here. a lot of you don't know about the capabilities in terms of counterterrorism and handling something of this something of this magnitude. can you all speak about their capabilities of handling large- scale events like this, whether they have had experience handling large events like this before? [laughter] >> well, putin, in his press conference just the other day, noted that, no, russia has not had the experience of securing an event of the magnitude of the sochi own picks. -- the sochi olympics. so the answer is no. you would have to go back to the moscow olympics in 1980.

for an international event of this magnitude, which "russians clip quote -- "russians" had to deal with. of course, that is after having invaded afghanistan, which, of course, led to the essentially the creation of the muhajir dean of the mujahedin and much of the problems we have today. so the answer is no. one can -- juan can speak to this more effectively. we never know the number of successes in preventing terrorist attacks. we only know about the failures by simply the fact that we saw significant failures in volgograd three times at the end

of last year, one in october and two december. -- two in december. the daily bombings and problems that there are in the north caucuses, it's not the frequency that we are seeing in iraq right now. we listening -- we're listening to the radio and there are 25 car bombings a day, approximately. so magnitude, for sure, is a no. the capacity of the fsb is very, very hard to say. to get back to juan's point earlier, you know, the fact that the russians have been reluctant to embrace support from the united states, i think partly

out of reasons intelligence operation is a very, very delicate matter in the best of times. we have pretty effective intelligence cooperation with the russians after 9/11. i think at that time the russians were providing us more high-quality operational intelligence than we were able to provide them. but we know that the relationship and the level of trust between the two countries has deteriorated significantly since then. and that is a problem for sure. and then there is the sort of -- the nature of the russian psychology -- it's not just the russian psychology, but maybe more so we can do this on our own and we don't need your help. and then for putin, this is such a source but because we did not recognize, in his view, soon enough -- and i think he has a legitimate effect out this --

that the nature of the threat, even in the mid-1990s, in the first chechen war, when it was mostly a movement of national liberation, there was a significant foreign element there. fighters, also sources of financing, and training for them. that factor was much more significant in the second chechen war. it really rankles him deeply, deeply that this was not adequately recognized. this is a harping on the double standards. it only accentuates some of the chip on the shoulder, so to speak, about this for him. the state department did a very smart thing a few years ago in actually putting dokumaris on the list of terrorist threat

individuals. some would say in russia that is too late. too little and too late. finally, we have to look at what happened with the tsarnaev brothers. the fact that there was inadequate communication between u.s. and russian intelligence services, tracking and following these guys, and when the elder brother had gone to doug us down to dagestan, which is really now the heart of the islamic threat region in the north caucuses for six or seven months. how attract -- how effectively were they tracking him? we don't know.

and not knowing leads to increasing -- increased confidence. >> [indiscernible] >> my suspicion is that it is both. >> i would just add two things on this topic area you have heard a lot of discussion about this in the russian press recently, in terms of the capacity of security services. they are essentially structured it from a from the way that security services in the west are structured. their main goal is regime security rather than public security, let's say. and obviously, with a high- profile, very politically significant even like the olympics, those two things are connected. but nevertheless, the goal of the security state thatputin -- security state that putin provides over and from which he came, pressures coming from outside rather than toward securing the public in general.

i think one of the challenges that apparatus faces is trying to pivot to do more of a public security role because of the locals -- because of the political role. i do not know but the capacity to do that. i would just emphasize here, and this is something we haven't talked about, but i think it is very important and a lot of context related to the olympics is corruption. the discussion in russia, it in the lead up to the games, is focused on this, money that has been misappropriated, misplaced, gone into dodgy contacts -- dodgy contracts and offshore bank accounts. by all accounts, these will be the most extensive olympic games ever, upwards of $50 billion. as much of a third of that may have been embezzled or stolen.

what does all this have to do with security? operationally, security services can be supremely effective. but they are only in the macro sense as effective as their we guess link. in a lot of cases, the weakest link is corruption. if you think about some of the successful attacks that have been carried out in russia over the last decade or so, one that really -- that is really striking, i guess, is when two female chechen suicide bombers blow up a russian aircraft in 2007 or so. essentially, what happened was these women bribed their way through security checkpoints. they bribed the guards at the airport to let them onto the plane even though they hadn't gone through the proper procedures. they weren't searched.

and then they detonated suicide bombs when they were on board. so the system can be set up in a way that is designed to focus on these kinds of threats. but it only takes one person, one corrupt guard to look the other way in exchange for a bribe of one kind or another to have the entire thing, part and for a successful -- entire thing come part and for successful attack to come about. >> that is in of -- that is a very important point. just know that one of the planes that was targeted in the 2004 tec was headed to sochi. -- 2004 attack was headed to sochi. security services are ruthless and effective when they want to be. if you look at the history of u.s. designations of individuals, terrorists from the caucuses region or otherwise,

most of those individuals and up and -- and up dead -- most of those individuals end up dead because the russians kill them. they are ruthless. and i think they will be challenged here. >> my question is to anybody who takes it to -- takes it. in the latest statement, he took responsibility for volgograd. also chemical weapons. how serious is this threat, in your opinion ?is there any connection in your opinion? thank you.

>> part of this is building the perception of security. you have to modulate one's reaction to anything that terrorist groups in decay. but you have to take it seriously. one of the concerns that russian and u.s. officials have had for a long time is the ability of groups in the caucuses to get their hands on wmds, whether it is nuclear components. that has been a source of great concern for a number of years. the fact that syria is a cauldron of conflict and you have weapons available to the actors there, that certainly heightens the concern. but i have not seen anything in the open source reporting or otherwise to suggest you have a caravan of chemical weapons moving to sochi for attack. but is the kind that -- but it's the kind of thing you had to take mary searcy and something the u.s. authorities are looking at in terms of threat that are

threat vectors. >> that's an excellent question. it was very striking to me in the diametrically opposed responses of u.s. and russian officials to the august 21st brutal chemical weapons attack in syria. the largest one that had been -- that has been perpetrated by a long shot. it puzzled me a lot. in thinking about it, tried to think of what can be a plausible, you know, case where actually the two sides are not fundamentally disagreeing so

much. and the plausible case i suppose would be actually the -- you know, the russian response that the assad forces had no incentive to use chemical weapons because they knew that was the only contingency which would awesomely bring upon an american military strike, you know, there is a logic to that for sure. but there is a corollary logic to that as well. if the opposition somehow could gain control of some chemical weapons in syria and make it appear as though the assad forces had carried out that strike, there would be a huge

incentive for them to do that. because, of course, that would bring on not only the american military strike, but american and other international support for them in their fight against the assad government. knowing at the time that, before our agreement on the chemical weapons initiative, the diffusion of chemical weapons sites around syria, there are so many sites, it just seemed that, gosh, it would only take, again, one person or one group to get a hold of one site amongst 40 or even more than 40 that existed for people to have access to the weapons. we have to take this very, very seriously.

and because of the trends -- the transnational nature of the groups in sryia, -- in syria, this is the one moment where the u.s.-russia relationship started to turn around and subsequently in our talks about the iranian nuclear weapons program. whether it is true or not what they are saying, it clearly has to be taken at the utmost seriousness. >> good morning. roxanna scott from "usa today." i hope to they you could elaborate on the hoax part of this. and what are your expectations for protests for human rights,

anti-gay legislation, the kind of thing, particularly in the zone they set up outside the park, far from the park? >> in my opening remarks i was a bit too flippant maybe. when i look at the picture, when i look at the video, it does make you think that this could be a total hoax, you know, someone just having fun. like the intern at ktvu news in seven cisco who fed the report to the helicopter -- in san francisco who fed the report to the help -- to the teleprompter the names of the pilots.

someone trying to be funny, but not really funny. i would expect to see more reports like this for the reasons that juan elaborated, simply to enhance or increase the sense of insecurity around the games. for that to really be effective, there has to be some terrorist attack to accompany it. but i would expect to see more of this in the weeks ahead. i can only say that i am very, very relieved, at least at this point, we haven't seen any more attacks of the magnitude we saw in volgograd that we saw three weeks ago. because a could be the beginning of a series of attacks that could take place on a weekly

basis or even more frequently that would effectively destroy the games, whether or not sochi was attacked itself. on the lgbt issue, you know, of course, putin tried to sort of deflect that in his press conference. although in doing so, it kind of enraged many in the lgbt community more and their supporters more with the way he, look, no one is going to get thrown in jail. this legislation is more liberal than many other places. and really we are only talking about how began to -- about propaganda about this that is being disseminated.

but essentially, lead our children alone. the effect he was trying to address, to diffuse the problem was not a very effective way, shall we say. all i can say is i hope the russian authorities have learned enough from the response they've seen to the issue over the last few months that they will handle it with the utmost care and do their best not to inflame the issue in responding to any kind of sort of act or demonstration or statements that take place.

but after following russia for so long, sometimes i feel like you can never underestimate the capacity to cut their no soft to spite their face -- their nose off to spite their face. maybe jeff has something more insightful to say on this. >> on this question of threats that may or may not actually be real. i think this gets back to the point that andy made toward the beginning. these are such an important political project for putin, specifically, and for the russian regime, more broadly. they are trying to get across, in the olympics, in order to advance the narrative, about how russia has advanced on its feet. it has been a volatile area for the last two decades.

to the extent that insurgents, or whatever you want to call them, succeed in changing that area, succeed in getting the discussion not to be that russia is back on its feet, that putin brought stability, but rather there is an instability and insecurity. that is what they are focusing on. they are undercutting be message that the government is trying to get across, regardless of whether they are trying to get whether there is a successful attack. if there is a successful attack, that changes the narrative even more. there is this low-level chatter that takes the attention of everybody's notice initiates who are looking at the olympics. it is to bolster the prestige of the regime. >> i would like to add something to that.

putin has been very successful, in the eyes of many in his party. the olympics eccentrics it. it takes the focus off of the issues going on inside russia. some things going on inside russia are quite problematic. one of putin's most -- one of the reasons why he is most popular is because russians are experiencing a time of prosperity. a came back to a level of about four percent growth, which is ok, but not where they wanted to be. his economic growth has fallen close to zero. 2013 was 1.3%. then it was close to zero.

the sense that he brought prosperity to russia -- if the olympics go badly, then you are disgruntled, and people are looking around, and they are saying, actually, this guy, things are not going so well economically right now in russia. even if there is a dip in the oil price, which is so important for the russian economy, then they start another scenario where his leadership is really under much more pressure than one would have imagined. there is an element of focusing on the successful russia. come to russia, and see with the new russia is like. it is completely different than what the old soviet union was like. this is not your father's buick. this is the new russia. it is one reason why they spent

so much money. a lot of it has been embezzled or whatnot. and it is as a showcase. >> one point. the question about protest is an interesting and important one. in planning the security of any event, whether it is the olympics or anything else, you have to account for potential disruptions. to the extent that there's been landing, i am assuming that there is planning around everything from low-level criminality all the way to high- level terrorism. in between there, are unanticipated gatherings of individuals that could be disruptive. your question is a good one because we have been focused on the terrorist threat. but any security service looking at a major event like this is looking at a whole suite of potential disruptions that have to be taken into account both

singularly and then in combination. >> i am with the hispanic link news service in washington. what, short of any kind of news service in washington. what, short of any kind of disruption or attack, might cause the united states to withdraw, from your perception, from the olympics. secondly, what do you know about what preparations mexico and latin american countries are taking to ensure the safety of their athletes? >> that is a question for juan? >> do you want to do this in spanish? i do not know, specifically, what the latin american countries are doing?

usually what happens it that you have a reliance on the host country to provide accurate security communications. usually, most delegations have their own protocols. the u.s. is best in class in that regard and probably the most demanding international player. to answer your first question, i think that, absent an actual attack, what would be disruptive to the u.s. the only thing i can imagine is that if there were serious credible threats directed at u.s. athletes or venues that u.s. athletes would be attending. combined with the fact that the russians are not sharing the information about what is being done to counter it, and the sense that there is an inability to counter it ourselves. if there's a real sense of serious risk to our athletes

that is imminent, that is material, and it cannot be countered, then you will start to see discussion in the situation room about what is to be done. that kind of decision is taken incredibly seriously. nobody wants to see the olympics disrupted. pulling american athletes out would be disastrous for everybody i think. and it would give the terrorists a victory. you would want to make that decision very carefully. and you only want to do it in the most serious of situations. >> i would like to thank everybody for coming out. you can follow our twitter feed. we will have a transcript out later, which we will release on twitter and on our home page. csis.org. thank you for coming this morning.

>> the winter olympics begin in just to the new weeks on february 7. earlier today, news from the ap, the hungry olympic committee and eight other nations have received an e-mail written in russian and english threatening their athletes with an attack at the upcoming games. european committee president said the threat was being taken seriously as he reported other countries olympic committee's received server -- similar messages. in the u.s., the chair of the house homeland security committee said today in an interview that security measures are the most impressive and history of the games, but congressman mike mccall says he believes better intelligence sharing between russia and the u.s. is needed. moments, on a few c-span, live remarks from server messages. in the u.s., the chair of the

house homeland security committee said today in an health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius. she will be speaking at the u.s. conference of mayors, talking about the implementation of the health care law. also other programming information, live coverage on c- span2 today. presidential commission on election administration presented their findings to the president this morning. they will talk about that this afternoon at george washington university. .hat will be on c-span2 tonight, state of the state address coverage continues with nikki haley's address to the south carolina legislature. i would like to add a personal word with regard to a issue that has been of great concern to all americans over the past year. i refer, of course, to the investigations of the so-called watergate affair. as you know, i have provided to the special prosecutor voluntarily a great deal of

material. i believe that i have provided all the material that he needs to conclude his investigations and to proceed to prosecute the guilty and to clear the innocent. i believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. [applause] one year of watergate is enough. looking back at five decades of notable state of the address unions. ofday at 3:00 eastern, part american history tv this weekend on c-span three. that is all leading up to president obama's 2014 state of the union address, tuesday, january 28. we are alive at the winter meeting of the united dates conference of mayors. we will hear from health and human services secretary

in washington,us d.c., with vincent gray, in the front of the room there. this should get underway shortly. also, comments from education secretary arnie duncan. , aswill see that later on well, all of it will be on www.c-span.org.

>> this is the winter meeting of the conference of mayors. we will be hearing shortly from kathleen sebelius, talking about the implementation of the affordable care act.

live coverage as soon as it gets underway here on c-span. washington also hosting the autoshow this week. we spent the program on "washington journal" talking about the industry. part of that conversation is next. we will come back when this event with kathleen sebelius gets underway. >> joining us now is bob from toyota. thanks for joining us. tell us about what you do. >> i am director of the environmental and research group at leo north america. one of the things toyota is talking about is behind us. what is the concept? is a concept of the hydrogen fueled vehicle that

toyota is bringing to market in 2015. an all electric vehicle, not too dissimilar from a battery vehicle. very good acceleration at low speeds, very smooth and quiet. a battery electric vehicle, it has a very quick minutes, and3-5 has a range of over 300 miles on a single filling of hydrogen. that would get you to philadelphia and back on one tank. >> for the folks that would invest, what kind of investment will this need, especially if hydrogen is involved? ithydrogen is a gas and would involve a station similar to a gasoline station where you would drive to the station, refuel quickly. in southern california, we have started a process with partners to deploy 100 stations over the with $200ly 10 years million from the state of , partners in funding

from the industrial gas community, state, as well as other auto companies. >> one of the things you have here is the inside version of the fcv. this, if hee is needs to be replaced, what are the cost? >> the fuel-cell cutaway that you see there has basically the battery and fuel cell stack, electronics driving the vehicle, electric motor. these components are based on our hybrid systems, so we managed to reduce the cost. 90% of the components from the original vehicles we developed nine years ago. the cost and durability life of those components are coming down and they are in line with conventional vehicles. to fix this, has what kind of cost of possibly looking at with maintenance? >> those numbers have not been completely defined.

the expectation is the durability and reliability will be quite high and the operating cost will be no more than a conventional vehicle. public policyth here in washington. as far as washington is concerned, what do you look to as far as washington does, and what about what toyota does, in terms of energy relations? >> from a policy standpoint, creating a level field for all technologies. the infrastructure support to the vehicle support. looking andre battery electric technology or fuel-cell technology, the support from the public sector thequal and will allow consumers in the marketplace to choose the winners and the losers, not public policy. >> so the government should favor one type of technology over the other? >> the government has tended to favor certain technologies. if you go back a decade, -- not support of-- but

natural gas, ethanol, fuel cell. now there is a strong focus on plug-in vehicles. the playing field as level as possible and let the market choose. >> the secretary is on her way and will be here. when the secretary shows up, she then becomes the star of the show. i want to welcome all of you here to the u.s. of mayors committee on children, help, and -- health, and human services. i have been the mayor of green bay since 2003. i chair this committee. as many of you have heard me say before, there are so many tracks going on here at the conference, so many things to work on. day, aend of the committee -- community with healthy children, human services

is really what our job is ultimately about. i think what we will do is go around the table, and i would like the mayors to introduce themselves. we have for you today that we will be hearing from in just a minute. if we could get to know each other -- your name and the city to represent. we start with a good friend of mine, a host of the conference -- i come here often. this is a very clean, friendly city. not the best football team, mayor -- [laughter] >> you have to go there. >> we could have done better, too. i am glad he is here and i am glad to cochair the committee. if you could start, mayor greg. -- gray. >> good afternoon, everybody.

i am vincent gray, the mayor of the district of columbia. delighted to be the host city, delighted to work with mayor schmidt and i aspired to have a team as good as mayor schmidt's. this year, so there is no other way to go than up. [laughter] mayor wayne hall from the village of hempstead, new york. >> mayor brian barnett from the city of rochester hills, michigan. nick cornett, oklahoma city. mayor gray, thank you for kevin durant. >> [inaudible] california. ruiz, mayor of -- texas. >> piedmont, california.

>> good afternoon, judy paul. they are of davie, florida. west of fort lauderdale. >> mayor bill yule, alexandria, virginia. mark parenti, shelton, connecticut. >> [inaudible] nancy mcfarlane, mayor of raleigh, north carolina. >> canyon right, mayor of -- virginia. >> luci romero. the great city of north miami. >> meridian, mississippi. >> m summers, lakewood, ohio. >> john ducey. >> wisconsin. a proud packers season-ticket holder. > blacksburg, virginia.

>> thank you for being here. this committee, when you talk about helping communities, children, families, it is all- encompassing. we deal with everything from -- we had that whole choking game that we had in las vegas which is kind of an epidemic, discretion drugs -- prescription drugs. we need to raise healthy communities. we do that through families, children. we have four speakers who will address this. i will make some comments at the end about things that we are doing in green bay. i think we are going to begin ok, when and if it is the secretary shows up, if you could step aside. that would be appropriate. i know she is on a time schedule .

but i want to get to the introduction of our next speaker. you talk about health. many of us are doing physical health, doing healthy food, but behavioral health is paramount to having a healthy community. we have brought in the best speaker in that field who is the principal deputy administrator for the substance abuse and mental health service administration. her focus, her passion is on behavioral health. , sheincipal administrator shares responsibility with the administrator to provide executive direction and policy leadership for the agency. with that, a warm u.s. conference of mayors welcome. inc. you for being here. [applause] -- thank you for being here. schmidt,you, mayor

mayor gray. i appreciate the opportunity to talk about an important issue, which is so central to the health of all of your communities. i applaud you for being invested in children and health in your communities. anhink you will find investment in addressing mental health issues, that is how you will truly achieve the health goalsprincipal deputy administrr for the substance abuse and mental health that you have, ass the productivity and economic for your have you community. half of all mental disorders occur before the age of 14. three quarters by the age of 24. over the course of our lifetime, mental and substance abuse disorders will affect one in e you are of us. in any given year, one out of five americans suffer a mental or substance abuse is order. as i was reading an article this morning, mental and substance abuse disorders together are the

leading cause of years lost worldwide. while they are not the leading ,auses of death, they are because they are disorders of the young, because they can be disabling, and for young people with a mental health problem, fewer than 20% actually get treatment. people with a diagnosable health condition -- no one would accept that for heart disease, diabetes . 80% of people with a mental health condition do not get treatment, young people. we created this mayors resource guide on this behavioral health issue, which all of you have today. too often, the issues of mental health and substance abuse come to the awareness of cities and mayors when something unfortunate happens. we have had -- we know that people with mental disorders are more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators of

violence, or crime. yet, we also know that people who are not able to get treatment and have certain conditions do have elevated rates of violence. with these issues, we have seen own, tucson, and other places. this has raised our awareness that we need to have a national set of resources available so that you can, at the local levels, take action, no how to lead your communities, nowhere scientistic -- scientifically backed information is available for your constituents. cue.ink i see my >> madam secretary, welcome.

[applause] >> i had in my initial notes that you may be late because you had a meeting with president obama. i thought, that is a pretty good excuse. we are glad that you are with us today. you have been very kind to address this committee in the past. it is my honor to introduce our next speaker, the u.s. department of health and human services kathleen sebelius. know, secretary sebelius is the 21st secretary of the department of health and human services, sworn in in 2009. in her time in office, the secretary has traveled to many of our communities, many of our cities, to meet with us and others, to discuss the

president's signature legislation, the affordable care act, as it is being rolled out nationwide. as we all know, as mayors and as citizens of the united states, it was a bit of a bumpy start, but recent signs are showing that the number of people securing access to health insurance is on the rise. we welcome the secretary for being here with us today to let us know more about the progress. a warm u.s. conference of mayors welcome to our secretary of health and human services secretary sebelius. thank you for being here. [applause] thank you, mayor schmidt. it is nice to see mayor gray here. trying to get away from you, i was just right in the spotlight of the slide deck.

it is good to have a chance to visit with all of you for a few minutes. what i thought i would do is go over a few things and then hopefully have a chance to answer some of your questions, if you have questions for me. those of you who know what communities i have visited, i believe mayors are on the forefront of health care delivery in america. you really are the pragmatic ceos who see the results of what happens. you have jails that house individuals who who know what communities i have visited, i cannot get the mental health or substance abuse services they need, or they might be productive members of their community. neighborhoods that are lost to home foreclosures because unpaid medical bills still is the number one cause of bankruptcy and causes a series of events in a family situation. your budgets are pressed.

people cannot get preventative care, do not have access to medicaid, or the services they need. often, you bear the brunt and see the bottom line of uncompensated care. the american hospital association says that, as a country, we spent about $326 years onn the last 14 uncompensated care. we know that the lion's share of that budget is often paid for by local governments who are trying and struggling to keep your community hospitals in the black so they can continue to operate. and avoidable emergency room visits alone cost the health care system $18 billion a year in wasted services. have had a chance to visit with a lot of you about those situations.

you know that health has an impact on anything else, how well kids do in school, jobs in the economy, quality of life in your community. first of all, i want to thank you for your partnership on lots of efforts that we have been working on over the last number of years. a number of you have been extraordinarily helpful leaders on the first ladies let's move initiative. i am joining in on the healthy cities work effort. there is no question, we have a crisis in this country, and when one out of every three kids is overweight or obese. it is a work that is really important and it is not just about what is going on now, but future generations. we have more than 400 mayors who have joined the let's move cities, towns, and counties effort. we are really developing strategies that have shown remarkable improvements. in fact, the first real

reduction in childhood obesity that we have seen in decades is beginning to occur, and the conversation more importantly, is changing around the country. it is changing around the way people look at these issues. 63 million americans live in the communities that are now headed by a healthaders -- leader ceo driving the conversation. i would love to continue that work as we go forward. you have heard about the important work going on in the substance abuse end, mental health services, but a lot of you have been on the frontlines forhose efforts to, again, the first time, have community conversations about behavioral health issues, mental health and substance abuse issues. i had a chance to attend some of the dialogue meetings. i must say, they are very impressive efforts. i was in the kansas city area

not too long ago when the mayor of kansas city, kansas joined with the mayor of kansas city, missouri, in a bistate effort. the most surprising thing was that there were 500 people in a room at 9:00 on a saturday morning. and they were not forced to be there by anyone. ,hese were community members parents,dvocates, educators, health leaders, who came together to say, we have got a problem, we have to identify where the gaps are in our communities, and what can be done, and we need to move forward. impressive.rmously i think you will see in the president's budget a real commitment to these issues. the president has proposed training and hiring 5000 additional mental health professionals, recognizing that as we implement mental health parity, at the same impressive e

implement the affordable care act, there are 60 million americans that will have access to substance abuse and mental health services that they have never had before. the problem is we do not have nearly enough providers, and sometimes they are not in the right laces. the national conversations could not comment at a more important time. out of theople shadows, making it clear that it is ok to ask for help. reaching down into some of our most vulnerable populations, our young people in particular, ,hose who are in transition where we know they can be in precarious shape, getting them to be able to be comfortable enough to come forward and ask for help can be huge. mayors, you play a huge role in that. know that, as mayor schmidt said, we are spending some time and effort around the affordable

care act. i would like to start this with a pragmatic look. this is the law. peoplere benefits that are entitled to under the law and there is also opportunity to expand medicaid under the law. i think your role in both helping to educate the residents of your community, that they might for the first time, be eligible for affordable health care, but also having a significant voice in the medicaid discussion which takes place in your legislature, is critically important. we know that throughout the been playingrs has significant roles. mayor parker in houston has mobilized an entire coalition and used her outreach efforts and public health resources,

figuring that if people are paying customers once again, as opposed to charity cases it is a win-win for the city. mayor buckhorn, last week, in tampa, decided a good place to connect with people was the parks and recreation facilities. individuals were accessing those and healthy tong play basketball, seniors were doing education events. just having materials and folks there was a way to make sure people got information that they could use and needed. so we would love to work with you in ways to take advantage of the remainder of the open enrollment period, which lasts until the 31st of march. here is what we know from two recent national polls that have been done. a lot of the uninsured across the country still do not know nearly enough about the law. not knowabsolutely do

that many of them qualify for financial help and support. they figure health insurance is something they will never afford, so they are not even checking it out. all we are trying to do is get people the information they need. we have regional directors across the country, coalitions in place in markets, and we love to work with you. six in 10 uninsured americans can't get coverage for $100 a month or less. in many cases, a lot less. just having that information, understanding it is cheaper than a cell phone bill, but it actually gives them some security and peace of mind. currently, we have a lot of people who started the new year -- about 9 million americans -- started a new year with new health coverage. 3 million young adults who got covered on their parents plan. another almost or million who are medicaid eligible in states that have decided to expand

medicaid. 2.1 million people in the private marketplace. those 9 million are now being added to by numbers we are putting out today, where the medicaid eligibility, through the end of december, is more like 6.3 million. so we have people who, for the first time, will have some help security that they have never securitye -- health that they have never had before. we know the issue in a number of your state is still complicated. absent the expansion of medicaid, the lowest income working adults will have no health benefits at all that are affordable. it is a complicated situation for them and it is a complicated situation for all of you because you continue to bear the cost of that uncompensated care.

happy to be engaged, involved. i am dealing with governors across the country. what the colleagues on possibilities are to fashion plans that look like the state. we currently have 30 governors, 20 democrats, 10 republicans, who have declared an interest in moving forward. we want to do genie those conversations during open enrollment period and beyond. initiative that we would love to engage your in this support on, and conversation, at this particular time, is huge. i also want to mention the impact of the affordable care act on the community health centers. again, primary areas of distribution of health care in your neighborhoods. the affordable care act has

about $151 million in new grants that have just been announced to make sure that health care sites are increased and the number of people are increased. about one point 25 million additional patients can be served with the grants that we just put out. it will cut down not only on long waiting room times but finally gave a lot of people a help home doing what we saw in massachusetts, when they expanded health insurance, was that it did not create fewer customers for community health centers. in fact, it created more. a lot of people go to community health centers because that is their health home. that is where they are comfortable, that is where the neighborhood is. but the work they are doing with the local hospitals to try to make sure that people no longer come through the doors of an emergency room but used the help center for primary care and follow-up care, is hugely

important. i want to thank you for the work you are doing. onhave lots of efforts going in these areas, early childhood, with health and wellness issues cities.our i do believe that mayors often have the chop this job in america because you are where the rubber meets the road. people can find you, they know where you are. they want everythingpeople can . they know who you are. filled inthe potholes front of their house. we look forward to working with you on the health and human services issues that flow through our department and want to make sure we are good partners along the way. you, mayor thank schmidt, for having me here today and i would be happy to answer questions if you have any questions. >> than that is what we do. we couldn't do it without leadership from your department

and so many other secretaries in this administration. for three have time or four questions and we will get to our other speakers. hand, want to raise her mayor cornett, m, introduce yourself here >> madam secretary , i am mike cornett. you mentioned some advancement in childhood obesity rates. could you expand on that? >> i think last year we saw for the first time in about 15 or a teen communities in actual reduction in childhood obesity in some of the major urban areas in the country that have been tracked for well over two decades. i think that is the first dent in what had been just an increasing trajectory.

having said that, we have a lot of work to do. i think the combination of changing the school administration rules, changing che rules around what wi program supplies, services for nursing mothers has helped. mayor, your city is the perfect example, the effort you have going on in that city in terms of health and wellness, i think mayors have really led the way engaged this a community- , involved effort. it makes a huge difference. i think it is pretty dramatic after a couple of years we are finally seeing some real progress. my hope is that we can take the practices that seem to be working and really accelerate to those, share those practices

across the country and figure out a way to double down on it. >> ok. mr. mayor. mr. mayor, mr. mayor, mr. mayor, mr. mayor. it is like a marx brothers movie. coverage through the affordable care act, this may seem like a simple question, but it is near impossible to get a clarification on it. in terms of any exemptions that may apply to part-time employees because they are either insured by their parents or their spouse or their partner, whatever the case may be, we understand that, if you are under 26, you're covered by your parents insurance so there is an exemption there and you can work yonder the 30-hour requirement. most municipalities employ a lot of part-time people. they are seasonal in nature.

you exceed those limits. mayor, therell, an exemption in the age of your employee. it starts with an employer responsibility. employers are defined to fall featuree responsibility are those who employ more than 50 full-time employees. don'tare exemptions and i want to try to go through them, but i can tell you -- we can get you some very specific information about how seasonal employees are treated, how retail stores who might hire holiday time, ski resorts, all of those entities, the rules taking into account that those are not regarded as fte's. so if you are under 50 full-time

, you have no responsibility at all to provide health care for your employees. fte's, withver 50 all of these exemptions taken into account, you are responsible for either providing affordable health care to your a fine that paying ultimately goes into the pool that would draw subsidies for those employees to go into the marketplace. so that is really the delineation and there are very specific ways for how you count the 50 and we would be glad to share those rules with you. havet doesn't say, if you under 26-year-olds, you don't count those folks as full-time folks. >> kenny wright, mayor in virginia.

on the federal level, is it alarming to you how many schools -- how many kids in our schools are diagnosed with adhd? is the federal government looking at that and concerned with that number? >> well, the diagnosis i think has had -- has changed and has been informed by a lot of signs of the last number of years. so the autism spectrum, which ,as a wide range of behaviors is now included in what is diagnosed as autism. recenthink the most studies were one in eight children is identified with some of the symptoms that fall on the autism spectrum. and i think it couple of things are going on. first of all, i think the diagnosis has gotten a lot more precise and a lot better.

and informed by science about what this means. of concernslot about what our the intervention strategies, how early you can intervene. there are a lot of children who are identified early on as being part of that autism spectrum who can actually, with early intervention and training, lose all those symptoms. --ean, essentially recover am not sure if that is the correct terminology -- but my the identified as that -- but might be identify as that. and end up being mainstreamed in school. ofhink part of it is a lot additional testing is going on. a lot of additional scientific whatis happening around are the range of characteristics

that define the autism spectrum and then how you prevent, intervene, act on that diagnosis. >> thank you. >> yes, ma'am. >> thank you. >> miami. i want to thank you for our meeting last week, conference call, our cry for help in the city of miami. regarding mental health in our -- community, we are in a state where we cannot extend medicaid hearing our governor is not ready for it yet. what do we do with those part- time employees that cannot afford health care and they are not eligible for medicaid? they are not working 36 hours a week. they are working 20 hours a

week. how do we change that? >> again, i would say that this isn't an issue part-time/full- time. state has where the not moved to expand medicaid, if recovery,low 100% regardless of how many hours you were, and you don't have affordable health care in your workplace, you don't qualify for any financial assistance because you are below the level where you would have a marketplace subsidy. and you are not eligible for medicaid if the state hasn't moved ahead on medicaid expansion. are huge states like florida, texas, georgia, others with -- as much as 23% for floridians 33% of

are uninsured. almost 2 million people are eligible for medicaid if mckaig would to -- if medicaid would be expanded. after medicaid expansion, there is not a lot -- community health centers play a usual because the community health care would serve those godless of insurance. emergency rooms will continue to provide acute care. regardless of insurance. emergency rooms will continue to provide acute care. the governor has supported medicaid expansion, as you know. the debate is going to go forward again. the return on investment debate, those numbers would come in.

years 2014, 2015, 2016 are completely paid for by the federal government. it doesn't add to the debt. what the rules say, if a state wants to come in in those years and then withdraw, that is acceptable. the state will never pay more than 10% of that bell over the course of 10 years. probably the single most generous, i would say, federal-state partnership in government that i have ever seen. insuranceren's health and original medicaid, even though there is some reluctance at the front and that some people turn around and say this on-- our resources dedicated roads and bridges and schools and economic development, other payingand diverted from

uncompensated care. >> just one more question. as chair, i am going to ask it. just an update on the website. things.ring good as mayors, people do contact us for every little thing. you update the conference on where things are going. i appreciate you being with us today. >> sure. thank you for having me. i don't think it is any great secret that the opening weeks of the website or rocky, to say the least. have a user to experience by november and we were able to meet that goal. saw a farr, we different experience. we had millions of visits, millions of enrollments, and no , you know,ll with

the site didn't crash or had difficult time serving large populations. we saw an increase in december. january has continued the same way. there are still arts of the site -- still hearts -- still parts of the site that need to be developed as we move forward. the whole financial reconciliation peace, which we have a manual workaround with insurers right now, is in the hospice of being completed. the medicaid transfers, so that so thatt magically -- we can automatically send people . the state of the day, makes the eligibility determination. we don't in the federal government. but we can look at the rules in

florida, someone's income, and send that name to the state. that is in the process now of being automated and tested throughout the country here in a lot of states can't receive it yet because their systems are not ready for the automation. so we have the paper file and that transfers. but i would say healthcare.gov is a vastly different experience. it takes an average of about 30 minutes for someone to go from start to finish. learned side of the site, where you can go on and do anonymous shopping and see what you are eligible for is now built and robust. anybody who tried the experience at the front and, -- the front d, we are contacting all of the customers who came in through that october and , we are asking them to come back in.

up andne number is running. we have a thousand trained people. there is england's -- there is english and spanish and up to the 150 different linkages. if someone is not web savvy and they want to talk to somebody or they get to the website and need to call someone, they can call the toll-free number. and then there are the trained helpers in every community. every community has enrollment and outreach folks. again, a lot of people, need someone to sit down with and walked through. so we are trying to anticipate -- we always anticipated that everybody wouldn't be able to use the website. but i can tell you that millions of people are visiting every day and they are having a very different experience. >> you are doing a great job. >> thank you. [applause]

>> thank you again, madam secretary. we will now continue. we lost bob. you can move in. >> i am cognizant of the time and i want to be respectful to my panelists. thatecretary had mentioned there have been these community conversations around the country where mayors have sponsored national dialogue, heart of the national dialogue around mental health. i encourage you to go to mental.gov. -- mentalhealth.gov.

we had mayor johnson from sacramento, mayor barry from albuquerque, mayor james and mayor homes from their respective kansas cities, and mayor coleman from columbus. this have been very exciting events. if you want to see what your colleagues have been doing, the results of those very dynamic conversations are all posted online here in there is a -- online. there is a virtual community talking about what can be done at the local level to improve mental health and the substance abuse issues for young people around the country. that is creatingcommunities living.org. if you decide to sponsor one of these events in your community, you can download the toolkit.

you can contact other mayors who have done this. communities are committing to do to harness their resources, to harness their energy, to improve behavioral health for their constituents. so thank you very much. >> thank you p.m. if we have time later, we will be sure to take some questions. we will hear from our very own vice chair, the district of columbia mayor vincent gray. this guy is often -- this guy is awesome. mayor gray has a lot of opportunities, early childhood education to all children five and under den as just mentioned, he is a leader getting dozens of people in the rule to work on different issues. washington, d.c. is a model for the rest of the united states. mayor gray, it is great to have you here again. much, mayor very schmidt.

let me say also what a delight it is to work with you. and especially to be able to work with a football team that wins. [laughter] again, it's been a delight to work with you on this committee. one of the things that we recognize, frankly, early on -- and we have adopted, embraced a very aggressive education reform thes in the city -- one of things that we recognized, i recognize in particular, was that there's no way that our goals can be fully achieved or achieved to the extent that we would hope they would be achieved without recognizing that education has to start before children typically enter school. why people made the decision in some states that children should begin formal school or formal education at age five or, in some instances six, is beyond me. i have never gotten a thorough answer. one of the things that we have taken on here as a part of

education reform is the development of a set of strategies around early education. and i just want to talk a little bit about that today. and i would be happy to answer any questions you may have earing the slide here lays out what i think is a conceptual framework for what it is we are attempting to do. and these are things i don't think anybody would argue about embracing altogether. one that all children should develop an enriching environment. is that families have the opportunity to be linked to experiences and resources that will strengthen their role as parents, recognizing that we have a lot of children being raised in nontraditional families. ory may be raised by a dad by a single mom.

that we invest in the training of professionals to be able to do this work. in far too many instances, we have assumed that working with children at very early stages was the lords work, which it is, a set of is professional skills that ought to be associated with that as well. and fourthly, focusing on public safety so that communities are places that are safe and invest the resources that are needed in order to be able to ensure the children are raised in a safe place. one of the things that we are doing -- this is a slide that you see before you now -- what we are trying to do is put together a system. we call it the one-city system for early success. we have lots of agencies like undoubtedly your cities do as well. we have nine or 10 agencies that work in one way or the other with children and families directly.

an advisoryether council for a better way of putting it. as chair of our deputy mayor of education and deputy mayor of health and human services jointly. those initials that you see there -- why the way, we are city-state-county all rolled into one, which exceed should very exciting to be in the district of columbia. so we have the offices of the state superintendent for education like -- for education unlike any other city. the department of health and human services handles are merely the income functions come -- handles primarily the income functions, the homeless functions. i department of health care medicaidanages our program. we have our own locally created and administered medicaid which

we call the alliance. it serves 20,000 additional people who otherwise would not be insured. and then the key agencies that d.c. publicnt of schools. we have one of the most robust charter movements now in the nation. have 43% or 44% of our children in charter schools. 47,000 children. and we have been involved extensively now as well in the early childhood early success movement. and the other agencies -- one focuses on the department of behavioral health, which is tried to do more for children at very early stages. strategies that we put together, i was the chairman of the council before i became the mayor. one of the things i did was introduce legislation and the city adopted it to create a

commitment to universal prekindergarten. that is serving children who are ages three and four here in the district of columbia. 2008, 2000back in nine, and we have had an incredibly extant initial increase in the number of young children being served. at the time, we had a number of fragmented programs. we adopted the public pre-k expansion act. several yearsow from a little over 7000 children being involved in what people call childcare or day care experiences to being enrolled in school at the stage and almost 12,000 children now enrolled. those 12,000 children are ages three and four. they are enrolled in full-time all the programs in our schools. just in terms of percentages, we now have 70% of our three-year- and 92%olled in school

of our four-year-old are now enrolled in school. and i will show you some data in a second that is very encouraging in terms of what we are able to see happen. we also have been able to link kids with a variety of other resources. what we have done, by the way, which i would encourage people to do, we received had started dollars just like everybody else does. we have now been able to blend our head start dollars with our own investments here in the city . in fact, because we are investing our dollars substantially in the programs for ages -- children ages three and four, we are now able to take our head start dollars and invest them into early head start dollars. that means that the oldest children for the most part that are serving with head start dollars now are at three and we are able to start investing in

them at earlier ages. one of the things we have been able to do is dramatically increase our head start resources to dramatically increase the number of health- care screenings, developmental screenings. when we started this process, the first year, we had 35 children who were screened, which is phenomenally low, to say the least. have a hugeee, we increase thereafter. we now routinely have 4000 or more screenings of very young theiren to determine what is andmental potential what developmental problems may exist. and we are able to start to head off problems that can be ameliorated with developmental delays and even with developmental disabilities. like everybody does, we do testing. we have now had a few years experience.

as is what we are beginning to see. we are able to do some comparisons of testing of kids who have been involved in the early childhood programs, starting with h three. -- with age three. now some of these are up to the third grade. and if you look at every demographic, you will see there is progress. this is mathide of scores. we see a difference, for example, and levels of efficiency. -- levels of proficiency. among it and on the glee among economically challenged children, african- american children, a 5% difference. hispanic children, a 8% difference. difference on 3% math scores. you get the same kind of encouraging -- we are getting the same kind of encouraging feedback now on children on reading.

to 34% for economically disadvantaged children and so on and so forth. you can see the rest for yourself. you don't need to have me read every number for you. but i think it is incredibly encouraging as well. we are starting to see these kinds of outcomes and we will follow this on a longitudinal basis. one of the things that i did for fiscal year 2014 which began october 1, 20, now about four months ago, which is to begin, as part of our early success commitment, to begin to invest more dollars to get these young people started in developmentally enriching programs. 1, i invested an million in infant and toddler programs. what that will do is allow us to raise the rates which will also result in higher educational

levels for the people who are doing this work. there are a lot of people who have done a lot of good work in early child work and childcare and i don't want to disparage or demean that. but typically, they have not been people who have really had degrees or are required to have degrees in order to be able to do this work. so we are now investing dollars to be able to get people to the point where these programs can higher teachers who have degrees and required of them. for example, we raised the rates in what we call our goal centers as of october 1 from $54 a day ourlmost $53 a day in infants. so on and so $40, forth, which is increasing the opportunity for us to improve the qualities and skills in the people who do this work and also to be able to engage more

children. we created 200 new slots as well as a result of that. the state longitudinal education warehouse, we have that in the district of columbia. we are now including a measure of what we call kindergarten readiness. we have joined a group of nine states, spearheaded by the state of north carolina, a consortium of nine states that are developing a kindergarten entry assessment that will allow us to systematically know where the kids who are -- at age five, whether they are educationally ready to be able to benefit fully from this experience. the federal government is investing $6 million in this program and we should have that

ready in about a year or less to be able to move forward. finally, we believe -- i can't say enough about the investment in early childhood education. "theu see with this quote, time is overdue for us to invest." let me tell you one byproduct of this. feature of the medicaid program that is often not used. how many of you are familiar with the pesdt feature? it is a feature that every child whose family is eligible for medicaid -- it's a feature that can be made available to these children. thes a way of paying for screening of these children to find out where they are developmentally and then to be able to intervene using also medicaid funds to be able to do that.

so the additional resource that we have been able to make available to us, again, we are seeing the growth in our children. we are seeing parents now who are enrolling their very young children into early childhood education programs. and two ancillary fx and then i will quit. one, we are having an increasingly number of parents who are able to work, especially moms because their children now are being enrolled in programs at age three, age four, and some of them in infant and toddler programs. and we actually now -- you heard me talk earlier at lunch about the enrollment or the residency numbers in the city increasing. part of that is because we are getting young families moving in. the kids we offer a universal early childhood education program. we are actually getting young families, young parents moving here because it want to be able to take advantage of those opportunities.

the benefits, we will see reductions in our truancy numbers over time. we will see reductions in our special education numbers. and i'm sure we will see reductions in our juvenile justice numbers as well. nothing is a panacea. as a mayor, we all know that. but this is about the closest to a panacea that i can get and i would urge you all to take the opportunity to invest wherever you can in creating more early childhood education programs in your cities. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mayor. just two things and i want to be sensitive to the time. i just want to speak to green bay. i think you have heard this from the mayors around the table. to the yourself community, it is a collaboration. we put together a program three years ago and we titled it live 50218. it is a zip code. it is not a real zip code. but we said that the people that

live in our community will live in the healthiest community in the united states. charter schools, hospitals, my fruits andstands for vessels and vessels of water and we give them these bottles that 50218 on it. we have 60 libraries. parks, we put in these neighborhood libraries so the kids have free books. greatckers have been a partner with us to make sure that these kids have exercise and then eight hours of sleep which no mayor ever gets, but we still tell the kids to do that. [laughter] on the backormation table here. there is an initiative that we teamed together and said, look, everybody, we apply for a grant from the federal government that helped us stop some people. the mayor talked about their are other funds out there.

but this community effort, it is a cool thing. but everywhere you go in green bay, grocery stores, the schools, my office, you will see people wearing shirts, buttons, plaque or its, on billboards -- , onard's -- placards billboards. it is awesome. these kids are learning how to grow healthy foods. they are understanding we don't need a whole distribution that we have in this country, that he can be more of a direct sale. and it has been a couple three years and it's working. seen a reduction in childhood obesity. it is a lot of effort. we have fun runs and everything else. you have to talk about it. we have to talk about it every week. when you talk to the city, you have to talk about it. when you go to schools, you have to talk about it. exit winning the super bowl, this is my top priority, man,

having a healthy community. [laughter] wasother thing is -- this adopted by the conference a few years ago -- we have once called kids day in green bay. some of you have that. that is june 28. we have a day where we put out a full-court press to engage with the youth in our community. they get free wristbands. they get free access to our swimming pools. they get free rides in our amusement park. lunche a free healthy with the mayor. we get over a thousand kids who come to this lunch and sit down and i tell them how great the city is. it is just another community engagement that we do as a city on that day to reward the kids. but really to talk about a healthy community. some of these parents, you never want to give up on parents, but sometimes you have to get to the kids. and if these kids can understand

that -- the mayor should you test scores -- we support that as well. these kids are healthier will do better and that will make for a healthy community and that is what our job is as mayor. here.k you for being my know how busy you are. we will be meeting in dallas again. i asked you to come to that. we can stick around for questions. the information we talked about his all on the back table. thanks for what you're doing for your cities and really thanks for what you're doing for the so country because it starts at our level and i think it is really working. >> mayor. >> yes. >> regarding the kids health, how do you implement that program? you started elementary schools? >> yes. we have schools of putting community gardens. we have people -- we are a city, but we have farmers that are not very far away, 20 miles, that come in and teach these kids. something else that we have done is taken some dilapidated homes

and turned those into community gardens because it is in a more lower income neighborhood. and we get professionals. i mean, these farmers know what they are doing. they know the tricks of the trade. you don't want to the mayor teaching these kids how to garden. [laughter] they can do it. these kids are learning and eating healthier. and it is a long process. i don't do say it's perfect. it is just a, nation of our hospitals, the chamber, the politicians. we meet as an organization. i'm sure you have your own public television. we have green bay public television. that is always one of our features, talking about the live 54218. >> i want to reemphasize the importance of what you are talking about, which is leading by example. if you haven't seen one green bay's doing, you have to go up there and see it. it is not only the home of the packers, but their initiative is

lending everybody together. the mayor is learning by example. i learned from cornett about leading cities and the top cities in the country. so thank you, mayor. >> thank you for being here. enjoy the rest of the conference. [applause] secretaryd from kathleen. c-span is also covering several other discussions today. the education reform task force meeting this afternoon.

they are hearing from secretary arnie duncan gave those events coming later in our program schedule on the c-span network. also available shortly on our website, www.c-span.org. also later today, north carolina's governor delivers the state of the stated dress, they southhe priorities for carolina 2014. that will be at 7:00 p.m. eastern. ed miller band engage prime minister david cameron in a debate over the u.k. kit so -- ..k.'s treatment here is a portion of that debate. ve with his family. mr. speaker, recent reports of the murder of thousands of innocent civilians by the regime in syria are a reminder of the horror unfolding there. we all hope the significant progress in today's talks. last month the prime minister, deputy prime minister and i made

a joint statement about the plight of syrian refugees which welcomed the government leadership to come to the aid program. the u.n. high commission for refugees has also called on britain to be part of a program to help resettle a small number of the most vulnerable syrian refugees. 18 countries are part of that program. britain is not so far among them. doesn't the prime minister agree that we should be? >> first organic completely agree with the right gentlemen just how dreadful the news is that is come out of syria in recent days about allegations of torture and worse in that country. i think we are fulfilling our moral obligations to the people of syria. we are the second largest bilateral aid donor. theamong the bridge taxpayers ae providing is providing food and shelter and water and medicine for literally hundreds of thousands of people. we are also fulfilling all our obligations in terms of asylum-seekers and we've taken over 1000 asylum seekers from

syria in recent months. we are also making sure that where we can help foldable children were ill including a child in a british hospital today, we take action there as well. i don't believe you can solve a refugee crisis of this scale when you've got almost half of the 9 million population of syria either displaced or risk of displacement with a quota system where countries are taking a few hundred refugees. but where i disagree with them is that if there are very difficult cases of people who don't belong in refugee cams who have been either disabled by these dreadful attacks or in very difficult circumstances i'm happy for us to look at that argument. written always plays the right role in these desperate humanitarian crises. >> ed miliband. >> mr. speaker, i thank the prime minister for that answer. let me make a few points in reply. it's important issue. first of all we all agree that

this government has shown in relationship to searing tait and i pay tribute to him and others. on the point about asylum seekers, those are people have been able to get you. were not taught the people have been able to get here, we're talking to people in the refugee camps at the moment. on his point about whether this can solve the problem. of course, again but the u.n. is talking about a number of the most affordable people including children who've lost their parents and victims of torture. i was somewhat encouraged by the end of his answer of this. we are all proud of britain's tradition in terms of taking refugees. why doesn't he look again and say that britain will actually participate in this program and take just a few hundred refugees and, indeed, set an example? >> i don't actually think there's a disagreement between us. the problem i see -- at me say, the problem i see some countries are using this quota system as a way of saying, therefore, i fulfilled my obligation.

when you've got as i said almost half of a 9 million population at risk of displacement, the fact that the fence or the french or the sweeps will take a few hundred people, that is not fulfilling your obligation where as the massive amount of aid that britain is putting forward, the second largest in the world i think is putting the most important role. but as i said to him i think there are individual cases where we should be looking and i'm happy to look at those arguments and those issues, but let's not pretend that a small quota system can solve the problem of syrian refugees. >> i do feel we are gradually inching forward on this, mr. speaker. let me be clear about this. let me be clear about this. it must not be an excuse for failing to provide a. of course, it must not but we're not talking about either providing aid or taking over refugees. we are talking about doing both.

given the results on of the prime minister, will he now open discussions with the united nations about britain making its contribution to this program? i think colleagues from all sides of the south want this to happen. will he now say he will do so? >> i've made very clear we are prepared to listen to the arguments about how we can help the most vulnerable people in those refugee camps. but just to correct him, some of the countries that are participating, include in the quotas both a side in numbers and refugee numbers which i think is not the argument we should be making. let me be absolutely clear, britain is leading the world in terms of humanitarian aid in syria. we should be proud of that. we are fulfilling our obligations on asylum claims and we should be proud that we do give him to those who fleet torture and persecution. where the our extreme hardship cases i think we should look at those again. that is the approach we should take her i think it should be

all parsable for anything britain can be proud of the road -- proud of the role we are playing. >> as i say, we will open discussion with the united nations. i don't think honorable members should grown on this issue. i really do not. >> part of today's debate in the house of comments. "prime minister's question time" 9:00 p.m. sunday night and again at 12:00 a.m. here on c-span. >> i do see myself as a person trying to understand myself, try to situate myself. the idea for the book came to me when i was giving some lectures at the u.s. air force academy in colorado springs.

at a very nice liberal minded air force officer had lots of chats with me which i found very interesting. he told me he was a liberal. mindnted to create in my the idea of the air force academy as some strange radical fundamentalists. he told me as a liberal and he told me that he was in favor of immigration. but, he said, when people come to this country, they should learn the native language. and i said, yes, i quite agree. everyone should learn spanish did -- spanish. night atica" saturday

10:00 eastern. the tv book club, you still have time to weigh in on the liberty amendments. go to booktv.org and click on the book of to enter the chat room. washington auto show kicks off this week. this morning, we brought you inside the washington, d.c. convention center for some a dash for a look at some of the cars. this is just over two hours. >> we are here at the forward section of the washington auto show. ward section of the washington auto show with lee, the group vice governmentf relations.

our interaction with governments and communities where we do business around the world. times. tax reform is another issue, but most important is trade policy. we are the number one exporting the number one exporting sector in the united states. trade agreements have worked for us, and there are those trade agreements that have not worked for us. the biggest issue is currency manipulation. there we stand with the majority of congress, house and senate, to get some kind of currency discipline inside trade agreements. what currency discipline means is trying to figure out a way to

stop subsidizing foreign product. you would sayhink fuel mileage standards would be a concern. havingvery important in a good roadmap, and we are pleased with working with the administration on a roadmap that takes us through the next couple of years. we will have a checkpoint, and we are working with the regulators to have some data points and share with them the data so we can work together on a midterm review. host: part of the news that came out of detroit was the ford f-150 is largely made of aluminum. is that a part of the low mileage standards? part of it, a big and it is a fabulous product. you will see "built ford tough." this product is 700 pounds lighter, and it will get rate fuel economy, but better towing, better hauling. it will accelerate faster. this is a lean, mean, fighting machine. was going to ask you if

aluminum was a durability issue, especially with things like impacts. guest: not at all. aluminumitary-grade that comes from the humvee. you will see this in military applications. it is 700 pounds lighter, better fuel economy. that weere is a car will see eventually, that has solar panels on the top. what's up with that? guest: a great concept. it is the latest research out of ford. that looking at other ways we can be energy independent in the long-term. have looked at better internal combustion engines, or applications, fuel cells. now we are looking at coming off the electricity grid and seeing if we can do this by solar panels. maybe not on a day like this where it is 70 degrees, but it

has some good applications. we are studying it, researching it, and seeing what its possibilities are. host: where does the government help or hinder you as far as standards for when you develop and market these vehicles? aest: the government provides role in providing some kind of incentive for an approach to alternative vehicles. on electrification, the government has seen fit to provide incentives. it,way we have looked at there should be maybe some kind of an incentive to get a foot in the door, but not some kind of overall never-ending subsidy. the marketplace has to determine whether these vehicles can take root. what levels of government do you interact with? everybody and anybody. we talk to everybody from the local level on up to the highest levels.

we have interactions with governments not only here in the united states but all around the world where we serve and sell our products. host: one of the things i see her at the ford display deals with the idea of self automation. on top,e cameras built and apparently this is something ford is working on as mass-market? guest: we are doing a lot of research in the area of mobility and the future of mobility. it is all about the future of gridlock, global gridlock. i would say something that we care about here in the nation's capital, we are rated as one of the toughest areas to get around in. researching a lot of as to how vehicles can talk to one another. airplanes can talk to one another. vehicles should be able to talk to one another and solve some of the traffic problems we come across on a daily basis. downpe everybody can come

to the show and see that, the solar vehicle, the new f-150, and our new mustang. question about self automation. what is the kind of lead time? do we see a production model in the next five or 10 years? guest: stay tuned. host: you talk about trade and fuel standards, so what other things are on the horizon that the government will have to face as far as automobiles or auto policy overall? guest: i think the whole area of energy independence -- we have a as a partnerplay with the government because there are a lot of areas where we contribute and ford continues to contribute. it is so important that we all work together on that discussion. host: we are at the ford auto part of the auto show, talking with z. ojakly. thanks for your time. guest: thanks, pedro. at oure are joined back

studio on capitol hill by david shepardson, the washington bureau chief of the "detroit news." i want to begin with the news coming yesterday from fiat that it had completed its acquisition of chrysler. how is the deal changing the u.s. auto industry? guest: for the second time, chrysler is now a wholly owned unit of a foreign company. in 2009 the obama administration said they would only agree to additional bailout funds if chrysler can reach a tie up deal with fiat. part of that deal, the uaw health-care trust, which is responsible for paying for retiree benefits for chrysler uaw workers, who got 55% of chrysler over the last few years. fiat received part of the company, meeting certain requirements. they bought some shares back from the trust, and in recent weeks reached a deal to buy the

remaining part of chrysler, about 42%, from the trust. as of yesterday, chrysler is a wholly-owned arm of the italian automaker fiat. host: what does fiat one from the deal in terms of what is happening with the european art a market -- auto market compared to what is happening in the u.s.? guest: when chrysler was in trouble in 2000 nine, fiat was the stronger company. today fiat is in essence surviving because of all the prophets that chrysler is generating here -- the sales of pickups and suvs's. the european market has been in a 30-yearhape, at low. sales have started to pick up slightly, but because of the depression the recession through much of europe, auto sales are still struggling in europe. also a big drag on ford and gm profits, too. so fiat needs the scale of

chrysler to create a global and also because of the profits from chrysler. host: some stats on the european auto market. a story from last week. new car registrations totaled about 12 me and vehicles for the year, the smallest number since 1995 -- about 12 million vehicles for the year, the smallest number since 1995. smaller than some analysts protected. a dismal start, and then december, a gain of 13.3% from a year earlier, the biggest monthly increase since 2009. we have been talking with viewers this morning about the auto bailout, asking them whether they thought it was worth it or not. can you talk about the companies involved in the bailout and what their sales were in 2013, the state of their business right now? guest: sure. three primary companies got the

auto bailout. gm, chrysler, and allied financial, which was the former lending arm of gm known as gmac, which during the auto bailout crisis was tapped to provide loans to both gm and chrysler. gm and chrysler are doing very well. they are making billions of dollars in profit. chrysler reported over four years of increasing sales in the 2009.up about 98% since they have basically doubled their sales. .m is up 35% since 2009 these companies got much smaller. gm shed half its brand, and more than 1000 dealers during bankruptcy. and chrysler also got much smaller. these companies basically became sized so that they could be profitable with a much smaller overall auto market. but since 2009, industry sales year, about 50% last

$15.6 million, the best in six years. this year the market will be up timeillion for the first since 2007. a new normal for the industry. host: market watch has a chart talking about the rebound in auto sales. you can see the change from 2009. annual light vehicle sales up to 2013. we are also talking about gm and we have had questions from our viewers on some of the money that the treasury department waltzed on the government effort -- lost on the government effort , $10 billion. has gm said anything recently about whether they will repay the $10 billion that the government lost on that? guest: they will not repay the money because they are not required to. the bailout began during the bush administration. about $25 billion that president bush put into gm, chrysler.

added $60obama billion to that. gm received $50 billion from the u.s. government, $10 billion from the canadian government. in the case of the u.s., rather than require gm to repay it, the obama administration decided to swap $42 billion of that with stock and the company. so gm was only required to repay a billion dollars of the $50 billion. those shares were sold off to make more money, but in the end, the shares were only worth about $30 billion, which accounted for the $10 billion loss. host: why not hold him longer to see if you could make more money? guest: the stock has gone up. the government decided early on they did not want to own part of an auto company forever, as some of the european countries own parts of european automake