and i just don't think we have fully -- and fully understand today what those implications are. we are thinking about them. we are looking at options. etc. finally, of course, we come to the united states' hydrocarbon industry specifically. again adam is welcome to pipe in. but adam of the e.i.a.'s, i believe, still current, as of a couple of days ago, expectation is that we will still see increases in our oil production in 2015. the increase has been tempered. but i believe the way this number is still looking at getting up into about a 9.3 million barrel a day whereas before it was 9.5 or 9.7 something like that.

clearly if these prices persist for a long time, then the reductions in capex that we are seeing are clearly going to start coming in down the road. right now i think we're looking carefully, we're being prepared with analyses for alternative pathways forward. right now consumers are having the benefit. >> excellent. ok, a question over there and the mike will be made available. please identify yourself. >> i'm a public policy scholar here at the wilson center. can you talk about what the role is for biofuels to remain in the future energy mix? >> well, i think the -- first of all, we certainly continue to invest in biofuels. in fact, just in i guess it was october i was pleased to be in kansas for what is now the

largest commercial functioning biorefinery in the country. our loan program helped put that into place. so if i go back to the -- what i mentioned about our entry in this book, first of all, actually i think it's important that -- sorry. let me go back a step. as we celebrate our incredible increase in oil production with shale, i think we also do have to keep in mind that we still import 7 1/2 million barrels of oil a day. so, we continue to have a very strong focus on reducing oil

dependence. reducing oil dependence has multiple threads. one is efficient vehicles. so things like the cafe standards for light duty vehicles, things like our supertruck program for 60%, 65% efficiency increase for class eight trucks, etc., is very important. we continue to push alternative fuels. most especially next generation biofuels are critical. costs are not there yet. but they are coming down fast. again, i think often by the way as an aside we don't pay enough attention often. we tend to be some years behind in terms of where these cost curves are for many

technologies. third, we continue to, d.o.e. and obviously companies, continue to advance electrification of vehicles. so all three of those are very important thrusts. but i think the high level of message i want to emphasize is we are committed to reducing our oil dependence even as we produce more oil, the big effect there has been in reduced imports of oil and the associated improvements in our balanced payments. >> all right. let's have a few questions at this point and we'll have -- >> my answers have to be short. >> a comprehensive answer. there's one over here and please identify yourselves. i see over here. and one in the back. >> my name is jim blanchard, former u.s. ambassador to canada. governor of michigan and a member of congress.

i've dealt with these energy issues for about 40 years. and i never thought i'd see a day with incredible abundance, growing good technologies, growing renewables, awash in oil and gas here, none of which i realize we should take for granted. but what i can't figure out is why our president doesn't associate himself with such a good news story. what can you do, mr. secretary because we're delighted you're here, to make sure that the public gets the big picture and doesn't just focus on one or two issues which always seem to be negative? this is a fabulous time and the options -- options that you have, that we have as a country, and north america has the options are fabulous. how do we get the big picture out to the american people and to our own congress? >> ok. the next question. good, hard-hitting question there. >> my question is kind of

similar to the previous one. what about fuel cells and hydrogen energy. i know the tokyo olympics were going to be powered by hydrogen energy and fuel cells. kind of go into that, i'd very much appreciate it. >> and finally. >> yes, i'm richard kennedy, a retired c.i.a. economic analyst. and i read that some people at m.i.t. are looking back at some of the early ideas for exploiting nuclear energy and finding that some of them look very promising in terms of cost and safety. i wonder if you could comment on that. >> and now really finally. >> i just wanted to express gratitude for not only words but deeds of secretary in building energy security. on the eve of our 25th anniversary of independence we built a terminal. our only hope is that the u.s.

increases l&g exports. we have american supplies as well. thank you. >> there's a lot. over to you. >> ok. a few brief words in inverse order. in terms of the -- our lithuanian colleagues and the -- first of all on l&g exports i just want to repeat where we are to date every application that has been prepared for a public determination specifically meaning that it has completed an environmental impact statement, to date every one has been approved. we currently have -- this is to nonfree trade agreement countries. we've approved 5.7 billion

cubic feet per day. which is, you know, roughly 60% of gutters export today. so that's not a small amount. but obviously there could be more in -- more in the queue. if you look at the economists' predictions, of course that was prior to recent events, but generally speaking i would say from the low side of say five to the high side of 15 billion cubic feet per day is the kind of range where economists think the market lend up supporting. the issue right now of getting l.n.g. to lithuania or anywhere else at the moment, is building the facilities. so the first facility is due to come on at the end of this year or early 2015 -- 2016. and two others have now put at least i think spades into the ground. but the reality is, you know it's going to be year until

subtantial infrastructure is ready to do that. on nuclear energy, i think, for example, you were probably referring to the moulton salt reactor as an example of a back to the future possibility. there's no question that there are a number of innovative approaches, many of which had some work done in the 1980's for example, which have some very interesting characteristics. and we are supporting research in those areas. but to be practical, we all know that the gestation time of a new nuclear technology is very long. going through the building up through pilot stages and demonstration phases, it's a lot of money involved, it's hard to get from here to there frankly. and there's the regulatory

challenge. so right now in terms of a new technology, our main focus right now in terms of the deployment end is on small modular reactors, so much smaller reactors built around light water technology. because -- precisely because it isn't as big a step as going to some of the other technologies. so our view is right now we're trying to work to get some of those deployed in the early 20's. 2022 kind of time frame. and while we continue to support at least the research on these alternative approaches, certainly on paper for sure, can have some advantages relative to light water reactors. fuel cells and hydrogen, well, again, lots of progress. the reduction in costs is the same theme in fuel cells has been pretty dramatic.

we saw -- i think it's fair to say it was the first commercially offered for sale fuel cell vehicle, the toyota vehicle announced in california in december. since it's public, i mean, we can say that i think the list price they put on that was $57,500. as a reminder, when president bush in his state of the union speech i think in 2002 announced the freedom car, a vice president of one of the major auto companies said, you want a fuel cell vehicle? i'll sell you a fuel cell vehicle. it will cost you $1 million. well, $1 million to $57 to thank you is pretty good -- $57,000 is pretty good progress in just over a decade. right now i think the fuel cell costs have been encouraging.

but of course the infrastructure, the fueling infrastructure is just an enormous challenge, frankly, to get there. and i think that events like this are a wonderful opportunity to get out the big picture and inform the public. i have to say, i think the president is very much in tune with -- i mean, obviously with the kind of picture that i laid out. i mean, the climate action plan for one thing was a major pusher of this. and he has done and continues to do lots and lots of public events on this agenda. in fact, today, today he's at an auto manufacturing plant. a beneficiary of one of our loan programs. again, i keep putting that plug in. and has been quite a few events

around manufacturing, including energy and space, etc. i wish we had a solution as to how to get a much bigger broader, broader audience listening to this story. but i would say, and i will stop, that there was an interesting little article in the "new yorker" just at the end of the year. and it said, you know, 2014 was a good year for government. everybody says everything is dysfunctional, etc., etc., etc., well, a number of things were pointed out. oh, by the way, including our loan program. but also where we've come in terms of the deficit, frankly the reality of what's happened

with the health care rollout, a whole bunch of issues. and it was an interesting statement. i'm not -- i'm just repeating what it said. you know, there seems to be a phenomenon and the example used was individuals who were incorrectly accused in the press with regard to the olympic bombing in the united states and the anthrax scare. and once those first stories are out, it's hard to get the good story over. so i don't know. there may be a bit of that. but all i can say is we're working it. and other ideas, other venues would be most welcome. because you are right. this is a great news story for our countries and i think ultimately for the global economy. thank you. >> thank you, mr. secretary. and the cameras in the back remind us that the story is not only here in this auditorium at the wilson center, but it's a national story and we're very

glad to be part of helping you make that story happen. so thank you for an excellent and outstanding presentation. >> thank you.

>> good morning. we have a series of speakers. and one of the most important elements of lobbying is lobbying the executive branch, lobbying rulemaking. to put this in context congress passed fewer than 300 bills this last congress and

some of them weren't very important. whereas our next speaker who is president of the university and was provost and dean of the school of public affairs and was appointed to the faculty in 1975 will tell you more in more detail just how important it is to have a strategy of lobbying after a bill is passed. bills are vague. frequently, they're general. specificity is put on through the rule-making process. and we have one of the best people in america to do this he has the best book in my opinion, although there are not very many books on this topic entitled rulemaking, how government agencies write law and make policies. the founder of the center for the study of rulemaking, and certainly you know about rulemaking because this president is shifting to rulemaking, economic orders and other actions when he has divided party government.

i want to welcome neil kirwin. neil, this is the 22nd year of the institute. you've been at every one and we appreciate that very much. we appreciate your support. he's going to be speaking on lobbying and the regulatory process. thank you, neil. >> thank you, gentlemen. thank you, jim, for that introduction. i wanted to especially thank him for the plug for the book. i've spoken to the class 22 times. the book is now going into his fifth edition. the classes apparently had no effect whatsoever on the sales. >> wait a minute. aren't you having a movie made of it? >> yeah. sure. yeah. yeah, we're casting it now. all right. what jim did by way of introduction is absolutely right. this is a field of study that, except for students of political science who are reasonably advanced in their work, and frankly the practitioner community in washington, this is an arcane

science. but as pat well knows, as jim well knows, most of the heavy lifting when it comes to public policy formation and implementation occurs in this setting. this is not meant as any dismissal of congress. but as you've heard during the course of this week, and certainly well before, congresses in the past several cycles have found it increasingly difficult to reach consensus on significant pieces of legislation. there are some notable exceptions that i'll mention in a moment. but the irony is on those major pieces of legislation, along with them were enormous grants of authority along with all the controversy that goes along with it to agencies of the federal government. now, when i wrote the book in 1994, initially, i made a statement in it that created a considerable amount of division in my field. including people who studied at congress like professor

thurber, for example, who thought at the time that the entire universe revolved around capitol hill. and i think in large part in a city like this that's understandable. but what i said at the outset based on research that led me to write the book, was that rulemaking has been now for almost a century the most important source of law in america. and i don't think any longer that is being seriously disputed. because the evidence i believe is overwhelming both empirically and in terms of the patterns of practice we see in the advocacy communities here in washington. organized political interests, now you're working fast track, and trade promotion? >> yeah. >> okay. you probably picked one piece

of legislation where rulemaking's impact is going to be limited, at least initially since so much focus is on the dynamic between the congress and the president, and granting the president this extraordinary authority. you know the controversies that are surrounding it. but if the president loses, if he doesn't get fast track capability in this, my guess is that he will turn to the processes that we're talking about today in one way or another. his famous statement, most often associated with the immigration reform act, or lack thereof, but a comment that he's made in past, he said i have a phone and i have a pen. and this is what he's talking about when he talks about a phone and a pen. not entirely, but largely. organized political interests discovered this area long before the political science community did. the first survey of work that we did for the book asked lobbying organizations publicly oriented, privately oriented, nonprofit and the

like, how much time and treasure they spent trying to affect the hill, versus trying to affect administrative agencys the results were stunning. even then, which is now more than 20 years ago, these respondents said they were spending as much or more time attempting to influence agencies of government as they were capitol hill. and that has only increased as the congress' ability to produce legislation has declined. now why are they most important in volume? jim mentioned 300 pieces of legislation, which i find a surprising number. >> less than. >> less than, okay. now he didn't say how much less than, but i imagine it's somewhere between 290 and -- all right. and, you know, as your instructors know some of those pieces of legislation are probably a little less than earth shattering, right? you know, wishing pat griffin happy birthday.

you know, national pumpkin week. you know, because it's really critical to acknowledge that. but of course, some of them are immensely, immensely important and impactful. rules are much the same. take 300 pieces of legislation and consider this. that in an average year, democrat or republican administration agencies of the federal government alone will produce somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 proposed and final rules. for the multiples are enormous. and when you take a major piece of legislation like the affordable care act, or dodd-frank, you're talking about literally setting in motion hundreds of substantial rulemaking efforts. now volume alone really isn't the best measure of impact. but you take my job now, i'm the chief executive officer of

a university that is now the seventh or eighth largest employer in the district of columbia. we operate with a $600 million budget. we operate a set of hotels that we call residence halls. a set of restaurants we call dining facilities. we have air issues, water quality issues, we have workplace safety issues. we purchase equipment. we deal with dozens and dozens of administrative agencies at both the federal, state and the local level. now, if i were to ask my general counsel as a ceo of any major company might, how the law pertains to something important we do, let's say it's the protection of animals in biology, or psychology labs. or the exposure of my colleagues in an aspect of our physical plan, the hazardous substances or materials. mary kennard who is our general counsel and was general counsel at other universities before she came here can give me two both the federal, state and the local level. now, if i were to ask my general counsel as a ceo of any major company might, how the law pertains to something important we do, let's say it's the protection of animals in biology, or psychology labs.

or the exposure of my colleagues in an aspect of our physical plan, the hazardous substances or materials. mary kennard who is our general counsel and was general counsel at other universities before she came here can give me two things to read. she can give me the united states code that applies to that area. and the code is the compilation of all the statutes written by congress. and we can find it in the appropriate statutes those things that apply to, let's say, the composition of rugs in classrooms. trust me, you won't find much. the other thing she can give me to read is the code of federal regulations. and that code of federal regulations is very different from the united states code. it's written by agencies of the federal government.

written by people who are not elected. written by people who are deeply expert in how much of what kind of substance you're worried about in this rug is safe for a human being to be exposed to. and that code of federal regulations is developed in a process i'm going to talk about in a moment. and 99 times out of 100, maybe 100 times out of 100, mary is going to give me the code of federal regulations to read, and not the u.s. code. because the code of federal regulations contains the most specific statements of our rights and obligations under the law we're likely to get until we have an enforcement action imposed on us, or we take one against somebody else. so this is the law that largely defines the quality of life in this country and in countries well beyond our borders because of our interactions around the world. the reason why your statute

that you're working on is a bit different is because, as i understand trade promotion and fast track, congress delegates to the president the opportunity to write effectively a piece of legislation. but after he's done with that, and it gets an up or down vote in the congress, the hard work that we're talking about here this morning has to be done. it could be in the trade rep's office. it could be in state. it might even be in some of the domestic agencies that affect labor conditions, environmental quality, and the like. you know, from your reading already on trade promotion some of the opposition to it is a concern that we're going to compromise some of our workplace safety and environmental standards. but all of those standards every one of them. and by the way every breath you take in this room has been determined in part by a regulation written in this case by the environmental protection agency. so that's why we're here this morning. then finally, the way i would

have you understand this is never, ever underestimate the importance of a statute. statute has huge framing authority. everything an agency does by way of rulemaking has to be authorized in some way or form by an existing statute or one that's being written. but all the statute is capable of doing for reasons i'll get to in a minute, is setting boundaries, parameters. within which agencies provide the details that you and i all need to live our lives. all right. these are just some examples recently that you're all aware of, of where rulemaking is really driving the bus. affordable care act. dodd-frank, i mean it's ironic there was a piece in yesterday's "washington post" about the failure of a republican congress to roll

back the volcker rule. well the volcker rule has a lot to do with how banks structure their portfolios of investments and the like. an aggressive rule was written by the department of treasury and other banking related regulators. the republican congress was hoping to roll that back as we -- as the congress rolled back certain elements of derivatives regulation in the earlier congress. they failed yesterday, but they're going to take another bite at it. harp has to do with the ability of homeowners who find themselves underwater with mortgages to effectively renegotiate their relationship with the lender. the immigration reform is where that great state, and i got a phone and i got a pen came from. a president finding himself frustrated by the inability of congress to enact immigration reform, and promising to do something on his own.

climate change, at least as the debate is currently engaged in this country, has been driven by rulemaking by the environmental protection agency under a statute that was last amended 24 years ago. and then finally, every so off the often you'll see in the popular press a report on rulemaking. they are few and far between. but talking about the political sensitivity at the end of this last off year election cycle to ensure that the president's agencies don't issue regulations in a way that compromised the ability of democrats to get elected. so if you read between the lines in an awful lot of contemporary american public policy is an implicit admission that this is where the action has moved to. and the formal research on the topic i think established that a long time ago.

now you're going to hear every one of these criticisms. if you go into this line of work, there is no way you will avoid working with rulemaking. and when you do, you will hear these complaints about the process. almost all of which have some merit. it's an unconstitutional preemption of substantive rights in a democratic process. everybody here has at some point read the american constitution, right? good idea if you haven't, you might want to catch up on it at some point. all right? the first thing the founders say about how we govern ourselves, article 1, section 1 of the constitution says very simply the legislative power will be invested in a congress of the united states. it doesn't say a congress of the united states, and the pension benefit guarantee corporation. or the federal aviation administration. or the environmental protection agency. but in point of fact most law now is written in places the founders would have found probably appalling. so the critics who say the founders say it was made by elected representatives are absolutely right. but what the founders couldn't possibly have contemplated is the society as large and an economy as complex as this one that requires constant readjustment of existing public policy.

so the critics who say the founders say it was made by elected representatives are absolutely right. but what the founders couldn't possibly have contemplated is the society as large and an economy as complex as this one that requires constant readjustment of existing public policy. even if you're not writing any new law. what a clean water act means in 2014 is fundamentally different than what it meant in 1972. and if a congress can't assemble itself to rewrite the statute, an agency will do the job of catching up. all right?

poorly informed subject to strategic use of information constrained in data collection and analysis. in a minute i'm going to show you how difficult it is to write a reg. agencies now operate in an environment that is highly constrained in terms of their ability to collect and use the information they need to have to write law. the most important element of this statement is you. because increasingly, you and the organizations you represent, public, private nonprofit, are the most important sources of information agencies have to work with. because they have found themselves over the past 30 years increasingly unable to keep pace with information as it's generated in the private sector. budgetary problems staff issues, all the things that you read about in other parts of your public administration literature have impacted rulemaking profoundly.

they have increased the icsimportance of your ability to convey information to agencies. and i mean that sincerely, not just because you want to influence it to win but because the american public depend on the highest quality information to ensure the rules that are written are accurate and effective. very slow, obsolete by the time it's enforced. the federal aviation administration can put out an air worthiness directive in 24 hours. and you and i should be very pleased about that. all right? but the last time we measured how long it took the environmental protection agency to produce a major regulation, and a major regulation under the law is defined as any regulation that has an impact on the economy of $100 million or more in compliance costs each year, how long do you suppose it takes epa to write a reg like that? anyone want to hazard an

estimate? hmm? >> ten years? >> ten years, good lead but you're a little bit high. if it was ten years even i would give up on it. all right? >> seven? >> well it's actually half of his number, about four and a half years. and the reasons why it takes that long we'll be talking about throughout the course of this. but it is a slow process. and you have to worry, particularly as we saw in the financial crisis and aftermath of 2008, when you're dealing with industries where the half-life of effective information is weeks or days the ability of an agency to keep pace with that and regulate those transactions is seemingly questionable. there's no easy answer to it it's just simply a fact that we all need to be aware of. and then finally, it's an inequitable process. like much of our public policy system.

this is a process that favors well-resourced, well-organized interests that have easy access to their membership, easy access to the highest quality technical, scientific, and frankly political information that they can get their hands on, and that have developed over time, bridges to agencies that they can cross every time they need it. and many of the same principles that we've read about, talked about, in class about working with members of congress and their staff apply to agency interaction as well. some are different. and i think there are some notable differences in this that we'll talk about in a second. why it thrives and why it survives. congress is a limited institution. it has only so much time. their processes, as you have already studied, and in a

process for example to get a trade promotion piece done is exotic, all right? but you know, obviously once it passes then things can move very, very quickly. you know, we've had a similar in the past five to ten years, of some of the arkana of congressa procedure. the ability to block. the ability to put what some people feel are inappropriate riders on existing pieces of legislation. in any event, even if congress were the essence of efficiency the demands of the american people for public policy are limitless. if i took a poll of the ten things that you'd like to see change, altered, created in the public policy process just in this room you would create an agenda for congress that would keep them busy for decades.

so at some point there has to be you know, an agenda control. there has to be a limit on how many things they can address. the processes, we mention it. but the other piece here is that there are a lot of political issues that congress simply does not want to deal with. they would prefer not to be on the record voting for certain kinds of things. and frankly that -- that charge has been leveled at things like trade promotion legislation, as well. you can write a piece of legislation that gives the president broad authority to establish trade relations between us and another country. and the congress doesn't necessarily have to take responsibility for some of the details that might hurt one or another interest here in the states. that is absolutely the way many political scientists view the delegation of authority to agencies to write regulations. it's called responsibility transfer.

and there's a flip side to it, as well. i fly a lot in this job. i travel a great deal. i'm on airplanes more than i want to be. every element of that airplane and the flight i take and you take, is regulated by the federal aviation administration. the aircraft, its exterior, its interior, its avionics, the air spaces that we fly over and in and land in, the pilots, the flight attendants, the airports, are all regulated tightly by the faa. now, the faa is populated by largely engineers. some transportation specialists, some public policy specialists.

but when i get on an airplane and i think to myself, who wrote the regs that are going to -- that are going to essentially define this flight, i have some consolation knowing that it's the faa, and not a subcommittee of the congress. and that's no great disrespect to congress. that's not what it really was created to do. but the implication of what congress does, the fact there's respectively no limit on what the congress can do in most areas of american life, also bring to the fore the fact that the details at some point have to be written. you have to -- you know at some point you have to decide what the appropriate design from an airplane engine is. what the proper number of hours are for a pilot to fly. what kind of materials can be used inside an airplane to prevent unnecessary deaths from fire. those decisions are delegated to agencies of government.

presidents like this one learn pretty quickly that executive actions are a lot more fun than working. divided government in particular elevates that perception. it doesn't always happen in the first term. it almost always happens, if there is a second. and certainly very early into a presidency when a presidency realizes he's dealing with a recalcitrant congress. and his alternative is to turn to a set of agencies run by men and women he selected, who have direct accountability to him that he'll turn to devices like rulemaking to get an agenda moving that can't otherwise get moved. rulemaking, you ought to review, you ought to consider this, as just the next step in your work after you're finished with the bill. as a matter of fact you ought

to be thinking about this phase of the process at the earliest stages of your work. because if you do your work with the hill right, you can make your work with the agencies that follow somewhat easier. and somewhat more predictable. and again, if you're fortunate enough to work with a well-resourced organization, you're going to find yourself advantaged. because you're going to find agencies in large part that if you work with them properly, with a degree of respect and integrity they're going to come to depend on you for information that they, in turn can rely on. these are the things right now as you're working in the field moving into working in the field all of these things are conditions that currently affect the use of rulemaking. partisanship, re-election's

been with us forever. the impact of sequester, and sequester-like budget constraints have profoundly affected the ability of agencies to collect and use information. those of us who have been around town a long time, pat and jim included, know that when agencies are faced with a call to reduce budgets, rightly or wrongly, they tend to go to low-hanging fruit. and like it or not, low-hanging fruit includes training of personnel, extramural research and the inducement for early retirement of senior people who are very expensive in favor of hiring younger folks who aren't. every one of those things in their own way reduces the ability of an agency to keep pace with highly -- highly

vocal constituencies, demanding some type of action. uncertainty, that's just simply a fact of life that we all deal with in terms of public policy deliberations. and if you look at this administration and beyond, there is a massive pentup demand out there for action in a wide variety of areas. and right now, if it's going to get done, unless there is a very dramatic and somewhat unexpected change in the environment between congress and the presidency, much of that's going to get done in these processes we're talking about this morning. here are the four or five, six institutions that influence how rules get written. and i want to make a point at the end of this particular item

that you need to be very much aware of in your work. congress starts the process by enacting legislation. the legislation with some notable exceptions will always have two critical characteristics that create fertile ground for your work with agencies to write grants. number one the legislation will always be incomplete. it will never answer all the questions nick needs to run his business. simply incapable. there's no way that the legislative process can or wants to produce policy at that level of detail. and then the second is that language can be vague. oftentimes vague language is a marker.

if you were an anthropologist or archaeologist and you were digging around 300 years from now and you saw language like "in the public interest," what you were really looking at is the inability of congress to agree on the kind of direction it needs to get to an agency. the kind of evidence that the congress was under intense pressure from multiple contending constituencies, to produce something. but their reaction was not to alienate everyone. but to turn the hard decisions over to a third party. all right? and so congress -- you must work with congress in order to set these broad parameters. the president plays in rules that he decides to play in. and let me tell you how. then later i'll show you some data on it.

ronald reagan created in 1980 the most significant power over domestic public policy that any american president has created perhaps, in the history of the united states. he mandated that all proposed and final rules passed through the white house before the published in something called a federal register. now the irony here is that ronald reagan was not known, and probably still isn't, as a guy that had a big, hard strong grip on the details of government. he was not seen as a guy who really respected that. he was, you know, he was known for two things, you know. one was to get the government off america's back. and end the evil empire. well russia is russia today. you know, it's better than the soviet union was. fine. if not, that's yours to judge.

but he didn't get the government off america's back. matter of fact, the reagan administration and republican administrations since have been plenty active when it comes to rule-making. because as i'll mention in a moment, rulemaking is not a partisan tool inherently democrat or inherently republican. it is a tool that can be used by any president with an agenda. ronald reagan had an agenda. every president since has had an agenda. but by this one executive order, and executive orders that have been refined -- that executive order has been refined by subsequent executive orders since, every president has issued one related to rulemaking, or more than one president reagan created for every american president that followed the ability to influence american domestic public policy in ways that no presidents had had prior to that. by requiring that rules pass through the white house, he

created the ability to put a presidential stamp on each one of those. now that becomes very impractical. no president's going to touch 7,000 regulations, and do anything else with his life. so what president clinton did to refine reagan's executive order was to set up a process where agencies negotiate with the white house, each year to determine what rules are going to pass through the white house for the year. and that's what we had today. there's still a sizable number. the office they passed through was something called the office of information and regulatory affairs, oira. remember that. you are now part of a very select group of americans that know the place exists. all right? but it is arguably one of the most important offices in the federal government. so the president decides

obviously his staff decides, which rules at epa are the most important, which ones at osha, which one at the trade rep which one at the pension benefit guarantee corporation. all right? and by implication, what he's saying is that i'm reserving the right to change those if you don't like what i read. and i'm going to show you some data in a minute that indicate that is not an empty threat. every place that imposes, every thing that imposes a requirement on an agency where rulemaking occurs is an opportunity for you to influence that for an interest you're representing. that's how you have to see it. and this is a big one. if you know, you're fortunate enough to have one of your rules selected by the president, and if you're able to get a hearing at the white house. the court system i'm not going to spend a great deal of time

on. challenges to rules in court are very common. they are typically not the kind of work you're going to do unless you don't go on to law school. they're argued in federal courts. federal courts are populated by federal judges. federal judges have lifetime appointments. removing a federal judge is a lot more difficult than, let's say, an impacted wisdom tooth. it takes an impeachment proceeding just like who would be to impeach the president of the united states. the last time we successfully removed a federal judge from office he'd been in jail for four years. i wouldn't call it an effective constraint, right? so let's not go there. let's go right down to press and media. except for the highly specialized old newsletter and now blog communities rulemaking is -- there is no function of government as important treated less often or less well. on rare occasions you see some

of the national newspapers with a story here and there but it's really unusual. the critical nexus is between agencies and interest groups. it's grown more and more important over time. it's influenced by all of these other characters in ways i'll talk about in a moment. agencies are the place where the rules get written. interest groups are the people that bring vital information to that process. so your job as a public advocate, as a lobbyist, is to ensure your group or organization has the substance and the strategy to get the information you have to the right people at the right time. sound familiar? but it's crucial. anybody who walks off the hill with a -- or out of the white house oval office with a signed

piece of legislation, and says oh, boy that's great, you know we're all finished, we won, and you throw a cocktail party, and you get on to the next day you're going to get exactly what you deserve. because everybody who thinks they lost is already at the agency that's been delegated responsibility for the statute seeing what they can do to undo it. your job is to hold on to everything you've won, and to minimize everything you think you've lost. and we've got hundreds of examples of both. the statement by john mccain when mccain thought he had secured election reform, and then saw what the federal election commission had done with the piece of legislation he wrote with feingold, he said i don't recognize this. i thought this was something that was going to change the

way we do business, all it's done is make matters worse. so, let's talk quickly. the fundamentals of rulemaking are established in something called the administrative procedure act. it's almost 70 years old. it was written in 1946. immediately after the second world war, that's significant but we don't have time to go into why. all right? the administrative procedure act establishes three fundamental principles, and if you understand these three principles, and read all the rest of the stuff that's written about rulemaking process, and legal requirements attached to it, every one of those things that follows the administrative procedure act is based in one of these three principles. principle number one. is that agencies are required to provide information to the public in advance of writing a regulation.

that information today is written in something called the federal register. how many people have seen the federal register? okay. i mean you know, if you're reading the federal register you've already established yourself as eight or nine standard deviations out from a normal american citizen, all right? but if you've read it, you know that almost in every day you'll find an example of a proposed or final rule. now the information today that has to be contained in advance of a rule making is something called a notice of proposed rulemaking. nprm. and in it, you will find the problem that the agency is attempting to deal with, or the issue. the congressional authority that gives the agency the right

to go after it, and what the agency is proposing to do about it. in other words you'll get a draft of the regulations. there's a variation on this, something called an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking. and this is a device that agencies use basically to test the waters with people like you. it's not a formal proposal at that point. it's an idea. the agency's basically saying to the public we're thinking about writing a reg about rugs in classrooms. we think we have the authority to do it under this statute. we think this is the problem that has to be solved. what do you think? and what the agency can do then is to gauge both the public reaction to whether or not they had legal authority, and whatever the public already knows about the problem.

so, you know, one of the many associations that represent universities might weigh in and say there's nothing wrong with carpets, you know, in university classrooms. so knock it off. you don't need any more. all right. or they might say yeah it's a really serious problem because there are very dangerous chemicals in those carpets and students sitting in a classroom for any more than, let's say, 25 minutes, could have serious health issues. that's not the case, by the way. hang around at least until i'm done then you can leave, all right? but fundamentally, that notice of proposed rulemaking is the official notification to the public that we're thinking about writing a rule. now here's what you need to know about that. if this is the first you've learned for your interest about a rule that affects your work, the bus has already left the station, and by the way, you're likely under that bus somewhere. that means other people have almost always been in touch

some way with the agency. not in anything nefarious. because everybody has the right and opportunity to participate in discussions with agencies. but the fact is, you need to know this is happening the moment the staff of the agency is considering it. and there are a variety -- we could talk in the q&a about how you might go about learning those things. but simply put, that's very late in the process. by that time, the agency has already made a major commitment to whatever it's intending to do. the second piece of information that has developed around this requirement is that agencies are required to consider certain kinds of information when they write a rule. not just telling you about it, but what kind of scientific and technical information is

required for them to write the reg. and once again, you go back to the home statute, maybe it's the occupational safety and health act, and it will tell the agency, usually in general terms, these are the kind of data you should assemble to write the rule. principle number two. is that once you're informed, the agency must give you the opportunity to participate in the process. and the minimum requirement is they allow you to write to them with written comments on the proposal. now that takes on great significance. because after the notice of proposed rulemaking is written, and the agency receives their comments from you and others, they then have to write a final rule, and that also appears in the federal register. and the major difference between a final rule

and the proposed rule that presided it, is that the final rule contains a summary of all the comments that the agency received, and what the agency did about those comments. and one easy way to challenge an agency in court is to demonstrate they ignored a comment that received a significant comment that you submitted. and you can actually trace from proposed rule to final the changes that were made in the rule based on public participation. and those that might have been made because the agency decided some other way. and then principle number three. this, too, is important, although you hope you don't have to resort to this, it will happen on occasion. agencies are accountable, the three institutions when they write the reg once it's written. they are responsible to the congress. they have to submit the final rule to the government

accountability office, and the government accountability office does a review to determine legal sufficiency. this rule is consistent with the statute that it's based on. now the accountability of the congress goes way beyond that. because if a congress doesn't like the rules you've written, let's say for example, how the new chair of the house environment committee or senate environment committee feels about climate change rules they can haul you up to the hill, they can order a general accounting office study, or general -- governmentability office study. they can do all the things that congress normally does to conduct oversight. but there is this technical piece that an agency has to meet going to gao.

accountability number two is to the president, and of course that's through the process i just described a moment ago of passing proposed and final rules through the white house. and then finally the mega tonnage, the stuff that really only the well-resourced organizations can do, and that's suing an agency in federal court. and the standards to sue an agency, i'll cover very briefly if we have the time. now, since this act was passed in 1946, congress has routinely returned not so much to what the agencies can write rules about, but how they go about writing them. and they've enacted a series of statutes to ensure that agencies pay particular attention to certain kinds of things. every one of these things here is a door open to you if you choose to go through it. one of them is the paperwork reduction act.

in my view, and i've said this before, this is the closest thing to surrealism in legislation that you're likely to get. all right. i won't go through the entire process, but in effect agencies have to estimate in advance how much burden they're imposing on you and me when they write regulations. so it's going to take somebody at american university 35 minutes to fill out this form. now i'm not going to go into the details about how they determine how many minutes it takes to do various things. but the simple fact is, you have the opportunity to challenge estimates of paperwork burden. i mean it's not a great way to spend your life, but it's an opportunity. the second is the national environmental policy act. and that impacts rules that have a significant impact on the environment. if you can determine, and make

a case, that a regulation, let's say being written by the department of commerce, is likely to have a significant impact on the environment, you may be successful in requiring the congress department to develop something called an environmental impact statement. and an environmental impact statement looks, in terms of process, very much like a mini rulemaking. because you have the opportunity to participate in not only the research that's being done on the impact statement, but you can comment on its quality after it's finished. regulatory flexibility act, and this amendment to it, provides special access to rulemaking for small and medium-sized businesses. you may represent people like that. the federal advisory committee act establishes standards for agencies that want to bring together groups of experts in the development of a rule. and then finally the data

quality act, which is a constraint on agencies to ensure that they're using the best quality information available scientifically when they write a reg. once again, it's an opportunity for you to participate in the process and to challenge the agency. now all that means, and many other procedural requirements that are out there, that we don't have time to discuss this morning, means that agencies have found conventional rulemaking increasing difficult to conduct. because of all the requirements they have to meet. so what you have to be on the guard for is agencies using what i call one of the mutant aspects of rulemaking. and these take a lot of different forms. dear colleague letters. letters of interpretation. policy from agencies to the public that say this is how we

are interpreting existing law and policy. oftentimes these statements go right up to the edge to say you are required to meet these standards. but they're sending strong messages to the public that this is how we're going to evaluate your behavior. these tip kri are not subjected to all the process i mentioned earlier demanded by the administrative procedural act. and they are now very, very common. ironically, for every danger there is in them writing something in one of these things that hurt you is the possible advantage of them writing something in one of these that hurt helps you. so the issue is once again the ability to interact effectively, legally with agencies to get to them the

best possible information. let talk tactics and what we've observed in terms of the research. advocacy starts in the congress. you have to -- you have to be cognizant of the fact that this legislation is being turned over to an agency. we talked about these various elements before, but from here on down you can have some influence on where a piece of legislation goes for implementation through rule making. in some cases it's very obvious. if you get legislation on climate change it's going to go to the air office in the field. but there could be ancillary activity that goes somewhere else. so you may have an opportunity to participate in terms of the routing.

deadlines and hammers. all right. a deadline is -- a deadline is not a technical requirement. it's a political statement. anybody here from cleveland? nobody from cleveland. anyone who was from cleveland at some point? you've all heard of cleveland. yeah, you've all heard of cleveland. anybody heard of the cuyahoga river? good. in 1971 -- well, 1972, we had passage of the clean air act. sometimes before the passage of the clean air act, the cuyahoga river ignited. the river ignited. right. okay. jim and pat and i, we're not chemists. right? my son is an engineer but, you know, i'm a political scientist

so i can often be intimidated by big science. but it strikes me when a river ignites. right? you probably have an underlying issue with pollution and the river, right? the congress agreed and of course this was a year or two after the famous santa barbara oil spill as well. but fundamentally what occurred is they wrote the clean water act, which is a landmark piece of legislation. and by the way, if you're interested in political history, the period of late mid-60s to mid-70s is a period of immense congressional productivity in terms of legislation that has had immense effect on the quality of life in the country. and the clean water act is one of them. but one of the things that congress did in the clean water act is to say that america's rivers will be swimmable and fishable and drinkable in two years. now, you have a river that's on fire fire, and two year later you're expecting it -- or

expecting one of you to go and drink it. strikes me an ambitious expectation. especially when i just told you it takes four years for the agency to write a rule. deadlines really provide the opportunity for congress to say we are really serious about this. but in addition to, that when a deadline to write regulations is missed, the congress can actually impose a standard that will be in place until the reg is written, and that can be a very burdensome standard both for the agency and for other groups. deadline for outside interests to say you're going to move fast, essentially tactically the group saying i got the information for you to move fast and if you don't use it you're going to move slow, all right.

and if you don't move quickly, with or without a hammer, we all of a sudden have really significant leverage. with we can go to the hill and have them deal with you directly because you're dilatory, or frankly we can sue you for missing a deadline. and we've seen lots of examples of successful lawsuits under deadlines leave ss leading to a requirement that the agency who messed a deadline negotiating with the party bringing a suit. so all of a sudden you're in a very advantageous situation. the other thing we're seeing lots of examples of, i'm sure pat and jim have seen this a lot, congress is almost -- finds itself in a reversed situation with agencies. instead of agencies reacting to congress, we now see congress reacting to agencies. and they're doing it in a variety of ways trying to catch

up, trying to maintain some degree of control over the bills they think they wrote. and rules are established through authorizing legislation. but appropriations bills can be used in effect to accelerate or decelerate rulemaking by removing funding on the one hand for a rule or increasing funding to move the thing along quicker, you know, for research or for staffing. and then, as we saw, by the way, you know, in the bill that kept the government going for another eight months or so, we saw writers attach to that, you know, fundamental budget bill what was designed to affect derivatives risk. so congress is in it, they're in with both feet, they're in it at the front end, they're in it in the middle, and they're in it in the back. there is something, and let me

get to this one on the next slide -- yeah. >> a guest speaker said derivatives were defined three different ways in dodd/frank on purpose to give the agency more power to actually select the definition that they wanted because they could have more power not on the hill at that point but with the agency defining it. >> yeah. well, i mean, if but but if you're saying that the agency has the power, you're really saying that the groups that influence the congress to write those three different definitions were expecting some advantage from one or more of those definitions. >> right. >> right? yeah. so there's also something you should be aware of although it's used rarely, is congressional review act. the congressional review act you've heard part of. that's the element that set the gao up as kind of the reviewer of record. but congress can actually veto

to a rule or regulation if it chooses to. but it basically takes a fresh act of congress steined edsigned by the president. it's only been used once, only successfully once. now, go fwhort the agencies. this is where the core work is done. in my view, and i've been studying this now for more than 20 years, high quality information is the currency. you've heard in this institute you know, you can use bad quality information in public deliberations once, but you're not going to get to use it twice. well, that's very much the case with agencies. they have a memory just as long, in some cases longer than the congress. these are decision where is there is a great deal at stake -- health, welfare, life and death.

so scientific and technical information, depending on the field of study, is crucial. if you don't have it, you're not going to be effective. you can write in and say, hey, i don't like this. but it's not going to get you very far. agencies not only need to know why you don't like it, you know what they valued more often than not, you don't like it, what's better? and what's the scientific or technical information for or in support of your position? you know, if there's formaldehyde in your shirts or blouses, and by the way there probably is, trace elements of it, you ought to know the best science out there on how much formaldehyde it takes to hurt you. and that's -- you know, that research is done in the public sector, but it's also done in

the private. nobody's got a monopoly on integrity. nobody's got a monopoly on high quality work. but in your business, where you're transmitting crucial information to agencies, you have a special obligation to understand that science and understand what constitutes good quality information or not, because you will be communicating. increasingly in this process the impact of the rule on selected populations is going to be something very important because in most cases agencies can't ignore it. they can't ignore it either because they're required to study it under law or regulation or because practically they want to know what's coming in over the transom after they do it. you know? who is going to be making their life miserable once this thing hits the street? and this is all about winners and losers like all public policy processes.

implementation information. how is the public -- how are universities going to react -- who in universities are going to take responsibility for changes in the rugs in their classrooms? how is this going to cur? how do you communicate with georgetown on the one hand or a.u. on the one hand and, you know, st. olive college out in minnesota? how do you get to these people? how do you let them know this is a change in what they've got to do? splins information -- at what level -- at what point will the agency take action against st. olive or a.u.? all right? and then of course the political information which, by the way, is driven entirely by impact information. if you know who this is going to help and if you know who this is going to hurt, you've got the roadmap for whatever political information you're going to need out there. relationships are critical

political appointees are important. the key offices for rulemaking are the program office where the rule has been assigned. there is an overarching policy office in most agencies that weigh in on all significant rules. the general counsel is at the table always interpreting agency statutory authority. budget office is providing the resources to get the rule written. the regional offices are critical because they're the ones who know the public. they're the ones that are out there interacting with people like a.u. all the time. all right. this is what makes sense. this is what doesn't. and then of course the communications office because, as i find out every day of my life, there is no one way to communicate with this community. no one reliable way to get it done. and as social media have diversified, agents' communication strategies had to diversify along with it.

the white house, the office of information or regulatory affairs, every president has a general statement of regulatory policy. is the rule that he has just received from the office of radiation in epa consistent with his stated regulatory policy? does the appropriate cross benefit work there? now, in addition to old ira, the domestic policy staff may be weighing in because the rule has such visibility. certainly on something like climate change you would imagine that to be the case. and then on the second generation of the work you're doing, trade. trade reps. finally, this is the evidence that if it goes to the white house, the white

house pays it. to its credit, what the white house maintains, ss a realtime analysis of -- and you can pull this right off their website even though i just apparently destroyed it -- is month by month you can read the rules that have been received by the white house, the stage they're at, and the action that the white house has taken on. and what these data tell you is that everything that goes to the agency gets serious scrutiny and almost everything that goes through it gets changed at some level. there is some change that the white house is taking credit for. now, the data that i'm prying to work on, i'm actually -- despite the fact that nobody seems to buy it, i'm going to

write a fifth edition to the book. too bad i got to it so late because the christmas season has passed. i missed a marketing opportunity there. what i'm trying to do is i'm trying to get the information out of the general services administration which for some reason has been given responsibility to count rules and regulations across government and to see which agencies by proportion of rule are most likely to be reviewed by the white house. but i don't think our intuition is going to be terribly wrong on that. you've got to know anything that comes out of epa these days. almost anything coming out of treasury these days. anything coming out of health and human services. and then finally the courts. i mentioned earlier this is not -- this is not likely the arena you'll be working in, but it is

an arena that you will be likely a resource person for. if your organization is chosen to sue an agency over a rule they will be working with you in large part on the data and communications that you've had with the agency during the course of the rule making. so with that, jim, whatever time i've got left, i'll answer some questions. >> open it up to questions and comments. >> yeah. sure. lee? >> thank you. for those of us who have grown up in the era of jack abramoff do you think there's a silver lining to be seen in the future for the continuation of transparent and efficient rule making processes? >> well, look, i think that what you've got to be aware of is that every communication you make you assume is publicly available, because agencies are going to maintain dockets of every communication they receive. so i'm not sure it was abramoff himself.

i think there was always a less-than-robust understanding of how much integrity the agencies used in the maintenancey of these communications. there was for years, for example, a lot of miscommunication about whether an agency could communicate with groups and individuals prior to that notice of proposed rulemaking. the simple answer is yes as long as they're documented. right? transparency is critical to an even playing field. right? you can't have a level playing field if matt's here providing information that the agency's implicitly relying on, you have contrary information or an opposing point of view, you don't even know whether he's been at the table. so i just think that from -- just if you're interested in high quality public policy that's where transparency's big payoff is. yes. molly? >> do you think that the level of bureaucracy that currently surround the rule making

process is necessary and/or efficient? and if not, do you see any change in the future? >> you know what, it's -- to be honest with you, i really think it's a function of a middle-aged democracy. and i mean that quite sincerely. when i'm asked to talk to groups -- and i don't get a chance to do it very often -- from other parts of the world that are developing democracies and are thinking about what's down the road for them, i always tell them to worry about this, because if their democracy functions well enough and long enough, this is where they're going. when you take a look at the requirements that an agency has to meet to write a reg, i don't blame you for feeling the way you do, that this is -- who in their right mind is going to undertake this? because the paperwork requirements, there's small business requirements, there may be environmental requirements, data quality requirements. but if you think about it for a moment, those are a reflection

of legitimate external interests who have every right to question what an agency is doing and how it's going about it. where i see a real danger is agencies moving to these mutations of rule making where the public has less and less input and where the agency feels it's so on its heels that that's the only way it can function to keep public policy current. i mean, what we found in derivatives, for example, you know, you could have three definitions of derivatives because the industry itself doesn't understand it. right? i mean, what we've found is that, you know, financial products were morphing at such a rate that nobody could keep pace with it including the companies that were, you know, in some cases being held legally liable for them. i think one of the consequences of an advanced, sophisticated

democracy are these many doors open for interest to express their concerns. and i just can't imagine -- you know, if you stop and think about it for a minute, there's nothing wrong with worrying about how much paperwork is being imposed on you or me. right? anybody that does their own taxes knows what it's like. and, you know, maybe i've just become, you know, too inured to the process, but when you scrape away 95% of these requirements are understandable, but the sum total of it, developing as they did in an uncoordinated way, from different eras, different parts of the congress, you know, an agency that wants to move fast let's say on climate change, it's just not going to happen. now, if you -- if you take it another step of that and elevate it one more level and

you think about the founders and they put together a senate and a house and they expected the house to be impulsive and the senate to slow things down well, they would have been appalled by rule making as they saw it in 1930. what they see in all of this procedural rule making requirement is ineffective momentum of the senate to cool off the rule making agencies to slow them down and to be deliberate. but in a public policy system where demands are incessant and speed is of the essence, it's not ideal. now, let me add this. there is ample opportunity and authority for agencies to act on emergencies and then to go back and do all the public participation work after the fact. there's something called direct final rule making that allows for that. the faa, for example, puts out airworthiness directives with a minimum amount of interaction with the public. but there, you know, it's as much the development of very robust relationships with airlines, unions, airport authorities, so they know what

the reaction's going to be in advance. when you start wandering into areas like derivatives or how much of deposit or money can be invested in nonbanking activities or climate change you're going to bring people to the table who have either never been there before or are nowhere near as uniform in their world view as the airline -- as, you know, the flying industry is. right? now, you'll remember, the one group i didn't mention were the passengers, you know? but i don't want -- i don't want to take responsibility for how thick a fuselage ought to be. i'd like to know that i don't have to sit on the tarmac for

half a day. but fundamentally you've got to think about a process today where speed, at least using conventional rulemaking, is just simply not a characteristic unless you go to some of these exotic, direct forms. and you've got to do the work after the fact if you do. >> neil, we have time for one more question. >> okay. sure. matt? >> yeah. so i think we've seen two rules come out recently that got way more public attention than earlier, neutrality and commercial drum use out of the faa, which they're taking their sweet time doing. >> what was the second one? >> the drone commercial use. >> the drone. yes. >> do you think you're going to see a shift in groups using public comments in the way that people in john olver's audience or do you think these are flashes in the pan and rulemaking will go back to kind of behind the veil? >> no. i think anytime -- you take net neutrality or drones, they both

have one characteristic in common. net neutrality can bring to the table broadly based largely unorganized interests, consumer groups. right? most of what's done at the faa keep the industry to me it seems the major focal point of interaction. but when you start introducing groups, you know, like the american viewing public, for god's sakes, i mean, all bets are off, you know, because you're going to get, among other things, ad hoc organizations coming together just to influence that one rule. and we didn't get a chance to talk about that kind of dynamic, the coalition formation and the like. the other one, drones, i mean, everybody in this room ought to be worried about or concerned about drones either for good or for ill. right? if you're worried about bird strikes at airports, i would take drones pretty seriously right? but drones bring to the table

people that used to be worried mostly about the postal rate commission for god's sakes and what deliveries cost, you know at u.p.s. and the postal service. i don't think they're flash in the pans at all. i think what social media has demonstrated, everything from arab spring to rule making, is that social media provides the capacity for large-scale organization of political action in a very short period of time. so if anything, i think it's more likely. >> thank you. >> okay. thanks. >> so we're going to take a short break, come back a little bit before 11:30. >> good. okay.

>> nothing is going to chining in washington, d.c. it's too much corruption. some of these senators have beep there too long. it's time for them to go. give the younger ones a chance. new ideas. this country's on the wrong path. we're not going to get anywhere as long as these senators stay in that same position. john mccain and them have been down there. it's the same old same. it's time for change. people are working too hard in

this country and have to work two and three jobs to take care of their family and still not getting anywhere. something has to give. >> i'm looking at the overall conversations that you guys have been having for the last three or four months. and the congress, the got is so huge. what can they do when they go in there today? they could be like the leaders that they should have been, the leaders that i was raised around. the men that looked over at the communities that they lived in and said these are our children. these are our young men. and these are our daughters. what can we do in a realistic way to make this a better place to live? anyone that's going to carry power, that's going to yield the idea of wisdom in front of the faces of us who are having to work and pay for it, guys, you know we're living a pretty good life here. let's take what you've got the opportunity to do and do something right and quit playing games with what you think you're going to value in

life that you're going to have to give away one day. >> my question to the 114th congress that it's going to do nothing for the american people. i can't understand how is it that a congressman become good people until they get elected. when they go to washington, the lies, the propaganda, and it just seems disturbing to me that it seems like everything president obama does is wrong and it's sad to me because i'm a pastor and i hear people come on and said that he was a christian. what jesus said that if you do this to the least of them you have also done it to me.

>> hello, thank you. hello, turn 12. it's -- pellissippi state community college. it's great to be back in knoxville. and hello to my colleagues, and no to all the students who are here today. thank you, governor haslam, for

the kind introduction and for welcoming us to your state. we are here today because community colleges have entered a new day in america. community colleges lead the way in preparing graduates in the fields of advanced manufacturing, energy and information technology. some of the fastest growing fields in america, and the rest of the world. in fact, nearly half of all undergraduate students attend community colleges. equipping american workers with the skills they need to succeed in the global economy is a top priority for president obama and my husband joe, the vice president. >> but i am not a politician.

i am an english professor. >> i have taught in community colleges for more than 20 years, and i still teach full-time at a community college outside of washington, d.c. in fact, i was just in my classroom yesterday preparing for this semester ahead. teaching is my life's work. i teach because i love seeing the difference that i hope to make in my students lives. my goal is to always give them the confidence in their own ability, because i know that confidence will carry the well beyond my classroom in whatever they do. and as i work hard every day to inspire my students, it is ultimately they inspired me.

in my classroom i find single parents who come to school in the evening we read from a long day, yet eager to create a brighter future for their children. -- weary. weary. i have taught veterans to return to the classroom to complete their higher education as they look to transition to civilian careers. and i have seen workers who have gone as far as they can go in their jobs, get the skills they need to reach the next level. i see it over and over again because the students are so committed to furthering their education. they know it is the key to a better life for themselves and their families. i know what happens in a community college classroom, and it is extraordinary. as second lady, and the president obama's request, i

have traveled across the country visiting community colleges from seattle to miami and from texas to right here in the heart of tennessee. in fact, two years ago i visited rome state community college during my community college to career bus tour. i have been to over 60 campuses to learn more about how community colleges are providing students with the education and training that they need for the jobs of the 21st century. this all goes back to our fundamental belief, if you are ready to work, you should be able to find a job that fits your skills or get trained with the skills you need for a better job. we all reap the benefits when our citizens are well-educated and well trained. it means that our economies are more vibrant and the future is brighter.

this is the moment for community colleges to shine. as an educator i am grateful and tremendously proud to work for a president, and the vice president, who are committed -- -- to restoring the promise of the american educational system. we recognize the value of community colleges and in investing in them. we believe that all americans deserve the opportunity to reach their full potential. it is now my pleasure to introduce my husband, our vice president, joe biden. thank you very much. thank you. thank you. please.

thank you. please excuse my back. i apologize to my back being to you, and my name is joe biden. i am jill biden's husband. and you all had the immediate same instinctive reaction when she said is a pleasure working for the president and vice president. can you imagine her working for me? that's the first time i've ever heard fellows, that ever uttered. i say to my colleagues in the senate and the governorship. but that's why this is worth the trip. either just sandwiched between a great president and a great second lady whose passion for the community colleges is as intense as you could probably see. and this is known as jill's territory. no, i mean that sincerely. this is jill's territory. she and arne duncan, our secretary of education, have been just absolutely relentless in and they are making the case

this is the single best kept secret in america, is the community college system. and our administration is committed to letting that the secret out. so governor, thank you for your hospitality. it was not only great being here but getting to ride with you from the airport in what a beautiful part of the world you all live in. what a beautiful part of the world you all live in. and my friend, lamar alexander who as the old saying goes, in my old neighborhood back tees, he has forgotten more about education than most people are. and bob corker is a great friend, we served together on the foreign relations committee. now he is the chairman of the powerful committee, and -- and pellissippi state community college president anthony wise. it's a delight --applause]

>> i imagine some of the students behind me and all the purposes behind me, and those of you students out in the audience here, you have all, you all know know the names of people that jill was talking about. that 19 year old cave, although qualified dozen of the money to go to a four year college that knows that the cheapest way to get there is through transferring credits from a solid community college. the 35 year old woman has been a victim of abuse and her family has broken away and decided that she is moving forward, going to take care of she and her children, has the courage to go back. that 40 year old man who has lost his job and has never really was that good in school but musters up the courage to decide to go back to school, to

go to community college, that guy who says, okay, i'm going to try this, i'm going to do for my family. that's a hard thing. that's a hard, hard, hard thing for people to do. but the stock of students who make up our community colleges is the stuff america's nato. i really mean that. think about, think about the students, particularly this event away a long time to imagine all of you with good educations if you're going to go back to school now after having been out of the classroom for five, 10, 15, 20 years. it's intimidating. it takes real courage. it takes real commitment. and the plain fact community colleges are one of the most direct avenues today to the middle class. and we need you. we need the colleges and we need to step up which they are made up. you know, with the president and i were first sworn in back

in 2009, we stated been what we said when we join as a team to run for president and vice president, that our first goal was to pull america out of the greatest recession in our history short of the depression. and in the process, reestablish the footing of the middle class in america. because that's what he was already being lost before the great recession. because the middle class is the vehicle that built this great country. it's been built on the shoulders of hard-working middle-class people. and so the fact of the matter is everything we have done, and we have made mistakes, but on balance i'm very proud everything we've done has been designed to give the middle class a better footing. but we had to rebuild the foundation of the economy first. immigrants and republicans and quite frankly the american people have a great to do it. and america, america is coming back, and coming back strong.

i might note parenthetically you know longer significant business people or anyone talking about how the rest of the world, the asia, china are going to outcompete his combat the european union is going to eat our lunch. but the truth of the matter is america's positioned to exactly the same role in the 21st century it did in the 20th century. and if we do what we should, there's no reason why this will not be an american century. the magic, the magic of the phenomenal growth of the united states, beginning in early 20th century was the consequence of the fun to build decision made in the state of new york in the late 19 -- excuse me, 1800s when it was decided that in america, every american would be entitled to 12 years of

education. the first nation in the world to do that. the first nation. not everyone is guaranteed to graduate, but everyone is entitled to have access, free access to an education. and the rest of the world was way behind. but it took a long time to catch up, but they have caught up. and now, and now we know what you all know. 12 years is not enough. 12 years is not enough any more than eight years was enough in 1919. it doesn't mean that everyone needs a four year college degree or graduate degree. there are many other avenues but six out of 10 jobs by the end of this decade will require training beyond the high school degree. it can be an apprenticeship. it could be a certificate. it could be a two-year degree, a four year degree or graduate degree. so the world has changed.

competition has changed, but the united states and the american people have built into their dna confidence that is showing now and showing through as it always has. but we have to make sure that every person in america gets an education to the extent that they desire and to the extent to which they are capable. it jobs by the end of this decade, average salary $50,000 a year requiring a two-year

the facts are there. the opportunities are there as well. decade, average salary $50,000 a year requiring a two-year degree or less. in healthcare another 600,000 nurses in the near term. some need some need bachelors degrees, but most just associates. you can live a middle-class life. i could i could go on. jobs in advanced manufacturing and energy, the kinds of good paying middle-class jobs americans can get through training at a community college. access to education after high school is critical for your generation.

it is critical, as critical as a high school education was for our grandparents. it is simply that straightforward. any country that out educates us will outcompete us. let me say it again. any country that out educates us will outcompete us, and there is no reason why we have to allow that to happen. this is the best kept secret in america. nearly 40% of of all undergraduates in the united states of america our community colleges, and almost every state in the union, there is direct path if the student chooses it to take credits directly transferable to other

state universities, a four year degree cutting is essentially and half the cost, but we have got to keep it up and do more, and it is within our capacity. president kennedy said, our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. i remember four years ago, a.of personal privilege, michelle barack, we don't say that publicly, the first lady and the president, joe and i were standing in the wings, about to be introduced in a convention hall we stood there looking at each other kind of modeling. i forget who said it, either jill or michelle, not one of us

would be standing there were it not for the help we got beyond what our families could do, the help we got to get the education's behalf. not one of us would've been standing there. everyone should have that opportunity. everyone. the man who i believe is more committed to making sure everyone has that opportunity, more committed than anyone i have worked with in my entire career is my friend, the president of the united states, barack obama.

>> hello, everybody. >> thank you so much. thank you. thank you everybody. everybody, please have a seat. well, it well, it is good to be back in tennessee. i hope you guys are not getting tired of me. i have been coming around a lot lately because there is lot of good stuff happening here. i want to begin by thanking joe and jill biden. they are not only good friends and partners, but really believe in the power of education and in creating those kind of letters of opportunity that gave us the chance is an

incredible opportunities we have had and understand the promise of america's community colleges. jill really understands it. joe doesn't really have a choice. before i get into the reason i am here today, i want to begin by saying a few words about the tragic events that unfolded in france. events have been fast moving this morning. i just spoke to my counterterrorism advisor. we have been in close touch with the french government throughout this tragedy. the moment the attack took place we directed all of our law enforcement and counter intelligence to address this challenge. we are hopeful the immediate

threat is now resolved. the french government continues to face the threat of terrorism and has to remain vigilant. the situation is fluent. caller: alongside you to uphold our values the values that we share, universal values that bind us together as friends and as alies. and in the streets of paris, the