taxpayer money on elections. he has to spend more issues running than we did. payas going to tax you to for corrupt politicians like him. 2013re able to go into the fight to save voters do care about this. we were able to win a race on this issue. get to of the lessons of where we go from here and we have not quite one yet, we have to go back to the elections as a way to look at accountability. we started off even though we had a big electoral strategy. we figure that we had to have a very aggressive campaign that would use every tactic in the book. we made sure that each partner group did what they are going to do. shows the groups

connection between money and legislation. media groups did twitter and rallies. we had the canvassers create a tumblr. they took a picture of each person at the door. each senator had the personalized -- people knew where the voters were. night they sent an e-mail with all the pictures. they're getting pictures of people in their district. those picturesng and lots of different ways throughout the campaign. we had the day when we did a ben and jerry's ice cream giveaway at the capitol.

we had groups that could go a little further. including hundreds of banner drops from bridges and highway overpasses. everyone was driving throughout new york. one day they did a money drop. the role of money on voting on the senate floor. they did a bunch of creative actions. performing at the governor's fund raiser. we had a multi coalition rally.

21 of us got arrested and that heightened the tension. not only -- so was the stop and frisk bill. all the issues that were being blocked. we had 33 democrats and 30 republicans. the democratic conference had 27 people in it. six of the democrats decided to work with republicans. that has been an incredibly frustrating process for us. we had a procedural votes to bring this to the democrats. to try to force a floor vote. had we had even 32 of 33 democrats would have won.

we were hoping for 32. two of the democrats chose not to vote with us. is after spending the session not letting the bill come to the floor. we need to hold them accountable and even our champions the to be more energized and committed to getting this done. up.nt to bring this primaryemocratic especially. they're part of the e-mail lists that one of you controls. that deal work almost cannot fail to win primaries if we work aggressively in a focused way. and forcing them to take seriously.

thank you so much. that is important. we have the most leverage with conservative democrats and they may be our biggest problem. we want to take some questions and i'm looking for the microphone. raise your hand and she will give you the mike. and it will be taught to us. see someone up here. amazing people to give you time to talk. don fromfrom ohio -- ohio.

i was that brooklyn in the 1960's. i was born in california and went to berkeley, two years in the 1960's. i did not do anything for 40 years. and then i got involved with the kerrey campaign in 2004 and the democratic party was anemic. the question i asked was what education in for democracy and i ask the people on this panel because i think we need an understanding, and education across the citizenship to bring about the necessary changes. >> thank you. who wants to take that? year we started

a conversation in earnest was generations of voters in this country who did not understand what voting rights were when we got down to it. they do not understand how they could be eviscerated. people who were inclined like and minnesota. the polling was that 80 percent when we started. and for the -- others for community change. figured out that we just talked to folks. and then we won. we defeated it at the ballot box. is tost important thing make this visible and to talk about what is going on and to engage people. we know that your idea is of today but what about your kid?

is that his home address where you are or the one where he is in school. he will not able to vote if this comes through. thathe other thing membership organizations do is we educate our members regularly. that comeinstitutions from a different time. for example. -- they actually leaded people and how to and make a difference in a democracy just as a habit of being. that -- that is just what we do. afraid of, what we found when we're going door- is that there was a real

impact in the last 20 years about the defunding of civic education in this country. we need to understand that the future of our progressive movement in many ways would be greatly enhanced. if we got back to teaching kids about how government works. >> another question. we will try again. >> given a try. >> [inaudible]

fight.lso have a huge we have no commissioners. this is the agency that is overseeing campaign finance problems. two people nominated today. that is another sort of point that we should be remembering. another thing is i wanted to mention in addition to the important changing the rules of the filibuster internally. we were challenging through the courts to say that the filibuster is unconstitutional. i wondered if anyone wanted to talk about alternative ways to address the filibuster. is active inse that.

anybody out here expert on that? >> we support it that lawsuit. the thing is you have a senate majority that can do this. the constitution makes it clear that the senate adopted son rules. someo that lawsuit has roadblocks and it already has were still supporting it. i think the easiest way to do this is senate resolution five would have gone a long way. now have an opportunity on the waynations they as small including the federal election commission. way to and fastest get that done. use nominations as a

springboard and go on from there. that would be another way to litigate it through the judicial system. >> one more quick question. >> we talked about our reach and people watch it, they believe it. have the reach. how can we reach people that we're not already preaching to the converted. think a lot of americans really care about fairness but it seems like we cannot get the message out.

there are all these people, the watch fox news and they think we're able. -- evil. is when youtube reach them where they live. teach him things i organizers is there will be a lot of people who agree with you on everything and even more people who agree with you on most things. almost everyone agrees on one thing. i sat down with the governor and figure out that we both believe in second chances and redemption. so we could do some work on restoring rights. that is what i was looking for. i would say that we need to engage that population.

bills were supported by the identified politicians and the tea party identified politicians. we both agree that the prison system is too big. for example drug rehab is more effective. 50 bills.there were texas is projecting -- [inaudible] our folks through vehicle called the texas girl justice coalition when looking for that one thing. they found that one thing with a group that we disagree on everything was. i offer that up. if return to build back some

bipartisan consensus. where brent to have to do the ind work of reaching out we haveof voter i.d. trouble in the off years and the

non-election years. there's also a social media. social media and twitter is part of why the team is out of a job for a racist comments. defending planned parenthood. when susan g. comment came after them. planned parenthood really thrived. our people are nimble and they are smart about this stuff. fox is a pox. it's bad. ben is right. people to people and organizing old-fashioned talking in our churches and schools is crucially important so thank you. you are a great audience. give everybody a hand. thanks to everyone who could not

be here. >> we will be back in that corner to say hello to each other. >> former cia director james woolsey. and a discussion on the future of the republican party. the executive director of moveon.org talks about the group's goals and agenda. congress is back from its july 4 recess. and working out a final

immigration bill. tescussing the sena republicans' agenda. journal" it's morning on c-span at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> talking about u.s. dependence on foreign oil and the effect it has a national security and foreign policy. spoke to the group young professionals and foreign policy. >> thank you. i was quite honored to be asked to be with you this evening. to tell you the truth since i

spent 22 years as a washington lawyer, i am honored to be invited into any polite company for any purpose at all. i'm going to introduce this evening vitelline nella short- story about the man who -- whose name this building carries. an absolutely remarkable individual, served in virtually every administration from the last results administration well into the time of past nixon. he was someone that everybody wanted to have him work for them. paul had been deputy secretary of defense and the johnson administration. in general 1969 he was about to

leave office of the 20th when everybody else would leave. republicans would come in. his daughter got engaged to a friend of mine from college so he had a big engagement party. one of the big clubs in washington. several hundred people, a sit- down dinner. there were a few of us who were going to be there as groomsmen or bridesmaids. it was the washington establishment. i had been the founder and president of yale citizens for eugene mccarthy for president. of -- irt of the head had strong views, not strong in the sense i was going to turn in

my commission and not serve any armed forces. i was assigned to saigon. half, hisrty comes up daughter and her fiance. the what --hrough to the front door, each of us holding a flood of champagne, the tenant will say gets into a loud and angry argument with the the deputy secretary of defense. i had my champagne flute and i was retreating as i was poking at me with his. ring the bell for dinner.

my wife and i are driving home. we got in a little discussion about the war before dinner. she said yes, everybody noticed. what do think you're doing? i said he is only going to be around another week or so and he will be gone. will ber administration coming in. that is what happened. by march his back because the wanted him to head up something they thought might be interesting and important. it decided to have arms control negotiations with the soviets and to let him have the defense. my boss called me and asked me to come out and see. he said he is back. what you'll do is go over to helsinki and negotiate with the soviets about our strategic weapons.

he needs an assistant. he needs somebody to draft the speeches, did -- to do the research. the mib attorney involved. i said, i cannot think of anything i would rather do them to go over to helsinki and negotiate with the soviets. i have only met him once and it did not go over well. he smiled and said that must be what he meant. i said, what you mean? >> i floated your name and he paused and he grinned and he said yes. that is fine. he may not know what the hell he is talking about but at least he will speak up. said is i was a brash kid but says he was a remarkable man in many ways. is way he was a probable

inre are few better things the world than having staff people are people who report to you or work with you who will level with you even if they -- it makes you mad. you have to have people who will talk back to you and level with you. i did not have any theory, i was just a brash kid but it worked. it worked because paul was like he was. they operate differently and people get the issue of energy confused by trying to lump them together more than they deserve. i am speaking out the electricity and transportation

fuel almost entirely by oil. their other systems, a few electric trolleys and crews and horseback races. a few things that do not use oil for transportation. almost none. electricity, one of the stupidest things that you can hear from the press or politician is that we have a problem with foreign oil so let's build fln the light. a nuclear power plant, what ever. when we had the yom kippur war, our electricity came from burning oil. fact and could well replacing oil with something else.

under half of 1% comes from burning oil. but today if you say that you're trying to use of the about improving the way we produce electricity because of the oil problem, you are dealing with 1.5% and 0.75een of 1 percent of the issue. -- 1% of the issue. inwife and i have to plug hybrids, love the idea of using the solar panels on the roof and the batteries it in the basement. all wonderful. it is not going to come raufaste because of how long automobiles stay in our fleet in the united states.

should not get the idea that by moving toward changing the way you produce electricity or doing something substantial with respect to oil. these are separate sets of problems. what is the main problem? -- the main problem with oil? you have first to recognize what is good at. .t is easily transported

s some problems. political, military, economic, health. we will talk about each one. create an issue that many people think can be solved by changing the location the oil comes from. baby, drills droll, or conserve, baby, conserve from the liberal side. more is the idea that if oil proportionately comes from us or countries where friendly with like canada rather than iran. the things will be better. the location the oil comes from is a big deal. there really is not. the only way it is a big deal is it affects the balance of payments and that is good. will do better with a balance of

payments and borrow $1 billion a day to import oil. in an ecologically sound fashion. maybe we do not have to borrow when you million a day keep going with oil. solve the fundamental issues by changing the location, buying more from canada and less from saudi arabia, that is not going to do anything. it is one big pot of oil. someone else will buy more from saudi arabia and less from canada. mainocation is not the point. the main point is the price. today, at about $100 a barrel. whichin a situation in the oil moves another 40 or so

barrel it gets back there that approximately half the wealth in the world will be in opec. the 12 nations of the organization, petroleum exporting countries. eight of them in the middle weast -- the middle east. oil is calculated by proven reserves which are reserves that could be exploited in today's price. if the price of oil goes up not only is the oil that a country house in the ground at that point that is exploited before the price went up or can be exploited, affordably, not only does that oil increase in value, if the price goes out you can exploit more oil. they're more field to can

exploit in the price goes up ee. the characteristic of concentrating wealth very substantially. it is not only amount -- a monopoly, it is a monopoly with a cartel nested inside it. opec could control 70 percent of the world's proven reserves of oil. about 30 million and thea day in the 30 million barrels a day. it has 78 percent of the world's

proven reserves of oil. it sells her on the market about a quarter of the market demand for oil every year. if you have over three-quarters of some commodity in the world and you are selling the same amount, not producing more, selling the same amount, and you are doing it in such a way that of are contributing to 25% satisfying the need for it, there is no word for you other than cartel. you are a conspiracy in restraint of trade exactly as john d. rockefeller was. with his standard oil trust. areeconomics of oil extremely problematic for those of us who live in states like this one that have to percent of

the world's oil. problem. political i would commend to you both larry diamond's book on democracy at stanford. haperin's book -- halperin's book. there are 22 countries, at least there were when diamond wrote, that depend on oil. for 60% or more international income. or 22 are dictatorships autocratic kingdoms. chief oil exporting countries in the world, nine of them, only nice norway is out of place.

you have -- what is going on here? why would this be? is probably the main author although there are many people who are on this approach now. idea being that if you have control of a large amount of a commodity that has a huge amount of economic rent attached to it. happens to that rand is the ruler uses it to consolidate his power and the ruling elite is more in control. it does not mean if you are canada or norway and you discover a lot of oil you become

a dictatorship. if you're a dictatorship, things get more indebted. king abdullah was in the hospital in new york and checked himself out right away and flew back to saudi arabia and increased the budget by i think in the ballpark of $130 billion. where did the money go? the money went as collier's -- thewould suggest

money goes to them. got did not right but they richer. collier's point i think is pretty well taken. that is another reason there are political problems associated with oil. the wonderful book on democracy, he is a man of the moderate left his whole career. he writes very persuasively respectat happens with to developments such as famine, a guerrilla war, civil war, and on.

a state thate into is highly autocratic. those developments are far more common and more tests the numbers in his book and autocratic states than they are in non-autocratic state. that little problem with oil. are there any others? i think so. for just a second about health. when we got the lead out of oil transportation gasoline in the 1970's, we thought we had done something important because lead is carcinogenic. there was a battle in the 1920's between general motors and ford about whether you're going to drive with gasoline with lead added or at that time ethanol.

, generalorted ethanol motors and supported leaded gasoline. general motors at the time of being murderers because of all the workers who were going to die and the factories that produced lead and what if you did. oil is thatout gasoline does not nara have a high octane rating. as the engines got better, you have to do something artificial to build of the octane. what do we do? in the absence of using alcohol fuel either methanol or ethanol, which have very high octane ratings, we use the aromatics. tolulene.italia

highly toxic. to stay with gasoline and get the octane one needs in today's cars, we have filled a substantial share of our tanks with a carcinogen. i think that that might be enough to suggest that there are some reasons to think about moving off oil and let me mention one more. for president of indonesia slightly. i had dinner with him to three times a we got stuck in an airport departure lounge -- and we got stuck in an airport

departure lounge in taipei for couple of hours one time and talked for some time. an amazing man. he was not only committed to religious liberty as the president of the largest muslim nation world, he was as hard a worker for religious liberty as it is possible to be. after he stepped down as president, one thing he did was he recruited indonesia's's leading young rock star to work with him and they formed an organization called lib for all. socceruld go around to stadiums which he would read for night and put on free rock concerts for all the local young people. sing theock star would songs that everybody knew and he would sing water to were three

new ones about religious liberty and then he would teach the young people one of his songs about religious liberty. out for five come minutes, the former president of the country would tell everybody how important religious liberty was. it is hard to be much more -- religious would liberty. when i say what i am about to say, about teaching materials, i am not talking about indonesian islamic teaching materials. but a few years ago i was chairman of the board of freedom house and we had a fine institution, the center for religious freedom the there. the middle of the first decade of the century, we had a

group of american muslims come to us with some religious teaching materials. and they said have these translated if you want. we brought them to you. mosquesre put in our and surround. saudisspread around by when they come to town. we do not like them nearly as well as the ones that we created but you ought to look these over. did at the center for religious freedom put out a couple of books about them that i read the foreword to. one part i remember is based largely textbooks and instruction books. one was for 10th graders, i remember the chapter for 10th graders rather vividly. it had a section and it on how to kill a homosexual.

it either through him from a high place or you may still him to death or you may burn him alive today. those are the three ways. let's ask the question say someday you're driving around and realize you have to stop by and fill up and you are thinking about these issues. how this all gets paid for. fordo they pay disseminating its books all over the world? that teach people how to kill a homosexual? and as you are driving into the filling station and just before you get out to fill your card and get your credit card out, as you're asking yourself that question, who pays for that? turn the rearview mirror a

couple of inches so you are looking into your own eyes. now you know. no more question. now you know who pays for it. you're doing it right there at the pump. so anything we can do about this? i think there is. realizeink we need to that the only really effective way to break a cartel is to be able to have something that people need that they can buy for the thing that is the subject of the cartel. thebest example of this is book on oil and salt. you may have seen their book. turning oil and to sell. salt was monopolized for

thousands of years. it was the only way to preserve meat. it was the only way to preserve most food until the mid-19th century. until canning was invented. it was hugely important. roman soldiers were paid and salt. if your country had a salt mine entered members did not, it was a huge matter of national strategy, prominence, and wealth. people began to realize that these things called freezers and refrigerators could be produced and it turned out not only did meet that have been frozen and thawed taste better than meat

soaked in salt brine, it was a lot cheaper because salt was expensive because it was run by a cartel. people started buying refrigerators and after a while salt lost its monopoly. we still use salt. we use it on the sidewalks and furry. it goes nicely on corn on the cob. abody anymore walks into strategic situation and says a thing we have got to do is controlled assault. -- controlled the assault. the salt. boring. the purpose of what we are talking about is not to get rid of it completely but to make it boring.

how might we do that? rightsans have had some recently and not everything is perfect but there is one thing they finally got right which was how to have competition and fuel. turn into a filling station. you choose and if there has been a war in the middle east recently and gasoline is expensive, you by fassel. if it has been a bad harvest for whoa nobody orders it, they buy with it one. it is not a perfect system but it works better than anything else that i have seen. china is moving rather with pilot programs

in mixedcompetition 30%, 40%, 20%, to methanol and 10 am. .s distinct from ethanol the chinese are making ethanol of coal. i hope they can switch to something else because coal is kind of dirty for everybody. there are very of enthusiastic and they did this in spite of opposition by the party in the central chinese oil companies. what they're doing is moving toward a mixed fuel and doing a lot of it with methanol. where does this work? in the first place, in order to take a car that is just what comes off the production line and before it goes to the showroom, the very last stage of

production to make it possible these on 85% methanol, price per car is about $90. half a seatbelt. so if automobile manufacturers wanted to end going to, make that very minor adjustment in some of the fuel lines and so forth to a possible for the car to run on gasoline or methanol. if the wire to do that, i could. and then what happened? once the pump as install do have to have new pumps and tanks, at least one new pump and one new tank. as that change occurred, people could do what brazilians do. pauli i think in the u.s. we do more with methanol rather than national. because after all is close to or

right at gasoline's prices. is farhanol, natural gas times cheaper with -- from all oil. methanol can be made very easily and very readily from natural gas. we have an opportunity to our automobile manufacturers simply to give possible for people to drive on any of those three fuels. order them, no. state that has to be a certain percentage verses -- purchase? just let people choose. the same way they choose what they drink for breakfast some like black coffee, some like tea. some people switch. the people decide. have aan do that, we very reasonable chance of creating a situation whereby

according to address numbers i have seen looks like the price of oil would head down toward a barrel of 15 -- $15 to $16 a girl. if that happens there of a some andppy folks in the kremlin in riyadh and elsewhere. world should just. rather thanport oil principally exports are going to be somewhat happier. love -- mainly i think it is people not having to take that a barrel in dollar bills out of their pockets to pay for killing of their tank. let me say a few words about the

second area. the electricity. aspect offocus on one what. because the combination of higher for assuring and the improvements are continually being made is seller, and i hope the continuance of the eea if -- improvements in batteries. we're headed toward with respect to electricity more use of natural gas. to truly to replace coal. nobles andome for rubles get much more useful if you can store the of electricity from them and our friends are starting to come. think that there is no with the inner rental is nor -- i hope there

other problems. it is just of the big problem as far as i'm concerned is as follows. tesla one out over edison and. wiig transformers. and that works reasonably well if nothing interferes with the lecture grid. but those transformers and the recall -- a couple of thousand of them are the heart of our electrical system and our electrical system and i do not .hink this is an exaggeration a member -- a major share of the

heart of our civilization. react critical structures yahoo all those folks who had generators in their house and an empty gasoline cannon figured there would walk up to that gasoline station and put it in their generator and it would have flights, they got up to that station and they found out, most of them, they found out it operated on electricity so the pumps due to work unless they have stored fuel for a few days for generator. thatricity is something requires a well functioning and smoothly operating a lecture

bridge. when it works, it is a miraculous thing. you can plug in any place in charge your cellphone. let's look at some of the things that can wrong. we did a pretty dumb thing around early 1990's are into the mid-1990s -- was this. credell this new thing called the wellbore. it was cool. still this. it is amazing what you can do. but the spirit of the web is kind of one of sharing. what can go wrong if you share? even before the current flap about nsa, we had a 19 year-old

private first class wanted a fun ride. you unable to get just by walking up to a question of computer that operates alessi able to take hundreds of thousands of tables are american diplomats and these are mainly state department's documents. people had told the diplomat something that he reported and he did not say anything about it in the country. things happened. it was not just a matter of our brain knows everything to the school there are sometimes costs to that and there is certainly decided to doe since were working at the same time on yankee's and were making

a lot of changes in computers people said, let's put the control systems for the grid in the electric grid on the web. if you are in to baltimore and i am in washington and i see an outage coming, i did not have to pick up the phone and call you and say we're born to need so and so many. that is the way you used to do it. that is not cool anymore. we do it all with the web. that is all well and good. except that the web is really focused on sharing. so if you have what people increasingly call a smart web, or smart grid and you think it is neat to be able to turn down the air-conditioning on yourself when you're downtown, maybe there is a teenager in shanghai during the same thing.

grideb has made the extremely vulnerable to hacking and to destruction from the cyber-effects. that is not all. so therery century or is an electromagnetic pulse that is called an ejection from the sun. that is much larger than the ofmal solar flares, millions times larger. it has been over a hundred years since we last had one of these but i think most people who are -- studying these issues are definitely in agreement that our electric grid could be severely damaged and to the point of destruction by a single seller event of that type and we have not decided since we have not had one of these since the

1880's. we have not designed the grid in such a way as to withstand something like that. to make it even all it'll more unpleasant, sorry, there is another way to create an electromagnetic pulse of that sort and that would be with a nuclear detonation but it does not need to be a destination carried by a weapon that has any accuracy of all or shooting at a target. inneed only explode when lower earth orbit. north korea has had three nuclear tests. iran has launched three satellites and some day before too long my hunch will be we will have a nuclear test. if you have a satellite and if you have a nuclear detonation,

even a very simple one, having an electromagnetic pulse generated at 300 miles, wherever, can produce total distraction of a substantial share of electricity grid. almost every choice we have made about hooking up electricity and technology has produced a dilemma. seems monday and -- mundance to point out as damage to the electric grid can come from something as simple as a rifle. after we finished the session, i will pass out some clippings

television in san jose, california, from back in april and some later. the bottom line is this. going to say here today will have one or two things in it that have come from my discussions with people in the u.s. executive branch him and not of it is classified, at the rest of it, host everything i will say will be supported by these clippings. ofetime in the wee hours april 16, a day after the , somethingn boston individualsand four showed up near san jose at

electricity station that included a number of transformers. one report said it was 20 transformers and another said it was seven. gunshots were heard a short distance away. the people who had heard the gunshots were having a hard time getting a report in and the that because some other individuals may well of been -- some other individuals have listed a 250 pound manhole cover and had gone down 12 feet in a chamber where all of the for the 911 emergency

calls. some cellular emergency calls got through, the land lines were the ones that were cut. initial dispatch of several deputies to look into as they came closer, can gete signaled, one this from some of the surveillance videos, as they came closer, the people who were warned by ae flashing flashlight and they left, leaving behind empty shell casings. been firing systematically at the transformers, one report says they were shooting at the fans on the transformers, which

assisted in the cooling. the signaling system and the ,est, this does not look to me this does not look to me as if it was several inebriated theirers having pilch fathers hunting rifle for an

escapade of some sort. it looks far more planned than that. suggests, even as ahing as available againstused transformers could well be very dangerous. san jose and the area around it have put on, added patrols and guards. occur inlections different parts of the country in different numbers. back to what happens if the electricity goes. if it is spotty, san jose goes down, palo alto is up.

i hope very much that people look objectively at this that other than stout side that they make clearheaded decisions about what needs to be done. people do not need to panic, but we may found -- we may find up people do not need to panic. this is something, if these

facts or correct, this is not something that is theoretical. this is not something that is possibly scientifically impossible. we know a decent hunting rifle can at least take out the fan and some of them can take out the transformer itself. we need to respond to this as the sheriff of san jose. to some in response public spokesman calling it vandalism, she said, this is sabotaged. they are trying to take the whole system down. valley,em is silicon for the set of transformers. we have some work to do.

we are not going to be able to do it by burying our heads in or brushing it off or saying nobody would try something like that, that is crazy. it is crazy from the point of view of normal people. ideologicalof an system or a terrorist group, who believes their mission and their role in life is to do things ,ike take down electric grids you must be dealt with in such a way as to ensure you do not succeed. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you very much, ambassador. transition into our question-and-answer period. a couple of ground rules before we get into that, when i call on have two staff with hand-held microphones, please wait for the microphone to get to you before asking your question. when you asked your question, please keep it succinct and concise. sure to state your name and affiliation before you asked. watchingthose who are on the webcast, we are live tweeting this on our twitter account and we are taking questions via twitter as well. interject with some questions from the web as we continue.

with that, we will kick this off. down in front. >> i am a student in washington. you talked about the theory briefly, i am wondering if the cartel busting alternatives that you propose are implemented and are successful, what effects would that have? would it lead to greater instability? quality lead to a lower of life for the citizens? >> my hunch is that for most of the opec countries, it would , at the very least, a substantial depression and

economic problems. violence ofly, different types. way ason this in a deciding whether or not to lance the boil on your foot. if it keeps getting worse, and you do not do anything, at some point, you will have to deal with it and it will hurt even more. if you go ahead and deal with it, you can start getting things better sooner. the eight arab opec,ies that are part of plus the two sub-saharan african countries, plus the two south they are all,

dictatorships, autocratic kingdoms, and will go through some real tangles and , veryulties and real substantial, serious problems. if we do not do something about us one by one, the rest of are going to go through some pretty awful times. once half the wealth of the world is in the hands of 12 oil exporters, what they can do to and with us will be very unpleasant. hi. i am a hopkins student and a federal employee. you spoke to flee to security vulnerabilities and the

electrical -- you spoke briefly on security vulnerabilities and the electrical grid. oil rigs and pipelines. >> refineries are a special problem because if you turn them and one of the things you can do with the ciber is turn things on and off, if you turn every fiber he -- refinery off and block it for a week or two .r three, the catalyst goes you have to get a new catalyst and you have to get one made. i do not know about the pipelines. the refineries themselves have very substantial phone or abilities to ciber -- have very substantial vulnerabilities to cyber.

they are probably what most cyber attackers would go after first, i would imagine. >> i teach at the american university of iraq. for the oil the united states is is ining to be importing, china replacing the u.s. as a buyer? the second question, do you think there is any value in the reform bills, the dodd-frank bill that requires oil companies that have presence in the united states to declare their purchases from oil companies? introducing transparency in the oil market.

i think it is probably ok, but i do not think the transparency does much. the problem is not that people need to understand where the oil comes from better. i think what we will find is that if we succeed in getting another fuel to compete and 50, 60, get oil down to $70 a barrel, what is going to happen is about the same amount of oil will be pumped, but opec will get less for it. it is really mainly about a transfer of funds. the oil exporters, and we have ranks, those

who sell oil will get less for their oil because it has a competitor. i think that is healthy for the world as a whole. i forget the exact numbers, but i think something like 30% or so of american households are single mothers. .5, 30% try to think of a single mother with a couple of kids trying to get them to school, get them to soccer practice, go buy work,ies, get to and from however much driving she has to do, she cannot cut down on it. every mile she drives is something that she has to do. to be $10 to $12 better off after filling her

gasoline tank then she was when , thats $100 a barrel changes a lot. i think something like that can be happening all over the world. we have unemployment problems today, we have a lot of people working part-time that want to be working full time. we could stand people being able --earn more and take on more take home more without sticking a lot of it into the gosh darned fuel pomp. it is not so much country versus country. >> [inaudible] for a veryu

informative talk. georgetown university. what prevents us from using fornol as a fuel source cars? it seems like a no-brainer. >> i think it is, methanol is one disadvantage compared to gasoline is that it has energy -- less energy density. you get only about 60% of the miles per gallon from methanol that you get from gasoline. but you get much better miles per dollar. it is cheap enough and it is pretty simple alcohol. it is clean, in an accident, it would burn more slowly than gasoline does.

it has been used in the indianapolis 504 years. the driver see it -- indianapolis 500 for years. the driver see it as a safety issue. from woode made chips. alcohol --alledood it was called wood alcohol for centuries. would mainly he made from natural gas here. is aboutes to the car $90 per car in the manufacturing process if you take a relatively new model car that is completely probably in the range

of $200 to $300. in any case, it is much cheaper than modifying the car to drive on natural gas. although you can get that done in some countries for a few hundred dollars a car, it is several thousand dollars a car in the united states because we have very demanding requirements for the tightness of the fit and the type of material and so forth. changing the family car to be compressedve on natural gas or liquefied natural gas is probably prohibitively expensive. makes a lot of sense because these are commercial vehicles and the change pays for itself within a year or two. reason there is no major

for us to stay away from giving to drive onption methanol and gasoline. if they can drive on methanol, you can also drive on ethanol. me it is a very straightforward case and one can byher get the cars modified having a requirement for the automobile manufacturers or if , ifwant to be less coercive you want to do it solely by persuasion and regulation, you could say, look, under the transportation act, we have the standards and the car manufacturers fight hard for that extra little bit of weight reduction that lets them get

their requirement mileage up. the automobile manufacturers of very substantial credit, several miles per gallon, and all they have to do is say that next year, half of their cars and the year after that three quarters, have to be able to use gasoline, methanol, and ethanol? there are several ways you can go about it, but i do not see any downside from people who have made serious studies. i commend the m.i.t. studies on using natural gas in transportation and another one . interject with one from twitter.

what would a true global natural u.s. andt mean for the eu strategically? ? >> natural gas is a lot harder to ship because you do not ship -- if it is liquid, it is not at room temperature. form, it takes up a lot of space. shipping natural gas has always something that can be done, but it is harder and more costly than shipping oil. costfor many decades, they the same amount for btu. burnt match. btu, they were the same for

decades. now natural gas is five times oil and some things that were too expensive to do, xm types of local fixation, when gas and oil -- like some types fixation, is now becoming plausible to do it this natural gas is so much cheaper. generally speaking, people have .tayed with oil for shipping it is easier, i think, to establish something like a cartel for oil that it would be for natural gas. natural gas is largely a continental matter. the russians are working pretty hard to make sure that nobody

gets in the mediterranean or western europe. natural gas that does not come through a russian pipeline. you might see for central and western europe, you might see more and more liquefied natural gas being shipped. itis expensive to liquefy and the terminals are costly and people have been a bit slow to move toward large volumes. >> the gentleman behind the camera. i am daniel with climate nexus. for a number of years, there have been claims that biofuels will increase efficiency and

reduce the cost of ethanol. would you emphasize more research and development for methanol over natural gas? or do you feel they should both be pursued concurrently? >> in 1999, senator richard lugar and i wrote an article called the new petroleum, which was about moving to cellulosic ethanol. what happened is the enzymes to break down the cellulose have not come along as fast as most people hoped. another thing is in order to get biomass,lose did -- the people who were jumping on sincendwagon thought

those companies pay people to take away their waste, they will get that waste for free. the companies were not down. once they saw the people who are going to make ethanol out of it, based at a for it. -- they started charging for it. withl has a big advantage its double growing season and its climate and the soil. amazon,where near the it is done by sound hollow -- são paulo. it is going to be awful hard for methanol. catch it may be close, depending on how expensive gasoline is. it may be close in some countries on an equal energy basis.

let me say one thing about ethanol. an indirect and grubby tribute to the junk food manufacturers , otherwiseir lobby known as the grocery manufacturers association, has done a superb job of convincing an awful lot of people that there are some serious food fuel conflicts and producing ethanol. but it is a particular category of food called fat. here is what happens. , and 97% of our porn is in animal feed corn. corn is in animal feed corn.

if, for the normal year of corn -- ear of corn, if you grow it and harvested and take it to an plant, first to ,xtract the proteins and oils it is good animal feed and it sits on futures markets and everybody agrees it is good animal feed. then you have essentially the cornstarch. there are three things you can do with the cornstarch. you can turn it into ethanol and drive on it. you can take it to the

consolidated animal feeding andy jam the court -- and you jam the cornstarch down his throat. affects--it is hard to digest. you have to pump him full of antibiotics. the entire purpose is to create cholesterol for you and me. if you do not want to drive on it, you can turn it into cholesterol. the other thing you can do with only a third of american children are obese, and they figure there is plenty of room

for double digit growth. [laughter] you take the cornstarch and you turn it into fruit toast -- fructose. it is about four times cheaper per unit of sweetness than dextrose or sucrose. you make a lot of money making junk food and you get double- digit growth in obesity for american children. it is, in fact, the case that there is a food fuel conflict with respect to ethanol. food, whichory of the junk food manufacturers will not tell you about, which really is the alternative, is fat. way in the back. i am colin smith. ofeel like you were kind

getting to this when you are talking about solar and issues of the grid. the nsa and feel that distributed generation can be the solution to our grid vulnerabilities? >> absolutely. do thathe things we can would help a lot against several of the threats i described to the electric grid is to make it possible for the grid to island and island into distributed .eneration into micro-grids the technology is here, or very close to being here. it makes it a lot easier to secure the grid is increasingly, you are not using a transmission and distribution. you are getting your electricity from the rooftop and storing it

into the basement after it is produced. you will not do all of that at once, but even if you have 30% of your electricity coming from the roof and stored in the basement, and you have like, -- something like a major storm or an outage, having 30% of the electricity you would like to have and the difference between having zero is titanic. to goou begin to be able with distributed generation, even partially, you will not have an aluminum plant outside town. it will have to use the grid because it takes a huge amount of luck the city. -- amount of electricity. , think mainly using solar

distributed generation with solar looks better and better to me all the time. the key things that would take it from partial use two very substantial use is affordable storage. o substantial use is affordable storage. i am not talking about lithium- ion batteries that you can use on your tesla. i am talking about simple, cheap, safe batteries that can store affordably. they are coming even faster than i had hoped. those will make a great difference and are being able to will we want it

and when we i if a big chunk of it is still coming over the grid. >> right here in the blue and green. >> my name is chelsea and i am interning at geo strategies. you said they were making some changes in china in provinces and the government -- who is heading that? -- since last year, it seems like they have gained more momentum in the government. i attended a meeting last week or the week before and i know from -- russia has a lot of knowledge of these attacks.

china has the most influence on north korea. i was wondering if there has been any international dialogue .n the matter >> if so, i am not aware there has been any dialogue. did not disturb themselves too much as long as it was just part of the chinese nuclear capability and russian nuclear capability, which we kind of lived with for a long time. they would probably like to do a lot of things to us, neither russia or china would like to destroy an excellent customer. i think that emp is to start

them to get some traction and discussion in the government -- starting to get some traction and discussion in the government. it is not a major subject of discussion on the international front yet. it ought to be because people love to shield their electronics --m the polls from the sun sun. from the the chinese leadership, the best "petropoly." is petroleum and monopoly. chapter in the end about how china got going on

methanol, what happened between a central authority in the big oil companies, chinese oil companies in the local provinces. i will send you to his book. >> i am going to take one from laura on facebook. address theease national security implications of a north american energy community? the opportunities and obstacles to create energy cooperation with mexico. i do not know a lot about it. i have gotten less and less convinced that location mattersy generation much. i think the major effort ought ando into local generation storage. and for oil, the effort ought to

-- it does not do a great deal for us if we buy mexican oil rather than saudi. kind of one pot. there are some nuances to that. as a general proposition, it really does not matter that much where the oil comes from. the key thing i think is getting something into the tanks and the filling stations in a year or two rather than five, 10, 15 years, that can compete with oil. about the samen, of what will be produced, but it

will be produced for less money. major affect on oil-producing states, whether canada or mexico, or us. >> i think we have one in the back. >> hi. i have one question. how do the u.s. and the eu break cartels without causing a war? you are talking about breaking their budgets. the eight nations of the middle east and the persian gulf are not likelya to be able to effect us or the other countries that would join

us in this area. the one country that is a major oil exporter and not will feel extremely aggrieved by the approach i suggested -- and that will feel extremely aggrieved by the approach i suggested is russia. came home atullah the beginning of the arab spring, he paid over $100 billion to the young man in the streets. that year, saudi arabia needed to be -- needed to have a reasonable return on the two dollars a barrel, that they would have needed, say, 40 or $50 a barrel at least. the amount of money they need to

add to the ordinary price of oil in order to take care of their population and keep their ,opulation from demonstrating they call a fair price. if you hear somebody from opec or russia talk about a fair isce for oil, what he means oil for they could lift , they needa barrel to sell it for 110 dollars because that is the fair price. they need to buy off the chunks of their population that do not manufacture things. the russians manufacture very little except military hardware. they are good at that. when is the last time you bought

a table or a chair or a stove made in russia? any -- not really have an economy other than selling andtary hardware abroad selling natural resources, mainly oil and gas. down.hes the price of oil they will be very upset. i do not think it is a good idea to guide her foreign-policy based on whether the russians or upset or not, -- guide her foreign-policy based on whether the russians are upset or not. we really need to fly ahead and if they let us, we can help a number of these countries. russia would be hard, but not impossible. we can help these countries develop new economies. we did it after world war ii. we helped a lot of countries --

south korea is an outstanding example. we have helped a lot of countries moved into taking an economic place in the modern world. if we are not the set by one dollar a barrel oil, we will have a lot more -- $100 a barrel oil, we will have a lot more resources to help other countries move in a useful direction. down here in front. when needed to have provided jogging shoes for the folks with the microphones. think the keystone pipeline is good for national security? about the rolenk of anonymous and other groups on the web? >> on the keystone pipeline, i

do not think it is all that important one way or the other, but the canadians are nice folks. if you say, but we do not want that kind of oil exploited because it is dirty, it it also costs a lot to get it out of the ground. here is an idea. choice andfueled then people are not going to be able to produce oil successfully and so a good deal of that will stay in the ground. the way to keep it fair -- the way to keep it there is not to block the pipeline, the canadians are our friends and we work with him on a lot of things , and there is no particular reason to oppose the pipeline.

they cannot make money on it at $50 a barrel, i do not think. >> right here. i am reading about exxon mobil. to what extent do you think the u.s. carries power through its companies that are the prime drivers of oil exploration and development in the world? statesink the united innovationespect to is what is essential. tend to think of silicon valley will me think of ofovation and some aspects technological history, the most recent case of world shaking

,nnovation in the oil business as is often the case outside the not from big companies, but a man named george mitchell. down there sitting at age 90 to doing deals in houston. 92 doing deals in houston. he is the guy who put horizontal drilling together with fracking and produced natural gas at 1/5 the price of oil. on his ownlmost all money, on his own time -- he did it almost all on his own money, on his own time, subject to a great deal of mockery from the oil and gas business, but he stuck to it for several decades. he has completely changed the energy picture with respect to

natural gas. -- if there were a nobel prize for petroleum engineering, your father should win it. if there was a nobel prize for stubbornness, or he probably ought to of when not to. his set -- he probably ought to have one that -- won that, too. that is essential to do the kind of things that he did. part of the problem with big organizations is they do not often let people operate that way or if they do, they do it by setting up a completely separate entity.

it was a hanger were they invented all sorts of amazing things. at&t, it was an incredibly creative place. of this kindmples of extraordinary creativity in big american institutions and companies, but rather frequently, it is because they have been fenced off in some way from the normal corporate motivations. people have to be free to make mistakes. think,as an article, i in "the economist" a few years ago. the germans were doing a study because they were worried they were not getting enough nobel prize is and patents.

they did a study, which is understandable. ,omeone wrote into the magazine and he said, look, this is not hard. was born in germany and came to silicon valley when i was 30. i have lived here for 20 years. germany, if you ever fail at anything, especially if you should ever go bankrupt, you even yourally not get phone calls returned, much less an actual point meant with somebody with money -- an appointment with somebody with money. here in silicon valley, we wear our bankruptcies the way prussian officers used to wear their dueling scarfs. ave often thought that is marvelous example of the american spirit of creativity.

i have been in venture capital for a while now one of the best briefings, the guy who came in with a very innovative idea. let me tell you about myself. israel and served in the army, came to the united states, just finished my doctorate at stanford. started a company, did pretty well. companiesand third have gone bankrupt. here are the mistakes i made in here as i'm correcting them. this fourth one is going to succeed. let me tell you why. i did everything i could with the people i was working with to get that guy funded. that is the attitude you want. part ofrd to get it as a huge institution unless it is

an island within that institution. >> break year, yes. >> -- right here, yes. >> thank you. thank you for coming. wondering, you were talking about innovation and all of the research we are so close to would come into solutions for all of these problems. in the wake of budget cuts, who is going to pay for all of this? >> it will not be the federal government in the way that it has been in the past. sequestration did have some funds andoptional

funds that are being used in a creative way, like a sick research. -- like basic research. we have to look at tax incentives, ike reducing the likerate income tax and -- reducing the corporate income tax and giving companies an incentive to operate in the united states. i do not think this will be what the 1990s. life is good, everything is fine, add another 10% to the budget. thank you. here inpanish student

washington. about this asked you as-methanol possible alternative ethanol-methanol possible alternative for energy. >> maintain the price? >> reduce the amount at the pump. gas comes from the same countries that oil comes from. gas and oil does come from the same countries, including this one. what has been a breakthrough in gas is opening up so much more

of the area that used to be the theirfloor that was hundreds of millions of years ago. all of those animals died and became oil and gas. the mud turned into shale. with highappened fracturing, it has opened up that undersea area to exploration, which before was being done by searching for particular formations where the rocks were in such a way that it look like a trapped syngas and drilling for that -- trapped some gas and drilling for that. fracturing is revolutionary. even a country that has a good

deal of gas may not have anywhere close to as much as it could have if it would do the fracking. i would be glad to talk about why i think fracking can be managed, only you have to be careful about what you are doing. it can be managed in such a way to be environmentally sound. the thing about hydro-fracturing is that it opens up so much more to the person who is drawing the gas out that it drives the price and i think something else that has an effect here and is very common in the u.s., but rare outside here, is the

mineral rights to oil and gas underneath your property are largely the property of the individual property owner. in most countries, they are not. mineral rights underneath the ground are controlled by the state. if you have a system whereby -- a couple in my home state of , he works at the filling station and she works at the grocery store, but they have 20 or 30 acres of dusty land out there. they inherited from somebody's grandparent and they have never thought too much about it and all of a sudden, a guy shows up and says, we will like to be

fracking underneath your property. how does $50,000 a month's suit you? they tend to say, it sees me very well. -- suits me very well. awas in western louisiana couple of years ago asking set --ns, at a dinner, i i set next to the sheriff. ago, do youe years know how many millionaires that were in this county? he said, one. do you know how many there are now? 42 and climbing. is popular fracking in lots of parts of the united states and why it has caught on. are making money from it.

a lot that system of private ownership of mineral rights under your property. that has helped a great deal in getting it going. , a lot of places ande they have oil shale can get into it and get natural gas, but you have to not only have the technology, what you have to have the property ownership structure that makes that attractive. i did not answer the question -- it was about the nsa. >> [inaudible] >> what do i think about the role of anonymous? they are doing is exploring and looking at .tuff, oughts of people do that

insofar as what they are doing is destroying information or ,roducing classified material which can undermine our ability to deal threats. i'm quite opposed to that. i will go into that more. >> the cinnamon right here. -- this gentleman right here. pundits leave that the united states should have military superiority, rather than just sufficiency. at the time, defense spending was a popular -- unpopular. in order to massage public opinion, as we say now, the .oviet threat was exaggerated americans were made to feel less

safe than they were. that he was right about that? that threats, such as ones that come from a ran or north korea should be exaggerated in order to make us more competitive question mark >> -- competitive question mark -- competitive? >> no. you have to call them straight. ran forkennedy president in 1960 and said that the republicans let us down by allowing a missile gap to be created and a bomber gap. what is interesting about that theme is, i'm reading now in a , it is called "disin

formation," people but russians were ahead of us and the lesson that we learned was that we had to catch up. was aught that this sophisticated and deliberate exercise by the soviets to convince the world, including us, that they had nuclear superiority. it turns out that they didn't. i would encourage you to have a look at the book. there are a lot of things that look like it might be something .hat united states ginned up

>> resources for the future. in thee a change insurance we need in terms of a strategic petroleum reserve question mark what is the size of the reserve? >> it started off as a naval petroleum reserve. it was designed to be able to provide the trillium for the united states navy -- petroleum for the united states navy. think,ind of, i deteriorated in that purpose. ships aree other powered by petroleum products. there is a bigger his efforts by notnavy for things that are

nuclear powered. sees a real advantage in being able to fuel aircraft and cruisers in parts of the world where we might be able to make fuel. with mobile to make out of biomass is of different kinds -- we might be able to make it out of biomass is of different kinds. bothnds to get jockeyed by the local parties. they tried to -- both political parties. they can create unpopularity. it has moved far away from its original purpose. it is not as strategically

important as it once was. >> we have just a few minutes left. we will and a question from facebook from kevin -- we will end on a question from facebook from kevin. >> i would say that if you have the aptitude for foreign that.ges, to start with that is the most are teaching important -- strategically important. i would say it would be mandarin and arabic. these are parts of the world at the state department has lots of dealings. fluent you do not become inwork and country --

country, if you are comfortable , youh with the language of get inside the head someone and understand their point of view a lot more easily if you have the same language. frankly, if you speak there's an something other than english. some people do not have an aptitude for foreign languages. others have attitudes for other ones. mandarin or arabic is worth doing. you can branch off into reading literature of the country and

its favorite economists or whatever and you can do a lot of things with that. if you are joe smith, who is arabichat -- fluent in or mandarin, you are going to look a bit taller than the other folks in the crowd who do not have any foreign language capabilities. it is not the only thing. if i had to pick one thing, i would say that. we will wrapte, things up. thank you to the ambassador.

and a couple other notes. thank you for letting us use this room and for submitting questions online. and especially to the team that brought you the marketing i brought the>> quotations in the articles themselves from some of the local press in san jose. and, they have a number of letes that i wanted to people see what they said in the local press. i do not think that this issue is going way. if you are interested, you can see what we are saying there. >> will have those in the back

and you can grab is on your way out. thanks again. -- thanks again. great work everyone. they to all of you for being here. -- thanks to all of you for being here. pick todent obama's head the fbi. he was the attorney general in the george bush administration. that is starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. today, joe will speak at a memorial service or the firefighters who served in prescott arizona. . -- prescott, arizona.

of executive director moveon.org on washington journal. this is 40 minutes. host: we are joined by anna galland. thank you so much for joining us. moveon is a community of over 8 million americans. how does one become executive director of moveon? guest: thank you so much for having me. i look for to conversations with folks around the country. i was an organizer for social change. i got my start organizing and encountered moveon at a rally calling for the war in iraq even

to begin. there were about a thousand people and i at the time had been organizing and trying to call out for nonviolent alternatives. i was amazed to see this crowd. they came from moveon. they use the internet to connect people to that moment. i first got acquainted with moveon at that time. and then came to moveon in 2007. i helped to launch the open petition site that we offer to the broader public, which you can see going to moveon.org. anyone can start a petition and qualify for support. host: what sort of changes are you making?

guest: probably people know moveon because we have a history that we are proud of. a very simple petition was started, calling on congress to censure and move on. people may remember president clinton was facing impeachment proceedings. they thought the country had been distracted for too long and started a petition. in a couple of weeks, there were hundreds of thousands of signers. since then, moveon has done great work in getting people respond to the democracy. to oppose the iraq war and to pass progressive health reform,

to supporting president obama at a key point in the 2008 primaries. i've been excited to open up our toolset so members can run their own campaigns. moveon has always had incredible campaigns. we are leaning into the billions and creativity of our own membership. we have had members start their own campaigns and petitions. let me give you a quick example. a member named robert applebaum is a thoughtful guy who has been concerned about the problem of student loan debt in this country. this is a trillion dollar

question. students cannot get a good job and they are underwater from the moment they walk out of college. robert started a petition in 2011. at that time, student loan debt was not even on the radar. it wasn't a signature national issue. robert started this petition and it went gangbusters. president obama cited this petition when he made an executive order. since then, we have leaned into this campaign. we bring in the strategic resources to help to keep this campaign going. our members are standing with senator elizabeth warren to make

sure that student loan rates would not double on july 1. that moment came in went. our members have been standing with senator warren. there was a special briefing call. thousands of members were out, some and their caps and gowns rallying publicly around the country for congress to do something. this is an inspiring moment of organizing around the country and making sure they see the change they want to see in this country. it started with a petition at moveon.org. it sprung into national prominence at that moment.

people can start their own campaign at moveon.org. host: we are talking with anna galland, the executive director of moveon.org. our phone lines are open. democrats, 202-585-3880. republicans, 202-585-3881. independents, 202-585-3882. outside the u.s., 202-585-3883. a question from jewelrymakerj. guest: sure. moveon is a nonprofit. we have a federally registered political action committee and a

social welfare organization. our average donation is about $27. that gives us independence from political parties. host: you talk about what your members care about. did moveon work for president obama? guest: yes. host: talk about the current relationship. this is a headline from cnn. talk about your relationship with president obama, especially in wake of the nsa revelations.

guest: members are probably independent and progressive and are concerned about issues. is important we stay independent from any party or individual. we look for leadership from then and we support them when they take a stand on an issue that our members care about. president obama was speaking out passionately for the need for us to take action in the wake of newtown or in the discussion about the migration reform. he said he wants to see a pathway to citizenship for those living in the shadows.

our members support the president in moments like that. or he says things that are members do not agree with -- president obama introduced a budget that did not go anywhere but did include cuts to social security. it would change the way inflation were measured. members strongly opposed that proposal. our partners organized a series of actions including a big rally in d.c., backed up by hundreds of thousands of moveon members. our members have a great deal of respect for the president. when he stands up on progressive values, they are right there with him. when he takes positions he disagrees with, they let them know that as well. host: what about the reactions to nsa surveillance programs? guest: we have seen a great deal of attention about this blanket vacuuming up of information from americans.

moveon has joined a coalition called stop watching us and other organizations that are calling for the hatred act to be reforms, for there to be accountability for elected officials that have supported this program. members are questioning whether this kind of surveillance approach is necessary to keep us safe or healthy for our democracy. organizing is starting to bubble

up. moveon is a powerful community of 8 million progressives. anyone can go to moveon.org and start a petition. i think the surveillance issue is one in which we are eager to see what is bubbling up from progressives around the country. host: would you disagree with this tweet from laura? guest: thank you, laura. i would encourage her to go to our site and start a petition. we can only do what our members want us to do. i have heard concern on that issue and i would encourage her to start her campaign. host: robert from fenton, maryland. you are on with anna galland. caller: can you hear me ok? good morning. what it be possible for moveon to start a petition to get

people in congress moving? there is no progress being made on anything. there's the republican dislike for the president. we saw the loan debt double. any legislation that would help the people that need help in this country. is there anything that can be done by moveon? and just disrupt congress? they are bringing the country down. i cannot believe these people are calling themselves patriots. they are worse than the taliban. guest: thank you so much for your question and you're

concerned. thank you for paying attention to what is happening in congress. i would encourage you to go to moveon. it sounds like you are calling for occupy congress. in north carolina, folks may know there has been a movement called moral mondays. there have been protesters week after week after week at the state capitol. folks have been getting arrested.

these are reverends, students from duke university and other universities. this is coming out so strongly. the state legislature has taken a hard right turn. they are passing draconian budgets. they have gone to the extreme, extreme right. what you are seeing is an effective protest movement. our members will deliver a petition to the governor in north carolina. that is an example of the kind of organizing that direct action that gets at what you are asking about. whether the same thing should be happening in congress, it is up to our members to make that happen. host: richard is from massachusetts. good morning. caller: good morning. nice talking to you.

i want to talk about barack obama. to me, he's not a real progressive. when he first got in in the spring of 2009, he did two things. there was the message after meeting with tim geithner, "there will not be indictments." he listened to petraeus. he escalated the war. he did the same thing that richard nixon did in 1968. he carried along the war for another six or seven years. he is not really a progressive. that is just my feeling about him. guest: thank you for sharing that. it is important to speak up in moments where our elected officials are not doing what they need to do. on issues around the country, people are speaking up.

social security, we saw an organized outcry. it is on all of us to speak our truth. go to moveon.org and connect with other progressives that feel the way that you can do to help you to raise that voice. another example that i think is inspiring -- in texas, there has been a showdown in the state legislature. the texas state legislature decided it was going to ram through it essentially a strong anti-abortion bill that would have closed all of the clinics in texas that provide abortion services. americans believe multiple

things about abortions. most do not favor an outright ban. the texas state legislature had to call a special session. they were trying to ram it right through. a citizens movement spoke out strongly was at the state capitol and what you saw was the emergence of an incredible leader in wendy davis, who stood up and said, "no, i am not going to let this happen." she filibustered for 10 hours. this was a real filibuster. she helped to defeat the bill, temporarily at least, and ignite a real movement not just in texas but around the country.

moveon members said to us they would give a quarter of a million dollars. "we want to support her run because she has inspired us." there is a tale of real leadership and that can change the course of history. on all the issues that we care about, it is so important that people take action and start a petition and talk to their neighbors and go on facebook and get educated and speak out and go to rallies. there are so many things we can do even when we disagree with our elected officials.

that is what moveon is about. we want to help you make that progressive change. host: texas governor rick perry was talking about what is happening now on that issue. [video clip] >> someone wants to go with a national bill or an amendment, that is their right. in texas, we are going to support protecting life. we will stand up and say that after 20 weeks, we are going to make sure these health clinics are safe and under the safety standards of any other surgical facility would be under. and that doctors have procedures in place so they can look after someone if that procedure goes bad. those are common sense approaches. this is going to pass. i am pretty good at counting votes and i think support is overwhelming in the house and senate and we will get this done

and get texas focused on the economic interests that are going on and creating jobs. host: governor perry said he thinks the bill is going to pass in this special session of the texas legislator. what is moveon continuing to do on this issue? guest: i think he is not reckoned with the people's will in the state of texas.

as the filibuster began grabbing the attention of people around the country, a member named stephanie in texas started a petition on our site that overnight had something like 15,000 signers, calling for the legislature to back off of this extreme position that they have taken. our members are organizing to stop it. there was a huge rally in austin. people are coming from around the state. we had a plane banner flying overhead. people want to see real democracy take its course in texas. moveon members have committed to support wendy davis in her work. we will do what we can during this next special session to make sure the right thing happens. host: roger is from phoenix. you are on with miss galland.

caller: good morning. my question goes a little bit off base to the one i talked to the screener about. i did lift in denver back in the 1960's. it was a place where an independent could live and get along and it was a pretty nice place. the cultural revolution spanned out across the country. i was back in denver and it was a changed town because of the cultural revolution.

the movement hit hard and heavy. there was a movement in boulder to basically organize to spit on our vietnam veterans, and they are still doing it. i just wonder if you could condone this kind of action. host: give you a chance to jump in. guest: i am in denver today. members come from all walks of life and i think they would share a respect to the military. we saw the deaths of 19 firefighters fighting a terrible wildfire out here. moveon members and folks had a deep respect for people who respect our country in all sorts of ways, whether it is a broad or in domestic situations like the forest fires. this is a country -- i want to emphasize the commonalities we have. i am a mom of two young girls. i want them to grow up in a community of respect and that is

possible if we work together. i want them to grow up in a country with respect. we need progressive, common sense, american values. it is what we all stand for on the fourth of july. i think everyone would agree american values are shared. we all stand together for many things. you can fight for those things together.

host: how old is the progressive movement? people think it is a new movement. guest: that is a good question. he probably has a better answer than i do. it seems at least as old as the founding of the united states and probably over. anyone who has fought for women's rights and equality is a proud progressive. those of us in our 20's and 50's are the latecomers to a long tradition in america for fighting for an environment that will be preserved, workers' rights, fighting for a country where anyone can make it. not having to scrape and scrap to get by. those are progressive values. all of us should be thankful they had been present in our country since the founding. host: let's go to bernadette from new mexico. caller: i have a comment regarding the state loans. i feel strongly graduate students are penalized for furthering their education by increasing the interest rate on their loans.

our daughter has not been legal to find a job. we are retired individuals. we're helping her to pay off personal because we do not want her to suffer later on. graduate students want to better themselves but their student loan rates are double. i think it is unfair to those

who want to better themselves. my husband and i are helping her to pay off her loans. guest: thank you for sharing the story. we have heard from tens of thousands of members with stories like that. this is a crisis in this country. the student loan problem is a crisis. the senator from massachusetts has been a leader on this issue. the conversation we are having now about whether loan rates should be allowed to double, that is the wrong conversation to be having. the conversation we should be having is how to invest in our students and lower the burden on students. in oregon, the state legislature passed an interesting proposal that had been supported by our partners of the working family party. it would allow students to go to college at state universities for near free and then pay back the loan over the course of their working life at whatever rate they could based on their selling. if you are making less money, you will be paying less back, as opposed to being under water with fixed-rate loans for years. there are interesting

conversations happening around the country about what can do about the student loan crisis. congress needs to take action. we're lucky to have leaders naming this as an issue and following the leadership of members to address the crisis. host: richard is from south carolina on the republican line. caller: i want to ask a guest what she thinks about conservative groups been targeted by the irs. has moveon.org ever been targeted for being progressive? guest: news came out that the scandal we heard about with the tea party groups being targeted, the second part of the story was that progressive groups had been targeted as well, just in a different piece of the process. the important thing to say is we need a healthy, function in government. we need an irs that does its job.

we support the folks that work at the irs and do their job day in and day out. moveon members want to see the government functioning in the ways it should be. that was a frustrating story for us all on the left and right. we need to move on and see the irs do its work effectively without screening anyone with partisan intent. just do its job. host: richard, is that how you feel about the irs?

caller: i think there ought to be criminal sanctions against them for doing that. thank you very much. host: that was richard from south carolina. did you want to add something? guest: there are other scandals hiding in plain sight all the time that our members are organizing around. the thing that comes to mind is the issue of corporate tax loopholes. that is a scandal hiding in plain sight. i hope folks watching will think about those issues and how we organize to make the change we need in this country. we have a situation where states like pennsylvania have cut their education budget by $1 billion. and we need resources to invest in our people and our democracy. if you have gaping loopholes

that the irs does not have the resources to go after these people or hold them accountable, that is a problem. i would love to see moveon members to start a campaign to address that problem. because of the way we have changed our structure this year, anyone can go to moveon.org, start their own petition, and

qualify for support from our organization and members. moveon is twice as big as we work at the beginning of president obama's first term. we are now at over 8 million members. this is a strong and growing community of proud progressives working together to make the change they want to see. whether it is at the local level fighting for school funding or civil rights or at the national level fighting to make sure we have accountability when corporations try to get away with something that will harm our country and democracy. money and politics is a huge issue for all our members. we love to see people taking action making the change we desperately need in this country. host: scott is from cincinnati, ohio, on the republican line. caller: i was wondering if there are any desired policies that moveon.org and the tea party have in common that they could

work together on? guest: this is a great question. one of our founders has been working closely with a founder of the tea party patriots. they have a project called living room conversations. they have been organizing conversations with folks on the left and right looking for common ground. one of those is on the prison industrial complex. our members have organized to call attention to building and funding huge prisons. people in the tea party are frustrated. they think that is a waste of taxpayer money to be funding our prison system at such high levels. they are also concerned about the size of banks. moveon members and our allies have been organizing and using our platform calling for the breaking of both banks that are too big to fail and too big to jail.

that kind of concern that our financial institutions have grown so large we cannot effectively hold them accountable, that is a concern shared on the left and right as well. our members are proud progressives. they stand on the principles, but there are areas where the problems are so big that the left and right can agree we need to do something. it dates back to the founding of moveon, the petition they started that was sent to congress to move on. it attracted a wide range of people tired of the nonsense in washington. that is the kind of progress of impulse that still fires our members to this day. host: what was your first petition with moveon? guest: that is a good question. i think it was something around the iraq war.

i graduated from college around 9/11. i remember being encouraged that this was the way our country was going to go. we were leaping into war within days of the attacks. we seem to be tumbling into counterproductive and terrifying war in iraq. i believe my first petition would have been around the iraq war. i am curious to hear from others with the first petition is that they signed. host: david is on the line. caller: i am calling to ask whether or not moveon petitioners -- i think you said something about barack obama, the president, doing a thing on social security.

i am not certain if other people know what is in these bills. by the time you allow something to be taken up, is it properly understood? guest: that is a good question. it gets to the question of how we decide with millions of members and thousands of petitions starting on our platform every day, we're looking to provide ways for our members to engage with each other in organizing events. we're looking at ways to fund raise. that horizontal connection raises the question of how we vet this stuff. we are a small staff of only about 30 people.

how could we possibly know who is behind the petitions? the answer is we have incredible membership that helps us to vet the petitions and we have the power of technology and analytics to help us to detect trends. we also have individual people, dedicated volunteers come able to help us review all of the content constantly flowing into our system. you see incredible leaders bubbling up everywhere. this is one of the things i am inspired by in our new strategy. there is a moveon member in california. she is not someone i heard of before. she started a petition on our side. she started a petition calling for a ban on fracking in california because she lives in culver city near one of the biggest sites in the state. she said i am a small-business owner.

this is polluting my environment and town. fracking is the controversial technique where oil companies drill underground near water sources to extract the gas. she started a petition on our side. we looked at her leadership, the quality of the petition, the attention it was getting. we elevated. it eventually got over 35,000 signers in the state of california. we are trusting our members and using systems to make sure we're elevating thoughtful stuff. we are trusting our members.

they are delivering and doing the most powerful campaigning i can imagine. we're excited to see what they and you can come up with as we head into 2014. host: in the last minute, who is the progress of candidate in 2016? guest: it is still very early. moveon members have played a huge role in elections. we have given hundreds of millions of dollars to progressive candidates. any candidate that wants moveon support should stand on their progressive values. there are so many things our members care about. we're looking forward to all of those in the race standing for those values. host: anna galland is the new director of moveon.org. next we have our weekly "your >> followed by.

mississippi senate roger wicker. we will discuss trade policy in the new trade of incentive. , fromest is sanford bloomberg. he works in the office of the trader presented. washington journal at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. >> now a discussion about the future of the republican party. leah from college -- we will hear from karl rove. an hour-long discussion that was part of of the annual aspen ideas festival. [applause] >> a trustee of the aspen institute said that we are spending a little much -- a little bit too much time on patter.

anyway, it is a delight to be with everyone here to talk about the future of the republican party. a friend of mine said "well, that will be a short discussion." [laughter] that is not our view. i could not be more delighted than to have three of my friends who represent some of the best inking and the republican party or the right of center movement and the country. i think you know all of them. elaine chao, the former secretary of labor and fellow at the heritage foundation, mike gresham was the speechwriter for former president bush and currently writes for it the washington post and appears on the lehrer news hour. and your name was? >> [indiscernible] >> to be introduced as a strategist for the republican party when karl rove is on the

platform is a little daunting. i think we all know karl. he was just talking about the last election mainly. he clearly is the premier republican strategist of my generation or our time. i do not want to talk about the last election particularly. that is obviously relevant. i do want to talk a little bit about the challenges our party faces going forward, mainly from a policy perspective. then you can go to the audience and you can ask anything you want. it seems to make, the question about technology, the question about demographics, all of that is very important. the question about whether candidate recruitment was right, whether mitt romney connected with voters was right. but the future of the republican party, it seems to me, depends on whether there is a policy rationale that is compelling for the hardy. i think there are serious challenges and i want to address

different hearts about with each of you if i can. first of all, i would like to start with mike on something that i think is the most significant development for the party today. karl, you did not get to it and your panel. it has gotten overwhelms a lot of supreme court decisions in the last couple of days, that we will talk about later, i'm sure. one of the phenomena has been the emergence of rand paul is a serious national figure. i served with his father in congress. liked him. he was a smart guy. i do not think he ever went into an election with anybody -- he was proselytizing for an idea. by that standard, he made quite

a bit of traction. his son seems to have a different ambition. the polling that i see shows it is being taken seriously and needs to be taken seriously. not just as a republican nominee, but maybe even as a potential president of the united states. we will get into foreign-policy later. but my experience over the decades really -- you have been one of most articulate articulators of a communitarian vision of conservatism. you talked a lot about that over the years. is rand paul's libertarianism consistent or compatible with communitarian conservatism, even the kind that ronald reagan emphasized with family, work him a church. are these compatible in your mind?

>> no. [laughter] >> all right. would you elaborate? >> i think it comes to fundamental matters of governing issues. they work themselves out in the primary process. this has been dubbed the libertarian moment and there's a lot of truth to that. rand paul is a very effective politician. very different from his father. rand paul really represents libertarianism without the edge of looniness. [laughter] he is very effective at speaking to a vent to support a very strong ideological perspective. there are a lot of events now that are conspiring in the libertarian direction. everything from exhaustion with global commitments, which i think are probably shared by most americans.

moving into the middle class with ees, which i think has been a traditional libertarian pursuit with money. we have had recent events that seem to be conspiring with conspiracy theories, whether it is the irs or the nsa or the fbi and domestic violence. it's the libertarian narrative. -- it fits the libertarian narrative. the question is, the policy problem that the republican party needs to solve can develop more. but i think the republican party has a serious problem with working class voters in an economy that is continually stagnant for them, no matter what the situation is in the broader economy, and with new americans who are concerned about social mobility. one of the this extraordinary

facts that came out of the great recession was in the worst stage of the great recession people with a four-year college degree had a 4.5% unemployment rate. people with just a high school diploma had it 24% unemployment rate. we are a society increasingly segregated by class, skills, education, family structure. the question is, are republicans going to speak to the lived experience of the many americans they need to appeal to on the economy? i do not think libertarianism speaks to those parents -- to those concerns effectively if the republican party is going to expand and change its face. rand paul's approach not only also into question the obama agenda and obamacare, but the great society and the new deal and

maybe the lincoln administration, quite frankly. [laughter] with the role of government. and republicans are going to have to find an active, but limited and positive role of government in promoting social mobility in this country. the traditions that speak to that are the lincolnian and traditions of protecting ogreepreneurship and economic . the catholic tradition which talks about mediating institutions and solidarity with the poor. the evangelical reform tradition, the wilberforce tradition. all of those are more promising when it comes to appealing to the actual groups that republicans need to appeal to then libertarian ideology. [applause] >> thank you. go ahead and applaud.

elaine, that leads to a question again i want to focus on policy rationale for the republican party. if i were a democrat, i will listen to all that and i was a, i would say, that's as good as far that goes. but we had a collapse of the economy under a republican administration in 2000 and eight. we have recovered through the stimulus program under president obama, the fed quantitative easing. doesn't this all proved -- now the economy's growing again. we are adding jobs. the stock market is rising. doesn't this fundamentally discredit the republican economic model? the answer is not a given republican model, it is go vote for the democrats.

>> i do not agree at all. i disagree with your initial observation. i do not think the republican model is being discredited. it is being questioned.

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anybody out here expert on that? >> we support it that lawsuit. the thing is you have a senate majority that can do this. the constitution makes it clear that the senate adopted son rules. and so that lawsuit has some roadblocks and it already has were still supporting it. i think the easiest way to do

this is senate resolution five would have gone a long way. now have an opportunity on the nominations they as small way including the federal election commission. that is the fastest way to and get that done. we need to use nominations as a springboard and go on from there. that would be another way to litigate it through the judicial system. >> one more quick question. >> we talked about our reach and stuff but people watch it, they believe it.

we do not have the reach. how can we reach people that we're not already preaching to the converted. i think a lot of americans really care about fairness but it seems like we cannot get the message out. there are all these people, the watch fox news and they think we're evil. >> part of it is when youtube reach them where they live. one of the things i teach him organizers is there will be a lot of people who agree with you on everything and even more people who agree with you on most things. almost everyone agrees on one thing.

i sat down with the governor and figure out that we both believe in second chances and redemption. so we could do some work on restoring rights. that is what i was looking for. i would say that we need to engage that population. bills were supported by the naacp, identified politicians and the tea party identified politicians. we both agree that the prison system is too big. for example drug rehab is more effective. this year there were 50 bills.

to shuts projecting -- down its first prison ever. our folks through vehicle called the texas girl justice coalition when looking for that one thing. they found that one thing with a group that we disagree on everything was. i offer that up. if return to build back some bipartisan consensus. we have to have to do the hard work of reaching out in support of voter i.d. we have trouble in the off years and the non- election years.

there's also a social media. social media and twitter is part of why paula deen is out of a job for a racist comments. we saw at with defending planned parenthood. when susan g. komen came after them. planned parenthood really thrived. our people are nimble and they are smart about this stuff. fox is a pox.

it's bad. ben is right. people to people and organizing old-fashioned talking in our churches and schools is crucially important so thank you. you are a great audience. give everybody a hand. thanks to everyone who could not [applause] >> coming up,former cia director james we will talk about immigration legislation on the washington journal.

we will take your phone calls, e-mails and tweets live starting at 7:00 eastern. president obama's pick to head the fbi will testify at a senate judiciary committee this morning. he served as deputy attorney general in the george w. bush administration. live coverage starts at 10 eastern on c-span three. later, also on c-span 3, joe biden will speak at a memorial service for firefighters killed in prescott, arizona. that can started live at 1:45 p.m. eastern. now, former cia he servedjames woolsey. in the clinton administration.

[applause] >> thank you. i was quite honored to be asked to be with you this evening. to tell you the truth since i spent 22 years as a washington lawyer, i am honored to be invited into any polite company for any purpose at all. i'm going to introduce this evening by telling you a short- story about the man who -- whose name this building carries. paul was an absolutely remarkable individual, served in virtually every administration

from the last roosevelt administration well into the time of past nixon. he was someone that everybody wanted to have him work for them. paul had been deputy secretary of defense and the johnson administration. in january 1969 he was about to leave office of the 20th when everybody else would leave. republicans would come in. his daughter got engaged to a friend of mine from college so he had a big engagement party. one of the big clubs in washington. several hundred people, a sit- down dinner. there were a few of us who were going to be there as groomsmen or bridesmaids. it was the washington establishment. i had been the founder and president of yale citizens for eugene mccarthy for president.

i was sort of the head of -- i had strong views, not strong in the sense i was going to turn in my commission and not serve any armed forces. -- thessigned to saigon. pentagon. and his party comes up, his daughter and her fiance. as we walk through the what -- to the front door, each of us holding a flute of champagne, the tenant will say gets into a loud and angry argument with the

the deputy secretary of defense. i had my champagne flute and i was retreating as i was poking at me with his. finally they ring the bell for dinner. my wife and i are driving home. i said we got in a little discussion about the war before dinner. she said yes, everybody noticed. what do think you're doing? i said he is only going to be around another week or so and he will be gone. the other administration will be coming in. that is what happened. by march his back because the new team wanted him to head up something they thought might be interesting and important.

it decided to have arms control negotiations with the soviets and to let him have the defense. my boss called me and asked me to come out and see. he said he is back. what you'll do is go over to helsinki and negotiate with the soviets about our strategic weapons. he needs an assistant. he needs somebody to draft the speeches, did -- to do the research. i said, i cannot think of anything i would rather do them to go over to helsinki and negotiate with the soviets. i have only met him once and it did not go over well. he smiled and said that must be what he meant. i said, what you mean? >> i floated your name and he paused and he grinned and he said yes. that is fine. he may not know what the hell he is talking about but at least he

will speak up. but that story said is i was a brash kid but says he was a remarkable man in many ways. --e way he was a probable is he is remarkable is there are few better things in the world than having staff people are people who report to you or work with you who will level with you even if they -- it makes you mad. you have to have people who will talk back to you and level with you. i did not have any theory, i was just a brash kid but it worked. it worked because paul was like he was.

they operate differently and people get the issue of energy confused by trying to lump them together more than they deserve. i am speaking out the electricity and transportation fuel almost entirely by oil. there are other systems, a few electric trolleys and crews and horseback races. a few things that do not use oil for transportation. almost none. and for electricity, one of the stupidest things that you can hear from the press or politician is that we have a let'sem with foreign oil so

build a nuclear power plant, what ever. when we had the yom kippur war, 20% of our electricity came from burning oil. you were in fact and could well be replacing oil with something else. under half of 1% comes from burning oil. but today if you say that you're trying to use of the about improving the way we produce electricity because of the oil problem, you are dealing with something between 1.5% and 0.75 of 1 percent of the issue. -- 1% of the issue.

my wife and i have to plug in hybrids, love the idea of using the solar panels on the roof and the batteries it in the basement. all wonderful. it is not going to come real fast because of how long automobiles stay in our fleet in the united states. should not get the idea that by moving toward changing the way you produce electricity or doing something substantial with respect to oil. these are separate sets of problems. what is the main problem? -- the main problem with oil? you have first to recognize what is good at. it is easily transported.

it has a very substantial balance of energy. proglems.number of they are political, military, economic, health. we will talk about each one. they create an issue that many people think can be solved by changing the location the oil comes from. whether it is drill, baby, drill or conserve, baby, conserve from the liberal side. there is the idea that if more oil proportionately comes from

us or countries where friendly with like canada rather than iran. the things will be better. the location the oil comes from is a big deal. it really is not. the only way it is a big deal is it affects the balance of payments and that is good. will do better with a balance of payments and borrow $1 billion a day to import oil. we can do it in an ecologically sound fashion. maybe we do not have to borrow 800 or $9 million a day when you keep going with oil. trying to solve the fundamental

issues by changing the location, buying more from canada and less from saudi arabia, that is not going to do anything. it is one big pot of oil. someone else will buy more from saudi arabia and less from canada. the location is not the main point. the main point is the price. today, at about $100 a barrel. we're in a situation in which the oil moves another 40 or so dollars a barrel it gets back there that approximately half the wealth in the world will be in opec. the 12 nations of the organization, petroleum exporting countries. eight of them in the middle east. the value of oil is calculated by proven reserves which are reserves that could be exploited in today's price. if the price of oil goes up not

only is the oil that a country has in the ground at that point that is exploited before the price went up or can be exploited, affordably, not only does that oil increase in value, if the price goes out you can exploit more oil. they're more field to can exploit in the price goes up ee. - - doubly. so oil has the characteristic of concentrating wealth very substantially. it is not only a monopoly, it is a monopoly with a cartel nested inside it. opec could control 70 percent of the world's proven reserves of oil. and opec pumped about 30 million barrels a day in the and the world has -- 30 million barrels

a day. it has 78 percent of the world's proven reserves of oil. it sells her on the market about a quarter of the market demand for oil every year. if you have over three-quarters of some commodity in the world and you are selling the same amount, not producing more, selling the same amount, and you are doing it in such a way that you are contributing to 25% of satisfying the need for it, there is no word for you other than cartel. you are a conspiracy in

restraint of trade exactly as john d. rockefeller was. with his standard oil trust. the economics of oil are extremely problematic for those of us who live in states like this one that have to percent of the world's oil. oil has a political problem. i would commend to you both larry diamond's book on democracy at stanford. and mort halperin's book. there are 22 countries, at least there were when diamond wrote, that depend on oil.

for 60% or more international income. income.eir national all 22 are dictatorships or autocratic kingdoms. the 10 chief oil exporting countries in the world, nine of them, only nice norway is out of place. you have -- what is going on here? why would this be? paul collier is probably the main author although there are many people who are on this approach now. the idea being that if you have control of a large amount of a commodity that has a huge amount of economic rent attached to it.

--en what happens to that rand rent is the ruler uses it to consolidate his power and the ruling elite is more in control. it does not mean if you are canada or norway and you discover a lot of oil you become a dictatorship. if you're a dictatorship, things get more indebted. -- embedded. serious problem for us. king abdullah was in the hospital in new york and checked himself out right away and flew back to saudi arabia and

increased the budget by i think in the ballpark of $130 billion. where did the money go? the money went as collier's youngy would suggest -- the men who don't work. non-orkforce is about 90% saudi. it has to do with the educational system. the money goes to them. they did not right but they got -- did not riot but they got richer. collier's point i think is pretty well taken. there is another reason that there are political problems associated with oil. the wonderful book on democracy, he is a man of the moderate left his whole career.

he writes very persuasively about what happens with respect to developments such as famine, a guerrilla war, civil war, and on. when they come into a state that is highly autocratic. those developments are far more common and more tests the numbers in his book and autocratic states than they are in non-autocratic state. so we have that little problem with oil. are there any others? i think so. let's talk for just a second about health. when we got the lead out of oil

transportation gasoline in the 1970's, we thought we had done something important because lead is carcinogenic. there was a battle in the 1920's between general motors and ford about whether you're going to drive with gasoline with lead added or at that time ethanol. ford supported ethanol, general motors supported leaded gasoline. people accused general motors at the time of being murderers because of all the workers who were going to die and the factories that produced lead and quite a few did. the thing about oil is that gasoline does not naturally have a high octane rating. as the engines got better, you have to do something artificial

to build up the octane. what do we do? in the absence of using alcohol fuel either methanol or ethanol, which have very high octane ratings, we use the aromatics. benzene, tolulene. that is pump gasoline, largely benzene. that is the smell of cancer. benzene is highly toxic. to stay with gasoline and get the octane one needs in today's cars, we have filled a substantial share of our tanks with a carcinogen. i think that that might be enough to suggest that there are some reasons to think about moving off oil and let me

mention one more. i knew the late former president of indonesia slightly. i had dinner with him to three times a we got stuck in an airport departure lounge -- and we got stuck in an airport departure lounge in taipei for couple of hours one time and talked for some time. an amazing man. he was not only committed to religious liberty as the president of the largest muslim nation world, he was as hard a worker for religious liberty as it is possible to be. after he stepped down as president, one thing he did was he recruited indonesia's's leading young rock star to work with him and they formed an organization called lib for all.

they would go around to soccer stadiums which he would read for night and put on free rock concerts for all the local young people. and the rock star would sing the songs that everybody knew and he would sing one to were three new ones about religious liberty and then he would teach the young people one of his songs about religious liberty. then he would come out for five minutes, the former president of the country would tell everybody how important religious liberty was. it is hard to be much more supportive of would -- religious liberty. when i say what i am about to say, about teaching materials, i am not talking about indonesian islamic teaching materials.

but a few years ago i was chairman of the board of freedom house and we had a fine institution, the center for religious freedom there. but in the middle of the first decade of the century, we had a group of american muslims come to us with some religious teaching materials. and they said have these translated if you want. we brought them to you. these were put in our mosques and spread around. -- the spread around by saudis when they come to town. we do not like them nearly as well as the ones that we created but you ought to look these over. and we did at the center for religious freedom put out a couple of books about them that

i wrote the foreword to. one part i remember is based largely textbooks and instruction books. one was for 10th graders, i remember the chapter for 10th graders rather vividly. it had a section and it on how to kill a homosexual. you may either through him from a high place or you may still him to death or you may burn him alive to death. those are the three ways. if you ask the question let's say someday you're driving around and realize you have to stop by and fill up and you are thinking about these issues. i wonder how this all gets paid for. how do they pay for disseminating its books all over the world? that teach people how to kill a

homosexual? and as you are driving into the filling station and just before --u get out to fill your card car and get your credit card out, as you're asking yourself that question, who pays for that? turn the rearview mirror a couple of inches so you are looking into your own eyes. now you know. no more question. now you know who pays for it. you're doing it right there at the pump. so anything we can do about this? i think there is. and i think we need to realize that the only really effective way to break a cartel is to be able to have something that people need that they can buy and substitute for the thing

that is the subject of the cartel. the best example of this is the book on oil and salt. you may have seen their book. turning oil and to sell. -- into salt. salt was monopolized for thousands of years. it was the only way to preserve meat. it was the only way to preserve most food until the mid-19th century. canning was invented. it was hugely important. roman soldiers were paid and-- in salt. the word salary comes from salt. if your country had a salt mine and your neighbors did not,

it was a huge matter of national strategy, prominence, and wealth. people began to realize that these things called freezers and refrigerators could be produced and it turned out not only did meat that have been frozen and thawed taste better than meat soaked in salt brine, it was a lot cheaper because salt was expensive because it was run by a cartel. people started buying refrigerators and after a while salt lost its monopoly. we still use salt. we use it on the sidewalks and february. it goes nicely on corn on the cob. nobody anymore walks into a strategic situation and says a thing we have got to do is you sitthe salt.when

--n to dinner, you won't say salt is boring. the purpose of what we are talking about is not to get rid of it completely but to make it boring. how might we do that? brazilians have had some rights -- riots recently and not everything is perfect but there is one thing they finally got right which was how to have competition and fuel. turn into a filling station. you choose and if there has been a war in the middle east recently and gasoline is expensive, you by ethanol. if it has been a bad harvest for sugar cane, whoa nobody orders it, they buy with it one.-- what

they want. it is not a perfect system but it works better than anything else that i have seen. china is moving rather decisively with pilot programs and some competition in mixed fuels with 20%, to 30%, 40%, methanol an m. as distinct from ethanol. the chinese are making ethanol of coal. i hope they can switch to something else because coal is kind of dirty for everybody. they are very of enthusiastic and they did this in spite of opposition by the party in the central chinese oil companies. what they're doing is moving toward a mixed fuel and doing a

lot of it with methanol. why does this work? in the first place, in order to take a car that is just what comes off the production line and before it goes to the showroom, the very last stage of production to make it possible to use on 85% methanol, the price per car is about $90. half a seatbelt. so if automobile manufacturers wanted to and willing to make that very minor adjustment in some of the fuel lines and so forth to a possible for the car to run on gasoline or methanol.

if they wanted to do that, they could. and then what happened? once the pump as install do have to have new pumps and tanks, at least one new pump and one new tank. as that change occurred, people could do what brazilians do. i think in the u.s. we do more with methanol rather than because methanol is cheaper and it can be made readily from natural gas, we have an opportunity to require our automobile manufacturers simply to give possible for people to drive on any of those three fuels. order them, no. state that has to be a certain

percentage purchase? just let people choose. the same way they choose what they drink for breakfast some like black coffee, some like tea. some people switch. the people decide. if we can do that, we have a very reasonable chance of creating a situation whereby according to best numbers i have seen looks like the price of oil would head down toward the range $15 a barrel to $16 a barrel. if that happens there of a some unhappy folks in the kremlin and in riyadh and elsewhere. in time, the world should just. -- adjust. those who import oil rather than principally exports are going to be somewhat happier.

mainly i think it is people not having to take that added $50 a barrel in dollar bills out of their pockets to pay for killing -- filling up their tank. let me say a few words about the second area. electricity. i want to focus on one aspect of it. because the combination of manufacturing and improvements are continually being made is seller, and i hope the continuance of the eea if -- improvements in batteries. we're headed toward with respect to electricity more use of natural gas. to replace coal.

renewables get much more useful if you can store the of electricity from them and our friends are starting to come. i tend to think that there is no problem with the environmental side. as follows.lem is over edisona won and we went to another grid, we need transformers. and that works reasonably well if nothing interferes with the

electric grid. but those transformers and the recall -- a couple of thousand of them are the heart of our electrical system and our electrical system and i do not think this is an exaggeration. a major share of the heart of our civilization.we have 18 critical infrastructers. 17 depend on electricity. figured there would walk up to that gasoline station and put it in their generator and it would have flights, they got up to that station and they found out, most of them, they found out it operated on electricity so the pumps don't work unless they have stored fules for a few

days. electricity is something that requires a well functioning and smoothly operating electric grid. when it works, it is a miraculous thing. you can plug in any place in charge your cellphone. let's look at some of the things that can wrong. first of all, we did a pretty dumb thing around early 1990's or into the mid-1990s -- was thinge had this new called the web. it was coool.

it still is. it is amazing what you can do. but the spirit of the web is kind of one of sharing. what can go wrong if you share? even before the current flap about nsa, we had a 19 year-old private first class wanted a fun ride. who was able to get just by walking up to a computer that was able to take hundreds of thousands of tables are american diplomats and these are mainly state department's documents. people had told the diplomat something that he reported and he did not say anything about it

in the country. he was -- bad things happened. it was not just a matter of our brain knows everything to the cool there are sometimes costs to that and there is certainly one thing we decided to do since we were working at the same time on y2k and were making a lot of changes in computers people said, let's put the control systems for the grid in the electric grid on the web. so we do not have to if you are in baltimore and i am in washington and i see an outage coming, i did not have to pick up the phone and call you andsay we need so and so many. no, that is not cool anymore. we do it all with the web. that is all well and good. except that the web is really focused on sharing.

so if you have what people increasingly call a smart web, or smart grid and you think it is neat to be able to turn down the air-conditioning on yourself there is ane, maybe teenager doing the same thing in shanghai. the web has made the grid extremely vulnerable to hacking and to dysruption from the cyber-effects. that is not all. about every century or so there is an electromagnetic pulse that is called an ejection from the sun. that is much larger than the normal solar flares, millions of times larger. it has been over a hundred years since we last had one of these but i think most people who are

studying these issues are definitely in agreement that our electric grid could be severely damaged and to the point of destruction by a single seller-- solar event of that type and we have not designed the grid to withstand something like that. to make it even all it'll more unpleasant, sorry, there is another way to create an electromagnetic pulse of that sort and that would be with a nuclear detonation but it does not need to be a destination carried by a weapon that has any accuracy of all or shooting at a target. it need only explode when in lower earth orbit.

north korea has had three nuclear tests. iran has launched three satellites and some day before too long my hunch will be we will have a nuclear test. if you have a satellite and if you have a nuclear detonation, even a very simple one, having an electromagnetic pulse generated at 300 miles, wherever, over an area can produce either a total destruction of the electricity grid. almost every choice we have made about hooking up electricity and technology has produced a dilemma.

it almost seems mundane to point out that damage to the electric grid can come from something as simple as a rifle. after we finished the session, i will pass out some clippings from local television in san jose, california, from back in april and some later. the bottom line is this. what i am going to say here today will have one or two things in it that have come from my discussions with people in .he u.s. executive branch hi none of it is classified.

the rest of it, most everything i will say will be supported by these clippings. sometime in the wee hours of april 16, a day after the explosion in boston, something between one and four individuals ahowed up near san jose at electricity station that included a number of transformers. one report said it was 20 transformers and another said it was seven. gunshots were heard a short distance away. the people who had heard the gunshots were having a hard time getting a report in and the

reason was that because some other individuals may well of been -- some other individuals have listed a 250 pound manhole cover and had gone down 12 feet in a chamber where all of the wiring was for the 911 emergency calls. some cellular emergency calls got through, the land lines were the ones that were cut. after an initial dispatch of several deputies to look into the matter, as they came closer, they were signaled, one can get this from some of the surveillance videos, as they came closer, the people who were

shooting were warned by a flashing flashlight and they left, leaving behind empty shell casings. they had been firing systematically at the transformers, one report says they were shooting at the fans on the transformers, which assisted in the cooling. the signaling system and the rest, this does not look to me,

this does not look to me as if it was several inebriated teenagers having pinched their fathers hunting rifle for an escapade of some sort. it looks far more planned than that. what that suggests, even something as available as rifles used against transformers could well be very dangerous. san jose and the area around it have put on, added patrols and guards. these collections occur in

different parts of the country in different numbers. i come back to what happens if the electricity goes. if it is spotty, san jose goes if a biglo alto is up. section of the grid is taken out, we have very serious problems. those 17 parts of our infrastructure all depend on the electric grid. i hope very much that people look objectively at this that--

outside san jose, that they make clearheaded decisions about what needs to be done. thisle do not need to panic. is not something that is theoretical. this is not something that is possibly scientifically we know a decent hunting rifle can at least take out the fan and some of them can take out the transformer itself. we need to respond to this as the sheriff of san jose. she said in response to some public spokesman calling it vandalism, she said, this is sabotage. they are trying to take the

whole system down. the system is silicon valley, for the set of transformers. we have some work to do. we are not going to be able to do it by burying our heads in the sand or brushing it off or saying nobody would try something like that, that is crazy. it is crazy from the point of view of normal people. if you part of an ideological system or a terrorist group, who believes their mission and their role in life is to do things like take down electric grids, you must be dealt with in way as to ensure you do

not succeed. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much, ambassador. we will transition into our question-and-answer period. a couple of ground rules before we get into that, when i call on you, we will have two staff with hand-held microphones, please wait for the microphone to get to you before asking your question. when you asked your question, please keep it succinct and concise. make sure to state your name and affiliation before you asked.

watchingthose who are on the webcast, we are live tweeting this on our twitter account and we are taking questions via twitter as well. withl try to interject some questions from the web as we continue. with that, we will kick this off. down in front. >> i am a student in washington. you talked about the theory briefly, i am wondering if the cartel busting alternatives that you propose are implemented and are successful, what effects would that have? would it lead to greater instability? would it lead to a lower quality of life for the citizens?

>> my hunch is that for most of the opec countries, it would lead to, at the very least, a substantial depression and economic problems. quite possibly, violence of different types. i look on this in a way as deciding whether or not to lance the boil on your foot. if it keeps getting worse, and you do not do anything, at some point, you will have to deal with it and it will hurt even more. if you go ahead and deal with it, you can start getting things better sooner. i think that the eight arab countries that are part of opec,