the balance between workers and employers. that is not a defense of the chinese government. they have made a conscious decision to ensure that more of the benefits of the production go to workers. the bangladesh government has not made that decision. >> got this from the workers' rights consortium's appeared we want to thank him for being here. >> we want to tell you what is coming up tomorrow. we begin with a discussion of political fallout from the impact on future negotiations over issues like immigration reform. she is the white house and congressional reporter. we'll also be talking with gillian sanchez about the use of surveillance cameras.

we will finish up with the women's action network. she will talk to us about the sexual assaults in the military. we will see you again tomorrow .orning >> next, matt self driving cars and other new technologies and communication devices. then the director of the national institutes of health testifying on his agency's budget. later, the national

transportation safety board. is, why do we do it. why do we take the risk. is it fun? ford venture? makingre easier ways of 11 a living and doing this. we do it to understand the world and how it changes. theyons build and then snap with violent political change. we go to where the cracks are, to see how the plates are fitting together. we do this show innocence have a voice. we do this to show these did you jockeys they are wrong. we have decided that this is what we want to do with our slice of time. richardweekend, friendly journalist memorial rededication.

9:10 on the war. handling scandals of all kinds. this is followed by a crisis tell book party. >> not a hearing on self driving cars. bugle and general motors have both been testing vehicles with advanced technology. witnesses include david strickland. this is one hour and 45 minutes.

>> no apologies. this is your form. >> don is from south dakota. from south dakota and they have good values. we have good values in north dakota but some of them have passed me by. the story of modern america without the automobile. ever since the model t first rolled off the assembly line, ba the car and its driver have shaped our history, our lives, and our imagination. it was the automobile, after all, that brought forthse a th"n

age" of manufacturing. it gave americans a newfound sense of independence and freedom. it changed, quite literally, our country's landscape. the car has been a defining ingredient in modern american badthe automobile has also been central to the story of america's innovation in public safety standards. seatbelts, brake lights, and airbags have saved innumerable lives that were once needlessly lost. today, the cars on our roads are caused by driver error. automakers, regulators, and pursuit of safer vehicles and the hands of driver impairment, or poor

judgment. in recent years, we have seen advances in vehicle technology only to save the lives of many more but also to revolutionize how we have come to understand the relationship between the driver and his car. driver-assist technology has already found its way into some of today's cars. the latest sensors, cameras, and software are doing even more to assist drivers. if the driver doesn't respond, the car will stop itself. vehicle is drifting into another bring the car back to its properanother system knows when the driver's eyes wander off the road, and can alert him back to the task at hand.

the power of technology is already saving lives. is even more incredible. advanced technologies currently notion of what it means to be behind the wheel. with each other and with the road, warning drivers of dangers ahead that they have no way to see. another technology, of course, about -- the self-driving car that could take you safely from point a to point b with no human involvement. there is much to be excited about as these technologies further develop. they show potential to decrease

the number of tragedies on our roads in the coming decades. but there are risks, as well as important questions we must for tomorrow. concerns for me. automakers seem to be engaged in a race of sorts to see who can add more entertainment and communications devices and features onto the car's dashboard -- all in the name of allowing drivers to remain "connected." i am not convinced so many of i fear they serve only to further distract drivers. great potential safety benefits come with their risks. as our cars become more computerized and electronics- based, can the industry make sure they are reliable and prevent failures? and as our cars become more connected -- to the internet, to wireless networks, with each other, and with our infrastructure -- are they at risk of catastrophic

cyberattacks? and if driverless cars become reality on our roads, just who exactly is responsible for the accidents that may occur? we have seen so much change in the automobile and at such a rapid clip. be but are competing to tantalize. it works. a great fan of bach and i listen to a room when i drive to work and when i go home.

i have to push all kinds of things. trafficave noticed recently, you do that for a second and you have moved have a lane over. you did not mean to but you have a. you have to do this and that. that is a simple one. hearing provides an overview and would give us the station for future industry oversight as we move forward. if they deliver as promised the technologies have the potential to bring about dramatic improvements in safety. i thank you and turn to my my distinguished ranking member. for youl be watching listening to box.

and you want to thank you for holding this hearing as we examine these. they're working their way through the product development pipeline. offer thenologies promise of many future benefits. these appeared to offer obvious safety benefits. technologies represent innovations that will help to sector.e technology commonng to the agency's these reached new lows in 2009 compared to two years ago. i hope we will continue to improve.

one is the systems program better known as its. the allocated the spectrum in the band said the vehicles can someday connect wirelessly with each other. potentialology called to make driving much safer. last year congress rejected the whetherration' to see they could share the spectrum fans as the its technology. use will endanger drivers. as acharacterize this technology is pitted against each other.

this is an opportunity. they will each have significant benefits for the public. the best outcome is of the engineers could find a way for both the to exist. examine whether this can be accomplished. we should avoid letting heated rhetoric cover this debate. ed marveledave long as a car that can drive itself. u.s. seeing the google video of the blind man navigating knows how potentially live changing these technologies may be. these offer a glimpse into the future. maybe our next hearing should track so wet a test can explore the technology

which will build upon today's discussion. byare joined today stricklands. they must partner to make these and reality. they are improving the expertise in areas being discussed. i am interested to learn more about ntse's plan to ensure safety while ensuring that innovation is not stifled. the potential benefits are remarkable. they should enable the new information services and reduced insurance risk. theust grapple with

technology landscape. tot changes are necessary ensure that awesome bill and manufacturers can safely adapt new technologies and bring them to market? the did the technology is currently presents other risks we should be aware of? how our product developers working to identify these risks to iengineer solutions stacks of the committee looks forward to hearing this. i want to thank you for you being here and for calling this hearing. the >> thank you. >> thank you. the honorable david strickland,

we're honored you are here. you have a large job. there is a whole slew of issues, some of which we have mentioned and many of which we have not. we will be interested in your testimony. >> thank you. . like to introduce friedman. thank you for the opportunity. opportunity.l we have been focused on this for over 40 years since we have been in business since 1966. these technologies is the north star for the agency.

how can we keep the crash from happening? an important change to make sure we get below the technologies. we feel that the future is extremely bright. determined more by the. b to early estimates there were 34,000 fatalities in 2012. we have to improve survivability.

we have advanced safety that could prevent a crash from occurring in the first place. of the goalsipping the with features a would have been unimaginable. .e have celebrated vehicle to the communications are designed to give drivers situational awareness to improve state decision making. on digital short- range communications operating spectrum. it is uniquely capable of relay.ng robins italianistinsts

it develops the standards and working with manufacturers. the side freed pilot unless the goals enabling us to collect real-world data the cannot be duplicated. test ever.argest electronic systems have become critical to the functioning of the modern automobile. a divisionstablished to focus on these efforts. it will help in five key areas. functional safety design,

strategies, software reliability, diagnostic strategies, and human factors considerations. we will apply lessons from other industries where the loss of life is of primary concern. they have unveiled projects to and bill cars. we have identified three key areas for research. initial system performance requirements and the electronic control of the system. we will assist in developing an assist pared the promise is very exciting. while there is arrest with any

emerging technology, i believe when the risk is properly understood and mitigated it will help minimize those particular risk. there are exciting innovations come. to ensureorking hard all the vehicles are safe and reliable. thank you for the opportunity to testify. >> thank you. thank you very much. three years ago you and secretary lahood sat at that same table for a hearing examining some unintended the goals. time, i was concerned about the capacity to investigate and that turn it is years. but years later there is this

study demonstrates nearly the same concerns. they we are discussing explosive growth to electronics and vehicles. forwell are you prepared this? is your testimony was general. not dig deep, which is what questions are for. i need to know how you realistically assess yourself and your staff in terms of the numbers of people assigned, assuming the cars are going to do this. that safety will continue to be the main factor. >> the secretary and die are very satisfied with the staff we have on hand to deal with this issue.

our budget request has given us an opportunity. office a new electronics within our team which is focused on dealing with all issues regarding the electronics. we have 12 full-time employees with an engineering background. in terms of our game plan, i will submit a more detailed answer for the record. very solid game plan on how we will be dealing with this issue is including for looking at electronics reliability. we will always level the expertise of our sister agencies such as nasa and the federal aviation commission. >> i am well over my time.

i wouldn't put my superiors. >> i am not satisfied with the answer. -- i will yield to my superiors. i'm not satisfied with the answer. with all this cutting edge automotive technologies, in curious to hear what changes if any you think maybe necessary to ensure that we bring these technologies safely. at a fulllooking policy analysis. there are some you have to consider such as standards that are dealing with the position presuming there is a driver managing the vehicle. they will have to be addressed. e-mail have some driving

scenarios were the driver may be here with in the time. we are looking at them preparing ourselves to look at the research and development so warmly approach commercialization we will be ready to have peace standards on board to make sure we have the not pose that it will threat tonable safety. >> the standards also helped shape the automotive design process banking create incentives and disincentives for firms to invest in new technologies that have obvious safety of benefits that may not confirm to the existing standards. of the current standards

flexible enough to foster innovation and? have theieve we flexibility. we are living at this with a very sharp pencil. some of the safety standards are written over 30 years ago. we do believe there is current flexibility in terms of dealing with hal they embolic. they the ball. you are thinking about interface. these are captured by the standards right now. we need to encourage innovation in a safe way. this and not be at a compromise for safety. >> i am happy to yield at some of our other colleagues.

>> center nelson. -- center in nelson. >> thank you. it is racing you again. welcome. is great seeing you again. welcome. the chairman made reference to the kid in indonesia suddenly interfering. let's say that a step further. cyber security implications. tell us about that. >> there are several. there is the opportunity for mischief that can go beyond mischief and can mean an impact what wecure yet this is do. at this point there has never been an unauthorized access a

lot of a vehicle on the road today. physicalwould need access to a vehicle to get control of the functions. there will be opportunities where there will be the chance for software linkages and internet downloads. for that we have a very rigorous program looking at cyber security issues in terms of reliability and the proper .tandards of encryption we are relying upon not only the work we have been doing but also in other parts of the industry to be able to gain a pathway for word as we think about these issues. it involve an allocation of part of the spectrum that if

you deny the spectrum that you did help yourself from eight from aecurity attack -- cyber security attack? very hard withng the manufacturer consortium on theses in moving forward. the question of how much will part of our as analysis. their decisions on how these are using with software, there is the responsibility. we have to lay down a process to make sure there is the proper encryption standard for every vehicle. ?> nasa

>> absolutely. this is how they helped us in investigation. we recognized that we needed to have an outside their fire of the work done. in dealingt nasa with software issues in all the other things they do, we brought them in. they work shoulder to shoulder with the engineers. toytoa verify it. there were no issues regarding unintended acceleration issues. it is down to the pedal issues.

are you working on a technology that will not allow someone to text while driving? frankly one of my most focused area of emphasis. the one thing we are interested in asking the support on is the opportunity to pull stakeholders' across the industries involved in this space. also the handset suppliers. we believe while we are very bullish on the program on distracted driving, we think the technical solution were you can identify a driver's fallen from phone fromr spong -- boehner ipassenger in phone,

and fixated on that. but i think this is doable. we would love to have the support of this committee. >> thank you. >> thank you. i am new to the committee. i will be asking basic questions. you mentioned the highway safety as of -- >> there is the one of 1966 and 1970. of the safety improvements to we enjoy today, how many of our market driven? what are>> the highway safety at

created a base set of standards. it began with in the automotive fleet. they learned over time, eventually evolved into regulatory standards. in terms of the actual ones by there are crash standards. talking about things such as airbags in seatbelts, seat belts were part of the original act. the irrational act build a process for the agency to look at technologies which can look at this and save lives. >> what happened? innovations are driven by the automobile companies?

standard?it becomes a >> process was, yes. we are adapted driven, finance of based industry. we set performance standards for vehicles. you may stifle innovation in for close an opportunity. a classic example is the mandate of the electronic stability -- that wasem that put into vehicles in 1990. we are able to improve the cost and the benefits. that particular regulation has saved thousands of lives. it is a classic example of how science. upon data and >> have you ever done a study in

tenseof what has been formed over time and what the cost of the mandatory safety standards are? wein terms of every role, can definitely do a comparative analysis for you over time to show the moment of the technology that are voluntarily included. makingp side of something a regulation is that cost.crease and makes the technology is more affordable. this is the best benefits of being able to build a rolls on science and effectiveness. studiesurs undertaken to say this is what the cost of mandated safety requirements are? >> we would do an initial

analysis of costs and benefits. >> i am asking in general. it $5,000? >> what we do in terms of looking at the overall cost, every decision may add a cost to the vehicle. there is the terms of finding the tipping point of whether or not you will be pricing out a particular segment of the buying public from individual mobility. we could do something in general. the wise decision making of the agency, we have kept individual mobility affordable. we have actually decreased the loss of life by 25%. >> i would want to know what the total cost of the vehicle would be.

one government impose standard reduce the vehicle weight. can speak on the offset of that and what is the criteria in terms of weight? i have heard things in a crash eight 10% reduction of the vehicle weight increases fatality by 10 times. engineersa group of ways larger than i. they look as statistic issues. i will let those guys give you a more detailed answer. the one thing we did in finalizing the rules for 2017- most was we wanted the aggressive standard possible with benefits that outweigh the cost and no impact on safety.

we would be more than happy to talk about the mass and weight issues. we had a symposium earlier this week talking about mass and size issues as it goes toward the midterm review. our first priority of safety, we will not compromise safety. eighte happy to have safety neutral set of standards. we would get back to you with more detail. >> thank you. >> thank you. it is always good to be with you. >> i am sorry that you change subcommittees on me. but you jumped to the other tribes. >> i sure did. advancedlking about

technology in vehicles. is that being driven by the industry or is it being driven by your agency? >> the industry innovate. while we are very proud of the work, met the hard work of the automobile makers has driven the universe for word in terms of what the expectation is. manufacturers said the floor in terms of the standards. the innovate in go well beyond that. incentive ased an part of the five-star safety rating to go beyond. it is the automakers that e.novativ gives ust innovation

the opportunity to hopefully .ind a margin for word >> let me follow up on that. they will to that vagal technology could potentially addressed about 80% of the crashes involving non impaired crashes. can you give me an estimate of the time line? the agency will be making a decision on how we will proceed. if the agency decides to go forward in a row making posture, it will take some time for the fleet to turn over and have that technology in every vehicle. the other part is after market

begins so people can put these a begins in their car -- be acons so people can put these beacons in their car. this will take some time. >> let me ask another question specific about the five a bigger 5 gh band. can you tell us how you are working with the sec to make sure everybody is on the same page here? >> we provided comment to ntia earlier this week about the work forward and testing of compatibility. the deputy secretary in a statement during a round-table

voiced the questions we had at the department of transportation that the proposed rule making before the ntia has had the opportunity to do the technical work. we feel these processes should have informed the sec process before the sec went forward. >> there may be a concern that some of this new technology in vehicles may have interference issues with wifi and other issues. a location, it is incumbent upon any other licensed users to not enter few -- interfere. it is a safety function. the only thing we are looking for is making sure the process does follow in the correct

order. we actually get the technical work done to see whether or not there is an interference issue before the issue of a role that will preclude the advise. do the work for you? >> yes. i'm not sure about the timeline. >> thank you. let me just put it bluntly. we are talking about making cars into virtual offices because they're connected to everything, including through the internet. ,'ll let you to explain to me and i do not want a written tippingwhat is the

point when distractions that may have to do with my music or somebody's business or internet thingsy or all of the that happens when you filled of what a car should be. at a certain point, that begins to work absolutely aagainst the interest of safety. it is an inevitable fact. i want to get a sense of what they did in point will be or if you accept the concept? your job is safety, not trinkets. question ofnot a tipping point. there is first value. the first thing anyone should do

behind a wheel of a car is drive. everything else is ancillary or disposable. -- 12ives you thanything seconds is safe. is the equivalent of handling a radio which we have seen is a safe operation of an additional task. we are taking a hard look at those additional things that could be dangerous including a gps system that does not lock typingnot want people

this doing 7 5 miles an hour down the road. we do not want social messaging to be happening under way. we believe that we have found of interface.ne we are not playing long. we have done a really bright line in the stands. innovatecan then around that zone of safety. services, that is a space for innovation. if they cannot issue not be in the vehicle. >> i am trying to parse your words.

i think that younger people are not buying cars. >> that is true. >> they are using other modes of transportation. that has some benefits to me in terms of safety for the future. want to be wired up and be a moving office connected to everything. explain to me why the concept of a wired up automobile which can , iany kind of transaction would question that. we were talking a few years ago if he spends three or four --onds you have gone any are you have gone dealings of two or three football fields. in west virginia, you have crash

seven times. just because of the hilly territory. why do you have an accepting coming upont we are a time when cars will have the ability to have people sit in there as an office space in? is scarce the heck out of me. >> we are not accepting that a car is an office space while you are rolling. with ine some things the zone of safety. we're happy to show you the research. you can complete a task safely within 2 seconds. that is a solid foundation of fact. we want to lock out anything that resembles you trying to input large amounts of text. anything that looks akin to radio, audio being read back to

you, the ability to enter an address using a voice of the opportunity. those are safe. the recognition is this. there is a large amount of information and driver support provided by these systems. gps is such a system. that is a good thing. having people be able to receive messages. it is just like a radio. this is possibly a good consumer item within the zone of safety. you are right. 95% of what you're seeing in

terms of teacher social notication of people is appropriate for the vehicle environment and we would strongly fight against that notion. is annot say that this realistic one. if we recognize the things that can be done safely, we encourage innovation. we encourage the opportunity for good information. we allow the opportunities for anticipate tonot par develop. i really did not set any more questions.

i want to thank you for the bat mobile. testingbreath alcohol mobile. it'll be very helpful in the mission that we have been improving public safety. we are looking to improve vehicle safety. native americans are overworked. crashes. higher anything we can do to address this counter measures are things we are supportive about.

>> thank you. >> thank you. thank you for the opportunity. i always appreciate it. owens, nwol, jeffrey director ofhwetman, the university of michigan research institute and dr. joh n lee.

what are we start with you. -- why don't we start with you? >> thank you for the opportunity to testify. saw the ago the cdc reduction of autzen will does as a lead the greatest achievements of the -- of oslo bill does as the greatest achievements of the century. going forward, progress will come from technologies in reducing driver error. ofe of them 90% is a result vehicles and offered safety fuelty as well as less

consumption. we see a robust debate in the press. this is the wrong question. safety about some magic moment in the future. they are providing an important benefit. the premise that technology will yield safety benefits for american drivers. technology is not the biggest obstacle to the deployment of innovation. our polling shows consumers equate technology with safety.

that is promising. and they are dubious about self driving vehicles. .his is deeply and grains liability is a huge problem. who is responsible is something fails? we see higher project costs improbable reduction appeared connectivity is a critical component. how will we condoled these challenges. themore salient is consumers cycle. we only turn over the fleet in a

decade. we have some recommendations. most time since of recommendation for the future is frequencyhe 5.9 gh remains solely available for critical communications. when 200 tons of metal are moving to 100 feet per second [inaudible] the agency should adopt a do no harm strategy until testing is complete. invest in infrastructure. lean and mean that the

motivation to begin planning and implementing today. -- we need to implement the motivation to begin planning. we need to tackle a range of questions that are critical outside and inside the car including privacy and comfort .ith new technologies he keepc companies should automobiles as affordable as possible. in the world is not do any good if there step in the showroom. we need to preserve technology neutrality. we all recognize the challenges of distracted driving.

the challenge has grown as connectivity has gone its way into cars. government policy calls for restrictions of functionality of built in systems without corresponding limitations on portable devices. they look down below the-. they fiddle with the keys. the promise of future mobility has never been brighter or safer. we work to maximize innovation and save lives. we look forward to the opportunity to testify.

>> thank you. as chief technology officer i am responsible for the strategies as well as research and andlopment focused on safe green societal trends. delphi invests $1.6 billion annual into the global research and development initiatives and employ about 5000 people in the united states. there are 11,000 lives that can be saved annually without a technology mandate or a broad new program. every 30 seconds there's a vehicle related deaths of more in the world. that equates to 1.2 million people. it is a tragedy that can be prevented. the world health organization

predicts traffic injuries to be the leading cause of death by 2n aids or cancer. while vehicle deaths in the united states have declined, progress toward further death and injury reduction have stalled, resulting in about 33,000 deaths annually in united state, and 2000 -- 200,000 serious injuries each year on our roadways, and additionally, crashes continue to be the number one cause of death people ages four to 40 -- 234. although passive safety technologies like seatbelts have helped more people survive good toe think it is prevent the accident before they occur. government and industry groups have studied these for over a decade. a study by the insurance industry states that 31% reduction in deaths in possible.

that is more than 11,000 lives saved for -- saved per year. i am talking forward collision warning with collision imminent breaking, lane departure warning, blind spot effective. the driving public wants safety features. but technologies are currently available. it is difficult to understand their value. a key consumer awareness tool is the new car awareness assessment program or in cap. delphi is recommending to the admit ae that the u.s. cap to require ratings and that it be incorporated into the window sticker on new cars in the future. we are talking about mature technologies. we have been on the road since 1999.

that will result in fewer accidents and deaths. many of these technologies are commercially available, but relatively few vehicles are equipped with them. at the current rate of acceptance, active safety technologies will not significantly impact crash statistics for about one years. we suggest a focus on proven technologies, such as collision imminent breaking for inclusion on the in cap five-star certification. orre's no need to mandate choose winners are leaders -- winners or losers. the sooner we increase consumer awareness, the sooner we can lower fatality rates. with opportunities for distraction increasing, there is a convergence of connectivity and active safety technologies is critical to allow safe connectivity and still allow drivers to keep their eyes on the road, hand on the wheel, and the mind on mission of driving safely.

technology like delphi's integration first combines radar, vision, and data fusion in a single module. our rear and side detection system helps makes drivers aware of approaching vehicles while changing lanes or making turns, by providing an alert when the vehicle has entered the blind flight of the of vehicle. another helps keep drivers connection to the information they want while many getting driver distraction. there will ensure the the vehicle is never distracted him even if the driver is. a conclusion, we are at a critical point in the automotive industry. consumers are demanding 20 47 connectivity, and this dynamic impact safety on america's roads every day. at delphi, we believe the foundation is the robust deployment of active safety technologies. thank you for the opportunity to address the committee. >> to i, sir. directormr. peters,

of the research institute. >> good afternoon afternoon, mr. tamura, raking member, and members of the committee. i am honored to speak to with you about new technology in vehicles, and about a truly saved -- safe and efficient roadway system. this is important for the citizens and the economy of the united states. university of michigan presentation research institute is currently overseeing a model deployment in ann arbor. we are testing nearly 3000 cars, trucks, transit buses and motorcycles. they are equipped for license, wireless committee patient, enabling very promising crash avoidance systems. this work is sponsored by the u.s. dot, and it scared out and part with the intelligent presentation industry, including automated any fractures. veknow of no other -- automati

manufacturers. it has the potential to revolutionize our transportation system by drawing drivers' attention to risks more immediate. presently, this will help us avoid crashes and utilize energy sources more efficiently. as we move beyond the research phase, a national strategy is needed to guide the employment life form gigahertz benefiting all road users. we need dedicated short range committee case and at 5.9 for all classes of vehicle, and at key info structure locations. forite the growing demand unlicensed uses, sufficient bandwidth must be protected for exclusive use by vehicles and infrastructure. reliable and secure communication is nonnegotiable. cybersecurity is one of the

leading issues of our era, a conference if strategy involving industry and government must be established and carried out. further fields testing of a new generation's security system is needed to ensure that the platform remains secure while maintaining the privacy of all users. once these systems are developed, we need automotive consumers to embrace them. we need attractive devices widely deployed. a further wave of technology developed it will occur in vehicle automation automation. then, the benefits will reach well beyond safety. the scale of the transformation is important. the united states has the opportunity to leap ahead and mobility technology supporting an improved way of life in new mobility industries. on industrial ecosystem with new jobs will be created by the automotive and information

technology industries, and there will be many winners across different businesses and consumers. so how do we prepare for and sustain this transformation? is fortical requirement all vehicles, manual or automated, to be connected during a multi-decade transition. and connected vehicles connect with drivers. the need for human machine interface technology to focus the driver's attention is crucial as we move forward. bringnt technology will attention to risky technology -- risky driving scenarios. and so, the driver will need to take over in certain situations. here are four additional thing that must occur. to start, the united states has to take the lead in the status of element and decide where mandatory safety standards are needed, and where open

standards are needed for the 's entrepreneurs. involuntary performance standards need to be solidified to the connect it -- the connected vehicle platform your third, we need to start now with connected infrastructure. the operation of the roadway infrastructure will change dramatically as more automated vehicles are deployed and coexist with conventional vehicles. automated cars someday will be capable of operating narrow ands much closer together may park themselves without a driver. national policy positions are needed on data ownership, access and privacy, so that traffic system managers manage the vehicle data. obvious they, we will face new risks with transformation of our brand transportation systems, but the rewards are an expanded 21st

century mobility economy with minimal safety and public health impact and sustainable energy use. testing and certification need to be taken to the next level. and responsibility for safety needs to be redefined so that liability concerns don't stall deployment. in closing, the mobility technologies of the future will emerge through a process built around connected vehicles, automated vehicles, smart infrastructure, and improved driver interaction with the automobile. i do appreciate this opportunity very much him and welcome your questions. thank you for your attention. >> is that it, sir? thank you very much. >> that is that. >> dr. john lee. university of wisconsin madison. >> chairman rockefeller, and the committee, for the

opportunity to speak today. my comments address the human side of vehicle technology. vehicle technology in context, consider driving safety at the report that as an important problem. a probably 34,000 americans died in motor vehicle crashes last year and these crashes were the most likely cause of death for those between the ages of four and 34. an account for more than 37% of teen deaths. the coming years will ring increasingly complex instructions and increasingly complex vehicles to drivers who may be unprepared for either. this technology can dramatically improve driving safety. vehicle technology affects driving safety because your car is essentially a pewter. -- a computer. software and electronics account for 40% of a cars cost. and 50% of warranty claims. we think of a car as a mechanical system, but they are actually rolling computers. these computers are changing

what it means to drive. they already enable cars to take over many important driving operations that feature adoptive cruise control, automatic parking and autonomous braking. systems enable drivers to connect to social networks, dude text messages, and choose from thousands of songs. from these changes, the critical safety threat may emerge. the technology automating driving much of the time. drivers have the freedom to focus on entertainment system from it but the vehicle can then i'm effectively hand control back to the distracted driver. drivers are particularly error- prone in such situations. changing vehicle technology may make such uninspected handouts even more likely. the capacity of automation entertainment systems will change rapidly. doubling every 18 months. this exponential increase means that in 15 years, we are likely to be discussing whether people should be allowed to drive because the economist vehicles may be so much less error-prone

than people. completes consume response body, the challenge is to design vehicles so that drivers understand what it can and cannot do. this is particularly challenging because even small design changes can violate drivers' expectations. automated cars are like paper towel dispensers. automatic and semiautomatic paper towel dispensers can be confusing. and use motion sensors automatically roll out a towel when you raise a hand in front. the others require that you press a button to trigger a motor. fruitlessly waving at a dispenser before you realize it requires the button push could be embarrassing. such confusinon and a car could be deadly. pushbutton edition systems can be confusing. when the car is stopped, you only need to push the button to turn off the engine.

but one in motion, you must press and hold the button. the need to press and hold can confuse drivers and can have tragic consequences when a driver tries to stop on on intentionally accelerating vehicle. n importantts a challenge for increasingly automated vehicles. one benefit -- the technology may counterfeit -- counterbalanced distracted. distraction, these lotions of entertainment systems print to exacerbate. soon, cars will be able to know when you look away from the road, when the car ahead brakes come away to carve your attention back to the revered over time, can even help you appreciate and avoid risks on the road. -- as anahead engineer, i am very asked mistake about the future -- very optimistic about the future of technology. as a researcher, the ic

substantial challenges in human interaction. i hesitate to make regulations, so i dropped on the -- draw on another's wisdom. first, assess whether electronic innovations such as was button admission systems the delay responses in emergency situations. second, promotes government and industry collaboration, creative lines that communicate vehicle capability and status to drivers. third, identify when drivers expectations of the vehicle automation diverge from designers and tents, and electronictablish orders and associate information infrastructure to catch designers will to escape even the most thorough design process. thank you. quick to why. -- >> thank you. senator johnson, you have been sitting there deep in thought and reading. and therefore i think it is important that you ask the questions.

>> i'm up for it. thank you. tell me how this technology is going to roll out. we obviously have got to do some infrastructure building. this is not going to be one car. the whole fleet -- consummate he just described, a, the total cost of info structure building? >> that is a profoundly tough question. even defining what this is is tricky. maybe a simple way to break us begins to introduce the complexity and the evolution that we are about to go through. , if atoday's world driver needs to break, he or she makes a choice to apply the brake. -- with driver assists that are in the market right now, if the driver does not react in time, he may get a

warning. i've got better -- >> so they've got that. the next wave is also in the market is if there is no reaction time, the car why actively engaged for you. next step is really one big data goes beyond what the car can see. so far, we have been operating with what the card -- what the driver can see and what the car can see with fleet sensors. connectivity is really about seeing what we cannot see, and having every car within a mile from the so benefiting probability of a challenge. are informed. big data informs everybody. it is actionable. -- administrator stricklin indicated, getting to where we have a connected fleet is a very long time away. the average age of a car is 11 years old. it will take forever to get to a point where this has permeated

the string. is enormous. of it a mike a situation like efc. -- breaking,raking or automatic i-beams, where carmakers innovate, the connected space is a joint initiative where it is not go anywhere unless government and the private sector together and come together to make it reality. so the time and the money -- it is a function of how much you're really to spend and when. >> i have a ford taurus. what about lane departure warning? how does that work? what is the center doing? -- the sensor doing? >> in eirpe. >> i do like it. >> lane departure warning --

looking at lane boundaries with a vision system and determining when you cross or are about to cross the boundary, and then the automobile manufacturer will typically decide what to do with that information, give you an alert, a consent on audible -- it can send on audible -- >> is a looking at reflectors? >> all that. with the data fast and affordable as they are, even if you do not have hated boundaries, it is able to find a lane boundary for you, lets you know when you're approaching that is you should not be. somelive in wisconsin, and of those sensors, they break down -- we get snow and slush. where does a system breakdown? what are the problems of that? havee vision system will problems and heavy snow or a heavy rain environment.

on your ford taurus committees through that. there are variety of vulnerabilities, but the radar operates in virtually any environment. the vision systems can operate in most environments. even a snoks road. >> it will be pretty minimal in terms of actual highway infrastructure spending on this? it will be censored with the vehicles? >> there are many paths to get here. and if a structure-based system argument tolling get you all of the information you could possibly have to get a safe right -- a safe right. you can get a lot of the way there without having any infrastructure. you would have an individual machine that could operate a higher degree of safety, less fatalities on the road today for sure. >> you raised your hand there. >> thank you, senator. i think your question was getting at the answer structure cost side of it as well. we need to be very strategic about that.

clearly, there could be a large cost if we deploy with -- throughout the infrastructure. ,f we think about either system our main safety problem, if we were able to come up with a system where traffic control patterns, which have to be there, were actually fitted with this wireless communication, the we start to see a much lower cost kind of solution. so we need a very strategic approach with the infrastructure. on the vehicle side, the vehicle connection can do a heck of a lot by itself. also, it was originally conceived as being a low-cost solution, so the wireless communication is affordable. it was really the infrastructure where the cost data comes in. we think we can be very strategic about how we roll that out. >> would you like to add something, dr. lee? >> i would like to add a quick point. that is the time constant in the

development any different industries. if you take the iphone, the original iphone was just declared vintage. what is the age of a vintage car? maybe 60 years. so the difference between the fleet turnover and the automotive sister and the cell phone sectors is dramatically that ist because of the influx of distractions, maybe overwhelming the ability of the manufacturers to come -- to create the goal that can counteract those effects. >> just quick, if i may, mr. therman, mr. johnson, -- strategic nature i think is key to this because what you want to do, if you have infrastructure in place, you can add the cost in a low-cost fashion, you take advantage of the opportunities invested. where you were not overloading the system. is that pretty much how you see

it go -- see it? rather than putting strips on every highway, which would be very expensive, as well as going obsolete when new technologies come out. is that how you think this through, and his governmentgoin? that would be my biggest problem. and let me ask that question, as long as the senators give me leeway here. what concerns you about government interference potentially in that strategic rollouts? rollouts through the infrastructure -- that has to be local. we have to lay that out throughout the country. we need the capability to incorporate it at the lowest cost possible. these systems that are already being deployed. so i think the industries that are producing the traffic control signals, the intelligence transportation industry, are very aware of this. i think we will be very ingenious in the way we can incorporated. black spots.arget

we can do some targeting. >> ok. what i'm looking for is to have is who has to talk, and what concerns you about government involvement? , certainly ther structure of a vehicle to vehicle is going to be dependent on infrastructure. if we knew that unified amongst the industry, that will be a casing item for that. on the driver assistance systems, the product like you are expressing their, the collision and breaking, lane departure warning, i think the key as i mentioned is to make that visible to the consumers that this is available, that it is there. that worked extremely well for the airbag rollout. it worked well for stability control.

where the consumers all that, saw the value of safety, and brought it into the market st irele erie i think we have the same opportunity here. the market create the higher lunch. make people aware. i would hope that with your easter and, certainly mine, i will never my wife or my kids in anything other than that if i have a choice, but only if i know that it is there on the vehicle and i know what it does. you have to experience it to get the valid -- the value of the technology. i think we can let the market work. the system, this is a key ingredient. >> we need to be mindful of the cost. i can afford the upgrade, not everybody can. there are two different activities here. one of the driver assist between market-driven and the cost will come down over time, and they're the individual will make the choice. when you get to the connected car, it is a different animal. that is where government has to get involved and there are two response military one estimate

sure it works, because you have metal flying down the street at 100 feet a second coming of the communications go faulty, and and the second part of that is infrastructure. because it is government-funded, the rollouts will in large part be dictated by government. so two different paths. the connected terms of convergence. >> that when i am skeptical of. thank you, mr. chairman. >> i'm very sad. >> i'm kind of an old dog. >> i love it. your questions were great. let me just ask a couple. we had a whole series of hearings in the last several years having to do with television. you know, what i call the rapid dissension of content. it was notn was -- just violence, but also

unhealthy things that kids were withg, but then we turned great satisfaction to the ability of the parent to monitor what was going on and to be able at that timentrols available and now available to allow their children not to see what they should not see. i think that is reasonable because this basic television today -- obviously later in the night -- but there is some really bad stuff on it. it has consequences. but that is not my point. thinknt is -- i do not we ever got a sense of confidence that the average parent, whether that would be throughout the country, knew how the promoter, i mean,

the little machine, that would set parameters. if you can't have that, then everything else fails. now, this moving to what we are talking about, i will make a terrible confession -- and since my colleagues have basically disappeared, c-span has not, so i am in some trouble. [laughter] but i got a new, much gadget sized car because i am large room and the car is large, it is a very happy coincidence. we have just come out of winter, the air-covered that conditioning did not seem to work. i did what i remembered from

previous iteration of automobiles what happened to make the air-conditioning work. classicllowed the american tradition of failing to read the manual, and i think americans will go to almost any length to avoid manuals. including diet and all the rest. wonderful at avoiding things we ought to read. and then i discovered -- to my incredible impairment -- incredible embarrassment, there was this little white button fairly low on the panel, that was meant to look like a snowflake, i guess therefore implying cool during -- cool. i push it, and all the sunny air-conditioning came on. i think that is a very sad american story. of which i am the villain. but i just raised the question our peopleisticated

growing in technology in automobiles as they have to get in and get to work or get to some -- whatever it is. the car, sole use who really reads the manual? are manuals read? i think there are substantial portions of that car that i still cannot work but i do not need to. now we are coming to a point where i may need to. next 10 years, the variety of things as you indicated happened. so i want to put the question to you. how reliable do you think drivers are these days in understanding some of the new electronics? whoever. ,> mr. chairman, and ann arbor we are testing 3000 connected

vehicles, and the secretary of presentation said you are testing is with ordinary michigandians, and their parents in the public school systems driving their kids to school and so on. and so we have been running this for more than six months now, and we have regular and they are only getting information and warnings when the need arises. we are finding that the reaction from our ordinary michiganders is incredibly positive. systemsnk us for the that we have deployed, and we have not come across any of those issues that have to do with confusion about technology. ,o far, with connected vehicles there is a lot going on in the background, but in the foreground, relatively little. because these problems only occur infrequently.

>> that is an extraordinary statement. i have to accept it coming from you. >> i have a confession to make, too. i cannot operate my tv very well. and my kids make fun of me. but when i get in the car, i have found that the driver technologies are really intuitive. i think that is the trick. one of the reasons why apple it's so successful is that everything is very intuitive. when you get into the car in today's world, even the guy who cannot operate the tv and , canam it to record a show get in the car, driving, and benefit from driver safety because it really is incredibly system, and it basically does it for you. so if i'm driving down the highway -- this happens every morning -- if i put my blinker tify me and the left, my bill it says there is something in your way, don't go. i don't have to do anything.

i just know it. if i'm going to fast, it will alert me that the distances between the car in front of me and my car is too close for the speed i'm going, and it will time and basically says -- wake up, and be careful. cruiset it on adaptive control and manage the distance precisely. that is the trick. the engineering function and challenge is to make it intuitive. big lots be response one rita manuals, but when they don't, the systems should work. >> he referred to the technology, which means the ability to drive the car if you slip over into another lane to be forewarned about that. am ak forward to that very very much. what about that part which is entertainment? >> the information in the car has an upside and a downside. the upside plays out in the

context of connectivity and big data warning the car and all of the cars in that system that there is a potential challenge. the challenge with information is managing it in the car. the discussion i thought with administrator sect and -- strickland was very instructive. this are 5500 crashes in country every year. 70% of those are distraction related. -- 17% of those are distraction related. are the consequence of using the internal integrated system of the car. 2% of the 5.5 million crashes. million., 2% of the 98% are a function of distraction from some other cause. that deal with the 2%, but do not touch the 98%. so i think with the

administrator did today was really important to talk about the stakeholder briefing, the stakeholder meeting where he would bring together manufacturers, software folks, oem's, social media companies to deal with the issue of how you manage information in the car. because the guidelines deal with 2%, 998%, and if we are serious about dealing with distraction in this country, we have to focus where the real battle lies. >> i totally agree. dr. lee? >> i would like to go back to your original question, and take up a different effective from some of the optimistic panelists here. i think your insurance is more common than not. i think there is great potential for confusion with these new systems. i thought article just the other day discussing a new vehicle that came out. it had a larger expanded growth box to accommodate the users manual.

was so large. these cars are currently located. there has been data that suggest that drivers do not always understand what the systems do. adaptive cruise control, for example. people think it has capabilities that it may not actually have. another example goes back to to myow will dismantle -- towel dispenser. you could put a computer behind it and it becomes mysterious. we have a car with 72 100 dispensers that is incredibly inc. obligated and in some cases quite mysterious. 100 dispensers that is incredibly complicated. i get into the car, and the car is a different car for me, my wife gets then, and 165 parameters change and it is a different car for her. what happens if i grab her key, now i am driving her car, which might be quite different than my car? those sorts of confusions are

new and did not exist before the car became a computer. one more example -- going back on/offconfusion with the switch. in the past, starting your car am a stopping your car, you did it with the key. turning the key off and pull it out. you cannot pull it out before the car was turned off. s, you can close the door, walk away, and it is still running. this has actually happened and poisoned with carbon monoxide the occupants of the house after they left the car in the garage running. so i think there is confusion. there's new potential for error. i do not want to be too negative because i think there is huge potential for safety, but there is a negative negative side, and we have to a knowledge that. of yourl take both answers, but for someone to ask another question. -- but first, i want to ask

another question. what you think the role of myth that ought to be? but i'm not sure of the swiftness of the younger generation, whatever that means, declining to buy automobiles because of the cost and the economy and efficiencies. driving in washington -- almost any time of day -- makes you want to take amtrak right on 16th street. and just bowl over everything. it is so frustrating. and then that make sense because then you have to get big buses because he did put a lot more people on big buses, and therefore take a lot of cars off of the road, but a lot of those buses cannot make turns without holding up traffic for 10 or 15 minutes as they try to wiggle a turn. in other words, it is all very,

very confiscated. america is in love with automobiles. that will never cease. in love withm automobiles. that will never cease. however, i do not want to die. i'm not technologically gifted, as the staff behind me could very well tell you. but i'm very serious about my work. and that is why i come back to the mission of knits us -- of nitsa, that this hearing is about what the future of the car is going to be like. i get the impression from several of you that the car that is coming about is not going to come about for another maybe five or 10 years. we're not talking quite as quickly as we think we are,, but i am not sure that is correct. lane safety, of when you put your hands on a steering wheel, and it reads

your blood alcohol content, the saving of -- i come from a cold state, but so what -- i think that it is very important to really crack down on carbon monoxide. i don't think this country will survive unless we find a way to take 90% of the carbon that -- carbon dioxide out of cars, which we have found, but declined to use. so those are the problems. to me, basic safety is important. i love -- one of the reason i really love the new car, it is three years old, is because it , and it is really fun. whathen i get down to it, i really want to do is just drived it calms me down when i o

work, and economy down i come back from work. i like driving. i like driving a lot. into thet really gadget, but then again i am of another generation. celeb you just block you all often say what do you think the role of -- so let me just block you all off and say what you think the role of nhtsa ought to be? please. >> that is a $64,000 question. that is what we are talking about. know, the industry, the automobile for manufacturers and suppliers -- we are going to work very hard to take what is already the most, located piece of electronic you own -- your car -- and work to make it simpler, were to make it more intuitive, work to make it more seamless. but just as you have your desires, the 25-year-olds have their desires, and they want interface for that vehicle in an entirely different way.

they have to process all those different it demographics. the challenge is to provide the technology that is less distracting, they keep the driver in the loop, and keep the drive safer tomorrow than it is today. a lot of talk about economist vehicles today and driver list vehicles. i think that may happen at some point in the far future, but for a lot less money, and a lot quicker application -- i'm not talking tenure, active safety technology could be applied today. and have a benefit to the statistics of accidents and fatalities in the united states during i think the technology is mature. i think nhtsa would recognize it as mature enough to consider that. i think letting the markets were care with no mandates or regulation required -- just let it be visible to the consumers now, immediately. you will see the market start to self select. safety doesn't sell. we have other things to work on. there is no doubt about it. we are dedicated to solving those problems.

we can get a lot of the benefit of an autonomous vehicle today in a semi autonomous mode in a couple of years if we have before to to stay with it. , if they were a financial body, would you nhtsa have applied nhtsa -- would you ave applied nhtsa, were it financial body, to wall street in recent years ago -- years? you would get all those hundreds of billions of dollars and you could spend it on mortgages and low income houses, whatever, but not one dime got spent your people just line their pockets. i've been making no comparison between that and automobiles. but i worry about that. i worry about safety. i don't want people to die. we have really twisted roads in

west virginia. and so do a lot of rural states. interstates are rarer. so i am just trying to find something beside -- let the market work. when i hear let the market work, i starting about coal mines and all kinds of things and i get very uncomfortable. >> can i add to this? we are saying let the markets work in one sense, but it is different than the wall street context. what we are really saying is the marketplace for all sorts of reasons, for reasons of commitment to safety, for reasons that safety sales, for reason of liability, is producing today driver assist technologies that will deal with the accident rate in west virginia. we are on the precipice of a golden age and safety. the news is good news. the longer-term question is when we get to the connected car. the role of nhtsa is to do exactly what they do. a is a roughly small agency,

really grounded, committed public servant who focus through data on safety issues. we work very closely with them and in an appropriate way. there is no hide the ball, we share technologies, we do many studies together. the exercise in ann arbor is a joint effort of suppliers, oems yo's, and nhtsa. same thing with dads and drunk driving. when engaged with nhtsa. it has a regulatory authority and has a hammer during that time that is appropriate. we have the right relationship. it is, we help, data driven. i think we are on course to a great outcome. this is a good news hearing. the future promises really massive gains in safety if we make the right public policy choices, especially on the

spectrum issue. >> yeah, which actually brings us in. in other words, we have congressional oversight. i am also on the intelligence committee, and we are meant to have congressional oversight of intelligence, and let me tell you that is the most possible job because government does not want to turn anything over. they all want to protect themselves. companiest think car aren't necessarily that way. in fact, when we had the so- stopd sudden unintended crisis, you remember with weird and other companies, the work other with toyota and companies, the work was good. people change habits durin. the culture of safety of a different sort was developed. unoptimistic. i just want to be certain. i have kept you all too long.

dr. lee, you look like you need to say something. [laughter] >> i don't know whether i need to say, but i will. i come from a different perspective, so way that accordingly. you may want to discount it entirely. one of the things we see in automotive industry is a dramatic change. because computers underlie things, change is occurring at an x financial rates. at an x onect -- and show rate. we project change linearly. , 10 times15 years better. in 15 years, they will be 1000 times better. dramatic, qualitatively different areas i think change is happening extremely differently and quickly. this is a different environment than nhtsa grew up in where cars turned over every six years. now you are working in a computer industry where models

are turning over every six months. 10 times different. i think the vehicle and the car and how people treat cars is also changing dramatically. the generation that broke with bruce springsteen and using the cars as a way to get away from the parents -- that is changing. kids get away from their parents with phones, with texting. cars are a distraction to them. so i think they may be shifting their patterns in a way that is also surprising. so the role of nhtsa and this new environment -- i think there is an important role. strongate to offer any recommendation, but from the report regarding the unintended acceleration events that occurred years ago from the national academies, one of the things that came out to that i thought was interesting -- that is that the vehicle environment is changing qualitatively him

as i mentioned, and therefore the regulatory environment may need to change accordingly. and they suggested looking at other agencies, like the faa, or the fda, as models for how nhtsa may want to adapt to this new environment. there may be a qualitative shift in the nature. it is business. concrete issort of ample that came up that i thought was very good -- and that is an medical products. the fda have a system that provides feedback when there is an unintended events. a misuse or inadvertent use or malfunction in a medical roddick medical back -- product gets fed back to the agency and the industry to enhance its reliability. i think that that sort of mechanism is necessary. so in the future, when cars become smarter, more capable,

they will do things for the driver, will surprise the driver, and increasingly, drivers will blame the car for doing something crazy. and that blame, as we saw with the toyota events, is difficult for nhtsa and the industry to understand. there was a long. of -- there was a long period of failing to understand the event. consumers.ing to the i think what we need is a better information infrastructure to help nhtsa identify and understand the inevitable failures that will come out of these of uterus vehicles. -- out of these computerized vehicles. >> all right. i want to end the hearing. [laughter] you have got something to say that it got to be so incredibly good. [laughter] >> no problem. >> all right. an incrediblyhas

important role because transportation has become a team sport. there is a competing as well as they are gillett or a brokered one of the important issues that will be convening is liability and response ability for crashes near it we are going to continue to have crashes for a very long time. is that shifting in some way? is the always said, that driver's response ability. is there some shift their? i think that kind of question is something that nhtsa really needs to convene and make some as a movedance on forward because that will become a very important issue. hopefully i lived up to your expectation. [laughter] >> yes, you did. in fact, you all did. i don't see a lot of people sitting at his desk, but it is a matter, it is a hearing, everything is recorded and written down. i think some very interesting and good ideas came out of all

of this. and you were all very good witnesses. so having said that, i don't like to bang a gavel. it looks superficial to me. i was just declare the hearing adjourned. and thank you. >> thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> today on c-span, francis collins, director of the national institutes of health, testifying on his agency's budget. then the national transportation safety board presents its annual drunk driving report. and later, a look at tv and web video distribution with representative from the broadcasters, cable, and satellite providers. the top democrat on the house budget committee, or preventative chris van hollen, is our guest this week on " newsmakers." he talks about congressional strategy for dealing with the dead, and the different budget plan in the house and senate, as well as future budget cuts related to sequestration.

you can watch "newsmakers" sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. now, testimony from francis collins, the director of the national institutes of health, on his agency's 2014 budget request. he is joined by directors from five subsidiary institutes. this is one hour and 50 minutes. >> the senate appropriations committee will come to order. today we are privileged to have with us again, as my longtime compatriot used to say, the crown jewel of the federal government, that is the national institute of health care, for a

budget hearing. dr. collins, welcome to the subcommittee. and to our panel of doctors. this is an important moment for nih and the future of medical research in this country. fiscal year 2003, the funding has dropped in real terms by 22%. purchasing power of nih has fallen by more than 1/5 over the past decade. this year, fiscal year 2013, nih will drop by $1.7 billion below

last year's budget almost entirely because of sequestration. as a result, nih will have fewer grants. that means 700 fewer opportunities to investigate and possibly find a cure for cancer and alzheimer's and diabetes and a number of diseases. perhaps even more alarming is the researchers chance to get a grant approved by nih will drop by 16%. that is the lowest success rate in the history of nih. that comes at a time when potential for scientific breakthrough has perhaps never been better. the national cancer institute, success rate will be 12%. the other institutes, below 10%. that is abysmal. when you have less than one in a

10 chance of getting a grant, that is when our best and brightest minds start asking, what is the point? maybe i should find a different career. it is no wonder some are saying our nation's status as the undisputed leader in medical research is under threat. the president's budget request offers a welcome response to this disturbing decline. the budget calls for $31.1 billion for nih in fiscal year 2014. it would not only reverse all of the cuts that are occurring this year, but would result in an increase. there is a new brain initiative, which i'm sure we will hear more about. i read your testimony last night. i will do everything i can to help with the budget this year. i suspect that many senators on

the other side of the aisle also agreed. nih enjoys a more bipartisan support than any other agency in the entire appropriations bill. here's the problem -- at the same time, some of my colleagues are requesting a stronger commitment from nih. we also want sequestration to continue in fiscal year 2014. some even want deeper cuts to nondefense discretionary spending next year to pay for more increases in defense spending. there is simply no way to square these two initiatives come of these two priorities. there is no chance that we will get close to the president's request for nih, let alone 2012 fiscal year levels. it will not happen. we're not going to hurt education, health, labor, the

center for disease control and prevention, and others that are at minimal levels. i will not get engaged including nih against other worthwhile endeavors. this is one of the many reasons we need to be play sequestration. we need a mix of responsible spending cuts and not just blind cuts to everything. and also increase revenue. this balanced approach is the only way nih will have the resources it needs to realize the enormous scientific opportunity it will -- we will hear shortly from our witnesses. i yield my time to my colleague. >> thank you. i appreciate dr. collins of the other senators for being here today.

this is a highlight for our subcommittee. we know about some of the most exciting elements and challenges that disease provides. science and research are the foundation of innovation and growth in our economy and the solution to a myriad of issues. research is helping americans live longer and live healthier lives. because of investment in bio- medical research, with each one percent decline, saving our nation about $500 billion. the u.s. death rate from heart disease and stroke has declined more than 60% in the last half- century.

between 1997 and 2006, the death rate among adults with diabetes has declined 23%. health advances aside, they are paramount. as baby boomers age, the cost of healthcare will continue to increase. a study from the banner corporation stated that the cause of dementia care is projected to double over the next 30 years. it would surpass heart disease and cancer. without a way to prevent or cure or treat dementia, it will be difficult if not impossible to rein in costs. science has confronted similar health challenges in the past and has rebuilt. economists projected polio would cost $100 billion a year. in the face of this challenge, medical research produced a solution to this devastating disease and polio is being eradicated worldwide.

we confront difficult spending choices. i believe we must prioritize our commitment to nih. without adequate and support for medical research, trainees will be driven from medical fields or into the arms of our global competitors. last year, china's government pledged to increase basic research investment by 26% and will contribute more than $300 billion to biotechnology over the next five years. in the last five years, in the last five years, china's we risk losing a generation of scientists and stopping our nations global competitors. this is not a time to waver on

america's commitment to nih and the health of all americans. mr. chairman, i look forward to working with you on these priorities. >> thank you. we welcome dr. francis collins. the 16th director of the national institute of health. his leadership of the genome project, was the director from 1993 to 2008. he went to the university of virginia. ph.d. from yale. your statement will be part of the record in its entirety. >> good afternoon, mr. chairman, and members of the subcommittee. i'm grateful to to be here with my colleagues to present the president's budget request for the national institutes of health of fiscal year 2014.

this panel has a long history of supporting the nih mission to seek fundamental knowledge and apply it in ways that will enhance human health and reduce suffering. thank you for your strong commitment and supporting research over these years. nih has millions of patients that are grateful for that leadership. the here to talk about administrations fy-14 request. it will enhance nih's ability to support cutting-edge research and coming up with new ways to improve from and health. improve human health.

even with his tremendous opportunities before us and our hopes for your support, we cannot ignore the current fiscal situation. this is a perilous moment. despite the subcommittee's best efforts to avert it, sequestration took effect on march 27. this has delayed devastating blow to nih and the entire biomedical research and the price. without action by this the cut will result

over the next 10 years. this graph that i am showing you shows in blue the appropriated levels nih and the effects of inflation in orange. including the sequester him a which this he identified with the arrow, we hope they will turn back up again with the president's proposal for 2014. a lot of the research purchasing power has been lost. the consequences are stark. look back at 2003. that is a direct result of this committee. now a decade later, with all the scientific opportunity, that number has fallen more than 3300. the drop is severe in fy-13. we will be funding 700 fewer project grants. it might have led to the next big discovery in cancer research were launched a career for promising young scientists. we will never know. we have unprecedented scientific

opportunity. we should make progress by leaps and bounds. this is troubling when one considers the investment being made in the rest of the world. this bar graph is quite striking. i hope people can look at it without being troubled. it shows the relative increases in support for biomedical research by countries around the globe. you'll notice the united states stands out on this graph in a very troubling way. i cannot gloss over the severity of the situation. the potential damage to scientific momentum and economic growth and morale is profound. despite these trying times, nih has continued to pursue its mission and is accelerating in scientific discovery in several key areas.

i would like to highlight a couple. let's consider cancer. one person dies from cancer every minute in the united states. nih research has contributed to real progress with death rates falling by one percent each year. economists estimate that each one percent drop in the u.s. saves us money, making it a good investment. we want to do more. the cancer genome is accorded effort to accelerate our understanding on the molecular basis of the cancer. there are 20 types of cancers. by identifying, we are gaining a better understanding behind the disease. recently, researchers reported a major development.

in a study by the reported, they discover that the genetic row file of a deadly form of uterine cancer closely resembles the profile of the most lethal of very and breast cancer. it has dramatic applications for prognosis and treatment. the breakthrough and others like it can lead to the identification of new therapies to a patient's unique genetic profile. it can empower instead of one- size-fits-all therapy. advancing biomedical in the area of stem cell. it is revolutionizing the way that we do things. programmed can be

into a wide variety of types including liver cells or blood cells. this means we can start with a skin cell from a patient and re- create that same individual's disease in a petri dish. you can imagine how this might work for a disease in the blood. we are not stopping there. i like to focus on a scientific endeavor we are planning for fy-14. neurological and psychological disorders such as autism and schizophrenia and alzheimer's, it it in flicks a tremendous toll on society. their pathologies remained largely unknown due to the complexity of the human brain. it is built on 86 billion

neurons. each with thousands of connections. one thought is beyond the reach of scientific understanding. neuroscience has created new opportunities for unlocking these mysteries. it has placed us in the position of proposing a truly bold new initiative. in fy-14, the brain initiative. it will accelerate new technology that will enable researchers to produce dynamic pictures of the brain. it will show how complex brain cells interact. to do that, we need to be able to record signals a much greater numbers of brain cells and at a more rapid pace than what is possible. innovations like functional mri have contributed substantially to our expanding knowledge of the brain, significant breakthroughs in how we treat neurological and psychiatric disease will require a new

generation of tools. and measuring circuits and networks living organisms, we can begin to translate data into models that will decode experience and motor activity and potentially even memory, emotion, thought. another major initiative has laid the groundwork for mapping the human brain. this is an image, noninvasive image of a healthy human being using a new kind of mri. it depends upon a dramatic set of advances in mri scanning. he gives a 3-d picture of a wiring of nerve cells in your brain. this proves that you are more than just her dna environmental factors and life experiences. her works are genetics to great your unique neural connections. this is where the brain initiative comes in. it is designed to develop technologies that are capable of recording the activity of hundreds of thousands of neurons in real- time.

thellows us to determine way in which brains function. the brain initiative is ambitious. the details of a land will stretch over a decade or more. it is being worked out. we must begin now. the brain initiative will provide a better understanding at the root of human neurological disorders and revolutionize the field of neuroscience. the catalyzed the treatments. to sum up, i have told you about the tremendous progress we have made and opportunities that lie on the horizon. i have to drive on the impact of sequestration. let me close by putting a human face on exactly who is at risk during these trying fiscal times. i recently met with one of my former superstar students.

spent two years in my lab in nih before going to grad school. she sees what is happening to biomedical research in the u.s. she is concerned about her future. haveof her contemporaries begun looking for opportunities outside of science or outside of this country. she wrote me these words after our recent meeting. "many of my role models have ideas that can change a world,

but are unable to get funding. i cannot erase the fear that this is my future." this is a defining moment. my fear is that we are putting an entire generation of if they go away, they will not come back. sequestration is optimizing the future of biomedical research.

>> thank you, dr. collins. andk you free statement bringing us up-to-date. we will begin a round of five minute questions. here we go. we will begin a round of five minute questions. dr. collins, in the opening statement -- i'm concerned when money gets tight, there is a tendency to shy way from rewarding ideas that think outside of the box. we have talked about that many times over the last many years. i'm concerned that you might tend to favor safer advances and avoid ideas that are bolder. any validity to that? >> that is certainly an area of considerable concern for all of us. imagine yourself on a study section we have a big pile of scientists in front of you and you know you will only be able to fund a very small number of those. the have in front of you a very powerful and strong proposal that builds on previous work and establish a new will be successful in your something over here that is risky that does not have the same track record. if it works, it can be grammar can come up and you're not sure it will work. in that setting where you would love to fund both, you may not

be able to. there can be a tendency to go with what you know will produce results. wrongould be just the thing to do. we have a number of programs that aim to try to encourage innovation. we have the new innovator award. you cannot apply unless you have an out-of-the-box idea. there is this common fund effort. many institutes have initiated efforts of that sort as well. there is no question about it. no magic in terms of innovation potential. we are only funding 15 or 16% or less of applications that come in. there is a lot of innovation at the 18th percentile the 22nd percentile. most of us have a hard time telling difference between a grant that scores at the 11th percentile and another. one will get funded and another may not.

the real anxiety we feel is how much talent is between state and how many ideas are not getting followed up on. sequestration drops 700 grants that we hoped would be funded. i'm sure the 700 there were some great innovative out-of-the-box ideas. >> talk about thinking outside the box. tell about your program and the purpose. >> we do two things to try to ensure we do the best that we can to address the concerns you and many others have raised about mistaking under fiscal circumstances. the first thing we do is to look at a large number of grant applications. we award grants by saying this is really innovative and an important issue. number two, we set up special programs. one is called provocative questions.

these questions come from groups that we assembled around the country into disciplinarian groups. they raise difficult questions that we think technology might be prepared to address. we can invite applications for answering about 24 this year. we are trying to answer the 24 questions you have selected as important and difficult questions. it will guarantee some answer to the question you have a properly raised. >> a follow-up question on that later. i want to ask in the short time that i have left about this brain initiative. the new brain initiative. that might be the wrong way saying it. anyway, mapping the brain and what it means and the human genome project. some of us were there at the

beginning. we knew what the result would be. we knew end result was. what are we looking at here? is there something that we are looking for to reach at a certain point in time? withat we would like to do the brain initiative is understand how information processes in the circuits. as dr. collins told you, we are beginning to have better and better maps of connections between nerve cells in different regions of the brains. we can layout and circuits that control movement or vision or hearing. how we do not understand is information is processed thoseh we have to understand that. we simply do not have the tools

to do that now. that would be one of the major goals for the first five years for the braiinve. but are tools for technology to be able to track activity and circuits -- in circuits to understand how information is being exchanged from one cell to another. much more complicated than just lining up the -- it could have greater impact. >> 3 billion patients -- now we're about a trillion or something like that. i do not know. >> thank you very much for your compelling testimony. thank you for coming to kansas city. thank you for riding your bike in support for raising money for cancer. >> and barbecue. >> that was the real inducement. thank you for highlighting kansas city barbecue. dr. collins, a follow to what the chairman was asking. on the brain initiative, the budget documents are not very specific in regard to what we should expect as far as budget request and money to be spent over a time frame. the next 10 years?

what are the goals in the short term of this project? i guess the first five or 10 years is the goal. what would we expect the request to be in regard to the budget into the future? >> an appropriate question. this is sort of like a genome project in 1988. it was clear there was an opportunity. they would not happen without a coordinated effort, particularly

a focus on technology. no one was sure what the projector would look like as far as accomplishing that goal. we are in the process of trying to find that in the long term over the next 10 or 15 years. what could be accomplished? what would the steps be? what technology do we need? what would the cost be? we have put together a remarkable group. visionary neuroscientists. in the course of the next few months, lay out milestones of what this project will accomplish.

by the summer of 2014, you have a roadmap of where the brain initiative needs to go and how quickly it can get there. i do not have a clear answer to your question at the moment in terms of what the budget or directory this may the over the next 10 or 15 years. make sure we have the science plan layout. >> there is no justifiable reason that we should expect that plan at this way? that is not accomplishable? >> it would be reassured to attach budget numbers to a plan and be embraced and endorsed by all scientific experts that we want to participate and take part in this. it has always been our view that if you're going to try to start something really bold, the step is to map out the signs and the gear out but what does that mean in terms of the timetable and the costs. we have to set priorities realistic expectations.

we do not think it would be right to a given the opportunity. >> dr. collins, this might be for you. let me ask about the status of -- i'm supportive of its establishment. i'd be interested in having you bring me up-to-date on its developments. one of the environments in which it works is with the economic conditions and physical conditions that we face, private drug companies, there is for what has been described as a valley of death between discovery on one side and patient benefit and commercial success on the other. >> thank you for the question. let me say up front how wonderful it has been to work with folks in kansas at the university and those in the lymphoma society. some groundbreaking projects

going on. there is a drug developed for arthritis. turned out to have activity against leukemia. and to the delight of all this, a very resistant kind of cancer. the protocol is well along in a clinical trial. this is an amazing and quick turnaround. if you have to start from scratch, it would take years billions of dollars to get it to a clinical trial. if you can identify a compound in trade for a new purpose, you

have that background data. you shave off years and many costs. they have agreed to make it available for new uses that turned out not to be effective for the original use, but they are known to be safe. this is crowd sourcing. the opportunity to find a new use for heavily invested compound that may turn out to have failed, but might be just the thing for another thing. developing a new and very high- tech way of identifying whether or not a drug will be safe before he gave it to a human patient. it also serves for the largest investment in clinical science of which there are 60 across the entry. basically earning that network together in a way that makes the whole better than the sum of its parts.

i think even though it has only been around for a year and maybe five months, the evidence is very clear. haveis an opportunity we grabbed onto. the private sector is enthusiastic. academics are fired up about it. this is a good thing for nih. >> very good. i assume you are the one who claimed valley of death and crowd sourcing. >> i do not think i can take credit, but you're welcome to use the word. >> senator mikulski. >> thank you, mr. chairman. yourollins, welcome and entire team and other heads of institutes. i just wanted to tell you in

the warmest way what a sense of joy and pride that i have representing nih. it is located in my home state of maryland. i know that every day at a premier institution, it is one of the reasons we want to be in the senate. be an advocate for the kind of resources and policy so you get to be you and what the american people want you to do, which is defined here is for disease and find containments of disease. work for those things that can prevent them from happening or escalating. it is not only a source of pride, but i can tell you i work with other senators

across party lines to make sure get the kind of allocation they need to do their job. much has been said here about the sequester. i will not go into it in dait te impact that it has.

one of the people who work at nih and those who participate in programs at the university of maryland and others that are out there working every day. that is the genius of what we do. it is not government owned and operated. it is functioning around the world. who you are, you talk to others around the world. i am struck by what you have done. deaths from heart attacks and stroke, it has decreased. behind medical science him. this is for all americans. hiv/aids, we remember. remember the testimony. hiv/aids is no longer a death sentence.

for the children of the world in our own country, 90% of the children with the most common childhood leukemia have 90% of surviving. what a phenomenal story. you go and have one of those cushy things that most people dream about. come back and head up a institute. cancer rates are down across the board. this is stunning. we saw a brilliant actress, and esteemed actress to the bold step where she had a double mastectomy. she knew her genetic situation.

she could have decisions and informed consent. this is who we are and this is what we're fighting for. i do not mean to give a speech, but i'm so excited about you. i want to say to my colleagues, this is why we have to not only

-- the sequester i think has a very eroding effect. i want to do all i can to cancel the sequester this year and also cancel the sequester for the next nine years. we hope that the other side -- i wonder about the other side of the dome. he took all of it out of domestic discretionary spending. i will not turn this into politics. we want to be above politics. but we will have to do with politics. i want others to know i will work with them. what i see my job is doing to help you do your mission that the people of the united states gave you. i will not ask questions. i have taken up a lot of time. yourank you very much for leadership on this particular subcommittee. all the input and leadership you have given us, we thank you very much. we will return to senator

shelby. >> thank you. first of all, i want to associate myself with the remarks of senator mikulski. she said it so well. i believe that this committee in this congress that the top investment we can make in america to save lives and improve lives is to invest in the nih. i would like to see us double. i know that is hard to do. get on the upward trend and not the downward trend. allow medical research in this country. i see the results of it. having said that, researchers at the university of alabama in

birmingham conducted an important study on very premature babies. a study from 2004 to 2009 that was funded by the national institutes of health. they were trying to understand proper oxygen levels for these volatile premature babies. study has had an important effect on care. research like this, study improves care. >> thank you for the question. very important indeed. the standard of care reflects would be no what the time.

they were trying to do the best care. they may not be best served by all the opportunities of standard care. that is certainly the case of the optimum oxygen levels to get to premature babies. >> but you learn from studies. >> that is right. we invest heavily in these of studies. many give you more examples. individuals who are going through dialysis, there has never been a clear understanding of what the right schedule is and how may times a week and how many hours. ont is a huge impact somebody's quality of life in

terms of how much time they spend their and also the quality of life is dependent upon how effective dialysis is. we aim to try to get an answer to that. everyone in that study is getting the kind of treatment that we consider to be standard, but we are trying to have a refinement of that. this is very important. we depend upon -- >> it goes to the basis of your research. >> yes. >> that uab received a letter about the support clinical trial they were doing. they determined that uab should

have informed parents of an increased death of their babies are participating in the study. the risk or unknown at the time of the commencement. there is no specific signs that existed at the start. were babies in greater risk than babies not in the study? >> no, i do not believe they were. >> we talked about the sequester. i will move on. institutional awards, we have gotten into this before. it is important to recognize that the next scientific discovery might come from anywhere. you do not know where. doelieve institutions that not historically have high success rates, nih can contribute to biomedical research. we need to give these institutions in opportunity. as we have discussed before, the

eligibility criteria for the idea, some of us believe it is outdated. i have understood that no significant information was said to have been provided to the subcommittee as of yet. dr. collins, could you work us to develop a better eligibility criteria? >> i do agree that there is opportunity. the idea of medicine has been undertaking a study of whether the criteria is in fact need of a revision. that report will be released fairly soon. it will be a good time to have a conversation. >> let's talk about the breakthroughs in the research that has been done in cystic fibrosis. we have talked about as before.

there have been breakthroughs there. would you have had some of them? how are we doing in that area? >> is an area of the enormous excitement. my research lab played a role in collaborating with another lab. in the last couple of years, the exciting fruits of that in terms of drug therapy have emerged with one drug. it was approved in record time by the fda. individuals have had -- only 4% or 5% of cystic fibrosis patients are in that category. researchds upon nih that has been done. withderful collaboration

the cystic fibrosis foundation and the heart and lung institute. it is a great success story and one we hope to replicate for other diseases. >> thank you. >> mr. chairman, i'm these to join you in welcoming our distinguished panel of witnesses today. dr. collins, we appreciate you being here again and coming out into the countryside where we live and work. >> i enjoy it very much. >> we appreciate it. it might interest you to know that recently, there was an announcement in a hospital for children in jackson, mississippi. a doctor told me of the baby born that was hiv-positive. it is attracting attention that to the distinction

mississippi has people like a doctor who wrote many of your textbooks and others who have pioneered and research in different areas. we look to supporting the work that you do. we hope you will be able to provide some seed money or toentive grant funding ensure that we continue to embark upon daring and innovative approaches dealing with health problems in america. thank you. >> thank you for being here. complement want to

you all as a group. you all have efforts and work and advocacy. it has changed the world. we appreciate your efforts very much. there are a lot of things that the government possibly we couldyou all have efforts and wk and advocacy. it has changed the world. we appreciate your efforts very much. there are a lot of things that the government possibly we argue does not need to be doing. what you all represent is something i'm excited about in arkansas. we appreciate the work that you do. one thing i would like to ask about, we have to make some significant decisions. as we have research that is publicly funded, generally we allow that research to be made available. is that correct? >> we strongly support the need for that. the public has paid for the research and the public should have access to it. makeas taken the lead to

sure that kind of access happens in a timely fashion. a recent suggestion by the obama administration that this kind of policy should be applied broadly across agencies. nih are looking at the model is something to replicate. >> again, i appreciate that and agree wholeheartedly. i'm glad that that is a policy. can you envision a reason not to do that in some cases? >> perhaps your talk about circumstances in which the data that these been generated creates a risk to the public if it fell into the wrong hands. i'll ask another doctor to comment on this. it falls into areas that might

be -- misused. >> yes, thank you for that session. it is a delicate balance. it is called dual use research and concern. the public health imperative understands that the processor looking at is quite important. yet you're concerned with two things. of is the deliberate misuse things that have to do with potentially pathogenic microbes that could be used in a bioterror situation. areaslly transcends all of research.

it is a queue when you are dealing with the study and perhaps even the creation of a microbe that might be an issue. having said that, we tend to be as open and as transparent as possible. notre careful about it and careless. not allowing knowledge to be generally spread throughout the scientific community has more serious effects than the risk of having something being used in a way accidentally or deliberately. it goes with the concept that dr. collins mentioned that we have been the leader and continue to stress the open nature of scientific information. >> we can was put safeguards. a lot of research involves people and things like that. we can always put the safeguards in to protect so that we are able to release data without jeopardizing people or whatever. >> so, i think you're getting at the issue of privacy and confidentiality for people who are part of clinical trials.

many have been willing to volunteer and take part in the study and are happy to be part of it, but do not want all medical records to be accessible to everyone on the planet. we deal with that dares to and make every effort to keep information only in the hands of those who have a need to know as part of the research project. >> again, thank you for being here. i really do ratio all of your efforts. i look forward to working with you in the future and your efforts. >> i look for to that as well. thank you. >> we will start a second round. i wanted to follow-up on the brain initiative. when i first heard about this new initiative, some and said, how will this affect the research on alzheimer's? i do not know. a report came out that said the total cost of care for individuals with alzheimer's disease will be more than $1 trillion. ificare costs increasing would keep on this trajectory. tell me about the brain initiative. what will it do in terms of the research we're doing on

alzheimer's? or is this something different? >> the long-term goal of the brain initiative is to be able to develop treatment for patients across a broad range of psychiatric and neurological disorders. i will give you a very specific example. parkinson'sof disease, one of the major advancements has been the development of deep brain stimulation.

likesimulation, kind of brain pacemakers, it can transform the quality of life of those patients. they can move freely. they're much more active. they in some cases appear to not even have parkinson's. this stimulation is very crude. isis an electrode that influencing the circuit behavior. if we understood more about how the circuits work that control the movement and compulsions and speech, we would be able to design much better inventions, electrochemical inventions that would rebuild most circuits in much more effective way.

forulations have been used compulsive disorders and depression. in each case, it would go in a different part of the brain, but it is the same crude stimulation. if we understood the circuits for compulsive disorders and depression, we could come up with much more effective ways to change the circuitry to ameliorate that disease. >> that is good, but we have a crisis with alzheimer's. doingncerned were not enough to focus more research. if you could put off the onset for alzheimer's, that would so much money. >> as noted, the cost of --

>> as noted, the cost of alzheimer's is huge. it is one thing to recognize the problem, now we have the responsibility to address it in the best possible way. the most responsible way to do it is to invest across the spectrum from the most basic discovery on through translation. we have some important and innovative clinical trials happening. last year we are able to identify people at enormously high genetic risk and again for the first time to treat them. we have new opportunities we did not have before we still opportunity and an obligation to better understand the cellular, the molecular underpinning so we can continue to generate new generations of investment.

that is where this brain initiative happens. it is clear that alzheimer's not just a single cell type of disease. it involves the effects of communication between cells. the more we understand, the better we can intervene with specific things better going wrong with the alzheimers disease. theour vote telling me brain initiative does have an impact on alzheimer's research. >> one very surprising finding of the last couple of years has been that there is abnormal electrical activity, almost like seizures in the brains of alzheimer's patients and is not clear the extent to which that abnormal activity influences the course of the disease. if we knew better how to modulate activity and which were the right circuits, which could potentially intervene in those activities in alzheimer's patients and potentially have a very positive effect on the quality of life.

>> the concern we have about not being overly concerned, that we don't fell to take advantage of truly bold, innovative new approaches. this is an example. we are doing the best we can to translate what we think is the best information about costs, have to examine broadly the information that will tell us about new approaches that may be the best or most definitive solutions in the end. >> cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in united states. it is certainly a driver of health care expenditures. i am told it costs the u.s. consumer $312.60 billion a year. the sunday new york times had an

article on nih study using genetic sequencing to find factors that increased the risk of heart disease beyond the usual suspects of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, and diabetes. could you tell us more about that study? >> thank you for that question. this is one of the great success stories in biomedical research. discover signs related to the pathways that determined the bad cholesterol metabolism, it led to nobel prizes for brown goldstein. it lead to a drug, statins. a lot of us in this room who may be over 50 may be using this. tot partnership is critical advancing medicine. there are still patients on status to have a heart attack every few moments in this country. that tells us there is still unfinished business, and solve mysteries. that article related to us continuing to try to figure out

those patient who we don't really understand all the risk factors, all the predictors of who is going to have a heart attack. as you saw in that article, a devastating impact on the whole family that we really could not explain, but that is where we have these unprecedented opportunities. new technologies, we are able to sequence parts of the cino and probe into why is this different and

distinctive in a way that is really devastating. we hope that will identify new pathways and tell us more about the risk of heart attack. that is the promise of the future. those are the investments we need to make now for those breakthroughs tomorrow. >> is there enough research to give us a clue as to what those other factors may be? >> there is a lot of promise. perhaps one example of the harbinger of that relates to one molecule in which a similar of strategy, built into molecular determinants of a group of families that have an abnormal level of ldl cholesterol and the probing using a modern do gnomic technology unveiled this new pathway that told us another

potential target. it is part of the recapitulation of the public- private partnership which discover signs translated into drug development. a new drug has been developed the targets that same sort of pathway. that is now in the midst of clinical trials to see if one type of statins were going after the new targets and can give us more bang for the buck. one of the things we are learning is that although you have that bad cholesterol, we are also preaching not just clogging the arteries but the activation of the body's immune system that turns against the blood vessel. just like your allergies flare- up, the blood vessels are inflamed. we are looking at new targets they not only target the cholesterol level but that inflammatory response that also promotes heart attacks. we are funding a study that is looking at cackling that inflammation part of the story to see if we can make the next great breakthrough.

>> i wish you great success. dr. collins, i have very little time left, but as people know, kansas is a very rural state. i have concerns about clinical trials. i assume for a clinical trial to have validity, it takes a wide range of demographics and characteristics. seems to me there are barriers toward some people based upon geography, age, other demographic and personal characteristics, perhaps fear of government research, lack of awareness of clinical trial availability. what is nih doing or what can i do as a senator in caring for kansans to make sure they are aware of the opportunity to participate in clinical trials that can potentially improve their health and save their lives? >> right question. nih is by law required to be sure we are reaching out to a diverse population and we tracked that carefully. all the individuals who review

clinical trial grant proposals follow those to make sure we have a diversity population involvement in the studies, whether heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or whatever. course we are dependent on public knowledge about the ability to be part of such trials. i appreciate your question very much in that regard. there is a website that is heavily utilized and every clinical trial with support and most of those supported by industry are also listed on that side. you can search it readily for a particular condition in some particular part of the country. what is the nature of the trial, and people can decide if they want to take part. getting out the word about that would be a wonderful thing to do. i appreciate the suggestion of helping with that. >> there are 25 sites across the

country and one is a kansas state university. we hope to incorporate into the clinical trials undertaken by that networks telemedicine, which would enable patients at a distance to be seen by an treatment recommended through the main site. we are very interested in engaging in this. >> i like that answer. thank you very much. >> last year we discussed a new initiative that you started to answer all would call provocative questions in we are very interested in engaging in this. >> i like that answer. thank you very much. >> last year we discussed a new initiative that you started to answer all would call provocative questions in cancer research. when budgets are constrained, the need for out of the box ideas to answer some of the big research questions can lead to the next big breakthrough. you are in the forefront. i think your project is an innovative approach to define some of the unanswered questions. would you share with the committee this afternoon some of the progress you have made on

this initiative and what provocative questions have been awarded grants? >> the program is only a little over your old so we don't have results yet. we have results of advertising for applications. the first year we chose 24 questions, the kinds of questions that were raised very dramatically from questions about why people with profound obesity have increased risk of dying of certain kinds of cancer. there were questions about why drugs that are not all that effective in many circumstances like chemotherapy for certain kinds of cancer or remarkably effective for testicular and other rare forms of cancer. we of us questions about behavior. why do people still smoke when they know how bad smoking is?

we received 750 applications to try to answer those questions. all 24 questions were addressed by at least several of the applications. funding in short. we were able to fund slightly over 50 applications that addressed most but not all of the questions. we then revised the questions with new ones that came from recent workshops and we reconfigured some questions that we thought would be more addressed more effectively if week rephrased them and we received several hundred so far this year. there is obviously a pent-up need. how good the implications are is hard to say. many receive very high marks from the reviewers.

how well they will do is always say crapshoot, frankly. we have got a lot of feedback from our community. they like the idea that we are not dictating the questions, that they are coming from a community effort. morale is poor because of the low success rate. we are trying to say we are partners in trying to develop the kinds of questions we think the community should answer and the kind of risk we should be taking. we see this as one of the ways we try to cope with sequestration, the reduced opportunity to get grants. >> dr. collins, i guess we all talk about autoimmune and the research there. you and nih and various

investigators have come along way with dealing with autoimmune research because it goes to the basis of so many things. where are you today in trying to deal with lupus? we talked about this before. there have been some breakthroughs there. where do you think you might go? >> i'm going to ask card- carrying immunologist to get on this. >> thank you for the question. one of the approaches that we and other institutes have taken with regard to auto immune diseases is making some significant advances in the field of " recalled immune tolerance. it is to train the body's immune system not respond inappropriately against certain antigens. in the case of lupus, those are self antigens and that is my the

call it auto-immunity. several years ago we established an immune tolerance network that was originally established to look at ways we could prevent rejection of transplants. we have expanded that now into the study of a number of other diseases that are clearly characterized by autumn in phenomenon, including type 1 diabetes and certain allergies as well as rare mythological in diseases like systemic lupus. another beautiful example of studying the fundamental, basic research on the immune system that is now being translated into therapies to suppress inappropriate immune responses. >> dr. collins, do you want to talk about any therapies that are coming along? >> i just want to mention one collaboration underway right now which is quite groundbreaking and innovative. that is called the target validation consortium, which is a group that has come together between the industry and nih to try to identify among the well a

potential drug targets that have emerged from basic science studies, which are the ones that are actually going to work? industry wants to put their bet on something that is going to lead to a drug that is safe and effective. we have identified four areas of great opportunity. one is auto-immune diseases. the other is taught to diabetes, alzheimer's, and schizophrenia. we are in the midst of the design phase but 10 companies that have agreed to sign up. if it looks promising the next couple of months, we are likely to see a major new kind of collaborative effort where industry and nih agree this is open access, competitive information. let's find most appropriate target and turn industry lose to find that next generation of drugs. >> thank you very much.

>> if we just stuck with "a" words, that would keep us busy for a lifetime, alzheimer's, arthritis, etc. i want to raise the super bug problem because this is a significant issue and i would like to know where are we heading with our research? what is your recommendation? is it recommendations that should be implemented in more hospitals? this is a really significant issue that we are hearing from both constituents and hospitals.

>> you are very correct, madam chairwoman, that the issue of multiple drug-resistant bacteria, and we were just concentrate on them now as opposed to other types of resistant microbes, or a very important problem in the u.s. and worldwide and a growing problem. up to a million hospitals, a significant proportion is resistant to standard drugs, leading to the unnecessary death of people in hospital. this is a major public health issue. the public health approach relates to some of the recommendations of our own centers of disease control and prevention and the other is the basic research approach that we are taking at nih. the public health approach of things like isolation, identification of people when you transfer from one hospital to another, to let people know that you are transferring somebody with a resistant

microbes. we had a problem at the nih that we luckily solved. we learned that you have to make people aware when you were dimon with a drug-resistant microbes in a patient. washing hands, all kinds of isolation procedures. the core problem we have been intensively addressing over the last couple of years is the lack of a really robust pipeline of new drug that could take the place of the drugs that are now, to which the microbes are resistant. if you look at how things work and how we interact with industry, we do the fundamental basic concept and then go into phase 1 or face to trial. the industry is responsible for making the product generally meet us halfway or so. the risk economically for a company to invest a lot of money

into the development of new antibiotics is such that we have to -- what we call de-risk them, getting better understanding of of mechanisms, how you can target on a microbe new targets for drugs to make it easier for the companies to get involved in providing us with this robust pipeline. that will be a very good approach. we have just recently established a new clinical trial that work or multiple resistant bacteria in hospitals. it is a very serious problem and we are taking it very seriously at the nih. >> that is promising to hear and we have to look at the role of behavior. dr. collins, is this the methodology you are talking

about when you work with industry? because there's so much risk in some of these areas, the private sector is not going to get into it and we do create our own valley of death because we don't go far enough. is this one of those endeavors? >> you are quite right. the situation can be broad and yawning because the far side of it is even further away because of the companies lack of commercial motivation to get engaged. you develop a drug for highly resistant organism and people say you should not use that drug except in very specific circumstances, otherwise you will use it up and it won't be good anymore. >> that we get to another thing. i know you've talked about alzheimer's.

i want to talk about autism. this is another epidemic that has hit our family of fellow americans. almost in every school and almost every extended family, there is a child facing the aspects of the spectrum of autism. can you share with us where we are heading with research on this? is this something we should -- share with us where we are on this. >> one area that is making progress is to understand genetic contributions to autism. we think maybe 15% to 20% of the result of new -- it almost

always seems to be in a pathway that embalms synapses in the brain. that seems to be the common thread about what is wrong and optimism. the connections are not forming in the way they should, but there is much more to say your projects i think that is one of the most promising avenue and there are a number of genetic studies looking at trios where the parents are normal and the child has autism. using advanced genetic techniques, identifying the genes that are responsible. what is particularly interesting is that as the number of genes go, it affects development connections and the development of the synapses. of most interest is the fact that the same genes are being identified in epilepsy it and schizophrenia and number of other pinero developmental disorders.

it will be very important to figure out first of all what those mutations due to development, but also why the mutations are so different. >> also despite the advances of genetics, that is not the whole story. there must be profound influence is based on other environmental events, some of them probably happening during pregnancy. there's a great deal of effort to try to understand that as well. >> thank you for what you do every day. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to ask about two very different examples of the uptick in -- about the ability to work with other agencies. i am on the veterans affairs committee. the panel here is very concerned about veterans suicide. they are working really hard to try to do something under a lot.

one of my concerns is the easiest thing to do if you have a caseload that is bigger than you can handle, there is a tendency to over medicate. i think that is a problem. but aside from that, the ability of your agency to come in and recognize there is a problem. they are spending a lot of money in trying to solve the problem. if there is an effort that we could collaborate, and you all use these unique expertise that you have to help with that problem. the other thing is, i was at the toxicological lab in pine bluff with the fda, and another very differing example is the nanotechnology. what helped me grasp it was the

fact that when you look up, you think of infinite upness. with nanotechnology, you are dealing with infinite smallness, which is amazing. you get very small, and everything changes. it is something that offers tremendous potential. one of these things that truly can change the world by helping us not use as much resources, better lubrication and things like that where things do not wear out. it is the ability for you all to step in and help the fda deal with those kinds of problems and support the work that the toxicological lab or wherever is doing. >> with regard to suicide, i think all of us are deeply concerned with what the rates are of suicide especially with returning servicemen. we have all been working closely with the department of defense in program calar

called -- army stars which has an ruled more than 100,000 recruits trying to determine the warning signs that would give us a better chance to intervene before suicide occurs. this is a close collaboration with the department of defense. >> the next step would be dealing with people that are actually at that point that might be helpful also predicts suicide is more common than homicide in this country. there's a great deal of effort to try to understand ways to identify risk. obviously for people who have not been in the military to look at what are the risk factors for suicide, bipolar illness is a very -- a correlate.

when people with that condition go into a deep depression, that is often where the risk is highest. >> and heavily medicating. in some cases that makes it worse or better. >> i think the experience has been with proper medication, it can be lifesaving. there are challenges in terms of getting it just right. we are still working on new interventions that would be more effective than what is currently available. most of the drugs have been around for quite a long time as and it is time to see if we can find new answers. with regard to the question about toxicology and nanotechnology, the commissioner of the fda and i jointly run a leadership council but tries to identify ways are agencies can work closely together helping fda with identifying new regulatory science opportunities

and identifying areas where more science is needed. nanotechnology is a very interesting example. there's a question about the safety of applications for human health, given that it is not exactly a simple area. we are part of the national now technology initiative and we mentioned earlier the brain initiative is trying to come up with ways that can sample the 86 billion neurons. we need nanotechnology tools to do so. it is very much an appropriate question and we are working on it. >> thank you. >> there was a question about the super bugs.

we were talking about the new avian flu. you have been down that road before. so a new one has popped up, and there have been 131 confirmed cases, 32 deaths. there has been no evidence of sustained human to human transmission, but the problem is that there is a very high death rate, but the birds that are infected have no symptoms. how are you correlating research on this along with the cdc? >> that is a very good example of nice collaboration and coordination between the

different agencies of hhs including fda. there were three deaths reported yesterday and today. we are approaching this exactly the same way as we approach the h5n1 that started in 2003 that is still smoldering, as well as the 2009 h1n1 real pandemic that we had. that is virtually within days of noticing that the virus was isolated, sequence, sent to the cdc who then created c viruses. a seed virus is a virus that we make that we can then distribute to the different pharmaceutical companies that we have contractual relationships with for our regular, seasonal flu. they are already starting to make what we call pilot lot to

determine whether we will be able to test these. the nih, which is our main responsibility, has already developed and designed clinical protocols to test what is the right dose, the doses differ between children, adults, elderly, and pregnant women. i have seen the trial designs and they are ready to go. it will likely be by the end of june or the beginning of july. we will start clinical trials. we may not ever have to use the vaccine, but the important thing is we will get those lots and know how to use it so if it does begin to have sustained human to human transmisibility, with the that i have right now, if it does, then we can scale up and

have a vaccine available. >> we have looked for genes that might predict whether it is sent to the core resistant. they appeared to still be sensitive to those antivirals. >> wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to do this every time a new virus appears? that is quite exciting. the mine i have to have this conversation for 10 or 15 years. >> how close are we to that? >> i can tell you we are clearly closer than we were a year or two ago, and let me explain why. the universal flu vaccine that you could give to someone and it would be inducing protection against a wide range of influenza strains from season to season and even from pandemic to pandemic. what was discovered a few years ago, there is a part of the protein that is the main part of

protein that is shielded from the immune system recognizing it. when you get infected or get a vaccine every year, your body's immune system does not recognize a part of that protein that does not change from a strain to strain. the part that changes looks like a mushroom. it has a head and a stock. it changes from season to season. when you have of pandemic, it changes a lot. on the stalk, there's a sequence of a particular protein that does not change from flu to flu. have shown it in animals, mice, ferrets, and monkeys that when you show them this protein, they

make antibodies against a wide array of influenza. we are getting ready to go into a phase two trial. i cannot give you a year when we will have it but we are a heck of a lot closer than we were the last time he asked that question. >> that is pretty encouraging. i had no idea. just think of the health implications. >> that would be enormous. >> and the savings in illnesses, hospitalizations, loss of work, my goodness. knowing that you are safe against some of these pandemic flus. >> and you could stockpile. we race to make a vaccine to be ready in the fall to give to people so they can have id for the winter.

if you have a universal flu vaccine that essentially covers it all, you can start making it right now for a few years from now. >> keep us informed because that is very encouraging. especially if you have something you know you can do for children, adults, pregnant women, all the different types of people that need this type of vaccine. >> when you come to the nih, i will show you where it is done. >> just a brief question, dr. collins, what i would like to have you do is assure me that there are actions in place that make certain that both well- established investigators are funded and we are not neglecting the incubator type and garments where young investigators drive

and provide great breakthroughs. >> most important resource we have is that talented scientists to do the work, and some of them are in mid-career an incredibly at the top of their game, and others just getting started with vision and drive and the sad news is that all those are taking a hit right now. we do what we can, particularly with early stage investigators, to make sure they have a chance to get started. we have them compete against each other. they don't have to compete in the same school as far as funding decisions with someone who already has an established lab. there is no magic here when success rates have fallen for everybody. we are losing talent all through

the career range of the people we support from the on to the middle of their career. >> i have never seen and not be able to answer questions and i know you have the specifics. are the numbers of new applicants, individuals who have never applied for organizations that have never applied for grants, is that number changing? >> i am concerned that this year the numbers seem to be dropping back a bit. that is troubling. it suggests that people are beginning to lose hope. you can see why, when investigators with a success rate of 15% or 16% spend most of their time writing a grant only to have it rejected, but they have to be writing another one

or their lab is going to close. it is all about trying to find the funding. i am concerned that one of the warning signs the community is beginning to be significantly disheartened. is hard to collect precise data about exactly how many investigators have given up. we are in the process of trying to do that. the anecdotes are suspiciously humorous that i am deeply worried. >> i find this hearing always a pleasure. it is one of the places within the halls of congress that when you leave the hearing you have a better outlook for what the future holds. so i appreciate very much would you and your team provide,

something that americans desperately needs. something called hope. i would just encourage you to let dinah know that there is hope and we all encourage her to pursue that 3 in research and the opportunity to provide hope to americans is worth the battle. we look forward to being allies with her in that effort to see that hope continues. >> senator, that is wonderful and i will pass that word of encouragement to work. >> i want to follow-up on the troubling information we have about so many veterans committing suicide. they come back from iraq or afghanistan and the devastation it does to their families, to society.

my question is this. i don't know if you have it, but are there statistics going back to the end of the second world war in the number of veterans coming back and the number of suicides per thousand? the korean war, the vietnamese war, iraq, and so forth. that would be very troubling but may be informative, too. do you know if they have those statistics? >> i am sure there are such statistics. i don't have them at my fingertips. one would have to look at the statistics with some caution due to the fact that in the past, suicides were not always reported because of the stigma attached to that. wherewill be skewed.

suicides, because they carry for families -- >> but the soldiers have gone through the awful stress always in combat, many things manifest that, but as a society, we need to be dropped how to prevent it, don't we? >> i totally agree with you. the director of the middle help institute would put forward to you a number of things that our mental health institute is trying to do in terms of figuring out how it fits together with things like traumatic brain injury and ptsd. >> i think one of the differences between iraq, afghanistan or in earlier wars are that it provides explosive devices with significant, mile traumatic brain injury.

there is evidence that it is an invisible wound and soldiers often do not recognize this is an issue and do not seek appropriate help. >> 1 added dimension, because so many of our soldiers have had multiple tours, some volunteered and some did not. it puts a lot of stress on them and their families. maybe there are studies in to that, too. the dramatic effects of one, too, three tours. >> we are identify risk factors and this ought to be looked at very carefully.

if there is some indication that the number of tauruses a factor, obviously one would want to intervene and try to provide that kind of support that apparently is not currently sufficient. >> again, i want to thank you all for your dedicated public service. has been my privilege and pleasure to have either shared or been the ranking member of the subcommittee since 1989. i worked with some of you for a long time. every time we have you all up here, and just a reminder to all of us that there are just certain they've we cannot back down from. we have made so many good strides in health research. especially in childhood leukemia, it is remarkable. and with the human genome project, we now have some keys

that we have never had before. the new technologies that we have that we can use now. it just seems that this is a time to redouble our efforts, to increase significantly if the funding for nih. how do you do that? it seems to be an attitude that we want something for nothing. if you want the best, it costs something. in terms of the best scientists, the best brains, the best technologies and equipment. we have always been the best in biomedical research in this country. i am afraid we are falling way behind, so we've got to find sources of funding. back in the early 1990's, senator mark hatfield was the chair of this committee.

i was ranking member at that time, and he was on this subcommittee. we came up with a proposal. i don't know if it was his idea or my idea, but the basis of its with this. when you go out to the pharmacy and you buy a drug today, some of that money goes to research. but when you buy health insurance, none of that goes for health research. this was about the time we worked on the clinton proposed health bill and stuff like that, and came up with the proposal. that was to have every health insurance policy that he would

have a certain amount, percentage of each one that would then go to the nih. it would come to this committee, and it was two or three cents on the dollar. someone pointed out if you do that, that would just supplant what you are doing on the discretionary money. so what we will do is say okay, we will go into like a trust fund at nih, but it can only be accessed as long as the congress appropriates at a minimum what they did last year, plus an inflation factor. we kind of pushed that along for a while. we got some push back from a health insurance industry and others. then that whole thing sort of faded out. now with this new health care

system, obamacare coming along, there is going to be 35 million more people having health insurance policies, some of them subsidized by the government. i just wonder if it is not time to revisit this and to think about some new source of funding. the ultimate payer will always be that individual person out there because their health insurance will go up to represent on the dollar. but they will have the satisfaction of knowing the increase will go to only one thing, and that is n.i.h. research. it cannot go anywhere else. somehow we have got to come up with this funding. anybody else got a better idea,

the door is open. i am willing to look at anything if anybody has got a better idea, let me know about it. >> did you do some work as to how much money that would raise? >> it was quite significant. it was just a couple of cents on the dollar. i talked to some of my health insurance carriers. i suppose they could live with it, but it was not high on their agenda. but again, just something i think -- if anybody else has a better idea, let me know. but with got to get more

funding for nih. but cannot continue to go down this road. i have 19 months left here. i would like to see this turn around. find a new source of dedicated revenue that will be there, that we know will be there year after year after year. that's got to happen. it is nice to give her a pat on the back and say follow your dreams. i back up what gerry said on that. but there's got to be something there to make sure that those dreams can be realized. that funding has to be there. i just think this is something we've got to address. the record will remain open for several days for additional statements are questions for the record. the hearing of the subcommittee is adjourned. thank you all very much. [captioning performed by

national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> on the next "washington journal," the political fallout of the last weeks note -- news and how can affect immigration reform. erywill talk to jennifer bend of the huffington post. and then the seizing of public phone records. our guest is newly in sanchez. -- is julian sanchez. then sexual assault of the women in the armed services. our guest is anu bhagwati. "washington journal" is live every morning at 7:00 a.m. >> as a believer in women's

rights, lucretia garfield expressed frustration with the role of women and wife. she reluctantly played the role of husband -- of house maker for husband. after his death, she returned to ohio and interred his legislative -- legacy by making their home into an early museum. we will look into her life and that of mary arthur mcelroy. join us live monday night at 9:00 eastern on c-span, c-span3, c-span radio and c-span.org. >> next, the national presentation safety board on preventing drunk driving. along the nearly 20 recordation, that states should relate -- reduce these blood-alcohol level for drunk driving, and increase the use of alcohol detection systems. this is about two hours and 20 minutes.

>> good morning. welcome to the boardroom of the national transportation safety board. hersman, chairman of the ntsb. .'m joined by members today, we meet to consider the ,afety report reaching zero actions to eliminate alcohol impaired driving. this is critical. impaired driving remains one of the biggest killers in the united states. 25 years ago today, our nation saw the deadliest alcohol impaired driving crash in u.s. history. a drunk driver drove his pickup the runway on interstate 71 near carrollton, kentucky. he had a school bus, and killed 24 children and three adult

chaperones. injuring 34 more. today, our thoughts are with those families in carrollton, kentucky, we are recognizing this 25th anniversary of that crash. that same year, impaired drivers would kill thousands more. well we aret how doing as a nation to address the national epidemic of alcohol impaired driving. as i will explain, we have made progress since a deadly night in kentucky, but it has been not nearly enough. the982, the first year of --cking system, 21,000 21,113 died as a result of

alcohol-impaired driving. this are presented nearly one half of all highway deaths. today the percentage of deaths due to alcohol-impaired driving is about one third of all highway fatalities. .5ing the percentage from to one third of highway fatalities has taken rate efforts by thousands of dedicated people in many organizations. process started in the 1980's and continued to the 1990's. much credit goes to groups like remove intoxicated drivers and mothers against drunk driving. who put a face on this problem. tragically, it would be the face of a loved one. like 13-year-old kerry leitner, killed in 1980 by a drunk driver. or the face of five-year-old laura lamb, who in 1979 became

the nation's youngest water please check after her mother's vehicle was struck by a drunk driver. progress in tracking this problem has taken leadership from law enforcement and government at all levels. from a host of advocacy groups as well as from industries and motivated citizens. it has been a multipronged approach, encompassing laws and enforcement, penalties and think since, technologies as well as education and outreach. these efforts have led to a change in societal norms. and a lack of cultural acceptance. when kerry leitner was killed, drunk drivers frequently got away with mu. and they still do today.

however, as a society, we are more aware of the risks of drinking and driving. today, the term designated driver is in our vernacular. yet, on average, today every , andone person is killed every hour 20 more are injured. three of those injured will life-altering debilitating injuries. it is so frustrating that with education and advocacy, with laws and enforcement, and with the many processes that have been set up to deal with the problem of drinking and driving, that we are still seeing so many lives lost. since 1995, the percentage of alcohol-related fatalities have been stuck at approximately one

third of all highway deaths. in 2011, nearly 10,000 people died. ,nother 170,000 were injured and of those, 27,000 had debilitating injuries. that is the human cost. that it isall agree much too high. what about the economic cost? one recent study put the cost at $130 billion a year. .130 billion that is the combined state budgets of maryland, massachusetts, and michigan combined. .ndeed those costs are too high

every year, with 10,000 deaths, there are at least 10,000 reasons to tackle this issue. we know that there is so much more that can be done. sharpenedy the ntsb its focus on impaired driving over the last year. two-day for held a him on impaired driving with participants from across the research, medical, law enforcement, and highway safety communities. they addressed the status and effectiveness of existing and potential an event -- interventions. we followed before him -- the forum by following the safety regulations, calling for better protocol and data collection. then, last december, we completed a special investigation report on wrong way drivers. we found that alcohol impaired driving is the leading cause of

runway crashes. -- wrong way crashes. we called for the use of alcohol ignition interlock for all dui offenders. for the expeditious development of in vehicle outlook detection systems. that brings us to today, and our safety report on reaching zero. highwayr team of ntsb safety, human factors, dated, and technology experts have been working on over the past year. if the numbers have been resistant to change for over a generation, we must ask ourselves -- what more can be done? willke a bold difference require bold action. but it can be done. it has been done before.

initial andook bold steps in the 1980's and 1990's when impaired driving fatalities were brought down, and thousands of lives were saved each year. , ass being done elsewhere we will hear about this morning. other nations are taking firm steps in saving lives. look at the progress in the european union, which in 2000 set a goal to cut alcohol related roadway fatalities by half in 2010. they achieve that goal. roada 53% decrease in deaths attributed to drinking and driving. and the eu renewed that challenge to cut the number of fatalities in half again by 2020. prides itselftes

on being a leader in a trance rotation safety. -- in transportation safety. but when it comes to alcohol- impaired driving, our nation is woefully behind many of our international counterparts. tomorrow is peace officers memorial day, which recognizes the heroes who gave their lives to provide us with safer communities to live in. peace officers are the ones on the front lines. they are the ones who respond, and they see the terrible toll of these crashes. they are the ones who knock on doors and provide family members with the worst news they will ever receive. that is why it is a specially traffic -- it is especially

tragic with a knock on their own door, like what with happened the massachusetts state place up there. in june 3 years ago, sergeant douglas weddle 10 was working on 95 construction detail in massachusetts. when he stopped the car a ticket to drive on a close exit exit ramp. the driver was intoxicated. ton waseant weddle talking to him, a pickup truck slammed into the stopped car, pushing it and sergeant weddle ton across three lanes of the highway. ton wast weddle pronounced dead at the hospital. the pickup driver's blood alcohol concentration -- .07. .8 legal limit.

our goal is to get to zero deaths because each alcohol impaired crash is preventable. no one should ever have to experience that knock on the door and receive the notification that far too many families have received. all-impaired crashes are not accidents. alcohol-impaired crashes are not accidents -- they are crimes. they can and should be prevented. the tools exist. what is needed is the will. dr. mayer, will you please introduce our team? >> yes, ma'am, good morning. to my right is don carroll, director of our highway safety. seated to his right is rob molloy and a third jenna price, project manager for the safety report, mark will be speaking to us about high visibility enforcement, and danielle at the end of the table will be

covering administrated licenses. seated behind her is julie perraulot. next her is dr. ivan cheung. to his left is jim ritter, deputy director of research and engineering. right behind me, the director of office of medications. at the third table today is reagan and kenny bragg. ron molloy has the opening presentation. , chairman, vice chairman, and members of the board. i'm going to begin by providing some data about the scope of the problem of impaired driving. summarize our efforts over the past year, and described the methodology provided. 9878 out alle were impaired driving fatalities.

defined as a fatality that involves a driver with a blood- alcohol cause attrition above .08 or higher. this represents 31% of all highway fatalities. in addition, there are more than 170,000 persons injured. 20 7000 of whom suffered debilitating injuries from alcohol impaired crashes. with respect to the economic costs,, a 2006 analysis found that alcohol involved crashes in the united states cost $66.4 billion in monetary costs, and an additional $63.3 billion in quality of life losses. as he can see from the bars in this graph, impaired driving fatalities have decreased since 1982. although there has been substantial declines over this period, progress has been relatively slow until the mid- 1990's. as you can see in this graph,

since 1995, the overall proportion of impaired driving fatalities has remained between 30% and 32%. although there have been many successful efforts to reduce impaired driving crashes, fidelity, and injuries during this time, progress has slowed. there is a need to consider what additional efforts need to be made. in spite of the increased awareness of the risks of driving after drinking, many continue to drive impaired. based on survey data from the cdc, 4 million people per year drive while alcohol impaired, county for approximately 112 million out all impaired driving episodes. also, tests of randomly stopped nighttime drivers sampled at 300 locations across the united states found that over 12% of drivers had some alcohol in their system. nearly one in 20 had a bac of .25 or higher. because alcohol-impaired driving continues the one the

largest reservation safety reservation safety issues, the board has undertaken several efforts this past year to address the problem. today marks the commendation of a year's worth of efforts focused on addressing the impaired driving problem. -- in may,2 and 12, 2012, we'll survey form. forum.osted a staff presented a wrong way driver, and because more than 60% of runway driving crashes are caused by our all impaired drivers, that report also contained ruminations. the safety report being presented today contains new regulations and also reiterates the recommendations made throughout the past year. to develop the report, we reviewed published material

provided by the subject matter experts who participated in our 2012 for him we also conducted an independent search on impaired driving countermeasures. staff team reviewed countermeasures to determine which would have the broad impact that would most likely reduce alcohol impaired fatalities and crashes. i would like to knowledge the staff from both will offices, including that of highway safety, communications, research and engineering, managing director and general town so, who have assisted in the review and contributed to the report we are presenting today. the issue the staff will discuss today will include our all in pair met, high visibility -- alcohol impairment, high visibility, and administration factions, repeat offender countermeasures, setting goals and tracking progress. at this time, dr. jenna price

will make the first presentation on how call impairment. >> the morning. in this presentation, i will discuss how alcohol affects driving performance and crash risk, and how laws that establish limits on blood- alcohol levels on driving effective driving behavior. alcohol is a drug that affects many assets of behavior, mood, and performance. it's effects are dependent, which means it's impact becomes more severe as more alcohol is consumed. bac represents a standard way to measure alcohol and person's system. it can be determined by analyzing a blood sample directly, or by estimating with other substances, such as urine or xl breath. -- numerous studies have examined the effect of alcohol consumption on driving factors

like lean deviations, divided attention, vigilance, and reaction time. the study showed alcohol can affect driving performance even at levels as low as a bac of .01. the yellow line depicts the current bac. driverse numerous ways are impaired by the time they reach this level. other studies that have looked at the crash risks associated with alcohol use have shown at risk is significantly elevated. this chart shows results from the study which nearly 5000 drivers and 10,000 control drivers. the researchers determined at .05