austin journal, peter welch -- washington journal, peter welch. then more on the president budget. with senator chuck grassley of iowa. a look at congress'dealmakers. a profile of the members looking for bipartisan solutions on issues like immigration and the budget. washington journal is live every morning at of an a.m. eastern on c-span --at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. former reddish prime minister market -- or died monday after suffering a stroke -- former british prime minister margaret thatcher died monday after suffering a stroke. --

>> it tells you how the court works. there are so few good books out there that explain what the process, how do they go about this, how do they decide these cases. what are they saying to one another? we see these cases that the the court i've-four. what do they really inc.? cases that split the court 5-4. what do they really think? >> the notes back and forth between justices that are -- i wase, you fascinated by the human side of it. in many cases, justices have reservations about capital punishment. greg martin clancy and tim o'brien on the capital punishment cases that have defined the supreme court,

sunday night at 9:00 on afterwards. >> in their message to the president, they look at the potential effects of a growing national deficit. the our students of falcon cove middle school in florida. they are winners -- third prize winners. >> deficit. >> what exactly is the deficit? the deficit is in excess of liabilities over assets or expenditures over income. in simpler terms, the amount of money the united states spends that he can't pay for. >> the four components that influence the deficit our expenditures, for savings, how much money our government keeps each year, leadership, the choices made to effect the deficit, and trade, how our country internet --

interacts internationally. like the deficit has an enormous impact on our country and is the most important issue the president needs to address. like the dangers of an increasing national deficit -- >> the dangers of an increasing national deficit. -- the deficit has recently reached over $15 trillion. click the debt has gone from $34,000 to almost $51,000. -- for each person. how much is $16 trillion? what -- >> that is hard to comprehend. you can build the great wall of china with 16 trillion bricks over 200 times.

>> if you were given a dollar a day, it would take over 40 or billion years to pay off our debt. but what is causing our deficit to increased so rapidly? what -- >> the dynamics are very simple. you have revenues coming in and expenditures going out. if they do not match, you have deficits. >> we are seeing an exploding situation with our deficit. that is the difference between the revenues we have coming into the federal government and the spending going out. we have been running deficits 2f one point or two -- 1.4 trillion and estimated $1.2 triliion for this fiscal year 2012. >> this is a problem for future generations. we cannot continue to spend more

than we take in. >> where does the money that makes up the national deficit go? lex of all of the federal government national ending, 20% goes to the department of health and human services. goes to the social security administration. the department of defense. another 18% goes to all other departments. goes to department of the treasury and others. 10% goes to interest on public debt. >> what are the endangers of the increasing national deficit? >> the danger is financial ruin

for our country. financial instability. runaway inflation. it would have the collapse of our economy. we are on the verge of going in a pathway that will be hard to recover from. >> this is huge. this is something that if we do not turn it around with the out- of-control spending here in washington, d.c., it will threaten your future. >> instead of spending time arguing over political views, political parties must work together to find a solution. sometimes i cannot tell you for the life when working with because the focus on solving problems and seize an opportunity and not fighting all the time. >> i intend to work with both parties to do more. >> need to make tough decisions, live within our means and start growing the economy again. ,t was a combination of cuts growing the economy, eliminating

some loopholes out there that are inappropriately given to some business industries, you can balance the budget, live within your means and grow the economy and overtime get back to living within your means and eliminating the debt. >> we have to come up with the right tax policies to enable small businesses to grow. we have to stop printing money to buy ourselves out of this problem. in the federal government, there is no amount of money we can spend to rectify this situation. >> simpson-bowles commission worked hard and came up with proposals. we should take those proposals and addressed them seriously. >> stop mortgaging our children s and grandchildren's tutor in get the spending under control. >> democrats, independents and a lot of republicans and independent economist and budget expert. that is had reduced the deficit. with a balanced approach.

>> together we are on a mission to move this nation forward. tom doubt and downturn promise and prosperity. theoth parties approach issues before us from very different points of view. time is truly running out on our nation and the need for us to debt.s the >> how will the deficit affect the future? >> for the first time, the majority of americans now doubt our children will ever -- will have a better future. >> every generation of americans least their children better off. that is the american legacy. sadly, for the first time in our thatry, we are on a path will undo that legacy. like i'm concerned with the amount of debt we have accumulated that if we do not

address this debt crisis right our we are ensuring children will have less opportunities then we have all had. -- it willt that we not fall on the generation today. my children and great grandchildren be shackled with that that would will inhibit their ability to have the quality of life we enjoy today. , i worryis set up now about my kids and my grandkids having to pay that we have incurred. but we should be providing to the next generations and generations that follow is not a debt but a surplus. >> so let's get to work. let's get. president,

to work. but congratulations to all the winners in this year's student cam competition. to see more videos, go to stud entcam.org. command or. pacific discuss preparedness should north korea launched a missile strike. on the korean peninsula. this is two and a half hours. > lex good morning, everybody. >> good morning, everybody. we are going to start without the mike -- the muiic.

receiving testimony today on the posture of u.s. forces in the asia-pacific region. on behalf of the committee, let me work in -- welcome admiral samuel locklear. the committee appreciates your long years of faithful service and the many sacrifices you and your family have made for our nation. we would also greatly appreciate it if you would pass along to the men and women with whom you work our admiration for their service as well. we know this is a particularly busy time for you and your staff. we appreciate you joining us today. general thurman, the commander of u.s. forces in korea, was originally scheduled to testify today as well but the decision was made to keep him on the korean peninsula and we understand and appreciate the reasons for that decision. we wish general thurman well in

his ongoing activities. today's hearing is a particularly timely one because of the events on the client not on the korean peninsula which have intensified as the north korean regime has elevated its reckless rhetoric and provocative behavior. in a guarded optimism about north korea that may have accompanied the december 2011 death of kim jong-uil has faded as the new regime has adopted many of the same destructive policies as its predecessors, pursuing its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs with callous disregard for the well- being of its own people in the region. earlier this month, the north korean regime announced its intention to restart plutonium production.

in february, it tested a nuclear a yield greaters than that shown in previous north korean test. in december last year, the regime put a satellite in orbit using technologies associated with long-range ballistic missiles and last april, it displayed a road mobile missile launcher which may or may not be operational. the north korean regime's rhetorical threats appear to exceed its capabilities and its use of what capabilities it has against the united states or our allies seems highly unlikely and would be completely contrary to the regime's primary goal of survival. nonetheless, its words and actions are not without consequences. even china, despite its long- standing relationship with north korea, has joined the united nations condemnation of north korean regimes dangerous behavior and have supported new

sanctions. including tighter financial restrictions and bans on luxury goods. a few weeks ago, secretary hagel announced the plan to enhance our ground-based interceptor capability in alaska. last week, the department announced a deployment of a fad listed but --ballistic system to guam. ministration has missed on the to north korea's blustered not with hot rhetoric of our own but with more -- or may collect all with our countries in the region of partners who want stability and calm. always looking forward to the time in the present north korean regime will come to an end. i am puzzled by the delay of the long scheduled icbm operational test following the north korean rhetorical threats. why was that the late? why was our test delayed? i would appreciate knowing if you agree with the decision which was made to delay that

test. the republic of korea remains one of the united states most that fast and reliable allies and we are working in close coordination to address the north korean challenge. we look forward to hearing learral lockelar' .s viewzxs grown just a viable attention from the department of defense. its pursuit of capabilities that extend the reach of its military raises concerns about chinese intentions, particularly in the context of that country's increasing willingness to assert its controversial claims of sovereignty in areas of the south china sea and the east china sea. lack ofion, china's

regard for the intellectual property rights of the united states and other nations remains a huge problem for the global community. geithner remains the leading source -- china remains the leading source of counterfeit parts in military systems and the commercial sector. china appears to have engaged in a massive campaign to steal technology and other vital business information from american industry and our government. china's willingness to what cyberspace, and steel and trade proper tire -- poppa terry information should drive our government and businesses to come together to advance our own cybersecurity. there are a number of other missions that warrant our attention such as enduring -- ensuring freedom of navigation protecting the free flow of through sea lanes of

communication, strengthening alliances and providing expertise in support to countries committed to fighting transnational violent extremism , working to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and preparing for and assisting with humanitarian and disaster relief efforts. to better meet these challenges, the administration continues to rebalance towards the asia- pacific. the defense department has been working through substantial realignment of u.s. military forces in countries like south korea and japan. it is also engaged in initiatives to position forces further to the south in countries such as australia, singapore, and possibly the philippines. as we realign our presence in the asia-pacific area, it is important we get it right in terms of strategy but also in

terms of resourcing and sustainability. this committee will continue to exercise its oversight responsibilities to ensure that our ford presence in the asia pacific and elsewhere in the world is affordable, and sustainable. the committee has recently approved a report of its andiry into u.s. costs allied contributions associated with u.s. military presence overseas. we anticipate releasing this report in the next few days. with respect to the planned realignment of u.s. marines, senator mccain, former senator webb and i advocated changes to the 2006 realignment plan to better support you with 222 goals in the region while also accounting for the fiscal, political and diplomatic realities associated with long-

term sustainability. the april 2012 announcement of changes to the 2006 plan reflected an appreciation by both governments of the need to make adjustments to support the goal of achieving a more viable and sustainable u.s. marine presence in japan, guam and elsewhere in the region. the department of defense is working to develop the details of this new plan and a final construction schedule and total cost are not yet known. after we received the plan, we will be in a position to judge it. intelligence forthcoming, the committee has deferred action on associative requirements until previously adopted conditions are met. of re-rt the concept station in marines from okinawa to -- to guam, it must be done in a sound manner.

admiral, we would be interested in your assessment as to the effects of sequestration on your ability to meet mission requirements in your area of responsibility. again, we appreciate all the work you do for this nation. we appreciate your joining us this morning. we look forward to your testimony. >> thank you, mr. chairman. , i thinkocklear general thurman made the right decision staying where he is. recent actions start -- highlight the [indiscernible] with the declaration that the war is receding and the reality. threats are being replaced by new, more dangerous ones.

north korea's new leader represses its people and is engaged in provocative statements and military exercises in the near test that have pushed the region onto the brink of of conflict. i just got back from there. i got the clear impression he was doing that intentionally to intimidate and provoke people. both general thurman and admiral locklear are implementing steps to continue to train our south in exercises and practicing strike missions. and installing the fad readability in one. are increased military andetitions should deter

they stand ready to punish aggression and protect vital united states interests. i'm encouraged by the president's's reversal of his previous decision by acquiring the 14th -- 14 additional , thed-based interceptors decision to reverse the first decision was the right one. that does not address the problem though that we would have which is not the leader area. the regretful thing we did getting rid of the ground-based interceptor capability in: four -- in poland four years ago. we understand our capability in taiwan. i took all the stuff i had on china to my opening statement because i agree with the statement of chairman made. i think you covered it very well.

we have to have a clear long- term strategy to our force posture, including a plan for marine presence in okinawa, guam, hawaii and australia. it is been over a year since the administration announced the rebalance asia. look to admiral locklear as the commander on the ground to provide the committee with detailed descriptions of what the rebalance means in military terms. i also look forward to his frank assessment and how the ongoing budget crisis will impact his plans and operations in the pacific. i have some questions about that and i am sure you will give us very straightforward answers. i'm concerned about the growing divide between what we expect our military to accomplish the resources we are providing. do aen said that you great job at hand you are being dealt. we need to deal you a better hand. i cannot recall a time in my life in the world has been more dangerous.

while the president might use these the tide of royer -- tide of war receding, i see the need for a strong and able force that remains engaged in the age oasia pacific and beyond. the decision by the president to/the defense budget puts the future of such a force at risk. defense budgete puts the future of such a force at risk. shortsighted cuts to defense capabilities will result in weakened he was military and will embolden adversaries. the reckless course of action by the regime underscores the importance of our foreign military posture. our presence helps to shape the events in the under pin debility.

in this case to determine. , ourd deterrence fail military forces standby ready to defend the nation. thank you very much, admiral. i look over to your testimony. >> thank you very much, senator. >> good morning senator and established members of the committee. taking for the opportunity to testify today. and provide you with my perspectives on the posture of the u.s. pacific command. i request my written testimony be included in the record. for the past 13 months, i've had the great honor to lead service members and civilian employees and their families. our area of responsibility is diverse and complex. it encompasses 52% of the world surface. and half -- over half the world population. ,t is cold fully, socially

economically, and geopolitically diverse. the framework includes five of our nation's seven treaty allies. three of the largest in seven of the 10 smallest economies, the most populated nations in the world, including the largest democracy in the world and the ld'ss -- of course the word smallest republic. $8 trillion in bilateral trade with one third .s bluk caulk caroggo by any meaningful measure, the indo asia pacific is the world's most militarized region.

seven of the 10 largest standing militaries. the world's largest and most sophisticated navies. five of the world to clear nuclear armed nations. when taken together, these aspects is that a region with the unique strategic complexity and a wide, diverse group of challenges that can significantly stress security environment. affectively engaging in the area requires a committed and sustained effort. u.s. pay, as a military focused tos clearly assure our allies and partners and prevent conflict should our national interest be threatened. the indo asia pacific is relatively peaceful over time but i'm concerned by a number of security challenges similar to those you about my. -- those you have outlined.

we will talk later about the korean peninsula but it appears it will persist and an impetuous young leader continues to focus on provocation rather than on his own people. as rise of china and india global economic powers in their emergence as regional military powers will continue. the china specifically, we are focusing efforts on building relationships with them and doing all we can to assist them as they emerge into the security environment as productive contributors to the global peace and prosperity. we expect the growing populations of the world will continue to be challenged by a andhquakes and tsunamis flooding as well as continued transnational threats like pirates, terrorists, criminal organizations, human trafficking and proliferations of mass destruction. we will also see a historic

border and territorial disputes continue as the need for water, food, and energy grow. there is no single organization mechanism in the indo asia the civic to manage relationships when needed or provide a framework for conflict resolution. so we have to rely on our allies and growing partner relationships, including those where growing with multi-lateral cannizations to ensure we maintain the peace. the u.s. joint forces been heavily tasked and other aor's over the past decade. we have been resourced challenge. our rebalance the pacific strategy has given us a new opportunity to solve these

challenges and to reemphasize to our allies and partners that we are committed to the pacific, we are committed. it also reflects the recognition that the future prosperity will be defined largely by events and developments in the indo asia pacific. the rebalance account focus our planning and decisions as we were closer with allies and partners to ensure security environment favorable to u.s. interests. however, the impact of sequestration have created budget uncertainties and limited flexibility to manage risk and have the potential to undermine our long-term to teach it rebalance momentum. our homeland defense and crisis responsibilities resident in our deployed forces. the pacific ocean does not separate he was from asia. kenexa. we are connected by our economy

-- it connects us. --we are making good progress. let me sure to you that paycom continue to demonstrate the u.s.'s resolve and commitment to peace and security in the important part of the world. half ofour members -- our military sacrifice every day to make sure our country is well defended. i would like to thank each member of this committee for your support. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much. we are going to try to use the technology be have been provided .ith your today don't used why we timers. i do not have the biggest idea.

out whether they actually have an impact on us as that of the card being handed in front of us. now you have to keep your eyes on the timer. we will start with eight minutes. quantum leap, right. small step for committee, major step for mankind. admiral, let me start. over the weekend, the department announced they were delaying a routine reliability test of 3 icbm to an impact site in the marshall islands 4300 miles away. the test was delayed so it would not be misconstrued by north korea. i know you are not in the chain of command here but do you agree with that decision? do you know what the basis for it was? >> i do agree with the decision.

i assume the bases with a look at the tgg mitigations that all events surrounding this particular continuous time with north korea and impact of the totality of those. through this -- these last few weeks, we have demonstrated to the people of the region and hopefully the leadership of their owna and population back here our ability and willingness to defend our nation, to defend our people, our allies and our deployed forces. >> what are some of the things we have done them with bonds to the bellicose rhetoric of north korea. .> we have and exercise

in particular with north korea about this time of year it each year, we do an called key results. >> with south korea? >> with south korea. buildexercises are to our alliance capabilities together. our defensive gift to these -- our defensive capabilities. of exercisessult we do annually anyway. normally at this time of year, you will see a north korea they will go into the winter training cycle and conclude that winter training cycle about the time that [indiscernible] finishes. when you lay on top of that the bellicose rhetoric that has come and now the korea poor decisions it appears they

are invoking, each of these events will doubt take on a more significant contact -- each of these events that are rolled out take on a more significant contact. it demonstrates the defensive capabilities and the deterrence capabilities of the forces we bring together. we pursued a long-range demonstration. it was a good opportunity for effortes to coordinate to demonstrate that capability. it was demonstrated at the right time to indicate the capabilities the united states has to ensure the defense of our allies and homeland. >> removes a missile defense

system. is that correct? -- we removed a missile defense system. is that correct? >> we did. i asked the joint force to produce for the defense of guam the fad asset. >> i understand president obama talked to the chinese president regarding the actions we have taken following this north korean rhetoric. have you had any conversations with your military counterparts in china in the last couple weeks? >> i have not. there is a widespread attack

by north korea. there is a prospect based on history for a limited military action of some type of north korea. if there were such an event, that would draw a military response i presume from south korea. the united states and south korea have reportedly finalized a combined counter provocation to get in effort place the terms and type of any such response to a limited military action from north korea. can you describe for us in general terms what the parts of the agreement are? are you satisfied that the plan we have entered into with south korea strike the right balance

between enabling south korea to respond and defend itself and at the same time ensuring the united states is involved in any decisions that my white in a military action -- that might widen a military action? >> we have been planning with our ally for many years. we have plans that we work together and continue to revise them. this particular land that has been talked about is basically a branch from our normal day to day planning we have there to take a look at how things have changed. our recognition of a better understanding of the cycle of provocation we see from not only this leader but his father as well and how best to deal with it. i will not go into the details of the plan here. i do not think that is appropriate.

it has provided us the opportunity ensure the right command and control in the right coordination is in place to ensure that as we were to approach future provocations that we do sell in a predictable that allows us to manage his provocations without unnecessary escalation that none of us want. i am supportive of the plan. i think it is a good one. >> are you satisfied that we would be ready? >> i am satisfied that we are ready today. >> can you give us the impact of sequestration on the pacific command?

>> there is no doubt that sequestration is having an impact on operational readiness. by the nature that it is put in the budget, particularly this year, there are only so many places where we can pay that size of a bill. most of those are an operational accounts. i would say that for us to be able to deal with that is prioritized our assets globally. today i think we have managed that. that is just for today. what happens in the near in midterm. you are saying things like we

are cancelling large scale b2 s that we have done to ensure the future readiness of our course. -- of our force. we're having to prioritize these today that most pressing situation is what is hapepening kora. the peninsula in north >> thank you. i would like t o get clarification on one statement that i think was misrepresented. it indicated that the biggest long-term security threats in the pacific region is climate change. i would like to have you clarify

a by what he met with that.-- what you meant bby that. i like to follow up with a couple of things. >> i am happy to have the opportunity to clarify. >> the people trying to use your statements are the very people who think we're spending too much money on defense and that the money should be spent in other areas. >> as you might expect, i give 100 percent interviews over the last year. during those interviews i can assure the committee that i start by taking the most military threats we have, all the things that he laid out in his opening remarks quite well.

and this particular case i do the same. we started to talk about the long term and what are the implications of it. i would clarify my perspective this way. we're going to go from bought 7 billion people in the world to about nine or 10 by this century. about 80% live off the coast. that is increasing as people moved toward the economic we are seeing people moving into those areas. if you go and as the numbers of how many people died due to

natural disasters was about 2008-2012.ple.from they were not all weather- related but a lot of them were. there was about $500 billion of lost productivity. when i think about our planning and what i have to do with allies and partners and i look long term, it is important that the countries in this region build capabilities into their infrastructure to be able to deal with these types of things. >> you have used up half my time. we did not get around to it. is it safe to say that in the event that this climate was changing, the boston globe made that statement. it is one of the top scientists

in the country. he said it was laughable. crs told us we can be totally independent in terms of providing our own energy if we develop our own resources. i believe that to be true. wouldn't it be a more secure world if we were totally independent and able to supply our allies in europe jurisdiction with energy so they do not have to depend on other diction?-- in your juris with energy so they do not have to depend on outher sources? >> absolutely. >> let me say something about china. they are talking at increasing their defense budget by 10.7% in 2013. i remember in the 1990's when

they increase their defense spending by 300% at the same time we reduced hours by about 30%. this is after the cold war. 11 people thought we could afford to reduce its. we did. we went down 30%. now we are facing the same thing. could it be that we will cease to become the partner of choice to our allies of this trend continues? does this concern you with the amount of increase that china is making? we have seen this in africa. every time we have any type, it moves in. they seem to have the resources to do something. >> it is concerning.

amid the aspects is to ensure we have the right mixture for the asia-pacific so we can reassure our allies and our partners and the american people that our interests are protected over there. i think we do have to watch very carefully how the chinese military rises, what they do with the military and how the military is integrated into the environment. >> we were looking at the controversial hanger and beef that he made a statement that maybe should be hardened. i would agree with your statement. with the resources that we have, i would think that others would say these need to be hard in ardened also.

would you address that issue in terms of the scarce resources and the advantages of pardoning those facilities? >> we are aware of the suit against of the resources. it boils down to resiliency. it is a significant strategic hub for us and any scenario that i would see in the asia-pacific for the next number of decades. when you look at resiliency, there are a number of components. there is offensive and methods to protect it. then there are things he might do to harden. then there is command and control. we are looking across all of those.

it lets you as quickly as possible recovered guam if it were ever to be attacked by someone. >> give us some ideas on priorities. i know it is not of a lot of interest. it was during our trip over there. it might also be true on this. taking the 9000 marines, going to guam and some to australia. there is an issue there in terms of the real-estate that would free up for the japanese. is there a brief comment you can make about that move in terms of where the remaining marines

would be and how that affects the value of the real-estate but let me deal with resiliency in guam. generally when you look at fuel supplies and how you could regenerate those and whether the fuel heads when need to be hardened or not is when we look at whether you have the right runway by someone who decided to attack guam. we're also looking at dispersal of assets so the assets might go

to different places and times of crisis. we're looking at a broad spectrum. these are things that fit together. >> thank you so much. >> thank you for your service. you described a growing number of nations adopting the submarine enhance weapons system. the russians attacked with ballistic missiles. india is drawing submarine force. the chinese seem to be the ones ho are expanding the most. his seems to be the class of

weapons systems that are actively trying to compete with. is that a fair judgment? >> i do not say they are actively competing with the united states. globally, you have well over 300 submarines. that number is growing. people recognize they have a significant anti-access accessibility and that technology is allowing very quiet submarines to be built. i do not know that they're competing with the united states. they are reemerging into the security environment in a way we should be very thoughtful about.

>> in terms of our fleet, no longer do we have an open field. we are now beginning to note an increase in submarines deployed by asian powers. >> we have the very best submarines in the world. i am not concerned about the capabilities of our submarines or the crews that operate them. i am concerned that numbers matter. here you have them matter. there are places in the world where an asymmetric advantage from undersea warfare is important. >> it seems to be important now based on your comments, is this doctorine what you're proceeding

to be the major emphasis, particularly the major powers like china wanting to be able to eny access to our fleet? >> it is a general trend around the globe that people want to be able to control what happens in heir economic zones. then there are powers to like to project power beyond those areas. submarines provide them viable alternative is for doing that in a way that is sometimes symmetric. >> shifting gears slightly, the ship freedom has been deployed o singapore. we are going to have issues with respect to budgets and the capability of different ships. do you intend to monitor the

operation of the freedom? ow will you deploy it? >> the freedom is the first class of combat ship. it is a concept ship. we started to build it and then rolled the research and development into it. they have wisely decided to push it to protest a deploy it out of singapore. it is a ship designed for operations. it has the ability to be reconfigured as mission module ackages. what it does for me, it provides a visible presence of u.s. it allows us to cooperate and participate with a key strategic partner out there.

it provides my pacific commander another tool in the tool kit to be able to deal with peace time events as well as those of crisis. i am anxious to get out and see what it can actually do. >> do you have our conscious plan to evaluate the capabilities to make recommendations with respect to the design and function? >> we do. freedom will be there for about 10 months. during that time my understanding is that we will concentrate on how we move the mission module packages around. how do we integrate them into the operational fleet? it is a good thing. a gets it into the real

world. he gets you seeing how they can best perform and best be used. >> when you are doing or planning for a range of operations from non-combatant evacuation of the way up to a main fight or a forced landing, will you think in terms of where the combat ship it in those missions and what missions it may or may not be adequate? >> my other components are looking very carefully at what they can use because of its econfigurable abilities. we'll also be looking at an integral part of the navy strategy for the next generation countermeasures.

we will ensure that those technologies are looked at as carefully as we can. >> can you comment about the amphibious capabilities you have n the pacific now? he frequency of amphibious operations from ship to shore have been curtailed at the time. what are the problems do you see? >> one of the initial impacts was to see the marine forces that many of them had been deployed into afghanistan or the middle east over the last decade and return to the pacific. we have had extensive conversations about how we

reintegrate them back into the amphibious ships we have there. one of the missions we need to pursue. we have a good plan. this has been positively received. > thank you. >> thank you. senator mccain. >> thank you for being here. the mentioned the effects on sequestration that you're making certain adjustments. are you going to be able to djust adequately and carry out your assigned missions in the medium and long term is

sequestration continues on the path it is on? >> i would say we will have to closely assess globally the types of things that our military is being asked to do. >> where is the most pacific command? >> it depends on how the resources were prioritized and balance. at the end of sequestration we will still have the most powerful military in the world. it depends on how we're going to be prioritized with it. it will be a challenge. >> my question is not whether we will have the most powerful military. will you be able to carry out the assigned missions that the pacific command has now in a sufficient manner to ensure our national security of sequestration continues the path

t is on? >> i hate to give you this. >> you know what the numbers are. you know those numbers in some way of going to have to be put into effect. my question is will you be able to ensure the american people you will carry out your assigned security requirement to defend this nation and sequestration continues on the path it is on? >> it depends on how the resources are prioritized. >> sequestration is ok as long as they prioritize in the proper fashion. is that the answer? >> i have been consistent in saying sequestration would have a catastrophic effect.

sequestration is something i would be supportive of in general. it seems to be heading in that direction. they are looking at what the strategic choices are that have to be made. the choice is that we are not going to be able to provide the force levels we have today. the answer is i cannot do it. they will re-prioritize it. > thank you. i do not know of a time of greater attention since the end of the korean war that exists today between north korea, south korea, and us. would you agree?

>> i would agree that in my recollection i do not know a reater time. >> do you believe we have the ability to intercept a missile and if the north koreans launched a missile as is widely reported they would do in coming ays? >> we have the ability to defend the homeland, hawaii, guam, our forces and allies. >> do you have the capability to intercept a missile if the north koreans launched within the next several days? >> we do. >> would you recommend such actions? >> if the missile was in defense of the homeland i would certainly recommend that ction.

if it was in defense of our allies i would recommend. >> would you recommend that we intercept a missile if it is launched by north korea no matter where the intended target is? >> i would not recommend that. >> until you're sure what the target is. >> we will be able to understand pretty quickly where any launch from anywhere in the world, where it would be going and what e need to do about it. i am confident that we'll be able to make that decision for defense of our allies and our homeland. >> in the event of a missile launch you'd wait until you could determine where the missile was aimed. >> if we have any predetermined,

we should have a sense of where it will be aimed. if we do not, it will not take long to figure out where it is going. >> we have seen china make some cautionary remarks about north korea. we now identify a building in rising from which cyber attacks and minutes. we see continued confrontational behavior on the part of china as part of its assertion of sovereignty over the south china sea. would you agree with me that the only restraining force at this time is the chinese? >> i would say they will play a key part in any restraint. i do not know if they are the only one.

>> do you think they have played a sufficient role of restraint f north korea? >> i think they could do ore. >> are you concerned about this combination of factors about chinese behavior, that they are not behaving as a world power should be in light of the ilitary buildup? >> i do have some concerns. >> how serious are those oncerns? > as the chinese military, and think it will evolve, the

question is about transparency and what they are going to do to the military and how they integrate the military to the rest of the security environment. it does concern me. they know my concerns. i have a voice to them. we continue to have dialogue. >> do you have adequate defense missile resources to defend the omeland? >> the secretary of defense has announced some additional issiles. we have a capacity and a limited capacity to defend against the type of storage we're seeing from north korea. >> is it true this concern about north korea is exacerbated by he fact that artillery could

strike seoul and caused horrendous casualties? >> it is very much exacerbated by that. that amount of artillery would put seoul at risk. it is a primary concern of u.s. forces, korea, and mine. >> the governor of japan announced for movements that is our even mentions. e are awaiting a master plan for the movement and the cost required including environmental impact assessments. when do you think they would

receive the master plan? >> i do not have a date for when they would present that to you. i have been provided information to them as required. i responded to the committee on a number of issues you have asked me about including the lift requirements. >> thank you. >> senator blumenthal. >> thank you for being here and for your excellent testimony. i am concerned as much about the threat that north korea poses in terms of nuclear proliferation over the long term as the immediate attention and potential threats in the short term.

you have briefly discussed it in your testimony and we have barely discussed at all here today. i wonder if you could elaborate on your testimony to describe hat you see as the extent of the ongoing aid that north korea is providing to other nuclear-arming countries such as ran. what can we do to bolster? >> north korea's proliferation of weapons systems very much concerns me. we know that over the time that

north korea it goes through cycles a provocation one of the things they rely on to fund their ability to do what they do is through proliferation and moment of arm sales around the world. i do not have any direct knowledge that there has been a collision between iran and north korea but it does not mean has not happened. >> does it mean iran would be greatly disadvantaged of north korea were not helping them? >> iran would be greatly advantaged if north korea helps them. > is that help on going? >> i cannot give it to you in that form. >> perhaps in another. what can we do to stop the proliferation?

>> the international community is going to bring continued ressure. we have to tighten our ability to see what is being proliferated and where it is going. we have to ensure that we have the ability to interdict it before it is proliferated. >> i know you're focused on this problem. some of the most chilling testimony this year before our ommittee came from the admiral who told us, remember the truly dark edge of the spectrum is weapons of mass destruction and the proliferation of these weapons. he said the ability to move 10 tons of cocaine in the mini-sub, begin also made a nuclear evice.

this is already the means of roliferating nuclear arms that do beyond what we have seen so far. >> my area of responsibility are the highways for a lot of ctivities. some unrealized the size of the pacific ocean. >> you say the sheer physical extent of your challenge. i didn't mean to cut you off. i hope we can be re-briefed on the threat of proliferation, particularly as it concerns iran going forward.

let me shift a subjects. there are 300 submarines out there now. they cannot compare to the united states in terms of their echnological capability or the ability of the personnel who sent them. don't we need to keep pace with what is happening in the rest of the world? >> that has been my recommendation. >> nothing has happened to change that recommendation. >> nothing has happened to change that recommendation. >> arguably, the urgency of the recommendation is all the more present now with the increasing

submarines by countries around the world. >> it is not only about the submarines. our submarine force as a lot of other things from intelligence and reconnaissance to special operations support. it is a wide array of things that need to be addressed that can be addressed very well by a competent submarine force that as the capability and capacity to be able to address the challenges we see. > you mention very briefly the challenges posed by human trafficking. i wonder if you can elaborate on hat.

>> i have a slide that someone gave me the other day. it said that the slave trade in the world today is about $30 illion a year. in my particular aor, my guess is that there is a fair amount of that trafficking coming from that part of the world. we do look at this. we try to work with our partners and allies to look at where the sources might come from. what are the security mechanisms they may have in place? it is a problem. it is a much larger problem than we want to think about. >> isn't the republic of north korea a primary control research -- contributor to this problem?

>> i do not have knowledge of that. >> my knowledge is that they are to human trafficking but within that country in the united states. are you aware of information that would corroborate that? >> i am not aware of it but i will look into your numbers. i would not be surprised. >> i do not have numbers. if you have them out is certainly welcome them. my time has expired. i want to thank you for your very helpful testimony today. >> thank you for your leadership and for all the serve underneath you. what is the relationship between china and north korea? uponoes north korea depend

china? >> they're on their border. hey share a common border. it supports the north korea hrough food and fuel and water there are diplomatic ties between north korea that are much more robust than what we may have ever experienced. i think their influence can be significant. >> as i understand it, china is north korea's biggest trading partner, their main source of food and fuel. it seems to me that north korea would have a difficult time continuing economically even at their lower economic development

pace as they are now giving the start in that many of the north koreans experience if they did not have china support. would you agree with me? >> i would have to agree with that. the north korean economy is about 2% of the south korean economy. >> if you look at what is happened in the last couple of weeks with the new leader of north korea with his actions that seem to go beyond their cycle a provocation that we have seen in the past with his father. couldnt china play a key role in getting north korea to stop their actions? >> i would think that china could play a key role in influencing the rhetoric and restoring some more sense of calm to the peninsula.

i believe sometimes the chinese are more nuanced than we are. i believe there has been some reporting an indication that the leadership in china has made some statements about the issue. i cannot tell you what is going on behind the scenes. >> one thing that troubled me is that when you were asked about your conversations with your chinese counterpart, you said in these past few weeks that you have not had contacts with your military counterparts. it seems to me that we need to be clearer with china as to what our expectations are. this is a danger to them. if there is a provocation and we are required to engage, that is

to the detriment of china poses security as well. i am wondering why you have not had these conversations. >> i believe our secretary of defense handles those conversations. the nature of our mill to mill hich china is progressing. over time we will progress to a state where the pay, commander can talk to the chief of defense in real time. we're not there yet. i would have to refer you to the tate department. i know there is a different flow of information at the diplomatic level because of the where the pla is structured. >> do you know what conversations chuck hagel has had with his counterpart in china?

it seems to me that the chinese could get north korea to back off tomorrow. >> i do not know the specifics. there has been out reach at that level. >> i think that is particularly important given that north korea relies on china for its economic existence. with the thought of stopping the proposed minute man test we had, you said you agree to that decision. was there any thought to the fact that if we stopped a proposed test that we're planning on doing anyway that north korea might interpret that as their actions having an mpact on us backing off? his actions were getting us to stop actions with our own icbm

testing. what was the thought process there? >> i am sure that entered into the discussions about when the decision was made. we have many tools available that demonstrate u.s. power and resolve and that we use those selectively to make sure we do not end up with a situation that spirals out of control on the korean peninsula. there is no question we have the capability to demonstrate at will when we want to send our own people to defend the peninsula. i was supportive of the decision. >> at some point we will have to go forward with our regular testing. >> absolutely. >> can i ask about the 14 ground state interceptors that are eing replaced?

the prior administration had planned to put those in place in alaska to make sure we had the missile defense capability that was needed. how long will it take for that o be put in place? >> i do not have an answer. i can get you one. >> is that a matter of years to get those in place? >> i would assume that it is onger than days. >> in not going forward in 2009 has delayed the capacity we believe we need. >> i do not have a comment on hat. >> i wanted to ask the about the importance of the virginia class submarine.

i know the senator had asked about the need to continue the current pay load schedule. is that under threat due to sequestration? >> as we look at sequestration they are going to look at this. we have to look at all options and things that are out there and see what is affordable and within the context of what the american people want to provide. it will stand on its own merits as far as what we expect our submarine force to do in a equestered budget. >> is there any doubt that we need that submarine availability in what is happening in the asia-pacific region? and in other regions around the

world, including what is happening in the middle east. >> there is no doubt that we need the virginia class submarine. we need it to employ a wide range of capabilities. they are all important. i have to look at what are the capabilities that are most important. >> i appreciate it. thank you for your testimony. >> thank you for your service. >> the north koreaian missile that has been moved what countries are under threat from that and what areas if any are under threat from that? >> there has been a movement to he east coast. it has a range of roughly 3000

range of about 400 or so miles. you can if shabbily that out. it is not put the mainland of the united states at risk. it is not put hawaii at isk. it could put guam at risk if it was pointed in that direction. we have got the capability in place to be able to monitor and protect the homeland, guam, and our forces that are there as ell as our allies. >> how quickly are you aware if a launch occurs? > this is complicated. in the past we had significant inw in indications to be able to understand the direction of the aunch where it was at. this creates a problem for our intelligence.

this is not just a north korean problem. his is a global issue. it puts pressure on our ability to understand what is going on and to see it and be able to respond to it. from a military perspective we would like to be able to deal with it before it ever launches. in this case, we're probably looking at being able to see it being in a general location and then to send a launch to do what s necessary. >> at what point do you have to lot to protect our allies and our own territories? > that is speculation. it would depend on the location of the launch, and the geometry of where it was going, and with the assets were located.

we will position our forces to optimize our capabilities. >> do you feel confident we will be able to protect all of our territories and friends? >> i feel confident. in regards to the decision making in north korea, what differences do you see from his father to him? >> first the similarities. he has taken the playbook robably from his military. it is a government organized around the military. he has played that part to the people of north korea. he has indicated he will do economic reform which we have not seen anything book. he has been recognition of a cycle of provocation where they go through an event.

there is a bellicose rhetoric and it builds. then they go into some dialogue. he asks for concessions. then it hangs out there for a while and then it starts back up again. over time, i believe the cycle of provocation has been a fairly successful strategy for them. they are still in power. where they differ is he is unpredictable, more unpredictable. his father and his grandfather always figured into their provocation cycle an off ramp of how to get out of it. it is not clear to me that he has thought through how to get out of it. that is what makes this scenario particularly challenging. >> is there a tipping point for the chinese?

is there a point where they will speak to the generals of north korea and say this is a point we do not want me to go past? do they have that kind of influence? >> i think they do. there would be a time where you would see more of that probably visible than you might have seen it. we share similar interests with the chinese. we want peace and security on the peninsula. there is no benefit to the chinese of having this type of activity occurring on their borders, no possible benefit hat i can see from this. they will work this problem to their national interest just ike we do. >> they have the physical

ability to do it. o they have the will or desire if the north koreans go past a point we would have expected them to go past? do the chinese have an ability to force a change in the eadership there? >> i do not know that they would say they have the ability to orce a change. my sense is that they will look after their national interests. at some point time if north korea is not in the best interests, and they will act to serve their national interest as we would. >> outside of the korean eninsula, what do you see as the biggest challenge in your egion? what is the situation that concerns you the most?

>> certainly as we look at the rise of regional powers, the rise of china, it is looking to a future where the u.s. interests are protected and our allies are protected in age pecific. -- asia pacific. we have to expect that china will integrate into the security environment. they have to. there's not another good ption. how we're able to china assume a regional role, that is consistent with u.s. interests there. the concern is how we get there.

>> do you see be contesting of islands not only with japan the other? >> do you see that as getting worse or is that situation getting worked out better? how do you see that moving forward? >> well, you know in the south china sea, the philippine government filed a international tribunal which i thought -- i was supportive of that when they did that. i believe that first, we don't take sides. that's our u.s. policy on territorial disputes, but we do or ave an opinion and the opinion is is that they should be resolved using normal standards of international rule that they should be done peacefully

without coercion and that in the end, it should be in the best interest of all the partners in that region. so in the south china sea, i think we have -- we are at -- would say kind of a low boil is the best way i would put it, that we're watching carefully what happens as each of these peripheral country look at how they're going to secure their interest. in the east china sea with this -- we're clear as well there. again, we don't take sides on territorial disputes, but we do recognize that it falls in the administrative boundary of japan and that falls under our alliance and our treaty responsibilities with them. and so we are hoping again, that over time, that this scenario can play out to the benefit of both japan and china.

because they do have many, many interests together that i think over time may eclipse this event but they have to get through it and hopefully, that's done peacefully. >> admiral, thank you for your service thank you for your testimony today. >> we have had 232 ships left in the navy. a decade from now, is that a ise thing? >> not a wise thing. >> would it severely restrict our ability to deal with threats that we face today in your backyard. do you agree with that? >> unless you put them in my a.o.r., i would probably be ok if you put them all there. >> but somebody else wouldn't be. >> but somebody else wouldn't be. >> fair enough. >> yes, sir. >> now, what percentage of north korea's g.d.p. is dependent

on our relationship with china? >> i don't have that in my fingertips, but i imagine a fair percentage and i can give you a number. >> ok. i would appreciate that. the point i'm trying to make is that basically north korea's client state of china and they could stop this if they chose to in my view. we're ready for the fight with north korea, if that day ever comes? >> we're ready. >> south korean and japan, do they believe we have their back? >> in my sessions with my counterparts, the answer to that is yes. >> the politics in south korea has changed with the tolerance about the south korean government and people to accept any more attacks against south korean interests is lower than it was two years ago. do you agree with that?

>> i would agree that the tolerant -- that their toleration of a significant provocation towards the south is much lower than it has been in the past. >> if there were an incident where a south korean naval was sunk by north korea, the south korea citizens were killed or a plane was shut down by the north koreans, it would be impossible for the south koreans to respond in some fashion, do you agree with that? >> my sense is there is a growing sense in south korea that future provocation is at a level that you just described would require them to respond in some way. >> from our own national security interest, a nuclear armed north korea sharing technology with terrorist groups is a real concern. do you agree with that? >> one of the greatest

concerns. >> and we should be concerned about a missile attack coming from north korea and i applaud hat administration for showing resolve. i think all the things that you have done under secretary hagel's direction has been good, the right signal to send, but it is more than just getting hit by north korean missile that i'm concerned about. north korea was an advanced nuclear weapons program was probably a nightmare for this country because they have shown a propensity to share the technology with terrorist groups. is that a fair statement? >> fair statement. >> did the north koreans have a rational bone in their body? - do the north koreans have a rational bone in their body? >> i would say over time, in if you look at the time -- over time, they're still in power and so there must have been some rationality from their perspective of what they're doing.

>> and from their perspective, this is rationalist. you live like kings and most people are starving to death. you get to the bottom of the problem, you have to go back to china because this north korean regime could not last six months under the current construct without the support from china. do you agree with that? >> i believe that north korea is highly dependent on china for a lot of resources. i don't know how long they would survive. >> not long. do you agree that china muff a -- must have a plan for propping up this crazy regime? >> well, i don't know that -- >> they're not doing it by accident. they know who they're giving the must be to, -- money to, right? tell me the best you can, what is their plan? you're one of our eyes and ears in that part of the world. as briefly as possible, tell me why does china continue to

to do this? how does this fit into their plan for the planet? >> well, i would say that speculating on china's -- my perspective of my china's position on it is over the last -- >> have you ever asked them? >> we talked about it -- >> why do you support this crazy guy? why do y'all do this? i mean, what's in it for you? >> well, my sense is that over time, that they developed this relationship with north korea as a buffer to u.s. presence in south korea on the peninsula. >> don't you think it's deeper than that? that they worried about a unified korea, another democracy in their backyard? >> i don't know that i would agree that -- you would have to ask them. i don't know that they are worried about a democracy. they have a pretty vibrant relationship with south korea. >> so you think north korea is a buffer?

>> my sense is that they -- that they -- again, that they may -- >> why did they engage in cyber attacks against american business interests? >> they do that so that they can get the technological advantage. >> why did they object to efforts to control the slaughter in syria? >> i don't have a comment on that. >> why did they not support us more in terms of controlling the ayotollahs in iran? >> i couldn't comment. >> i'll give you a comment. i think this is a communist dictatorship that fears individual expression. they fear freedom of thought. they fear freedom of religion. they fear anything not controlled by the state.

and it is now time to deal with these people more directly. do you consider china a friend or a foe? >> i consider them at this point in time, in the terms of those two terms, neither. >> well, a friend's like this. do you agree, we don't need enemies? >> i consider them at this point in time, someone we have to develop a strategic partnership with to manage competition between two world powers. >> i'll be a little more direct. i know you're a military officer and i appreciate your service. their behaviors are not only provocative, it's obscene. they're stealing american intellectual property. they're attacking us every day. they're propping up one of the most dangerous regimes in

the world that directly threatens our interests. they're one of the groups having assad's backs one of the last ut one of the major. so you live in a tough neighborhood and i just wish you would share with the chinese that there's a growing frustration here in congress with the way they behave and we would like to have a more mature china as part of the international community, china that would bring out the best in the world, not reinforce what's dangerous about it. i think i'm speaking for a lot of republicans and democrats. thank you for your service. >> thank you, senator graham. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to welcome you for the hearing today. very important. thank you for your leadership nd i want to thank the men and women who serve with you. i visited with many of our

leaders this past week and so i know how hard they work and they have more much part of the community with volunteers and particularly with our schools. i have a question regarding pearl harbor naval shipyard. with a new strategy to rebalance our forces with the focus on the asia pacific, the need for strategically located maintenance facilities such as the pearl harbor naval shipyard appears more critical to the readiness of our fleet. one of our attack submarines was in dry dock and i saw the huge effort and the hundreds of people who have to work to maintain our submarines. so do you foresee any adjustments to the role that you see pearl harbor shipyard playing with this rebalancing as well as the importance of continuing the modernization efforts of the shipyard? we need to modernize that shipyard in order for them to work on

these very, very highly sophisticated submarines in order to support the fleet in the future. can you share your thoughts with us? >> yes, i know no plans to change the strategic direction we're headed with the pearl harbor naval shipyard. we have to have geographically capabilities. they have to be operationally resilient and they are to be respond in crisis but they also have to be affordable. and so i assume that the changes we're going to make in the pearl harbor naval shipyard will continue to make it a competitive in nature but what they produce for us and from a military perspective and from a pay com perspective is

important. >> i hope that means that you will continue to support the efforts to modernize that shipyard so that they can conduct the kind of highly technical work that they do there. >> well, for them to remain operational resilient, they have to be able to do the type of work that i would need them to. so if that requires them to modernize, then we'll need to do that. >> they do need to modernize. ome of the equipments seems to be under tents. when we talk about the importance of the asia pacific area and the rebalancing to that area, i just participated in a tea ceremony with dr. sand and his group and their focus is peace through the way of the tea. and our relationship with japan is very important. can you talk about the current status of our alliance with japan which is a critical alliance in light of everything that's happening in the asia

pacific area. >> yes. it is a cornerstone alliance from the security perspective. our relationship with japan is equally important today as it ever has been in the past. it may be more important. the strength of our relationships and the strength of our military alliance and training together is as strong as it's ever been and it's getting etter. their capabilities from both the joint and command perspective. their capabilities to participate in high end things like ballistic missile is growing. and i see a continued good way ahead with our relationship with our mill to mill relationship with japan. >> would you say that one of the areas that we need to continue to focus on is that the situation in okinawa. >> yes.

we've had recent good news where the government of japan provided to the governor of oak noah. the landfill permit in there have a net under consideration. o that's the next step to go forward to be able to realize the replacement. >> i know this committee has numerous hearings on how we can ensure the movement of marines happens in a way that is of benefit to both of our countries, not to mention what e need to do regarding guam. one of the areas that i focus my questioning with other leaders from the military is your need to reduce your energy consumption, which the department of defense is the largest user of energy of all of our departments. so regarding your inimplementation strategy, i'm

curious to know how this is progressing and what have been some of the successes of your implementation efforts? what have been the biggest challenges? and your operational energy strategy efforts and any lessons learned from implementation of the strategy being integrated into the pay con's decision making? >> i would like to give you a more complete answer in writing. >> i welcome that. >> but to the larger perspective inside the d.o.d., pay come -- pay com is the largest user of the d.o.d. energy resources. i have to think about how they're going to get refined to the quality that i need to put into airplanes and into ships.

i have to think about how i'm going to have to move around in this vast a.o.r. and i have to look at ensuring the energy is going to be reliable when i get there and when i need it. i also have to consider that i have locations throughout this vast area that many of the remote or more remote locations that will -- that might be available to look at alternative energy supplies. it remains a critical aspect of the way we think through the strategy and we're following dod, who has the lead on renewable energy sources. there has been some success in that area. >> that is a very important strategy for us to pursue. use in the ergy department of defense.

indications that perhaps china is not too happy, perhaps displeased with north korea's rhetoric and actions. do you foresee some action on the part of the chinese either publicly or behind the scenes to stop or reduce the level of provocation from north korea? there has been statements by both ping and the ir minister of foreign affairs in less deer tick that would indicate they have some concerns about provocations are disruptions in this part of the world or anything that would put a potential negative situation on one of their -- on their border. i think these are maybe not as direct as what we like to see here but i believe there are indications that the chinese government is engaging.

you -- i would have to refer you to the state department to get more specifics on what the diplomatic channels are. my sense is that they will consider their national interests like we do. they will move to protect those national interests when the time comes. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. and welcome. i will pick up on a theme. there has been a lot of questions about the relationship between china and north korea and i would like to associate myself with comments made by others. i would not have wanted to answer that question that you were posed. there was the same question about the relationship between israel and russia. we have extensive ties with

china commercially and in many multilateral venues. items oflist those controversy that senator graham mentioned, the completely flagrant cyber-security attacks that can be testified to by any governmental agency, financial institution, or company will tell you about it occurring day after day along with the chinese government, denials of the obvious reality. and in the situation in north korea. it is clear that while we have a friendship and an alliance that is a strategic world -- a strategic one, it needs a lot of work and i would like to associate myself with the comments of the senators. the north korean nuclear program would come to a grinding halt as soon as china demands it happened.

they have the capacity to, they have the ability, they have the leverage. and i think you're right. the chinese interest is in seeing north korea as a buffer but an unsafe, and stable buffer is not much of a buffer. other nations in the region will start to because of the logical illogic of nuclear proliferation will say we do not want nuclear weapons. if an unstable neighbor has them we will need to get them to. it would be the worst thing to face the prospect of additional nations in the area with nuclear weapons. that will be what other nations will be compelled to do unless the north korean program is stopped. this is a comment to give you a sense of what we're thinking here as you deal with your chinesearts in paycom, counterparts, and others. china can bring it to a stop.

we feel like they have not chosen to do so. the day is coming where they will need to do that or they will face other nations with weapons will have near their borders if they do not act in the role that they should. similaraving heard rounds of questioning, others who have asked these questions, this is the emerging consensus of this body, this committee, mammy -- many members of the committee about china's responsibilities and where we will likely go. thepe it will take that in for what it is worth category. >> to have been asked a couple of things about sequester. i visited joye base langley and that is the home of the air force's air combat command. talked to the men and women who asntain f 22's on the day part of the start military

exercises. we have had a remarkable show of force to demonstrate we are serious about the north korean threat. as we were doing that i was also being told and i am concerned about their force plans to cut flying hours by 18% as a result of the sequestered. air combat informed as as of this week it will enter a tiered readiness status. one-third of its flying units will cease flying or stand down for the remainder of fiscal year 13. how will that stand down or cessation of that tiered readiness of flying in its effect your important and critical missions in paycome? indicatedas i earlier, the effects of the willstration and paycom be the potential degradation of

readiness of our forces that will have to fall on. so we have done in the near term is to ensure that we're able to manage scenarios that are most important to us, in my case, north korea manage that, manage our homeland defense but as the sequestration starts to move downstream, we start to see more and more negative impacts on the readiness of our force. what it means to air combat command is the forces there back here that will be training to get ready to come and relieve the ones that are on station will not have adequate flying hours, will not have adequate training, potentially and that is the world we're in right now. ok. i think it is important. many of us were pleased when we did the defense appropriations bill to carry forth the year-end cr.eplace the

you talk a little bit and there have been some information in your testimony about the combined counter provocation led which is a south korea u.s.-supported contingency plans for challenges in the region. could you share a little bit more about the contingency plan and what are the strategies for dealing with contingencies including ms. calculations or thatts or skirmishes escalate in ways we obviously wish there would not. >> in all our bilateral planning with our allies which we have been doing for years with them and we continually and of them based on the scenarios we see in north korea, in this plan that you have heard about, it is a follow on iteration of our robust planning that we have. it is a look at the recognition that north korea -- it's a look

at the recognition that north korea has established a cycle of provocation and then following the island of shelling a number of years ago is that how do we best ensure that as this cycle of provocation were to occur is how do we together as allies communicate? how do we understand the situation? do do we share snidges how we posture ourselves to be able to ensure that we can manage those scenarios? ofan't go into the details it, but it's a good -- from my perspective, it's a very good effort. it's an indication of a maturing of the alliance and i'm very supportive of the efforts that general thurman and his counterpart in korea have undertaken. >> thank you. finally, your testimony discusses the continued challenge faced by the region because of typhoons, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis. what is paycom doing to plan humanitarian assistance and disaster response with other

nations and multi-lateral agencies and n.g.o.'s? >> well, certainly, the military aspects of hadr, that's not why you have militaries. you have them to do other things, but they certainly can provide assistance in other areas, particularly early on in those types of events. as we saw in japan, we saw where the readiness of military assets to step in to step in in the huge natural disaster and to kind of get in front of the problem and get command and control set up and to give the people on the ground the will and the help they need to get them jumpstarted to get started. in the end, they would not solve by the u.s. military or any other allies. it was solved by the people of japan but it needed to get them started. there's other areas that we can support too. we have technologies and we have no-hows that are in developed countries that we can share with

developing cubs. so in paycom, i'm able to bring together in interagencies from our u.s. government and we can transport some of that knowledge into these hadr scenarios that we do and exercise we do in other countries so. bangladesh,, in over time, we have -- they have been able to develop warning systems and place where is people go during large storms that have significantly decreased the damage and cost to human life. and so we can do some of those things in our multi-lateral planning together. plus, the whole idea of hadr is, you know, many times in this large area, we have to look for places where our interests converge to be able to participate with each other. and in this case, everybody can converge on hadr. the chinese, the u.s., everyone can.

where will see exercises we're operating with the chinese. we're operating with the indians and other people in the area because we're going after a common cause. these things build trust and over time, i think can make us a stronger region. >> thank you very much for your testimony. >> thank you very much, senator kane. senator king. >> thank you for your thoughtful answers today. are there treaty obligations between china and north korea that we know of, a kind of mutual non-aggression or something like that? >> i understand that that there is an alliance of some mechanism there.

ofon't know the specifics how it would be implemented but i believe there is that has been widely speculated that north korea is an ally of china. >> well, here's the scenario that keeps me up at night. north koreans torpedoed a ship, a south korean ship. south koreans seem to have a high level of intolerance for this kind of activity tan they have in the past so there's a response from the south koreans, some kind of strike in north korea. there's then a response from north more is a response of severity in the south. >> what happens next? >> what does worry me is the guns of august phenomenon. we stumbled into a world war because of a series of alliances based upon what could be considered in significant incidents. what is next? let's pause an attack on seoul or some large population in south korea. what happens? >> i share your concerns about the seriousness of a provocation that will lead to a

list -- miscalculation or escalation that would go up and out pretty quickly. go timeline from when you from when you see a miscalculation that went kinetic to a time you significant combat activity from the north is a good time line. we have the ability for the alliance. the plant and got through some of these events. we have the ability to quickly bring the forces that would be necessary to get it under control as fast as possible. the best thing we can do is preserve the peace to get the backs of the diplomacy could work.

this is where they went. >> our relationship with china has come out over and over in terms of their ability to to be a partner in restoring peace as opposed to an enemy. why are they building their military? why are they diverting more resources?

we have been attacked. we know people are plotting against this country. do they have any serious fear of people attacking their homeland? >> they have a large standing army for internal security in border security issues. over the last number of decades as they have become a more economic and powerful nation, that they have increased their it assists in cyber, space, maritime capabilities. i think it gives you a pragmatic look at it. we should not be surprised by

that. they have natural interests that are concerning them. any state needs to be able to ensure the security of them. you do this with navies and things that can employ. to the degree they get one, it would seem a natural progression and a power that was rising. the real key is that they need transparency. there is a need for trust between the neighbors. as they evolve this military capability, what are they going to do with it?

is it there to pursue their own interests at the expense of others in this tightly controlled part of the world? is it to be a contributor to the security environment for the global economy and all the peace and prosperity can continue? that is what we have to contemplate. >> it strikes me as something an oxymoron. i would like to associate myself with we have this commercial relationship with china. on the other hand they have opportunities to assist in peace around the world and are not doing so. senator gramm put it quite well. talk about non-state actors, a transnational criminal organizations, pirates, smugglers, drugs, weapons. >> it is a concern. transnational organizations will continue to proliferate.

we have done some really magnificent work over the last decade or so to help curtail al qaeda activity globally. where you have disaffected populations and all of these things that enter into frustration of people, there is a potential of that. we do not see a significant terrorist threat. there are pockets of it that we deal with.

we work carefully with our filipino partners in the philippines and some operations we help train and assist in. in india there's always a concern about the transition of terrorists from the west into india at that we discussed and talk about here it what we are doing mostly in paycom to get ahead is we are working to ensure our information sharing so as these networks develop, we are able to sense and understand with each other what doing and being able to interdict them before this becomes a larger problem. >> in the cold where there is a famous hot line between moscow and washington. is there a direct link between washington and beijing? >> there is.

if necessary, that there is one between me and beijing as well. we exercise that on occasion. we need to get better at this. i do not have the same relationship i have with the chief of defense of japan korea where we understand each other, we need routinely. we need to moving forward with our relationship with china. we have many things that we have in common with each other. we need to understand those better. a it is nice to have relationship before the crisis. thank you. >> senator r nelson. >> good morning. going back to sequestration, in a big aor such as yours to be

ready, you have to do a lot of exercises. is there any capability of using our increasingly enhanced ability in simulation to keep your troops ready as a substitute for actual exercises? >> i think you will find that we have spent an awful lot of money and time on developing simulations that help us. i see simulations that are critical. many of what we used to fly in airplanes are you done -- are done in simulators. our most high in ships do training via simulators because

the cost to fire the weapons are prohibitively expensive. even at the joint force command level we do synthetic training where we bring in synthetic exercises to make it work. should there be more of this? absolutely. the downside is it is expensive to get in. ofhave to weigh the cost asking the services to buy its versus whether or not it can be realized. >> let me ask you about going back to the north korean nuclear program. recently the base said they were going to reopen their mothball reactor, weapons-grade plutonium.

they had shut it down as far as we know it in 2007. people have testified to it would take at least six months to get the reactor up and running. do you agree with this kind of assessment? let me just stop there. >> i think it is a bad decision by north korean leadership to do it. it is in direct contradiction of a u.s. security council resolution. this is certainly provocative in nature. at the time line that you discussed is what i ought to have seen roughly. it is just an approximation at this time. >> that is six months. it is another thing will taking a nuclear weapon and then integrating its on a delivery system.

presumably, if they have the ability to integrate its onshore arrange delivery -- it on short range delivery systems. what about the long-range? we have heard testimony from senior officials that they have not produced the ability of mounting nuclear weapons on long-range. can you share your thoughts in this open forum/ >> as a general rule, i would say that we have not seen them demonstrate the capability yet. they have indicated to us that they had it.

we're going to take it seriously when someone indicates it. i think we have done due diligence steps. we have not seen them demonstrate that capability. >> for the american people to understand our capability with this a bellicose and nature of this new young leader in north korea, can you state between the united states ground to air, to air capability of knocking down 1 at his missiles from north we have that capability? thatcan confirm we have

capability. what about the f-22s? they were going to be sent back to the united states.

that was a plan that was in process until all of this bellicosity started by the young the korean leader. then we send our f-22s in some sort of exercise with south korea. do you think we ought to continue on with the process of spending them out of japan back to the u.s.? >> we rotate, we have two types of forces. one are deployed all the time. then we have a rotational forces. i use those to maintain the capacity of the theater. some of those are useful being deployed from the states. we have used packages where we rotate them in and out. it lets them go back and get the high end training they need. the decision we made recentlyths and will not talk about why we made those. it was prudent decisions we made on the behalf to maintain stability of the force we saw just in case. what i have more concern about this not the ability to wrote them that the capability to sustain them through sequestration. it allows some time to get retrained and ready.

>> you have a lot of terrorist activity going in your aor. you have had some stunning successes over the years. --ting the bali bomber catching the bali bomber. terrorism continues the route, including my mom by a -- mumbai. if you would classify what you're doing in terms of an attack in terms of all the illicit activity that go with terrorism i would appreciate that for this committee in a classified process. >> i will take that.

and have that sense to the chairman and make sure -- and have that sent to the chairman. >> we can notify it is available for members. >> thank you very much for here and for your stamina and responding to our questions. forgive me if i recover some ground they have already

responded to. assuming that we continue to operate on heightened alert with respect to north korea, is there any indication that sequestration has limited your ability to respond to a crisis there? >> it has not lifted my ability to date. >> that is the question i have. you have indicated that sequestration will have an impact over time. the operation ability our military. at what point are we going to get to the tipping point where it is going to have an impact on our ability to respond? how do we know that? how can you convey to members of this committee and congress when we have reached that tipping point? >> we are continually looking at

our readiness capabilities in the aor in my area. i have certain priorities i maintain as we go through any kind of budget decision process. i have to be able to sense what is going on in my area of responsibility. the second thing is i need to make sure that at least in the near term right now that the forces on the korean peninsula, that they are ready to do what we call "fight the night." we're able to respond in the ability that protect the interests of the alliance in the united states and as well as soldiers on the peninsula. isping those forces tuna something we are doing.

-- tuned is something we are doing. those sources need to be replaced over time. are they agile? are they able to get there? this is where i think the impact of sequestration start to make the choice is very difficult for the services. the services to have some leeway in where they make their decisions, but not a lot, particularly in the near term. as to go further into the planning cycle, he might be to start looking at different ways of doing it. in the midterm, it will have an impact on us. thereiss the party said is a mechanism to notify congress when you get to that point. >> i did not mean to skip over that.

we keep a very formated system that is monitored by the joint force. the chairman takes for me my assessment of the risk we are assuming and the rest get supported through the secretary of defense and through the dialogue at that level, are levels are well reflected. there is no secret. we will not hide readiness that we do not have. we are very up front about it. it is like a map equation. what he put in is what you get out. when we cannot meet those readiness requirements, that becomes the risk. that is risk i have to manage

as a combatant commanders. when my risks get too high, where they go from risks to being potentially worse, then my responsibility is to tell my theership and you that risks are too high. >> i hope you feel like you have a direct line into me. i hope that we will have theessed sequestration before risks are too high. >> i hope you feel like you have a direct line into me. it is critical to our national security. let me follow up on the line of questioning that senator mccain was going after relative to the potential for what is happening in north korea to set off and nuclear arms race across asia. i understand that india tends to develop nuclear capable ballistic submarines, that pakistan has expressed an interest in that. how do we combat the risk, whether it is the technology that north korea now has and we know has already shared with other non-state actors that is dangerous.

had we keep that from proliferating. can you also talk the extent to which the effort to address arms control has an impact on thinking of actors about this question? we get there. >> first, let me give you my position. i support a nuclear triad. as long as there are nuclear

weapons in the world, i support that we have a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent. the father in me says i would like to see a world that did not have any weapons. will we ever realize that? i do not know. i'm not going to predict it will happen anytime soon. proliferationn of among state actors that are building a nuclear deterrent, that is not something that has to be dealt with above my level. when you talk about north. that is potentially going to proliferate nuclear technology to irresponsible actors, particularly to transnational

threats, this becomes a very real concern for me. it gets to the issue of how to monitor -- monitor it? how did they enforce the resolutions so it all fits together. theart of that is on monitoring and interdiction side of it. the question then of how does the nuclear proliferation or the discussion of nuclear weapons in the theater, we have an extended deterrence policy allies. it works. there is occasionally discussions about what our actions here create a desire by air partner nations to want to proliferate their own nuclear systems?

it will not be beneficial. it is unnecessary. i am confident that the extended deterrence policies are substantial enough to do what is necessary. it is not just about nuclear- weapons. andhow these are applied reviewed. this makes it important for our forward presence, build that confidence and the alliances we had over the years. in any scenario you want to handle a contingency through conventional means. you just do not want to go the other direction. this deserves as equally as much discussion as the others. >> thank you. >> i have one additional

question and then i will call on others to see if they have an additional question no. 2. i think you have read a question or two. i think you have heard from this committee that china could chosen to put an end to the provocative blistering kind of comments that coming from north korea. we all have strong feelings time it creates all kinds of problems for us -- that china creates all kinds of problems for us. myention some of those in opening statement. in this interest, our interests are the same. it is clear to me that china is

indicating some willingness down to take some action to try and prevent the kind of spinning out of control that can lead to serious confrontation on the korean peninsula. i ask you whether we are ready to respond appropriately and proportional nation north korea take some action against the actions. you indicated that we are ready. you indicated there is a hot line between you and your counterpart in china. that you at least are able to communicate with them should you choose. i guess my question and my request would be the following. that the mill to milk context -- mill context is sometimes the best way to show our intentions with china.

their military has an influence in their government. would you explore the possibility after talking to the secretary of defense and the secretary of state, which to explore the possibility as to whether it might be useful -- which to explore the of whether it might contact the defense establishment in china and express to them the great desirability of china weighing in with north korea for these

incidents that grow in seriousness and make it clear to the chinese that we want them to act to put an end to the north korean provocations and that we and our south korean allies are preparing to respond in an appropriate way should north korea take any action against the south into against us. would you explore the possibility of that, whether you should make that connection with your counterpart in china? >> absolutely.

it will be tied in with the other communications we have through other forms of our government. there are those that are going on with their chinese counterparts as well. and as you know -- >> that ought to be coordinated and linked. it could add an important element of this military communication occurred with your chinese counterpart. >> that is something you can take on. that is what i mean. thank you. ?ny other question i have one follow-up to the question about should we need to respond in north korea, what china's n a's -- reaction be if the u.s.

responded to act of aggression from north korea? hypotheticals.ng i would go back to what their enduring interest is. there would be concerned about the refugee flow, there is $25 million -- 25 million people there who will be affected by something like that and how would that be controlled? there will have a similar concern as we have about weapons of mass destruction. butonly in fissile material other weapons of some -- mass destruction. and how that would be managed at the time and we are contemplating all that and have thinking through how that will be done with our allies and the south as well. how would they respond be on

that and how they would do it, i cannot speculate. i think they would move to secure their national interests just like we would. like we will. >> thank you. >> thank you. if there is no other questions, we thank you very much, admiral. as always, you have been very direct and very helpful. we greatly appreciate your presence here this morning. thanks again and we will stand of turned. the vote in the senate has begun. we all need to get over there. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

[inaudible conversations]

>> next, senator john mccain talks about the effect of sequestration on the navy. and in a's role in hot spots around the world. secretary ray mabus. >> president obama's nominee for when house budget director will be on capitol hill wednesday for a second day of confirmation hearings. burwell will testify before the senate budget committee. span3. on c- wednesday and immigration rally hosted by the service employees international union. members of congress and never activists are expected to lead

what they're calling a national rally for citizenship. coverage starts on 3:00 p.m. -- at 3:00 p.m. on c-span3. >> talk about some of the people in the movement. mosto were the people who new things? was it came or malcolm x, the death of medgar evers, was the john lewis? >> olive the above. each of them had different roles in the movement. one of the ways i try to explain to students is that rosa parks made martin luther king possible. martin luther king did not make rosa parks possible. if she had not done what she did by refusing to give up her seat on that montgomery bus, martin anher king would have been articulate, well meaning baptist minister. it is because of rosa parks that we're talking about it today.

she opened up the possibility for him to display those qualities that he had, and to rise to the occasion. carson.weekend, prof. following the panel he takes your questions live. it starts saturday at 9:30 a.m. on american history tv. >> president obama's nominee received bipartisan support tuesday at a confirmation hearing. the testimony and other confirmation hearings any time at our website, c-span.org. april 1 this year,

3:42 p.m. that toldan advisory their clients about the medicare decision and they supported related stocks. the consequence of a political intelligence for having access to this information in canada for the marker -- the market closed is astonishing. tradingnutes remaining, mets, on april 1, the volume of their health group -- united health group was worth more than $1 billion. moore's stock was traded in this 18 minutes center of the rest of the day. when information leaks from the demonstration that has the ability to cause significant market movement, it is wrong and quite possibly illegal. i sent a letter last thursday

formally seeking information from you and i hope you agree that ultimately, you are responsible. what are you going to do to hold somebody accountable for this week -- leak? >> i, too, have appreciated our meetings. i consider this a huge issue. cms takes this seriously and we did receive your letter and we have initiated an internal review. and it will be extensive and obviously we will give you feedback from that review but the second thing is, i have also asked that the office of the inspector general be brought in on this issue as well because we impartial, if you will, review of this. i take a lot pride in the stats at cms, and this is not something we want to happen

ever. we will do a thorough investigation and we will give you feedback. >> margaret thatcher died monday after suffering a stroke. wednesday, members of the british parliament will pay tribute to mrs. thatcher. we will bring it to live from ons onitish house of comment cspan3. >> senator john mccain of arizona was at the naval academy for a discussion on the impact of automatic spending cuts on evaporations. this is 30 minutes. >> it is nice to take a trip down memory lane. it is a wonderful institution.

my grandfather and my father and my son all have been graduates of the naval academy and none of them did nearly as badly as i did. about life atore the academy. you are at the bottom of the list. one of those whos thought they could be the system. no one has ever be the system at the naval academy. i enjoyed my time there were that i can tell you and the friends that i made there are my friends today. all these years later. that iest friends survived with and worked with and played with at the naval academy. host: you have been talking a

lot about north korea. cnn is reporting that the government has issued its latest dispatch. telling foreigners that they should take steps to secure shelter in the event of a conflict along the korean peninsula. how serious is this? >> i think is very, very serious. if there is a conflict, [inaudible] into theorld stumbled bloodiest conflict in modern times, " for -- world war i. i do not think the koreans will do anything that will provoke

that but when you have artillery up that can reach sold -- seoul, where millions of people live, when you have nuclear weapons in the inventory and missiles that can deliver -- has the possibility of being able to deliver those nuclear weapons, it is very serious and what is one of the major solutions to this is to have china, the only country that has real influence over north korea to step up and rain in this aberrational behavior. we always give these crazy people the credit for thinking like this. they do not think like this, obviously. they do nothing like this. to say it would be crazy for them to start a conflict because they would be wiped out, of course they would lose. what damage could the conflict

before they lost? >> has been administration's response inappropriate or not? >> i think so. i'm not sure where we can do. i think it is pretty clear in the macro sense that the north koreans have been encouraged by our lack of ability to dissuade the iranians from the path they're on. and there is weak leadership throughout the world of the united states and we have been through with republican and , the cycle of negotiations and inducements, food and oil and money, lifting restrictions and then we go through that cycle over and over. we have been through that many times. there is some of us that go back many years to say the north koreans will not give up nuclear weapons. otherwise they would become

irrelevant. and so this idea that somehow by giving them food or oil or other inducements, they will be more agreeable to eliminating or of mass their weapons destruction is foolish and it has been foolish. >> when you saw dennis rodman in north korea, what was your reaction? >> i thought it was just ludicrous but what is more disturbing is people like bill richardson have a respected -- they keep going back and visiting them and coming back and saying we're in a good place with them. these diplomats continue to believe for the last 30 years that somehow we can sit down across the table and make them see reason. i do not blame dennis rodman but i bring these people for not learning the lessons of what is happening over and over again

with north korea. it is the damnedest foolishness and hubris on the part of our diplomatic corps and administration. it was the bush administration that lifted the it was the bush administration that lifted the sanctions on north korea, on the prospect that we would achieve progress with north korea. it is not just a democrat problem, it is democrat and republican. host: senator chuck hagel, who is back for the first time as defense secretary, announcing plans to change the court- martial system. what is happening on this issue? guest: a very terrible thing happened, and that was a general overruled a court-martial on a tragic case, mistreatment of women. that was unacceptable and

understandably, members of the committee, including some of our women members on the committee were understandably, deeply disturbed. senator mccaskill and others. i just want to be careful that we do preserve the authority of the commander because the commander has helped responsible is held responsible. we don't want to take too much of the authority away. in this case, chuck hagel made the right decision. host: our phone lines are open for senator john mccain. richard is retired navy, joining us from alabama. good morning. caller: senator mccain, i know you are well aware of it, the races we have been getting are not really enough to help us that much.

i was wondering when the military is going to start getting a raise. guest: richard, with respect, we give pay raises to the active- duty military every year. we don't give them many times to anyone else who are public servants who also serve. i think that the -- i say in all candor or, the military is well- paid. they are well appreciated. god knows they are the best we've ever had in my view, serving serving in the military. we are continue to be given pay raises, i am confident. i can also tell you that the healthcare costs are skyrocketing and they're going to -- in the words of secretary gates -- eat us alive. that was his words as the healthcare costs have genetically increased and taken a larger and larger bite out of our defense budget.

so i don't think there is a time that i can remember that our military is more appreciated than it is today, and i am very grateful for the incredible support that we give to the men and women who are serving and people like you, who have served. thank you for serving. host: robin is joining us, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am a disabled vietnam veteran. i was also in the navy. even though i am not one of your party affiliates, i have the utmost amount of respect for you. the thing that really made me cry was when he lost the election in 2008, the way that you did it with class. you have a lot of dignity, mr. mccain.

thank you for your service. guest: thank you for those kind words. i have a line that i use all the time. after i lost, i slept like a baby. sleep two hours, wake up and cry, sleep two hours, wake up and cry. thank you for your kind words. host: is it the fact you are from arizona? you have made reference to arizona. guest: you know, arizona, it has had a number of candidates for president. it is the only state in america where mothers and don't tell their children that someday they can up and be president of the united states. host: upstate new york, utica. republican line. good morning. caller: this is a question about the basis of our national security strategy for the past decade. the national institute of standards and technology, the

class of the world trade center, engineers will tell you that this cannot be done and the only way this can be done is with explosives. host: your question is what? caller: how do you explain this freefall without the use of explosives? guest: this is an area that i am not familiar. if you would drop me a note and mention that we talked on c- span, i will be glad to get you a more complete answer. honestly, every once in a while, i have to plead ignorance about an issue. this is one i have not been involved in. i will be more than happy to look into it. thanks for calling. host: your book, you mention your father and grandfather.

how do they influence you to go to the naval academy? guest: in a good way and a bad way. in a good way, it made me want to go. it put a lot of pressure on me, and i felt that i had kind of been pressured to go there, which gave me an excuse, which i did not need, but gave me an excuse to miss behave. -- misbehave. we did not put any pressure on my son, jack. he went because he wanted to. it also gave me a standard that i tried to live up to, both before and was in captivity and afterwards and during captivity. so i think both my father and my grandfather have always been inspirations to me, including i had uncles and great uncles who

went to west point as well. so i have been proud to have a long history of military service with my family going all the way back to the revolutionary war. host: you mentioned that your captivity. this photograph as you are receiving the medal of honor from president richard nixon. it was 40 years ago this year that he returned from captivity. as you look back, what are your thoughts? guest: my thoughts are that i am the most fortunate person that you will ever interview. i have had the most wonderful life. i have been through so many near-death experiences, it would take a long program for me to tell you all of them. i have been so fortunate. occasionally, i hear from -- people say that i am angry. i am not angry. i enjoy the fight.

one of the things i have learned over the years, i try to treat all of my opponents, those who disagree with me, with respect. i have a very, very fortunate. could i just mention again about the naval academy, i think the men and women we have now at the academy are superior from my generation and that of my predecessors. as you know, we have appointments to the service academies. i have a board of military people who select them. these young women who are serving and entering the naval academy and west point and the air force academy, coast guard, they are of the highest quality. it gives me great faith in the future when i see this kind of quality, especially at my old alma mater, who i hold with a deep and abiding affection. host: let me follow up on that.

as you interview these prospective candidates, what questions do you ask and what are you looking for personally? guest: primarily the questions they ask are about motivation. about why they want to go to the school of four years with a rigorous discipline, both academic and otherwise. to try to ascertain whether this is a person who really is committed to service to the country. host: academically, we were talking to the dean who said it is different than when you graduated in terms of what they offer. guest: absolutely. when i was there, everyone should be same courses, which was foolish. we had people who had a couple of years of college who came in. now, with the elective system, they come in to the 21st century. we were still in the 19th

century. when i was there as far as academics are concerned. exciting subjects like naval boilers. i regularly used to get a nap in during that course, as i recall. host: retired navy. good morning. caller: good morning, senator. it is an honor and privilege to talk to you. i have waited a long time to touch base with you on this. man. an air crew my destroyer was on search-and- rescue the day it got shut -- shot down. i won't go into all the details, we were on the shotgun ship.

i was there on watch on the brink of the ship and i heard the whole thing on the radio. i just want to know -- i want you to know that i have known about you my entire life. god bless you, sir. by the way, when i go for my walks, i go buy the house you and your wife used to live there. guest: thank you and thank you for serving. everyplace else, i run into people like you who had the experience of being in the vietnam conflict. in most cases, it had a profound affect on their lives. i still think that one of the regrettable aspects of the vietnam war was the treatment of the men and women who served in that war. i am so glad that the attitude

of the american people is so dramatically different. we honor them, whether we support barak and afghanistan, no matter what, we honor those who serve. -- iraq and afghanistan. a very belated welcome home to you. we lost a number of aircraft, including mine. a facility in downtown hanoi. the vietnamese with russian help, it was the most heavily defended their system ever. -- air defense systeme ver. -- ever. it was an exciting time. host: did you feel the sting of criticism when you came back? guest: no, because the pows were the only ones who were immune from that criticism. so many wonderful veterans that i knew that came back and could

not understand why they were treated with such disdain and contempt by people who frankly were opponents of the war and took their opposition out on them. there's been a great deal of regret about that on the part of many americans. i forgive them all. we have now taken every opportunity we can to honor those of vietnam veterans come at which we did not at the time. most importantly, the honor and appreciation that we give to men and women who are serving is what is wonderful to me. we honor one of our veterans, go to our hockey game, we honor our veterans. the men and women who are serving. it is a wonderful thing. host: maryland, republican line. good morning.

caller: let me thank you so much for your service. as a proud alumni of the naval academy, too heavy as one of of -- two of my own both of my sons went to the academy. thank you for your son's service as well. my son is on active duty, as you have. i am very troubled by the lack of progress in washington, and i am wondering how can our navy and military operate we don't have a budget and they note -- and don't know what happened next? i am just asking what can we as citizens do to get some action so that our men and women serving in the greatest military in the world will have the funds to operate and to train and do what they need to do to protect this country? guest: on both sides of the aisle, there is isolation.

we have seen it before in the republican party and in the democrat party. the complete lack of concern about the impact of sequestration amongst my colleagues in the senate is something that is really been disturbing to me. it is an argument for more people in congress that have served in the military, but we are watching a deterioration of the readiness and capabilities of the military in a very dangerous world that seems to be almost a disconnect. centrifuges are spinning in tehran. korea, as we just talked about. the potential for conflict are on the rise, meanwhile the congress in the united states and the president of the united states don't seem to care very

much about the fact that the marine corps recently testified, half of his units would not be deployable by the end of the year. that is incredible. yet, nobody seems to really mind that here in the congress. finally, we have seen this movie before, we saw it after the vietnam war, when we allowed our operation training readiness to deteriorate to where the chief of staff testified before congress that we had a hollow army. we are nearing a hollow military if we continue these draconian cuts to our military. i am deeply concerned about it. i am even more concerned about the fact that it does not seem to be the concern in congress that there should be.

certainly not with the president praised the president said that sequestration won't happen during the presidential campaign. what is the president doing trying to reverse sequestration? host: a follow-up from one of our viewers who says this is eating us alive. guest: this is the problem we have. we have amendments by some of our colleagues to cut off aid to egypt, which would destroy the camp david agreements. foreign aid -- the fact is, if you don't want the united states to be involved and lead, who do you want to lead? we are seeing a lack of american leadership, which is exacerbating every single one of these situations. let me give you a small example. i was in a refugee camp in jordan were there were 50,000

refugees create there are now hundreds of thousands of refugees and the small country of jordan. the leaders of this camp say you see these children, he said those children will take revenge on those who refuse to help them as they see their families being slaughtered. we are breeding a group of jihadists that believe we never gave them any assistance. by the way, we have not. we pay a very heavy price for our lack of support for the people who are being massacred with the russian weapons and iranians on the ground. host: pennsylvania, last call for senator john mccain. good morning. caller: i want to thank you for your service, sir. i admire you very much.

guest: thank you. caller: the thing i am worried about with north korea, i am an ex-vietnam navy marine corpsman. i know it is an intelligence blackhole. if they have a gun on us, we don't know if it is a blank or a real gun. if they fire one of these missiles, how do we really know is not a nuclear weapon? they are threatening every day to do this. what can we do about this? are we going to wait for the missile? my second question is, when you were on your aircraft carrier and it caught fire, i remember at that time when i was in the navy, we had a nuclear wash down system on aircraft carriers.

a problem was we could not get to it because of the heat on the deck. i always wanted to ask why they never used the nuclear wash down system on the aircraft carrier during that time. that is my question. thank you, sir. guest: it is my understanding that the location of the nuclear weapons was such that it was very far away from where the fire was concentrated, which was on the flight deck and later down on the hangar deck. you also point out the problem in our earlier conversation, to think that this kim jong-un thinks like we do is a terribly, serious mistake. i don't think he wants to be wiped out, which would happen if he launched a missile. by the way, we have to make a

decision as to whether we will take out that missile, if it is launched or not. what i worry about which could lead to some kind of unintended triggering that would then cause a conflict, which again, there is no doubt who would prevail. but the cost in lives, as i mentioned earlier, the distance between seoul, korea, and the dmz, which is in range of north korea and keep abilities that that d capabilities a are hidden in caves. all i can say is, it is incredibly dangerous. the chinese could shut down the north korean economy in a relatively short. of time. the chinese have been saying some things lately, but they have to really exercise their influence. it sure would affect our relationships with china as to

whether they reign in the north koreans or not. there are 200,000 people that are being starved to death and beaten to death as we speak in north korea. thanks for doing this piece on the united states naval academy. i am very proud of the young people we have. i go back there fairly often. host: we have an aerial picture of the academy and how it has changed physically. guest: it is been -- host: you can see the growth. how often do you go back? guest: every few months or so. i am on the board of visitors of the naval academy, also. i think that it has improved in every possible way.

i also would like to point out that it has produced some of our great, great leaders. i was reading a book about the battle of midway and how many of the naval academy graduates literally went on a suicide mission against the japanese, torpedo planes of hours that were literally sitting ducks. the lieutenant commander, he said go win, go hard, go fast, godspeed. 90% of them were shot down and sacrificed their lives. no matter how the school was in those days, it produced some of the people that continue to inspire me today. host: one final issue on the table. the iraqi prime minister --

nouri al-maliki, a piece in "the washington post." roblems, a mahe por jority of iraqis agree that they are better off than under saddam hussein. guest: well, first of all, i agree with him that better off than under saddam hussein, but that is a pretty low bar. we won the war thanks to the surge and we are losing the peace as we did not leave a residual force behind. iraq is basically unraveling. the kurds are becoming more and more autonomous. the sunni conflict continues to rise. unfortunately, the sunni-shiite conflict tensions continue to rise. it is a bitter pill.

but it is what it is. i have great regret about the enormous sacrifice that we made, and we could have kept that victory if we had kept a residual force behind. president obama wanted out. we are out and now we are paying the price. host: we conclude where we began, life at the naval academy. what is your son say about life and the rigors and the academics of the institution? guest: he loved to the academy. he had a great experience. as you said, rather than the academic format when i was there, they gave him electives and chances to get into areas that they are very interested in. i met with a few naval academy graduates. i just met with navy midshipmen yesterday in my office that display a degree of intellectual curiosity and a challenge kind of attitude that i think is very

important. and again, the qualifications of these young people is really phenomenal. i know that you have a daughter who is about to enter, and my advice to her is that during the first year, the only good news is they cannot make you live the day over again. it is a rigorous time during the first year but it is also a time where you really become close to your classmates and make friendships that will be with you for many, many years to come. host: senator john mccain, republican from arizona, class of 1958, thanks for stopping by. we appreciate it. guest: thank you. >> coming up on the next "washington journal" representative peter welch discusses president obama's 2014 budget.

then other issues with senator chuck grassley of iowa. "washington journal" is live every morning at 7 a.m. eastern on c-span. wasavy secretary ray mavis was a guest on "washington journal." host: we want to welcome ray maubsnbus.

there's this from congressional research service. equipping navy ships with lasers and ship design temperature meant for weapons, bringing about what is being seen as a technological shift for the navy and being called a "game changer." explained. , can: these energy, lasers engage all sorts of different oreats like boats or drones future aircraft. virtually anything. they can do it with unlimited ammo as long as the ship has power. they have got ammunition to shoot. host: here is a video to explain what we are looking at. explain how the technology works. guest: you are talking to an english major here.

but it is a laser system that concentrates energy at a certain spot. it can destroy, as you can see craftsvideo, it destroys and drones. or you can dial it back. a lot of our ships and fleet can shift on electronics on an enemy craft or confuse the crew. in theer thing about it constrained budget environment -- once you get the system on that ship, it is very cheap to shoot. it cost about a dollar to shoot . host: one of the questions that often come up to me look at the military academy, do we need

enable academy? warfare is change so much. guest: guest: i think it is more relevant than ever two, number one, teacher leadership and people how to lead and how to be innovators and thinkers. theroduces about half of officers that we bring in. the rest of them come in from an rotc, which is how i got in the navy, and officer candidate school. navalschools and the academy, fort bragg, were chosen as the best public liberal arts school in the country last year. by a publication. the people that go there are subjected to incredibly rigorous academic standards, physical standards, military standards.

they go onto, and all most every case, be leaders in the navy and the marine corps. i think that having this single or focus, the single-purpose -- half of them graduate with a degree in one of the stem courses, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. in only school equal percentage of graduates is m.i.t. technicalt with this background and this technological edge into the navy, and are on the cutting edge of doing some of the new things like these weapons that the navy brings on board. host: we asked you about a story yesterday and "the washington times." the u.s. joining other nations with drills in the persian gulf. what happens on these drills? how do you interact with other

navies? other nations? guest: these are some of the most important things that we do. other navies, other countries. drills, regardless of where they that we can talk to each other and know each other's operating parameters and make are in sync with other countries, because we can do so much more together than we can individually out there. the drill that you are talking about, that fact that we are doing counter piracy work off of the east coast of africa, with almost 20 other nations, the fact that the largest maritime exercise in the world and the pacific happens every two years off the coast of hawaii, and we have got aegis ships in the western pacific

now. thewe keep aegis ships in western pacific against threats like a north korea. japan and south korea also have exactly the same system, have aegis ships. we operate together, we train together, we exercise together so that if something happens, we are prepared together to meet whatever threat there is. host: in guam and in pacific, with navy ships poised to do whatever is necessary, depending on one's happens in north korea, how do you strike the balance so that you don't look bellicose, you don't look like you are threatening the north korean government, and yet prepared? guest: i think the main way you do that is you are just there all the time. we keep ships in the western pacific and have for decades on an ongoing basis.

we exercise on an ongoing basis. we train on an ongoing basis. we have ships home ported in japan. we have a carrier strike group there, we have an entity is ready group in japan. we have our newest ship -- we will have four of those in singapore. and just having them there so that if there is a crisis, if there -- if something does come up, we are not escalating by setting ships there. the destroyers we have in the western pacific now are in the western pacific regardless of whether this had come up. host: about 60% of the naval fleet is in the pacific come correct? guest: 55% today, but it is part of the rebalance to the pacific. this new defense strategy that we have that the president announced a year ago in january is a maritime strategy, building partnerships around the world. you have got to have a got a keep a great navy and record to

do that. host: our guest is a former naval officer and former ambassador to saudi arabia. also served as the governor of mississippi and is now the navy secretary. our phone lines are open. we also have a line opened for those of you active or retired navy. we will get to your calls and comments in just a moment. this is from james, who says -- again, you went back to the issue of what we are training and what we need to be prepared for. academy or sailing, period? host: sailing, period. guest: 87% of the earth is covered by water, 90% of the trade goes by sea.

this is more a maritime century then there is ever been. the naval forces, the going to see, the sailing, it is more critical today than it has ever been. you could make a very good argument that the reason that the world economy has been as stable as it has been, the reason that asia has grown as much as it has been at least greatly due to the united states navy keeping the sea lanes open, making sure that anybody engaged in peaceful commerce can get to where they are going. without an incident we are the only global navy in the world. we have a global responsibilities. the seagoing aspect of our

economy, the seagoing aspect of our world, is greater today than it was 150 years ago, when he thought of people going to sea in sailing ships. host: the amount of personnel required for some of these vessels -- an average aircraft carrier, 5000, a destroyer, 250, and a submarine, 140. these are approximate numbers. how do they train for this? how does it differ if you are on an aircraft carrier versus a submarine? guest: in the first place, we have the best force we have ever had in terms of the people entering, the people staying. if you are going submarines, for example, you have got to go through two things. you have got to go through submarine school to learn the unique things that go on there, and

then go to nuclear power school. the navy pioneered the use of nuclear for transportation. and i am going to talk about history just a little bit we have always been in the lead for energy transformations, from coal to oil, and then we pioneered nuclear. we have an unparalleled safety record in nuclear and we are moving to the next generation of power in terms of renewable resources. if you are going to be on an aircraft carrier, it depends on your specific job. if you are going to be an ordinance technician where you are loading bombs or you are going to be a young man, where you are part of the navigation

staff, whatever, we have specific schools for that. as you are coming out of boot camp, you do that, and then the training never stops, regardless of what kind of ship you are on. the numbers are coming down on these ships did the new passive aircraft carrier will have 1500 fewer people on it. if our littoral combat ship has a crew of about 40 and weapons crew of about 50, so it will be fewer than 100 people on that ship. trainingh of the begins on the yard patrol ships, which are situated in annapolis, maryland. at live pictures from the economy, as lee joins us from florida. good morning. guest: good morning. caller: good morning. how are you, sir? guest: i'm fine. how are you, billy? caller: [indiscernible] host: i'm sorry, we didn't get the question. caller: i was in the navy myself, on the enterprise, first nuclear carrier. we kept writing when president

kennedy came on board to review that fleet. i was on board when that happened. yout: the enterprise, as know, as you said, our first nuclear carrier. it was retired last december 1 after more than 50 years of service. money's worth. out of enterprise. one of the things that i was glad to be able to do -- the secretary of the navy is privileged to name all the naval ships -- is to say that the aircraft carrier after the john kennedy will be named enterprise. we have had eight enterprises in our fleet, and the name enterprise ought to be in the u.s. navy going forward for another half-century. host: last weekend you commissioned the uss arlington. why was it named arlington? guest: one of three ships named after nine/11, the new york game for the world trade center, and

the somerset was named for the county in pennsylvania, where the flight went down. these three ships each have steel from the world trade center in the body of the ship. they are living reminders of that day, but also of the resilience of america and how we come back and how tough and ready we are for any eventuality. host: gordon is joining us from laramie, wyoming with ray mabus. caller: good morning, gentlemen. thanks for your service, both you, one with c-span, the other with the navy. i am retired coast guard. coast guard army and coast guard reserves before i retired.

back in the 1960s, in 1967, i was privileged to serve on the eagle, america's tall ship. i'm a first cadet cruiser to montréal for the expo there. i was a corpsman then and thank the good lord i retired. i am very grateful for that. in general, even on a small sailboat, it will teach teamwork and leadership. and that is really important. host: thanks. we will get a response. guest: it does. it teaches things like teamwork, things like leadership, and the yard patrol craft, they take those out and taken up the coast, all the way up the east seamanship. even though you are on the secretively technologically advanced ships, you have to know

how to sail and navigate and know how to lead a large group of people. and that is the thing that i navy and our military does better than anybody on earth. we push responsibility down, we push it to the lowest ranks and the youngest ages. we expect great work out of every single person on every single ship. host: what is the job of the navy secretary and what is your role overseeing the naval academy? guest: my job is to recruit, train, and equip the united states navy and marine corps and give the commander-in-chief the assets that are needed for whatever eventuality comes up. and as part of the training, i am in charge of the naval academy. i oversee that and all the training that goes on in

the navy. host: what is the biggest challenge you think the academy is facing as it prepares for a new generation of officers? guest: well, you have a the last time about sexual assault, and the chief naval operations and i take this incredibly seriously. we had a number -- we had a report that basically the numbers had not gotten any better in the past few years. so we went there and that the entire brigade of midshipmen and talk to them. and i told them, i am not concerned about this, i am angrythis is an attack on a shipmate, this is an attack on one of your fellow officers. if you had somebody walking through the naval academy with a gun taking random shots at people, you would take that pretty seriously. this is the same thing. this is an attack on somebody

that you will be dependent on, because when you raise your hand and take that oath, you are saying that you are part of something bigger than yourself. you are a member of a team and you are willing to risk your life with the numbers of the team. they have better intervene and do the things that it takes to make sure that everybody in the united states navy is safe and secure, particularly in the naval academy. i think the other thing that academy faces is just the incredible pace of change, incredible way that the future is unfolding so fast, and to make sure that we don't simply graduate people who say it has always been done that way. we cannot do anything different. but graduating people who are independent thinkers, innovators,, who don't see things just through the prism of

the past, that say we can do this differently, we can do this better, we can do this in a completely unique way. that is a challenge for all higher education, but particular lee for the academy. host: does that include harassment of gays and lesbians at the academy? guest: we have -- that includes all sexual harassment. since the repeal of don't ask don't tell -- host: which is relatively new, so you are dealing with this right now. guest: but the big news out of that is that basically nothing happened. people have just accepted it, move on. the pentagon, i think, did a good job of getting everybody ready for this.

i thought it was long overdue, the repeal of don't ask don't tell. most of the people felt the same way. there has not been the spike or the harassment of gays and lesbians that sometimes we had feared going into this. but it doesn't matter who the target is. it matters that there is harassment or assault of any kind. host: students at the naval academy are dressed as midshipmen, the official military rank. you can see the students between classes and also on the yard ship, the arbitral ship. we have some of the basic training required of all of the graduates, and the graduation ceremony will take place next month. charles is joining us from connecticut, republican line,

with ray mabus, u.s. navy secretary. good morning. caller: good morning, steve. it's 32 days. good morning, mr. secretary. i question has to do with what you are just speaking of, new ways of thinking. in this day of nuclear arms, i remember films when the testing was done and the way that many of the ships moored around the island had been inundated if not actually capsized by one single bomb. i am wondering, in view of that -- for instance, like in the invasion of france in the second world war am a it would have been virtually impossible with just one single bomb in the english channel. it would have completely destroyed most of the fleet that was there. something like that today, where it would be almost impossible to establish, say, a group around an aircraft carrier protection or something

like that, where they could literally all be wiped out with one single stroke? we will hear from you in about a month, i suspect. guest: technology moves, and one of the things we have got to do is move with technology. it is one of the reasons that even in tight budgets, you have got to keep research and develop an going, you have got the development of weapons systems and new types of ships and new systems in general to meet whatever threat there is, to meet the threat that he was talking about or to meet the new emerging threats that pose different but no less significant dangers. host: an example in "transportation" magazine, this blip used by the navy to test submarines. the u.s. navy has been testing this blip in the jacksonville area to see if he could be used

as a submarine spotter in the coast of central and south america. can you elaborate? guest: drug dealers react to technological changes, and they do semi-submersibles and now full submersible summaries. on one ofver get these, if you have seen one of them. they are very functional submarines. if you can spot them using something like a stable platform like a blimp, it is hard to spot them from surface. host: are these unmanned blimps? guest: no, these are manned, but we are experimenting with a whole variety of aircraft systems and unmanned surface and subsurface systems to not only

go after this but to go after normal submarines, mines, surface ships. host: steve is joining us from gaithersburg, maryland. retired navy. good morning. caller: secretary, thanks very much. i was impressed to hear all these activities that were underway. i want to give a quick shout out in the mississippi area. i've got a brother that is down at the center come a and his wife is head of the mary o'keefe center in ocean springs. i am sure they would love to have you down there. guest: yep, and i appreciate that, having lived most of my life in mississippi and that being one of the real crown jewels of science and unfortunately, this job keeps me here and on the road and i don't get to spend much time in mississippi tell them i please said hey, and up the incredibly good work. host: where are the major naval bases here in the u.s.?

guest: we have full concentrations in norfolk, they have been roads area, san diego, california, puget sound, washington state. those are the three largest. but there are also ones in hawaii, the harbor, luger and, california, camp pendleton. basesen we have smaller all around the country. our shipyards -- the electric boat that makes our submarines, some of our submarines in connecticut, huntington ingalls industries to, and in -- huntington is in hit-and-run, some of our smaller shipyards that make the osc, for example, and alabama and wisconsin. host: raymond in new hampshire, good morning.

caller: my question is an environmental question. i wonder what the navy -- if the navy does anything about these floating debris, like in pacific, the atlantic, that are washing up on shores. i am concerned that it may even block your radar or whatever. how does the navy handle that? do they do anything about it? host: thank you, ted. guest: you can rest assured that we can do our mission. but it is an environmental concern and a concern for the earth that these things are

there. our mission is a military mission, and we do it exceptionally well. it is not part of it. but we are trying not to add to the problem. one thing is that we are recycling as much as possible to make sure that we don't dump things over the side. to take things like oil spills very, very seriously. i mentioned earlier, we are moving to renewable fuels by no later than 2020. at least half of all energy afloat and ashore will come from non-fossil fuel sources. the main reason we're are doing that is to be better war fighters, but it also has the side benefit of being good for the environment. host: we are looking at the insignia of the u.s. naval academy, which is written in the latin, but in english means "from knowledge, seapower."

this is one of the many memorials and tributes to navy life at the naval academy in annapolis. you may not know the answer, so i apologize if you don't, but why in annapolis? why did the navy but it's academy there? guest: to the best of my knowledge, because it was close to washington but also because it is a good port and a good place to train future leaders. as you point out, it has been there for -- since the 1840s and has produced generation after generation of naval leaders. hard to find a more welcoming or prettier place then annapolis. host: as you see this morning, temperatures are ideal. captain o'brien joins us from california. we look at scenes from the naval academy, 35 miles from where we are at. in washington, d.c. good morning, sir. caller: good morning, and good morning, mr. secretary, and congratulations on your

performance. i thank you for your service. as i am looking at these pictures of annapolis come it reminds me of my time there. i was in the united states naval reserve merchant marine reserve community, and i taught at luce hall seamanship and a navigation. i commanded a yp in the north atlantic. we went to halifax. i just fell in love with annapolis and the whole culture there. also, i am qualified for all sailing vessels. they tried to have a british officer or merchant marine officer accompany the youngsters, and for your viewers that have not heard that term, we refer to the second-year people, the sophomores, as youngsters, and we refer to the seniors as firsties. we had three firsties who committed each watch and they were training the youngsters and they were supervising them and keeping everybody safe.

one question i have about the navy -- the naming of the ships -- why don't we have a uss ranger? i served in the navy aboard the uss ranger five years ago, and it was a historic name. that was john paul jones' ship. and why do we have an o'brien anymore? we had five o'briens, named after jeremiah o'brien. jeremiah o'brien waged and won the first battle of the revolutionary war. we have a naval ship in san francisco named after jeremiah o'brien. my wife is always telling people that i am his grandson, which brings a great laugh, because i'm not that old. --m an old man, but juror my jeremiah head died childless. at any rate, i will get off the air and listen to your response about the ranger andy o'brien as ships names. thank you. guest: both very good names. here is the issue -- we have got a whole lot of great naval names, a whole lot of names are worthy of being on

american ships. we have a very limited number of ships to name at any given time. i have named 40-some-odd in my four years in this job, but that does not come anywhere close to honoring all the people and places. we name our submarines mainly after states. we name our amphibious ships, the big amphibious ships, after marine battles. we name the next size amphibious ships after large cities. we name our littoral ships after smaller cities. you have 20 names possible for every single ship. it is one of the really difficult decisions that you have to make. but you want to, number one, honor those sea services and honor america, and a number two, make the names of those

ships reflect america and the values we all have and we all share. host: according to the u.s. navy, there are 283 vessels, and the budget -- we talked about sequestration earlier, but the annual budget for the u.s. navy, $174 billion. next is bob, joining us from indiana with ray mabus, u.s. navy secretary. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you, secretary, for your service. the cruisers and destroyers we have, their main guns, if i am correct, is a 60 -- 56- millimeter gun, although it has a long tube. that is smaller than our m1 abrams tank. main battle done. and there was an eight-inch gun system that was being developed. i was wondering your thoughts about a bigger gun o