>> our guest this morning is transportation secretary anthony foxx. this is his first visit to the land of low-calorie breakfast so we thank him for coming. he earned bachelor's degree at davidson college where he was the first african-american student body question and law degree from new york university. after law school he spent a month in new orleans playing trumpet and becoming friends with i wenten marsalis. after working at a law firm clerked for federal appeals court judge and later served in the u.s. department of justice and on the staff of the house judiciary committee. our guest returned to charlotte in 2001 to work in a law firm there and got elected to the charlotte city council in 2005 and re-elected in 2007. he was elected the city's mayor in 2009, youngest person ever to hold that job. he was confirmed as 17th transportation secretary last june. so much for biography. now on to the ever-popular process portion of our program. let me begin with a word of changes to caitlin oaks, my

partner in monitor breakfast land the past couple years. she's heading off to graduate school and today is her last breakfast. jared gilmore, who just graduated from the school of journalism at northwestern will be taking over. as those of you who dealt with her, caitlin brought gace under pressure and unfailing kindness especially to the elderly. to the many logistical tasks these gatherings involve. thank you, caitlin. [applause] now to the more mundane process matters. as always we're on the record here. please, no live blogging or tweeting. in short no filing of any kind while the breakfast is under way to give us time to actually listen to what our guests says. there's no embargo when the session ends. as regular attendees know, if you would like to ask a question, please do the traditional thing and send me me a subtle, nonthreatening signal and i will be happy to call on one and all in the time available. let's offer our 0 guest to make opening comments, he's

threatening to make news and then questions from around the table. with that mr. secretary, thank you so much for coming. >> dave, thank you very much. i want to thank the christian science monitor and all of you for being here and to caitlin, i hope that this is a very thunderous send-off for you and this breakfast ends up being the very best one you had. and i would like to introduce a colleague of mine with me today, sylvia garcia, our c.f.o. within the department. and you will understand shortly why i have asked her to be with me this morning. the department of transportation has been warning the highway trust fund is running out and we have been doing this for several ways over the last several months. we began in january with a ticker on our website that basically gave the public an

up-to-the-minute view of how the highway trust fund is performing. at that time we predicted the highway trust fund could run dry as early as august of this year. of the we took a tour country, a state tour, 12 cities and towns, large and small, across america, to raise the urgency of this issue to make sure the public understands what, in fact, is at stake, if the highway trust fund runs out. and more importantly to promote a piece of legislation that the president and i have put forth called the grow america act. not only get the highway trust fund stabilized but do what we think should be done in this country, which is to pivot to a time of investment, a time of growth, a time of stability and

predictability in the transportation system. well, as we predicted back in january, the time is almost up. this morning i sent letters to state departments of transportation and agencies outlining steps when the highway trust fund approaches zero. normally states receive an annual allotment. they forward their bills to usdoc and we pay those bills as we get them. but during the first week of august, the highway trust fund will drop below a crucial point and we will stop reimbursing states for each bill coming in and instead implement a new process of cash management to help us move through this unfortunate period of time. each state is entitled to a certain percentage of the highway trust fund based on an

annual formula. those same percentages will determine how much each state receives of whatever is left in the trust fund. states will be paid not as they send their bills in but every two weeks as money from the gas tax comes in. we believe this is the most equitable and prudent approach but there is to be very clear no good option when we're talking about a trust fund that is running short on supply of dollars. i can tell you having been at most cal level that the devastating part of this situation is that many communities who depend on the federal government for a dollars to get projects done and no matter how we estimate the infrastructure deficit we have as a country, it's growing by the day because the confidence level at the state and local

levels has dropped and projects are not even being put on the table. project that's will reduce congestion. project that's will reduce quality of life and allow commerce to move free and efficiently in this country. and it's going to be made worse by this crisis nls congress acts. which brings me to the good news. congress can still act. and we have proposed an answer for this question through the grow america act. we think it is a good bill that meets the standards and test that many members have made clear to us but we also expressed we're willing to listen to other ideas that emerged. but this is a crisis that can be avoided and, again, i want to urge congress tookt. so thank you very much for giving me a few minutes to say

that. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. i will do one or two myself and then tom curry, jennifer low berto, mark jansen, jeff plunges, matt waled and david shepardson to start. let me follow up on the highway trust fund and move to something else. we had a visit last week from the chairman of the immigration -- judiciary committee of the house basically saying chances of getting any immigration legislation out of congress weren't wonderful. you're saying congress could act. do you actually expect them to act? i mean if you were rating the odds for action, wouldn't they be pretcomblin mal? >> i think the american public expects congress to act. and if you had been on the bus tour with me back in april, you would go out to these communities and see the long list of things they want to get done and the burninging desire the communities have to fix a bridge that's crumbling in nashville or to see more bridges

like the ones that have been created on the kentucky/indiana border, or to see transit systems come back to life in parts of atlanta that haven't seen it before or even the investments that make possible jobs in aniston, alabama, that a company there building transit buses being sold all over the country in the small, little town in rural alabama putting people to work. so i think this is a place the american public expects our transportation to be first rate, efficient, safe, reliable as previous generations have. and i think that what's becoming clear to people as we had this harsh winter, as we have seen potholes as the president says the size of canyons, as we have seen travel times increasing around the country, congestion increasing, that the public will demand action. >> and c.b.o. was saying i guess

earlier this week you need $8.1 billion. can you say where it is now and how long before it runs dry? or would you not let it run dry? >> the number is actually bigger than $8.1 billion. over the next four years we estimated the highway trust fund will run short $63 billion. >> c.b.o. 8.1 the rest of the year? >> rest of the year. and i have said this and i will keep saying it, as a country we've got to stop playing small ball with transportation. because it is so critical. you go to china and i just saw a study a couple weeks ago that china poured more concrete in the last 3 years than we have in 100. and that is emblematic of this race to create efficient, reliable, safe transportation systems around the world to attract commerce and to improve

mobility. we have been first rate as a country historically but other countries are beginning to run faster than we are and we cannot take for granted what's been given to us. we have to take a giant leap. >> last one for me and that's about general motors. as you know yesterday they announced a recall of another 8.5 million cars, which brings to 29 million cars and trucks the number they recalled this year. as "the wall street journal" pointed out, that number is greater than the company's combined sales for the years 2005 through '13. what does it tell you about how effective the transportation department has been in protecting u.s. motorists? and what changes f. any, have g.m.'s woes caused you to make in terms of the department's auto safety activities? >> well, let's keep in mind that this e frame in which issue should have come to light was exactly the same time as the set of issue that's gave rise to

concerns with toyota. and we learned an awful lot as a department from the toyota example as part of an i.g. report that was done and some protocols put in place to help us improve going forward. we're taking a look at the situation internally to see what we can learn from it as well. but the point i would make are several. number one, the recall activity is actually emblematic of the enforcement work of our transportation department. the fact you're seing this recall activity i think is part and parcel to the fact we issued the stiffest fine, stiffest penalty for lack of timeliness that we ever -- we ever levied against a company. i would actually take the position that what has happened here is actually a result of an awareness we're going to take action if we see violations happening.

let me say the second and final we use data to evaluate the safety of automobiles and the reason why we have a timeliness requirement is because sometimes automakers are in a better position to know than we are of problems with the vehicle. that's why there's a penalty if there's a five-day delay in roviding that information. so we will always have to be working with industry on these issues to promote safety but as you point out it is far more expensive for a company to go through a situation like this and then have to fix it than it would be to catch it on the front end. and that's what we always endeavor to do. >> tom curry of c.g. >> secretary you received an emergency order on --

>> can you speak up just a little? thanks. >> do you think the rule that's likely to merge from this will make the process, the result significantly and higher prices for consumers? >> this is a question about a currently that is under view. and whether our rule making is going to create a higher expense and disruption in the movement f crude oil. you know, look, we are seeing exponential growth in the transport of crude oil by rail in this country. figures i have seen is something ike 1,000% over so many years. that's a huge increase in the amount of this particular crude oil movement around and it

requires us to step up our level of safety as a nation. our approach to the rule making is something i can't talk about in specifics but what i can tell you is what i heard from industry is a strong desire to have certainty and clarity over which way the federal government is going to go here. and my impression is, is that once a rule is actually finalized and it's put out there, industry will adjust and -- and we will be able to do this much more safely, striking the balance between safety and getting crude oil moving. >> jennifer, cnn? -- one, august when can you give me ballpark estimate of how many projects can be held or stopped nationwide? and two, how and when will

drivers and real people start seeing the effects of this? >> so it's a great question. d it's difficult to know exactly which projects will be impacted. the reason why is the states are basically drawing on the funds available from the federal government. and so the governors and state department of transportation will have to make judgments based on more limited availability of dollars how they're actually going to manage that. some states projects may be slowed down. in some states there may be projected stopped all together. and still other states they may have available cash to advance dollars basically, putting i.o.u.'s in place for the federal government for future withdrawal. so i think the challenge for governors is going to be, who are you going to tell that the project is not going to happen or that it's going to happen in

a longer schedule? the other complicating factor is that there's a limited window in many states around the country for actually doing construction work. so even if a state could slow down a project financially, in some cases it's impractical because they can't actually get the project advanced in this season of construction. so i think it will be all over the map but the reality is, is that no matter how you slice and dice it, it's going to be bad. your second question was -- i'm sorry? >> how will people feel the impact of this? >> you know, it's -- let me say it this way, i think people are feeling the impacts of the cumulative inability of this country to chart a path long term already. i think you have -- whether it's potholes, whether it's longer travel times or what have you,

the pipeline of project that's we need, both maintenance projects and new capacity, is so great and the dollars that we're spending to do that are not -- pale in comparison to what we need. so i think this is going to gulf in that ve pipeline. it's going to slow down activity. it's going to chill the design and engineering of projects that need to happen at the state and local levels. and there will be projects that people were expecting next year, year after, year after that are not going to happen or happen as quickly because of what's happened. so i think they will see it in traffic and in the conditions of our roads. i think they will see it in the lack of our ability to fix our bridges and put the new capacity in place this country needs. it's going to be a longer-term crisis if we actually go over

this cliff. because these projects take years in some cases to get done. and if we take more years to get them done, it's just going to get worse. >> bart from "usa today." >> i have an aviation question. i guess norwegian air international has applied to serve the u.s. a low cost carrier. they complain their application has been pending four times longer than the average european application. what's taking so long? >> well, it's a subject i can't comment on. >> ok. how about if i try airport fees. there's a proposal to increase the capital on passenger facility charges and there are disputes about whether that should go up. the airlines do not like the idea of raising those fees. what are the process of raising that this year as the president proposed? you know, i think our aviation sector is one that's

undergoing rapid change. it's been consolidation activity in the industry itself among commercial carriers. we are very bullish on on the work that is involved in next gen and basically bringing in our air space from world war ii radar technology to 21st century g.p.s. technology. we think it will make the air space more efficient. we can create more capacity in the air space. make the air space cleaner that way. is over interesting the next year, hopefully once we get over this issue with the highway trust fund, the next big issue in transportation will be an faa reauthorization bill. d i think there are some issues in aviation that are on the table now about how we structure, how we finance, how we set the aviation sector up to

compete in the 21st century economy that we will have a chance to work with industry and work with other stakeholders to help resolve. but i think that period of time is going to allow all of these issues to be laid bare in a much different dynamic than just in the budget season and i'm looking forward to having those conversations. but i will say i think that conversation will be more complicated if we're still trying to deal with highways and transit next year. we need to get this done now so we can clear the space tible to focus on 0 aviation. >> two questions. on g.e., i was surprised to hear you say automakers are in a better position to know about their cars than the federal government is. >> i didn't say that unqualified. my point was is that sometimes in some cases they're in a better position to have access to information that would be material to even our evaluation. that's why we have a timeliness

review. not as a blanket matter, no. >> my question is, given the crisis nature of the g.m. recall, is there any sense in the administration this does require a more robust response from the government to be proactive with automakers when these kinds of safety issues can surface that result in fatalities and risk to the automakers' integrity itself? >> well, you take this situation and there was data that was as i havey nhtsa, and aid before, had there been anecdotal information provided to nhtsa that g.m. had the kind of concerns we now know they had, that were being brushed aside internally, that would 0 have been material to the review we're making. so sometimes it's a combination of data and anecdotal

formation that creates conditions for nhtsa to step up activity on something. now, as i have said, we're going to go back and look at ourselves at this. it's not just external folks looking at us. we're going to be looking at ourselves and figuring out whether there's something more we can do. after toyota, one of the things that happened is we worked with ibm to implement a system that actually analyzes the data much more rigorously than it had at any point before to help us issue spot and predict issues before they emerge. and that's been very ucksessful for nhtsa. so we will continue to try to build a better mouse trap but don't think this is an instance where nhtsa wasn't looking at this. i think this is an issue of nhtsa didn't have all of the information that would have been material to its review. >> if i could just ask following

the highway trust fund, the gas tax, i'm sure you're aware is a politically touchy subject. is the issue of raising the gas tax something we can only expect to have seriously discuss after the midterm elections or does it have to wait after a presidential election? let me put it this way, in some sense what you're sking is a political question. we had decided this issue was one that was important enough to put legislation in place. we have always talked about the use of business tax reform as a way to pay for this bill we put forth and the reason we talk about pro growth business tax reform is because based on conversations we had, i had

plenty with republicans and democrats on both the house and senate side. one of the messages i have got loud and clear are many of them don't want to raise rates and many of them don't want to increase deficits. so our paying for it is a way to help us accomplish substantially more investment in transportation without running gainst those two principles. if congress comes up with a different combination, another formulation to get there, we said we will listen to what they have to say but they have to speak with one voice. and that's where i see a challenge. we have conversations that are going on about a short term now. the senate has had a lot more public discussion about this. i have concerns that we haven't heard as much from the house, although i know there are folks over there thinking about this and working on it.

but this this clip is coming. i have been saying it for six months and i'm worried we may find ourselves running over it. >> jeff from bloomberg. >> mr. secretary, over the weekend there was a truck crash in delaware where the driver fell asleep. this crash didn't get a lot of attention but it comes a couple weeks after a crash in which a celebrity, tracy morgan, was injured and that crash got a lot of attention. there are about 4,000 truck-related fatalities a year. in the grow america act, the administration put in one very specific provision that is designed to change the way truck rivers are paid, including addition to their normal pay,

being paid by the mile, they would get paid for time -- when they're at the loading dock, waiting for their loads. so i just wonder if you could talk a little bit about how big a priority it is for the administration to kind of change this economic system that we have where it seems like a design, we have a lot of drivers out there on the road that are working really long hours and fatigue has been shown to be a factor in a number of fatal crashes. >> yes, it's an important question because whether you're talking about trucks or rplanes or rail, we saw in metro north up in the new york driving is bad driving. it's risk not only to the driver, him or herself, but also to other folks that are on the roadway or railroad or air

station. and at this very moment, there are serious discussions going on in the senate about, you know, relaxing some of our hours of service requirements that are designed to prevent drivers from driving while tired. and as an agency we're strongly -- i can't emphasize how strongly opposed we are to relaxing these research-based rules that have been promulgated to protect the traveling public. but this is a real issue. and it's an issue that is particularly challenging in the trucking industry, where the economics are aligned to promote more hours on the road. so our effort is to try to help

assuage some of that but make no mistake that our job is safety. that's what we're here to do. that's the central mission of our agency. and we will always take the side of promoting the public interest and the public safety even if the economics prove more challenging. >> we're going to go -- let me do a time >> let me do a time check. we are about 9:28 a.m. >> if nitsa did not spot the ignition problem because gm did not turn over everything it knew, what are we going to do to say we don't have the rubble mcgann and we don't have to count on companies that have that management and bad culture?

when can we rely on government to have a good shot at spotting the rubble before they go years and years and kill a bunch of eople? >> over the last 10 years, nitsa has record -- has issued over 1200 recalls affecting 95 illion vehicles. that does not even count the latest round of recalls that have occurred. i don't want to give you the impression that the way this works is 100% of the time, nitsa is responding to a time limits warning from a car company and then going back and trying to look at the data to figure out whether a recall will happen. it happens all over the map. sometimes we issue recalls before an automaker has

identified a problem. that happens. can we do better? of coarse we endeavor to always do better and that's what i have asked our ig to take a look at the circumstances of this particular incident to see if there's other protocols we can adopt that will improve our ability to handle the next problem. in a sense, the loss of life here is highly, highly, regrettable. our thoughts and prayers are with all the families that have been affected by these situations. but you talk about recalls -- i would rather have a recall that allows us to get something corrected than to have a sleeping problem that nobody knows about. we are working hard to make that happen.

>> gm has recalled about 15 million vehicles. the latest recall has reports of three deaths. is nitsa going to look at these new recalls to see if gm did not meet the five day requirement to report these in a timely fashion? >> as a standard practice, we will take a look at the recall. there is always a decision as to whether this stems from the same nucleus of fact as the previous ones. that determination will have to be done by nitsa but we will take a very careful look. in our work with gm on a resolution to the initial problem, we have been able to extract from gm unprecedented commitments to fix things going forward. we will keep putting the screws

on this until he gets right. >> you are now investigating chrysler vehicles for ignition problems. how big a problem is this across the industry? >> we are taking a look. where we see problems, we will address them. it remains to be seen but it's something we're definitely aking a look at. >> and a roster of great governors of the 20th century the democrats were noncompetitive in the tar heel state. a great breakthrough in 2008. since then, the state has absolutely turned hard right, deeper right. what happened than what went wrong?

virginia is all of a sudden more purple if not read that is north carolina, what happened? >> i think several things -- there may have been a little more optimistic after the 2008 election about turning the corner. i also think that redistricting fight a heavy role. in 2010, for the first time in more than 100 years, north carolina did not have a state house or senate that was democratic-controlled. that resulted in gerrymandering both the state house and state senate and u.s. congressional districts. i will point out that the president subsequent to that in his real action campaign lost

north carolina by less than 100,000 votes. that's one of the reasons why i still think north carolina at its essence is still the state everyone thought it was before. it will take another tidal wave to prove that. we will see what happens in the future with great folks who are down there who i think will be running for things in the future. >> are you confident in kay hagan is real action? >> she has done a great job and i have a lot of hope that she ill prevail. >> back in january, the mayor in washington proposed a fee i'm going through cities to make up for the hazardous waste they carry.

at the time, you are on the fence on it. have you moved towards accepting it? what's the latest that mayor emanuel wants from you? what was the best of vice that ray lahodd gave to you when he turned over the shop to you? >> he learned a lot of things from a. 'm sorry, mayor emanuel -- on the issue of a fee for hazardous material moving through a community -- i think that is something that probably should be looked at. our grow america act takes a osition that there is more that we need to know about the material itself.

there is more we need to know about the various pieces of the safety ecosystem that need to happen. we have worked going on with role making but one of the things we found is the situation with crude is that we have several different agencies with equities within dot and sometimes you need resources to do field testing and the agency right on the front line has a very small budget for testing. then you have to go to fra to figure if they've got some resources. we've got a $40 million flexible funds to give us the ability to be mental and develop a plan over two years to dramatically increase our efforts on the safety front of their as we are still working on our rulemaking and as we have taken more than two dozen steps to try to increase safety. your last question was --

> it's running late. >> i think of something that needs to be explored. in terms of things that come with a sequence of what we need to push this rulemaking and try to get that done. we need to have the resources as an agency to articulate an even broader set of steps. those steps may include a fee. it's something i would like to look at because i think it sounds like a good idea and there he but i want to take a ook at it. >> it evolves. >> on the trust fund, can you give us a specific date you're anticipating the trust fund will hit zero?

with that the august? -- would that be august? >> this is something that changes daily. the way the trust fund works as it works on a reimbursement basis. we can tell you -- >> we are projecting the end of august right now. august 1 is what we put in the letter that went out today in actual balance is the end of august, beginning of september. >> we historically have laid a marker down around the $4 illion mark. that is basically the kind of cash cushion you need to meet the obligations of the states. at the beginning of august, we will run before the ford billion dollar mark. at the end of august, we will e at zero.

>> you spoke about how you have not seen a proposal that you could weigh in on. there is a bipartisan bill in the senate to raise the gas tax. the chamber of commerce wants to raise the gas tax. democrats in the house want to raise the gas tax. ray lahood wants to raise the gas tax. why is this administration dragging its feet on something that so many people support and think is a logical solution? >> again, we have said that if congress acts on something, we will keep an open mind. that has been my position all along. the reason why proposed -- why we propose what we propose we heard from members of congress that they don't want to raise rates which a gas tax increase

would require. there has not been a vote on that. >> you will only comment on after they both? >> we are open to what congress has to say but we have a proposal that we would like to present as well. >>0 i want to nail it down. >> i have said that many times. >> i want to ask you about oil trains. it has been a year since the last accident and you have is very important rulemaking going on. there are a lot of economic interests interested in that. it's a concern about how it will affect them and what it will cost them. on the other hand, you have these areas of the country where these trains go through, albany, chicago, seattle area, that are concerned about their afety. what kind of guarantee can you give the people in those communities that are worried

about their safety that you will not water down safety in this rulemaking to satisfy these big economic interests? >> as i said before, we have taken more than two dozen measures, very few of which have been popular within the industry. we have done that because our northstar is safety. our work on a rule is a work that is organized around what is the safest approach to the movement of this crude oil particularly given the volumes in which is moving around the country. we have these unit trains that are stacking in some cases 100 or more trains together. that is a different caliber of problem than we have seen in the past. if that is the way it's going to be, what is the right way to structure a rule to make it as safe as possible? there are a lot of variables. there is the tank car itself. there is also speed.

there is also track quality. there is also any number of things. we want to strike the right balance but the balance we are trying to strike is a balance around safety. that will continue to be our oal. > you mentioned the gas tax, is very -- is there a contingency plan if it is not authorized? >> for? >> if you get to september and the gas tax is not been reauthorized -- >> if we get there to the end of august and has not been a funding solution and a reauthorization extension, we will not be able to spend money even if we had it. that's another part of the

crisis. in response to both these questions on the gas tax -- nothing i am saying is meant to understate the work that many people are doing. us -- senator boxer has worked with her committee and proposed a bill. representative dave camp from the house ways and means committee on the very day we announced our framework action of february, he came forward with a framework that was similar. the bipartisan work of senators murphy and corker -- many people are trying to weigh in. the constitutional fact is that until congress does something elective late, we are stuck. and the country will be stuck and gridlock in washington is really going to translate into ridlock at home. >> the dot ig said last week the faa would likely not meet the september 15 deadline

crafting drum legislation. >> i want to get back to hat. what we have tried to do over the last few months has been to really step up the work on this. that's why we have four of the six test sites that stood up. we have worked to put forth some rules but we obviously have to work on this other rule as well. i would like to get a more contained response that will be direct to your question. >> did you read this series in the newspaper talking about 49 large military drones crashing in the states, 15 cases where drones were flying close to planes?

when i read that, i thought they don't take too long to come up with a rule. >> let's be clear that commercial use of drones is not authorized unless the faa says so. >> a rule widely ignored? >> where we find violators, we will go after them. the reason why is because the faa has a lot of experience and in many cases sets the world standard for managing your space. as we look at this bold new world of unmanned aircraft, safely integrating that into the airspace cannot be done overnight and has to be trial tested and stress tested in many ways and that's why we are doing the test sites to learn from examples around the country in targeted cases.

e will not allow folks to just treat this like a wild west and just do whatever they want. we think there will be safety implications for that, obviously. >> two unrelated questions -- government officials right around in gm cars. do you feel comfortable in gm ars? do you get any complaints from others? being a former mayor of a dnc convention city, do you have any advice for what it takes to win? >> in terms of my feelings, i have said this before, folks need to follow it's recommended with any recall activity.

if they do that, we feel like they will be fine and just follow up with the manufacturer or go to the dealership and get checked out and keep it moving. i don't have concerns about writing in the gym car that i am writing in. in terms of dnc, i can only say that i am looking forward to oing as a visitor. i don't know if i have any great advice on that. i think there are a lot of great cities in the running. all of them would be fantastic. i am looking forward to hopefully going just as a passive visitor. >> you have said why you chose are you concerned that this

would move as a user fee system as opposed to the gas tax? >> no, for several reasons. the ditch we are trying to dig out of is so substantial that we need to have an inflection point. we need to have a moment where we are knowing from fights over whether we can fund at the same level we did last year to a discussion about how to get more investment infrastructure. our proposal would help us do that. the second thing is that the current user fee system is broken and it's broken because, frankly for good reasons. our vehicles are becoming more efficient and folks are using less fuel and where ever you set the gas tax, the curve is still downward facing.

hat means at some point in the future, we could reach the same pont we are reaching today. what our proposal enables is a moment in time where we start to think differently about how we support our infrastructure system. we put additional funding in place and we have not talked about many of the policies that we think are important right now that focus on getting projects done faster and focus on changing some of the dynamics between the federal government, state and local governments and giving more local control to local communities to determine how they want to move forward. all those things are really important. i think that there will always be a user fee component to have transportation gets funded. i don't want to say that is not the case but we need to be thinking differently about it. also public-private partnerships should be part of the conversation.

>> you are willing to abandon this notion that the transportation system should be funded solely through user ees? >> i think there are a lot of options out there. don't pick it will stop the passage of our bill but our ill provides an answer that is politically feasible given the congress we have right now. it gives us four years of certainty and gives us time to breathe so that we can actually have this discussion without the next crisis around the orner.

>> if the gas tax rich as the president, will he sign it into law? >> we have said we are open but all i can tell you is that we have a proposal that we think is politically acceptable that actually works for our transportation system, that we think is the best solution right now. i'm not going to speculate on that. i will tell you that we expressed openness and that's where we are. >> the maryland gas tax went up again today. it went up last july 1. 15 or 20 states have passed gas tax increases. some of said the public is not as opposed to this as some might think. instead of waiting for congress to speak, why won't the administration take a lead position on raising the gas tax when there is across-the-board

support from the business and labor community? >> i think that's unfair. the administration has put a comprehensive bill ogether. i spent the time working on this thing. it's a good bill. we are taking the position that this is not just a question of funding. that is critically important question. it's also question of if there are other ways to create more capacity within the system by getting projects to move faster? other ways to engage outlook-private partnerships. we have chileans of dollars of money sitting on the sidelines. -- we have trillions of dollars of money sitting on the sidelines. we have not taken a backseat on this. we have a pay for that we think is affected. >> whether it is a gas tax or corporate tax, these are

hort-term plans. what is the administration's vision once and for all solving the nation's funding issues? is it moving away from a dedicated system and funding the general fund or is a national vnt or is it a combination with public-rabbit partnerships -- public -- rivate partnerships. > i don't think many stakeholders understand how severe this crisis is. the average person is paying about $100 into the highway system are now. in most states, the american society estimates that people are paying $200 or so in additional wear and tear on your vehicles because of potholes or what have you.

in reality, people are paying for this problem. they are paying for it. those costs in some cases are disaggregated from what they pay at the pump. i think there is a host of questions involved here on what we do going forward. what we need right now is we need long-term stability in the system. that is what our bill is trying to get. > last question -- >> how much will the bill rely on privatization? in dallas, they have invested more than 10 or $15 million. -- 15 billion dollars in infrastructure in the metro area and it has come from privatization. the legislature and congress has not put more money in so

people are paying out of their pockets. is this a plan for other cities? >> we have essentially a prohibition of tolls at the federal level. that is not how we pay our bills. our bill does lift that ban and offers to governors who wish to ook at tolling as an option to apply to dot and request the ability to toll. that would have to be looked at by dot. i tend to think that if there is a commitment to doing maintenance on the facility, it

would be tolls or to invest in congestion relieving systems. there may be acceptable ways to see that happen in the country more. our bill is not paid for by tolling we just recognize that there is a need to create a little more flexibility at the state level for folks to be enterprising and figure out how to get things done. >> are there any thresholds? >> and he proposal would have to come through the apartment and be looked at independently. >> here comes the last ceremonial softball. you told "the washington post" but if you could get one person from the private sector to help you, it would be eric schmidt of google. have you reached out to any high-tech private sector people

for help? >> absolutely, i have actually talked to eric schmidt. not surprisingly. he's got a lot of ideas. one of the things i am fascinated by is the way analytics can be used to improve performance. it's a place where there is room for us at dot to do that. when a project comes in the door and needs permitting, historically, it has come by mail. a big stack of documents go from one place to another within government and it takes in some cases years for projects to begin moving. we are looking to digitize that process. we are looking from going to go from departments to sequential

reviews to doing concurrent reviews. understanding what our baseline is today and how we can improve performance going forward is something we think is a useful exercise at dot. we hope to do more with that going forward. >> thank for coming, we appreciate it. >> thank you. thanks, everybody. . national captioning institute] national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

>> next, a discussion on racism in sports. that others discuss human exploration of mars. of a yogurtthe ceo and the founder of kickstart. ickstarter. >> now discussion on sports and racism. fromonversation ranges victories at the 1936 olympics to jackie robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball to donald sterling and the la lakers controversy and whether

the name of the washington, d.c. football team offense native americans. this is just over an hour. >> thanks, matthew. all right, i hope you were situated and seated. we'll have a really dynamic panel here. i know a lot of you had a good time over the weekend and are looking forward to it. conduct.isney's this is a really impressive background. let me give a little background. before that, i'll have the mayor come up in a moment. from jackie robinson integrating baseball, sports played a pivotal role in advancing civil rights. adam silvers swift and decisive response to donald sterling's racial comments makes clear that

in today's society institutional racism is not welcome. in light of both events and the long-standing battle against institutional racism in sports, we are taking the action today to discuss the social and political implications of racism in sports. through the interactive conversation, panelists will tackle questions that ask white racism pervades sports and -- why racism pervades sports and society. we are convening today to learn and to discuss how sports should serve communities and how we together can become agents of change in our cities with our sports teams. before we move on to our panel i would like to introduce a leader in addressing the intersection

between sports and cities. greg ballard is chair of the mayors professionals sports alliance. the mission is to share among mayors resources and information on issues related to professional sports and to work effectively with leagues, players, and owners. give around of applause to mayor ballard. [applause] >> good morning. mr. president, distinguished guests, sports bring people together. they bring communities together. certainly during the deep layoff run when athletes do good work in the community, sports bring nations together. how many of us gasped at portugal's last second goal last night?

sports can also divide is. -- us. there can be a meanness and ugliness as is the case in this clippers episode. i was proud that he sports alliance stood with our president kevin johnson as he worked with the players and the alumni as they addressed the situation. i applaud the nba for taking swift and decisive action. sports organizations are part of who we are. they represent us as a community. despite the elite athleticism we witness, we really want them to embody character and compassion as a community. that includes the respect for all of our citizens. diversity has always been about respect. respect was lacking in the

clippers' organization. sports mirror our society in so far that inclusion and respect has come at such a great price. this is the life of jackie robinson. it is our responsibility to continue the march. i look forward to the panel. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you, mayor ballard. i going to introduce the panelists and we will have a serious conversation. our first panelist that i would

like to bring out to give a mayoral perspective is our very own michael nutter. philadelphia has the reputation for being a passionate sports down. -- town. it has a long history of sports as it is spurred on serious conversations about race. ben chapman was one of the loudest voices opposing jackie robinson's integration to baseball. let's give a very loud round of applause to michael nutter. [applause] >> secondly, i would like to bring out a person who was originally scheduled to moderate. i thought he would give a better

perspective sitting on the panel. we switched places. i did know i was going to lose my voice. roland martin is an influential reporter and commentator. he has his own program called news 1 now. m.went to texas a and -- a&m. he is a journalist with a masters degree in christian communications. he has written several books. let's give around of applause for roland martin. [applause] go ahead. all right.

since we are in dallas, this is for you. i get a chance to introduce a dallas cowboy legend. this is a surprise guest. we did not put him on the schedule intentionally. surprised.r would be he led the dallas cowboys to three super bowl championships. he is one of 17 children from fort lauderdale florida. he went to the university of miami. he won a national championship there. one of the greatest wide receiver to ever play the game. let's give around of applause to michael irvin. [applause]

most of you know that michael is also a personality and commentators on football on a regular basis. he is got that personality that is just magnetic. it is awesome to have him here. i don't know if you get a chance to see his acceptance speech into the hall of fame, it was one of the most amazing acceptance speeches of all time. one more round of applause for the playmaker. [applause] all right. this is the biggest and production i'm ever going to make. this is exciting. you should clap before i even say his name. [laughter] just let him know that we love him before we say his name. [applause]

listen to this. i did not want to go long. six time nba championship. he won six of them. six time most viable player. 19 time nba all-star. hall of fame inductee. played with the bucks in milwaukee. went out west to l.a. and 15 -- and won five more. won three championships in college. if you add those up, that is nine. the man is a freshman and was not allowed to play varsity sports or he would've had a -- in college he was so effective they literally changed the rules because he was there.

this is a rule changer in a real way. he is a legend. he is also a new york times best-selling author. he has written books on history and civil rights. including black profiles and courage. a documentary has been made about one of his books. two time naacp image award winner. get on your feet and give a round of applause for the one and only, the greatest player to ever play the game, kareem abdul-jabbar. [applause] i feel like we can all go home. [laughter] i feel like we have been to church. we haven't even said a word yet.

look at him. look at kareem for just a second. dignified and distinguished. what makes him so amazing is not only the arguably best player to play the game, it is what he did off the court. for him to be here today with these panelists is amazing. this is often something that people do not know about him. he is not an upfront person. last night, he took mayors at -- out to dinner. give him a round of applause for treating our mayors to dinner last night. [applause] are you ready? we are going to get it going. we're going to have this panel discussion. i'm going to stand up to her -- up here because i am losing my voice. i want to throw the first question out to mayor nutter. what was your gut reaction when you heard the donald sterling tape?

>> i was stunned. aboutst, my folks told me it. is this true? did somebody really say this? we have youtube and elected officials know about that. maybe it was doctored. how does somebody say all of that? i watched it. i knew it was nine or 10 minutes. i'm probably not go watch the whole thing. it is the epitome of an accident. it was fascinating. it just went on and on and on. at the end, i was disgusted. you want to talk about people? call folks names? you are the owner of a team. you are an adult.

you should be responsible. i had some other thoughts. this is a family program. [laughter] it was insane. it is been found to be true. it is legit. we know the end of the story. we have to give our president huge recognition for the role that he played in the nba and the commissioner handled it properly. it was a stunning moment in america. >> a question for kareem. same question. you wrote an impressive time magazine piece which was awesome. what was your first reaction and there will be a surprise of where you're coming from? go ahead. >> my first reaction was surprise. i had worked for mr. sterling. i coached the clippers in the year 2000.

he invited me to his daughter's wedding. i had no idea exactly what was going on. i know elgin baylor. i know what he was complaining about. i was confused not knowing which set of facts mr. sterling stood behind. then when his words came out it was so obvious and shocking. it was disgusting. all of those things wrapped in one. the surprise of it, to find that sentiment in a person who relies on black americans for so much of his success and public profile was amazing. i couldn't believe that someone could have that much bigotry inside and think that it was ok. >> michael, what was your gut

reaction would you first heard it? >> i was hurt. i was hurt for the players on the court. and for the fans. let's be real. the clippers have been waiting a long time for this. where they are right now, they have been waiting a long time and there have been a lot of loyal fans. they have chris paul and doc rivers. people that are such upstanding african-americans that represent the best we have to offer. then to point out and attack one of the best we have to offer in magic johnson tom a i was hurt. -- johnson, i was hurt. i won't say that i was totally shocked. i truly believe, we still have the remnants of some of these still left.

i am not shocked, but i was hurt . we have heard some things prior to this about donald sterling. as we go on and on and he kept going on and on, i think we heard more of his heart. i was shocked and hurt for all those people. >> i will ask the same question. he does not have add. he may have that, too. he is just a twitter maniac. this man tweets like nobody's business. i want you to know that he is paying attention. >> i've got to add some new followers.

>> my reaction was, "and?" people were surprised by it. he said it to the degree that he did. the reason i was pleased with it was because we are living in denial because there are too many people saying this is post-racial america because there is a black president. fox news says racism doesn't exist. if you go to the internet, you can see case after case after case. we act as if things are changing. you see black mayors and ceos. somehow these people have been -- somehow these things have been wiped out. what do we do about what is in somebody's heart? for him to be a team owner, it is no shock. you have a city councilwoman in texas who was recorded saying we need to get those blacks off the school board.

and she refuses to apologize. unapologetic. causes people to say, wait a minute. to confront the reality of race in america, who is here from akron, ohio. a newspaper won a pulitzer prize for a series on race and ushering in a citywide conversation. what we love to do in america is we love to not have that brutally honest discussion. we want to have the nice we all get along conversation without realizing there are people in power who are elected officials who might be in charge of having black people who work for them but have a hard-core view on the issue of race. it forces people to say we might want to examine ourselves.

it forced the nba to answer some questions when you had examples of this owner and you are silent about him. -- about it and said nothing. >> i want to come back to you. kareem went to college in the 1960's when civil rights was at the top. he played professional sports in the 60's and 70's. are we at the end of an era? help us connect with what you are going to then and where you think we are today. >> i think what has happened is when we have the fact that we had the legal means to combat institutionalized racism, a lot

of black americans said, ok. now we have the tools to achieve something. it is taken us decades to achieve those things. when it comes to working on what is in people's hearts, we have a very long way to go. even though we have these tools, we have a long way to go because people do not understand their own bigotry. it is so endemic to the human experience. people don't get it when they are intensely affected by racism. they are not even aware of it. we have a long way to go. >> emmett till was killed in 1965. you go to the march on washington in 1963.

civil rights act. nixon gets elected in 1968. affirmative action comes in. years,riod of 19 the country was transformed. it was the marker of full freedom for african-americans, that is 46 years. if you say that dr. king was killed in 1968 and affirmative-action -- full freedom for black folks in 1968. i am 45. i will be 46 in november. we walk around as if things are changed. we have amazing freedom. in the history of the country, african americans, 46 years of so-called freedom.

when you expand it beyond donald sterling and the issue of housing and economics and inclusion and go beyond that, we have come a long way. we're only talking about 46 years of so-called full freedom. if you think that we have gotten over the issue of race, we have to be delusional. it did not happen in 46 years. you still have in south africa blacks don't have access to power. they don't control capital. >> i will ask you both the same question, you remember a football player for the philadelphia eagles who got the

the recorded saying the "n" word. what are your thoughts when you first heard that? >> i'm going to hold on to what you talked about 45 years. i want to come back to that. i will address the riley cooper situation. it was my job on sunday and thursday to talk about it. i had watched riley cooper. he is been playing football for a lot of years. one of the things i talked about was i was coming from a basketball camp with my son in las vegas. as we walked by the pool, they had music blasting with the n word. everybody was having a great time. riley cooper steps in angry situation. and here we go saying everything about riley cooper.

i said it then and i will say it now, we ought to take responsibility as african-americans for injecting the word out there and making it ok. riley cooper said in a moment of heat. you let the word go in a moment of heat. do i count him as a racist? i don't think so. he has been around people all of his life. richie incognito's situation is different in miami. i thought that is what the word and how it was used back in the day. he used it as a systematic way to break down another man. that is racism. a systematic way of raking down -- breaking down the other man.

that is not tolerable. [applause] >> when they say athletes are not smart, look at these two up here. i am sitting next to the dictionary. this man knows every meaning of every word and for him to be able to break down the issues, this drives me crazy as a former athlete. people don't give athletes credit for what they do. these are great examples. >> he knows more words than don king? >> this is true. put him on the spot. kareem and i were on streetcar in san francisco. we were getting an award. we were riding around. i said, tell me something about the great walls of china.

i was trying to be funny. he said, did you know the rock was quarry built? true story. [laughter] same topic. you had to deal with it head-on. >> my reaction was swift, aggressive, and negative. i saw that tape. we put a statement that said he needed to clean up and fix it. quite honestly, i was left with the impression that it was not the first time in his life he did use that word. that calls into question a host of other issues. the team tried to deal the. -- deal.

he suddenly had to go away. it was never really clear. they were just trying to get him out of town. out of the situation. philly is not -- michael irvin always loved playing in philadelphia. our fans are passionate. it is not an overreaction kind of town. there was a lot of reaction to that. as a player, they were home. it was a very negative reaction. i have some thoughts about how it was handled. whether it was handled properly.

the season started and there wasn't much. he had a pretty good season. i am not going to say that all is forgotten. i think people remember. he is trying to get past it. when i see him on tv, i am usually remember that. he has to deal with that. >> we have a false reality about race. this is what it has evolved into. riley cooper, racist or not a racist? >> right, right. >> it was the same thing with donald sterling. it becomes racist or not a racist. there is nothing in between those two. what happens is people say you are or you are not. as if there is nothing that is

in between that deals with how we have grown up or our perceptions. there is nothing that pisses me off more than people asking me if i played ball there. hell i didn't play ball. [laughter] the first question is not, did you graduate? or what did you major in? i was playing golf and the dude asked me. i had just written a column called, no i am not a football player. he asked the question.

please don't answer. i did not respond. we finally got done. what happens is we have perceptions. we have beliefs. a lot of them are based on race. if i see a 6'5" white guy, i don't assume he played basketball. i just don't. when we talk about race, we have to acknowledge that there is something in between not a racist or you are a racist that plays into this and then we don't like to have that. now it brings into question how we were raised, how are friends around us. there are all of these black and white and hispanic and asian students. they get along great. i know this is a bunch of bs.

i asked them who they ate lunch with. what do you mean? who do you eat lunch with? when i asked that question, they got uncomfortable. i call that butt dancing. the whole room. i said, you can't tell me you get along and you live in this wonderful race neutral world because who you choose to go to lunch with defines your view. i look at the parents and say who eats at your house for dinner? the room got really uncomfortable. school, work are involuntary situations. you don't control who gets hired. who you eat with and who you go to lunch with is a voluntary situation.

often we eat with people we are like as opposed to people who are different. the whole conversation changed. they realized they had self-segregated. they thought they were all multiracial. it never dawned on them that they were still segregating. eight. because they sat in the same classroom, they were living in this multiracial world -- but because they sat in the same classroom, they thought they were living in this multiracial world. if you take donald sterling and these other issues, you examine race in a different way. >> there is a schism. if a guy comes up to you and asks, what year did you play ball? does that mean he is racist? we have to be careful as well. >> if he saw a dude my size, a white guy my size, he is not asking that question.

let's be honest. >> you just made an assessment. of what he will not ask. you see what i am saying? that is the thing we have to be careful with. i would wonder if he is wasting a nice height. maybe that has something to do with the time or the people we have been around or the culture that we came up with. sports are huge. let's think through this. sports are huge in this country.

the money we spend on sports -- so maybe when someone sees you in a shirt, and it doesn't mean i played sports and didn't graduate. in order to have growth and beatified we have to watch it on both ways. >> i didn't call him a racist. there are perceptions and stereotypes that we buy into. when we see it over a period of years, i did not realize i jumped to a conclusion. >> what we are dealing with is the idea of the word prejudiced. it means prejudging. when you come into a situation and you already know you played for state. no, i am a doctor. that is what we are talking about. >> prejudging and assessing are two different things. i get prejudged, that made it my mind to he is. assessing means i'm trying to figure out who he is.

i may be assessing, but not prejudging. >> i may be thinking sports. >> there are 500,000 former aggies out there. all of them didn't play. >> everyone may not wear a jersey either. >> mayor, can you sit between these two? [laughter] >> i may be offended. nobody ever asked me if i played ball. i played ball. [laughter] i can actually throw.

>> people come up to me and ask me if i am will chamberlain. i say, will chamberlain is dead. [laughter] what is that all about? >> maybe they want dating advice. >> i want to get away from sterling for just one second. you said it best. you said sports gives us an opportunity. >> what we were talking about is donald sterling and michael sam situation. when they happen in sports, sports garners so much attention from the world and it is right there on tv. i can't believe they pay me what they pay me to talk about it. >> i get paid to talk.

>> i was fortunate enough to make millions and now i make millions talking about how to fake people out with my lips and this is an incredible world. i love it. having that opportunity is so real. we don't get those opportunities in fortune 500 companies. what we do is we are at a five through those conversations. let's take the michael sam situation for a moment. for me growing up, calling michael sam or guys that have a sexual orientation opposite of mine, we didn't even know that.

when we use the "f" word, it wasn't about sexual orientation. it was about finding weakness. now as we have these conversations, we start dispelling all the myths and edifying one another and getting better at it. i want the first guy to be a linebacker so he can knock somebody out. he can squash all of the stereotypes to move forward. that is what is great about it. having conversation is what we need. i hate that we focus on the one like sterling. we do need to have these conversations. >> i want to build on michael irvin's point about sports. it does play out literally on the biggest stage. people are watching. there is money. there are all kinds of things going on.

we go back in history. names.e of jesse owens. it wasn't just about running. what was going on at that time? >> right. >> at war, near war, world issues. at the olympics. this was literally the united states of america and germany. -- against germany. now being defined on a track. america's strength. 1968 olympics, john carlos decides to stand on the podium with a black glove on his hand and puts his fist up in the 1960's as a sign to the world that what was on his mind. life changed. never really anything for john

carlos. our friend here comes in to the nba and changes his name. huge controversy. cassius clay. mohammed ali. this is during my lifetime and my childhood. i know exactly where i was in march 1971 as people -- you are either a joe frazier fan or you were a mohamed ali fan. they were both in each of those camps. they were trying to define, are you a radical or are you a more establishment kind of mode? that is been going on. certainly from the 60's on up.

race and other issues of played out on a larger scale in the united states of america. and around the world. it is shaping attitudes and perspectives on who we are and what we are about. a lot of that continues today. >> i am asking the question because you are older than me. that fight was about we were inferior and it was sports saying they were not inferior. and jesse owens and all of those things. through sports we show that we are not inferior. is that still the same fight we

are having today? >> yes. 1936 was america versus nazi germany. when jesse owens came back he could not eat in restaurants in his own country. to bring it to present-day, we will praise our athletes as our warriors on the field but when we have a conversation about education reform. all of a sudden we begin forcing the conversation, sports allows us because it is a unifying matter. sports, comedy, and music bring us together because of ethnicity, gender, all those

factors. we are all operating behind this one deal. those are three entertainment venues. we can get along and that is great. then we go outside of that, you're back in the real world. the problem i have in we have these conversations and is somebody who spent six years on cnn, i have been involved in media since i was 14. in the media we do the exact same thing in the real world. let's hurry up and end this conversation. let's move onto what we were talking about beforehand. let's get off this stuff with michael sam and dealing with race and gender so we can get back to playing games. we like to play games.

verses dealing with the hard stuff. what i try to do is say wait a minute. you have to keep that conversation going. even if you disagree with michael sam, disagree with incognito, riley cooper, this is a whole part human discussion. i had no problem with what mark cuban had to say because some he -- somebody said i have prejudices. i am biased in he puts it on the -- and he puts it on the table and the argument turned into -- it should have been he puts it on the table so can we not own up to our own biases and have that conversation? part of probably race discussion is a lot of whites want to talk about their personal feelings are afraid to say it because they will be called a racist. you have to create an environment where people can be

honest about how they feel and begin to say ok. my first response was it you are racist?ot, are you a my first question would have been, mark, what caused you to feel that way? what has brought you to that particular viewpoint? if the moderator had asked that question, it would've led to the next question. we have evolved into statement and denunciation. [applause] >> how much time do we have? >> we have got to go. my flight leaves at 2:45. >[laughter] >> a quick follow-up. when the trayvon martin incident happened, kobe bryant made a

comment in terms of the way the miami heat players addressed it. they came out with hoodies on in solidarity. you took a little bit of the exception to what kobe had to say. give us your perspective on that. >> kobe gave an interview to know the new yorker -- to the new yorkers. the question that the interviewer asked really was a ridiculous question. he sort of mixed several things together. he mixed with the miami heat did for not being more involved in issues. kobe responded. the issue i took with that is people seem to forget that trayvon martin was killed on the night of the nba all-star game in florida. the game took lace in orlando.

place in orlando. it was another two months before it blew up in the media knew it. -- and the media knew it. i remember tweetin. -- tweeting. i am stunned that players who live in orlando and miami are not saying anything about it. tweeted, thanks brother for pushing us and keeping us on these issues. later they made a statement. -- whate with kobe was playersce is the key were not saying that george zimmerman was guilty. there was simply a signal that we stand in solidarity.

what they're saying with the hoodies is that even though we they maynba ballers, .ot recognize our faces i'll make it perfectly clear. if i criticize the president, kobe, oprah, i'll take a swing at you. he call my office. -- called my office. he said the issue that i stated with i have a problem with sidee jumping to someone's because of race. kobe, let me remind you because of the history of the black men being accused of race in america, --

conversation, it hit me. i see his number. i see you talking about me. who is this? kobe. okay. it led to a discussion. kobe, when you make that statement, it made it sound as if key players jump to the conclusion that because trayvon was black -- it led to a conversation. we can discuss it off-line. broadereds to be a discussion. when these things happen, we can respond or communicate and breakdown to have a back-and-forth. media is so important.

we shouldn't have the 8 minute quick discussion of racist or not racist? we also hear the other side? my little girl, i see somebody walking and it is 98 degrees out in texas and you have on a going over your head, i'm to be worried. my little girl is here. i don't know why you're hiding your face and 98 degrees. i thought what happened with mark cuban -- if i see somebody walking towards me with tattoos all over and teardrops in his eyes, that means you are a murderer from what i see on tv -- i'm going on the other side of the road.

that is what i am telling you. we are all human and have to assess the things around us. just saw one -- i tv. >> i'm making an assessment. we make absolutes out of things. >> you are proving my point. what happens is we watch television. movies or the news. what we're being fed is driving our perceptions of one another. it goes back to the work that you are involved in. maybe part of the problem is we have an unbalanced diet of what we have been fed in america that is driving these racial -- >> are you good on that? >> [inaudible]

i understand. i believe some of that is reality. >> we are wrapping up here. in terms of simply what role has sports played in race relations? give us that perspective? -- perspective. i think sports can be a great area where people can bridge to one another. have a streetkers parade when they win the championship in front of city hall. the whole community was there. on the spanish language movie , people from the korean community -- >> different languages. go ahead. south-central l.a., westside,

-- theyh, orange county all can together. it was wonderful. and you look at the opposite when things do not work like that. there are still alleys in different parts of l.a. together inring us terms of the community and individuals to go out there people who are not like you and you see that they are hard-working. they have a sense of humor. what do you like? i like jay-z or whatever. they get to know each other and

understand they are just like us. we don't the same issues. we are trying to get to the same place. the potential for sports to overcome a lot of ignorance and lack of knowledge of other people is huge. white americans do not ever see a black american as having any value, especially her road value until --heroic value all of a sudden, they look at them in a different way. jackie robinson breaks the color barrier in baseball. he can play. he should be out there. if he is not out there, that means the best baseball players are not playing major league baseball. .ports has that potential especiallyd thing, the things that it makes

possible for all of us in terms of understanding and knowing each other. >> let me ask the final question. sterlingdonald incident happened, you wrote the time magazine article. i do not understand half of your big words in there, but it was a good article. here is what i want to ask you -- the incident became public on friday night/saturday morning, we are in l.a. tuesday morning because we hear that the at himself -- that adam silver, the commissioner will make a ruling. we come down to city hall. mayor eric or cities office -- eric garcetti's office. all of these great players are

there. why was it so important for you to be there at city hall? what were you thinking right before adam silver made his ruling? has was thinking the nba been my life. i do not want some racist clown being the face of the nba. that is the one thing that got to me. [applause] commissioner silver did a great job. my whole black sense than was i have seen the nba make more reaching out to be inclusive and to open up doors in the front office and management and other areas where black americans at one point were not considered. i know that the nba is trying to

do the right thing. that is why i got on my horse. [applause] >> all right, mayor nutter, you are mayor and you have a unique perspective. he passionately talked about violence in our communities and church. we notice this race issue is real. what final thought do you want to share? >> [inaudible] going. >> [inaudible] >> lean in. [laughter] >> let me put a stop to that right now. [laughter] said something early and i

will not get it exactly right, but he was talking about if a white person wants to talk about race or wants to get into a race conversation, there might be some challenges. mayor johnson certainly knows when we talk about my brother's keeper, citizens united, the challenges going on in african-american communities as it isates to violence, astounding circumstances. mean, theon is -- i mayor of new orleans talks about this issue. >> yes, indeed. >> and his wife. was in a conversation last night

with the new mayor of boston. wants to talk about this issue. the question is, especially for the african-american community, are you prepared to have a conversation and have someone who does not look like you talk about these things, not criticizing, not blaming the victim, but it is obviously a little easier for an african-american mayor to talk about black-on-black violence -- it is doubly difficult for a non-african-american leader, mayor, city councilmember, whatever, to start talking about black-on-black crime, can be as a serious issue, and have black folks jumping up talking about, why are you talking about this? so we have to create a safe and comfortable space for folks to be able to talk about real issues. i say, look, somebody might criticize you for talking about it. i can assure you some folks will criticize you for not talking about it.

because death is death. killings are killings and shootings are shootings. as mayors, we have an obligation and responsibility to deal with these issues. that door has to swing both ways. that field has to be open. people have to be ready for a serious conversation if we do our jobs and live up to the oath that we took to be in the office. that is one. second is, from time to time, we read stories about a team in washington, a football team with a particular name, and some people are offended. this is a real issue here in the country. should that issue be addressed and taken on? in light of what has happened with the clippers and all of this other stuff going on and that a growing proportion of the american-indian community is offended by the name of the team

in washington, d.c. that plays football. is that a real issue? that's a question. >> well, that is the question i was actually going to ask michael. we work well together. michael, the question for you is this broader context. you play football and there are the rivalries cowboys-redskins. what is your take on mayor nutter's question? >> we've talked about this. again, having these conversations is so vital. for years, growing up in fort lauderdale and watching my dad who loved the cowboys, we watched cowboys-redskins games and i did not know. i did not know as a young man. i did not know that it was offensive to them, to native americans. i did not know.

in getting that, i was like, wow, this is the importance of having those conversations. i want to have conversations with somebody to get an understanding of it, because i still do not know. but if it offends somebody, we should do something about that. we understand that. that is a great part about it. here is the best part -- even with the owner, dan snyder, i know they love making money. it could make a lot of money for them because everybody that has all the redskins things, they have got to get new ones. [laughter] so you can really satisfy both sides in understanding that. people say it is the tradition of it, and i appreciate tradition and everything, but moving forward is what is important, and moving forward together is what is important, i believe.

[applause] capitalist -- let me close with this. i want to go back to what he said about 1968 and everything, talking about a little over 40 years. roland was correct, we will take these moments and deal with these tough spots, these tough roads that we hear from the one donald sterling and people like that that will invite these kinds of conversations, but as we leave here, i want as leaving with the right taste in our mouths. in 1968, a little bit past 40 years, in the bible, they call that a generation. the reality is we have to be realistic when we are expecting change. just because we start talking about it and mentioning it does not mean it is going to happen overnight. there is a reason god allowed the children of israel for 40 years to walk in the desert to get the old land of slavery out before they get to the new land

of promise without the issues of slavery on them. we still have the remnants of the donald sterlings. but i do not want us to miss the bigger point. that is 40 years -- we say it is not a big thing, but it is humongous. i have seen african-americans who cried because they do not think it would be possible in their lifetime of having an african-american president, and that happened. and we focus on this one dude donald sterling all we want. but we can look at what we accomplish when we all come together as one. that is what i think we should do. that is my closing comment. [applause] >> roland will close us out with a final thought. >> i sat on the set of cnn that night then when i was shedding tears, folks asked me why. i said it is not because of this election.

i did not do it because i saw him. i saw the u.s. soldiers who were hanging from trees and lynched in their uniforms. that was the image they came to my mind. but what ties in with sports is that i recognize that the inauguration parade is over. and if you have not read dr. king's "chaos or community," you should. what we are talking about today, he wrote in 1967 when we were grappling with riots across the country. he said it did not cost america much to allow us to sit at the same lunch counter or to be in the same hotel. he said now the question is the real cost is about to be tabulated, and is america prepared to write that check?

he put that whole thing down in terms of where we are and in terms of society. when i look at opportunity, when i look at the idea of sports and how race connects, what each and every single one of you should do some thing reverend jackson often talks about -- he said, the reason african-americans have been able to achieve a level of success in sports and entertainment is because in sports, if it is basketball, the court is 94 feet for everybody. it is 10 feet high for everybody. shot clock is the same. fouls are the same. everything is the same. so when you go play, your talent will determine whether you succeed or not. it was undeniable that kareem, working on his game, was going to achieve a level of success, because in the game of sports,

you can perform or you cannot perform. you have the talent or you do not. same with michael. it does not matter. but the real question that you should be challenging people in your city and your corporate citizens and your schools and everyone else is to say -- why is it that in sports the rules are the same and we can measure success, but then off the court, off the field, it goes from objective to subjective? all of the sudden, your talent does not define whether or not you will become an all-star. what somebody else is thinking defines that. so when i am looking at the folks who are ceo's -- not just, my goodness, we have several african-american ceo's, but i am looking at how many black board members they have or hispanic board members they have. what we are still seeing in this

country is an inequity in terms of folks at the top and the bottom. there is still not an african-american who is a prime time host of a cable news network with a black man in the white house, and that is a problem for me. what happens is we praise sports because our sports figures worked on their game and achieved success because they said if you run faster, throw longer, if you can shoot better and rebound better, it means you are going to succeed. we should have the exact same attitude in the rest of our society. and when that happens can we make it the point that we preach all the time, we will see the inequality gap closing. you look at average incomes, and you will must see these sub crime -- subprime loans. you will not see what you have seen and the home foreclosure crisis.

it will take two generations to get just that money back. when we have that attitude about life, as we do about sports, then we're going to see it. i would be remiss to his a we have the exactwe same attitude when it comes to our sports teams for mayors out there building new arenas for owners and you want them to win championships. you should be saying when it comes to the education of our children, whether it is food choice or education reform, i want to make sure we had the same kind of access. if you want to win a championship in football, you sure as hell better win championships in educating our children. focus on that and that and we won't talk about inequality. [applause] >> sports is leading the way to it we have five owners in

and the top companies do not have any african-americans on their board. less than 2%. >> google does not, facebook does not. >> i was not going to name them, but he did. >> i name everybody. >> he's right. in sports, we have such a major amount of guys on the field. that is why we get a chance to talk about these things and hopefully change all the things we need to change. that these discussions are important. >> before i let them go, it is an honor to give the president's award to kareem abdul-jabbar and his foundation for all of the outstanding work he is doing around the country. [applause] let's give a round of applause for all of our panelists. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

♪ >> a discussion to ban same-sex marriages and send a briefing the by new white house chief of staff and then from the communist party convention, the keynote speech by sam a west. tomorrow, the heritage foundation and daniel weiss from legal counsel discuss the issue of climate change and the weight of the first major hurricane of the season. talks about the latest developments in iraq and syria. pew research center examines partisan polarization in the u.s. and what it could mean for future elections. as always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and

twitter. washington journal at 7:00 a.m. on c-span. >> our endowment is the largest amount. it is pretty healthy and just shy of 600 million. to put that into perspective, vanderbilt is in our peer group and they are at $6 billion. harvard, which represents the pinnacle of nations endowment, is at a $34 billion. and they have a $6 billion campaign going on right now. if we are going to aspire to have that kind of excellence and facilities to produce that kind of campus, we have to have that kind of investment. it is my responsibility now and the president's responsibility when he or she is named to go out and show we can expand. chris howard university interim the challenges

facing the predominately black universities sunday night at 8:00 eastern on q&a. >> a look at nasa's efforts to explore mars. one of the senior engineers who worked on. out city. then others on the long-term plan to send a manned mission. this about two hours and 20 minutes. >> we're going to talk about mars for the next few minutes. this is adam steltzner, who is an engineering fellow at the laboratory in pasadena, california. you probably know him as the fellow who invented that crazy contraption that helped to land the curiosity rover on mars. first of all, can you tell us -- how do you beat that? what have you been doing since the landing? >> a couple of things -- no one person ever invents anything. it is always a great team effort.

that is one of the beauties of engineering, it's collaborative art. any ideas from many, many people combine to make these great things that look great through and look crazy, but are fantastic, come out of the minds of many folks. what i have been doing lately is working with a new group -- a different group of great people, which is fantastic to me. i always love the interaction with new groups of bright talent, and we have been working on developing a system to sample the surface of mars and containerize it very safely for potential return to earth at a later date. for our investigations to date on mars, we have packed the science instruments into miniaturized form and taken a lot of efforts to get them onto the surface of mars. we think -- or certainly the

science community believes that to answer the final questions of mars, we will probably have to do it backwards, which is go and package mars and bring it back to earth to use the science instruments and the various scientists on earth to do the investigation, and i am helping develop the first piece of that puzzle, which is the sampling system. >> that's great. what are the final questions of mars? >> is it alive? was it ever alive? are we alone? those are some of the questions we are asking. >> why do we ask those questions in particular? seems like when it comes to safe travel, spacex exploration, we could take so many routes and explorations. we could say we want to explore for the sake of exploration, get a broader sense of life itself. >> i think life is a very profound question. we see life all around us, but when we look up to the stars, we do not see it as obviously or at all.

could we really be alone? could our experiences be a unique moment in a unique location in our universe? it is sort of a profound question. it has religious implications. it is something we have considered since perhaps the dawn of our self-awareness. we do explore for many reasons. i think we are actually driven by our own curiosity to explore, so i think exploration is a fundamental expression of our humanity, but the question we tend to ponder more freakily -- frequently than any other is -- are we alone? >> what if we find out that we are not? >> i kind of am already there, just on the math of the thing. to quote guru carl sagan, "i

think for various people -- i hope we are not alone. if we were alone, i would immediately freak out. everybody stop doing everything. we might break it. we might be the only thing that the universe has got. it would be good for all of us to have a chance to acknowledge whether there is life in other places in the solar system and to understand that life can evolve in other places. it may also help us understand our own evolution and some of the processes that support life here on earth, which is very important to us. >> what do you think that the idea of terraforming mars or other planets, for that matter, basically making a home on other planets in our own image, in some sense? >> that's a great question. folks ask that a lot. space exploration, where is it

going? will we go to colonization? a lot of times people talk about it because they are worried about what we are doing to this earth. the colonization, the terraforming paradox for me -- the skills, engineering, care, discipline necessary to shape a planet for us the same skills, engineering, and care needed for us to keep this planet good for us. i don't think terraforming is a solution to our own lack of discipline or our own lack of care and understanding -- i don't think terraforming is a solution. we are, by far, the greatest risk, but, you know, if you think very deep, long time horizons, you can imagine

threats. the sun going out, black holes wandering into our solar system. there are astronomical threats to our species, and we are concentrated in a single location. you can imagine in deep time is thinking about diversifying our real estate portfolio, but for right now, solving the threat we pose to ourselves, i think we should not consider that as a solution. >> when it comes to the actual work you are doing with a sampling of mars -- i want to get back to that a little bit. you are essentially retraining yourself for a new mission, right? how do you go about that? how did you go about the educational aspects of it as well as the social aspects? >> great question. i happen to love doing different things. previously, i was helping the team, developing a landing system, and now we are talking about sampling systems.

very different set of physics involved. i love that. i love learning about new fields, learning about new areas of intellectual endeavor, and i do it by reading, talking to people smarter than myself, and by assembling a team of people who, hopefully, are smarter than me, and we learn together about this new field. i tried to make the team environment full of play. i have kids, and i notice they learn through play. i think actually, you can choose to never stop learning through play, so that is how i tried to do it, and it makes it a little more fun for me, and i think it makes it fun for the rest of the team. >> that's awesome. how does that manifest? >> not taking things of great

gravity too seriously. >> no pun intended? >> enjoy each other. wordplay. trying different techniques of looking at a problem, trying to think about all of the opposites -- you know, sometimes, when we are in a development, and team members want to bring an idea forward or change something that we are doing, i asked them to come with the three central reasons for the change and the three central arguments against the change to sort of helps separate yourself from the ideas you are bringing forward so you can be warm and respectful to each other but rule on the ideas you are playing with -- brutal on the ideas you are playing with. we try to make it fun and make it fertile for innovation. >> how does that fit in with the overall infrastructure of jpl and nasa as well? is there a bureaucracy to be dealt with or do you have a lot

of freedom? >> there's lots of folks who work at nasa. doing something like building curiosity and getting her safely to the surface of mars requires 3000 of us in a laboratory at about 10,000 people spread over 37 states and the better part of a decade, so you cannot do all of that work in free association wordplay frolic. there is a time in the beginning when you are developing ideas, understanding what you are going to do, and that is when that open time exists. that's when you want to use tools that bring in ideas from different directions. then there is an implementation phase where you got the thing you're doing and you have got to make it happen. that becomes much more structured, much more regimented, and a little bit more hierarchical and involves a lot more people in a fair number of dollars. >> a fair number, yes.

what about the public-facing side? one of the things that was so striking about the curiosity landing was how much of a spectacle it was in the best sense, and it reminded you how much all this advanced technology is so fundamentally human. this is one of the times we have had such intimate access to you guys as engineers and that technology. how did you think about the social side, or do you not at all? >> it's interesting -- i worked on -- we put a pair of rovers on the surface of mars in 2004. i worked a lot on that landing system. in 2004, social media existed a little bit, but not really. we were the -- on the top news stories for cnn until, frankly, britney spears got out of a limousine wearing or not wearing

something, and all of a sudden, we fell off the list. in the era of nightly news, they tell you five things. if you are thing number six that happened that day, you did not happen. this era is very different. many different multiple paths of transmission mean that people can become interested and spread the word themselves, and i have noticed a huge difference with respect to curiosity, her landing. her landing system was even wackier looking, maybe, and she is big. by the way, the version downstairs, just in case everybody knows, is half scale. it might even be third scale. i cannot quite tell. the real curiosity's head fits slightly above the george washington bust. so you can go down and look at george washington and get a sense of the size of her. she was huge, a little bit outlandish anyway we landed her,

but more importantly, i think there was a whole bunch of conduits and contact through social media i think has made a huge difference. >> is that something you think about on an ongoing basis? how do we portray this work as it is going on? as it is maybe not even in full existence yet, but how to get the public excited about it? >> i don't. my strategy, which i hope is a good -- it is slightly dangerous -- is to just be honest and available. i think that connecting with the public, who, frankly, are paying for these efforts, and giving them insight as to why we do it and what drives us and who we are who do these things is important and useful. the idea that we engage the youth of this nation, which we

do -- i can tell you that i am engaged all the time by young kids, young adults across the country who are motivated and turned on, frankly, by curiosity and exploration. i think it is one of the greatest services that we provide to the nation. i believe in it, so i welcome opportunities to share. >> do you think that is common throughout jpl, at least? >> in general, i think there's a lot of folks who understand the value of it. i can tell you it's quite frightening to share yourself openly with people, so to the degree that you can be less guarded varies from person to person, and i may be on the over sharing side of that spectrum. >> would you ever want to go to space yourself?

>> the more i look at space and the more i am involved in building robots that virtually explore space for all of us, the more i think of how delightfully warm and loving this planet is. i have a very nice garden in the backyard of my house. we have two lovely daughters. i am very happy to stay right here. >> that's wonderful. i want to circle back -- you called curiosity "she." can you explain why you do that? >> i'm not the only one. we tend to do that at the lab, and it may be sort of a tradition of ocean going vessels, naval vessels, or it may be that we think of her in sort of a protective way. i certainly do. curiosity is a better name for a girl than a boy, don't you think? i do.

however, some collection of that we just organically, unintentionally, without organization call her a "she." >> interesting. i think the social media team is run by women. >> yes, it actually is mostly all women. that's true. >> i think this will have to be our last question. what is next for space exploration? >> there are other places to explore other than mars. there is -- the outer planets of jupiter or saturn, uranus, neptune, etc. -- those places are quite interesting, harder to get to, and they have some interesting moons about jupiter and saturn. europa, titan -- these are places astrobiologist think might have the conditions that would allow life to exist today. maybe great examples for us,

great places for us to go search for signs of a living universe. i am hopeful we will be doing some work not only at mars -- i love mars. been doing a lot of work on mars, but also beyond mars to the icy moons of the outer planets. >> wonderful. i think we have one more question. >> hi, folks. i am editor of arts at "the atlantic," and i have been obsessed with having you here. i'm so excited. this is not a commercial for siemens, but we were thrilled. i have been obsessing -- what is the pipeline like of younger adam steltzners out there? is the country getting it right? siemens has been simulating the software you used to do the landing, and they've gone places like cincinnati or cleveland, ohio, and i was just in worship, massachusetts.