tweeting this morning snow begins to regulate on the roof and grounds of the white house. for -- 4 to 8 inches to go. he has a private lunch with joe biden today. tomato soup and grilled cheese. supreme court justices will gather in private tomorrow to cast the first-round of what could be many votes of the challenge of health care law subsidies. they heard oral arguments yesterday. it could affect people of subsidized health insurance in the 34 states without their own health exchanges. the court plans to release the audio of the or argument tomorrow. and you can listen to it tomorrow night at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. here are some of our future programs for this weekend on the c-span networks. on c-span two "booktv," former marine and war correspondent david morris on the history of posttraumatic stress disorder

that affects over 27 million americans, including himself. and sunday night at 8:00 former navy seal sniper, scott taylor argues that the obama administration is hurting our national security. and on "american history tv," to the commemoration of bloody sunday, when 50 years ago, voters right advocates began a march from selma to montgomery alabama. on saturday, beginning at noon eastern. we are live from selma with your phone calls, followed by the commemorative ceremony with president obama and congressman lewis. and on sunday, our live coverage continues with a service from the historic ame church, the starting point for the montgomery marches. find our complete television schedule at c-span.org. let us know about the programs you are watching. call us at (202) 626-3400. email us at comments@c-span.org. or send us a tweet @cspan #comments. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook, follow us

on twitter. a federal investigation into the police killing of an unarmed black 18-year-old in ferguson, missouri released its findings yesterday. it contends that ferguson police department is racist and profit driven. you can find the report online at c-span.org. the justice department cleared officer darren wilson of civil rights charges. they also called for a number of changes in ferguson. here is that 40 minute briefing with the attorney general. >> good afternoon. i would like to take the next few moments to address the two investigations that the justice department has been conducting in missouri. it has lasted several months. the matters that we are here to discuss our significance not

only because of the conclusions that the justice department is announcing today but also because of the broader conversation and the initiatives that those conversations have inspired across the country on both the local and the national level. now those initials -- initiatives have included the causes of misunderstanding and the mistrust between law enforcement officers and the communities that they serve here the support -- and to rebuild confidence wherever it has eroded. now, nearly seven months have passed since the shooting death of 18-year-old michael brown in ferguson, missouri. that tragic incident provoked widespread demonstrations and stirred a really strong emotions from those in the ferguson area and around our nation. it also prompted a federal investigation by the united states apartment of justice with the criminal section of our civil rights division, the

united states attorneys office for the eastern district, as well as the fbi, seeking to determine whether the shooting violated federal civil rights law. now, the promise that i made the promise that i made when i went to ferguson, and at the time we lost our investigation was not that we would arrive at a particular outcome. but rather that we would pursue the facts, wherever they lead. our investigation has been both fair and regress from the start. it has proceeded independently of the local investigation that concluded in november. and it has been thorough. as part of a wide ranging examination of the evidence, federal investigators interviewed and reinterviewed eyewitnesses and other individuals claiming to have relevant information, and independently canvassed more than 300 residents is to locate and interview additional witnesses. this morning, the justice department announced the conclusion of our investigation and released a comprehensive 87

page report documenting our findings and our conclusions that the facts do not support the filing of criminal charges against officer darren wilson in this case. michael brown's death, though a tragedy, did not involve prosecutable conduct on the part of officer wilson. now, this conclusion represents the sound, considered, and independent judgment of the expert career prosecutors within the department of justice. i have been personally briefed on multiple occasions about these findings. i concur with the investigative teams judgment -- team's judgment. now, this outcome is supported by the fact we have found -- fax we have found, but i also know that these findings may not be consistent with some people us expectation. to all those who have closely followed this case and have

engaged in the important national dialogue that it has inspired, i urge you, i urge you to read this report in full. now, i recognize that the findings in our report may leave some to wonder how the department's findings can differ so sharply from some of the initial, widely reported accounts of what transpired. and i want to emphasize that the strength and integrity of america's justice system is always rested on its ability to deliver impartial results in precisely these types of difficult circumstances. it hangs to click to the fax regardless of assumptions. it remains not only valid, but essential to question how such a strong alternative version of events was able to take hold so swiftly, and to be accepted so readily. now, a possible explanation for this discrepancy was uncovered during the course of our second

federal investigation, conducted by the civil rights division, to determine whether ferguson police officials have engaged in a widespread pattern or practice of violations of the united states constitution or federal law. as detailed and what i will call our report -- searing report, also released today, this investigation found a community that was deeply polarized. a community where deep distrust and hostility often characterized interactions between please and area residents -- police and area residents. areas where citizens repeatedly approached law enforcement as a way to generate revenue. a community where both policing and municipal court practices were found to be disproportionately harmful to african-american residents. a community where this seems difficult laced on, in part, from racial bias.

and a community where all these conditions, unlawful practices and constitutional violations have not only severely undermined the public trust, a police legitimacy, and made local residents left unsafe, but created a politically charged atmosphere where people feel under assault and under siege by those who are charged to serve and protect them. of course, violence is never justified. but seeing it in this context a made a highly toxic environment defined by mistrust and resentment, stoked by years of bad feelings, spurred by a illegal and misguided practices it is not difficult to imagine how a single tragic incident set off the city of ferguson like a powder cake. in a sense, members of the community may not have been responding only to a single, isolated confrontation, but also to a pervasive, corrosive, and

deeply unfortunate lack of trust. attributable to numerous constitutional violations by the law enforcement officials, including first amendment abuses , unreasonable searches and seizures, and excessive and dangerous use of force. exacerbated by severely disappointed version -- severely disproportionate use against african-americans, and driven by overriding pressure by the city to use law enforcement not as a public service, but as a tool for raising revenue. now, according to -- according to our investigation, this endless -- emphasis on revenue has fostered unconstitutional practices. at nearly every level of ferguson's law enforcement system. ferguson police officers issued nearly 50% more citations in the last year than they did in 2010. an increase that has not been driven or even on company by a

rising crime. as a result of this excessive reliance on ticketing, to -- the city generates a significant amount of revenue from code provisions. the city collected over $1.3 million in fines and fees collected by the court. for fiscal year 2015 ferguson's city budget anticipates the revenues to exceed $3 million. more than double the total from just five years prior. our review of the evidence and our conversations with police officers, have shown that significant pressure is brought to bear on law enforcement personnel to deliver on these revenue increases. once the system is primed for maximizing revenue, starting with fines and find enforcement, the city relied on the police force to serve as essentially a collection agency for the municipal court, rather than as a lawn oarsman entity vocus

parmelee on maintaining and promoting public safety. in a wide friday's of tact is, including disciplinary measures, are used to enjoy certain levels of ticketing by individual officers regardless of public safety needs. as a result, it has become commonplace in ferguson for officers to charge multiple violations for the same conduct. three or four charges for a single stop is considered fairly routine. some officers even compete to see who can issue the largest number of citations during a single stop. a total that in at least one and it's -- in one instance rose as high as 14. we have even observed that medical violations can result in multiple arrests, jail time, and payments that exceed the cost of the original ticket many times over. now, for example in 2007, one woman received two parking tickets that together totaled

$152. to date, she has paid $550 in fines and fees to the city of ferguson. she has been arrested twice. for having unpaid tickets. and she has spent six days in jail. yet today, she still inexplicably post ferguson $541. and her story is only one of dozens of similar accounts that are investigation on covered. overtime, it is clear that this culture of enforcement actions being disconnected from the public safety needs of the community, and often to the detriment of residence, has given rise to a disturbing and unconstitutional pattern or practice. our investigation showed that ferguson police officers routinely violated the fourth amendment in stopping people without reasonable suspicion. arresting them without probable cause. and using unreasonable force against them.

according to the police department toss on records their own records, officers frequently infringe on resident's first amendment right. they interfere with the right to record police activity. and they make enforcement decisions based on the way individuals express themselves. many of these constitutional violations have become routine. for instance, even though it is illegal for police officers to detain a person, even briefly without reasonable suspicion, it has become common practice for officers in ferguson to stop pedestrians and to request identification for no reason at all. even in cases where police encounter start office constitutionally defensible, we found that they frequently rapidly escalate an end up crossing the line. during the summer of 2012, 1 ferguson police officer detained a 32-year-old african-american man who had just finished

playing basketball at a park. the officer approached the man while he was sitting in his car, and he was arrested. the car's windows of you to be more heavily tinted then ferguson's code allow, so the officer did have the debate around to question him. but with no apparent justification, the officer are suited to accuse the man of being a pedophile. he refuted the man from using his cell phone and ordered him to get out of the car for a patdown search, even though he had no reason to suspect that the man was armed. and when the man objected citing the constitutional rights, the police officer drew his service weapon, pointed it at the man's head, and arrested him on eight different counts. now, this arrest caused the man to lose his job. unfortunately, this event appears to have been anything but an isolated incident. our investigation shows that members of ferguson police force for gimli escalated rather than

diffused, tensions with the residents. such actions are sometimes accompanied by a first amendment violation, inc. including -- including arrest for talking back to officers. or engaging in other conduct that is cut to two schlink -- that is constitutionally protected. this behavior not only exacerbates intentions, it has the effect of stifling community confident that is absolutely vital for paul -- for effective policing. none of which is more harmful than its pattern of excessive force. now, among the incidence of excessive force discovered by our company had to review, some resulted from stops or arrest that had no legal basis to begin with. others were punitive, more retaliatory in nature. the police apartment's routine use of tasers was found to be not really unconstitutional, but

abusive and dangerous. records showed a really disturbing history of using unnecessary force against people with mental illness. our findings indicated that the overwhelming majority of force almost 90%, is directed against african-americans. now, this deeply alarming statistic points to one of the most pernicious aspects of the conduct that are investigation uncovered. that these policing practices disproportionately harm african-american residents. in fact, our view of the evidence found no alternative explanation for the disproportionate impact on african-american residents other than implicit and explicit racial bias. no other basis. between october 2012 and october 2014, despite making up only 67% of the population, african accounted for a little over 85% of all traffic stops are the

ferguson police department. african-americans were twice as likely than white residents to be searched during a routine traffic stop, even though they were 26% less likely to carry contraband. between october 2012 and july 20 14 35 black individuals -- 35 lakh individuals and zero white individuals received five or more citations at the same time. during the same. , african-americans accounted for 85% of the total charges brought by the ferguson police department. african-americans made up over 90% of those charged with a highly discretionary offense described as, and i quote manner of walking along roadway. unquote. manner of walking along roadway. and use of dogs by ferguson police are so have been exclusively reserved for

african-americans. in every case in which ferguson police records recorded the race of a person bit by a police dog that person was african-american. the evidence of racial bias comes not only from's the to six, but also from remarks made by police, city, and court officials. a federal examination of the record, including a large volume of work e-mails, shows a number of public servants expressing racist comment or gender discrimination. demonstrating, quote, use and images of african-americans in which they were seen as the other. called transient by public officials, and characterized as lacking personal responsibility. now, i want to emphasize that all of these examples statistics, and conclusions are drawn directly from the exhaustive findings report that the department of justice has now released.

clearly, these findings and others included in the report demonstrate that although some computed he -- although some community perception of brown's death may have been accurate the widespread climates that gave rise to them were all too real. some of those protesters were right. this is a reality that our investigators repeatedly encounter in their interviews of police and city officials. the conversations with local residents, and the review of thousands of pages of records and documents. this evidence pointed toward an unfortunate an unsustainable situation that not only severely damaged relationships with law enforcement and the community, but made professional policing action a more difficult. and, i think very significantly officers at increased risk. today, now that our investigation has reached its conclusion, it is time -- it is time for ferguson's leaders to take immediate wholesale, and

structural corrective action. let me be very clear. the united states department of justice reserves all of its rights and abilities to enforce compliance and implement basic change. nothing is off the table. the report from the justice department present two sets of immediate recommendations for the ferguson police department and the municipal court. these recommendations include the implementation of a robust system of true community policing increased tracking, review, and analysis of ferguson police department stop, search ticketing, and arrest practices. it includes civilian involvement in police decision-making. and the development of mechanisms to effectively respond to allegations of officer misconduct. they also involve changes to the municipal court system. including modifications to bond amounts and detention procedures. and in and to the use of arrest warrant as a means of collecting owed fines and fees.

and compliance with basic, basic due process requirement. ensuring meaningful, sustainable, and verifiable reform will require that these and other measures be part of a court enforceable it, immediate process that involves independent oversight and over to remedy the context that we have identified, to address the underlying culture that we have uncovered and to restore and build the trust that has been so badly eroded. as a brother of a retired police officer, i know that the overwhelming majority of america's brave men and women in law enforcement do their jobs honestly, and often at great personal risk. i have immense regard for the vital role that they play in all of america's community. and the sacrifices that they and their families are too often called to make on behalf of their country. it is in great part for their sake and their safety that we must seek to build trust and

foster mutual understanding and ferguson and all communities where suspicion has been allowed to fester. negative practices by individual law enforcement officers and individual departments present a significant danger not only to their communities, but also to committed and hard-working public safety officials around the country who perform incredibly challenging jobs with unwavering professionalism and uncommon valor. clearly, clearly, we always to these brave men and women to ensure that all law enforcement officials have the tools, the training, and the support they need to do their jobs with maximum safety and effectiveness. now, over the last few months, these goals have driven president obama and me to a series of administration proposals that will enable us to help heal the mistrust wherever it is found. from a national initiative to building community trust and justice, to an historic new task force with some -- 21st century

policing. on a scale not seen since the johnson administration. these aims also had led me to travel throughout the country, to atlanta, to cleveland, to memphis, chicago, philadelphia oakland, as well as to san francisco to convene a series of roundtable discussions dedicated to building trust and engagement between law enforcement, civil rights, youth, and community leaders from coast-to-coast. as these discussions have unfolded, i have repeatedly seen that although the concerns we are focused on today may be particularly acute in ferguson, but not confined to any one city or state or geographic region. they implicate questions of fairness and trust that are truly national in scope. and they point not to into mountable device between people of different perspectives, but to the shared values and a common desire for peace security, and for public safety that binds us together.

binds police together, as well as protesters. although the dialogue by itself will not be sufficient to address these issues because concrete actions is what is needed now. concrete actions. initiating a broad and inclusive conversation is a necessary and productive first step in all of the civil rights divisions activities in ferguson, as in every pattern the debarment has lost over the last six years. our aim is to help facilitate and inform this conversation to to make certain that it leads to, again, concrete action. and to ensure that law enforcement officers in every part of the united states live up to the same high standards of professionalism. it is clear from our work to this country, particularly through the silver rights division, that the prospect of criminal justice reform is an achievable goal. one that we can reach with law enforcement and community members at the table as full partners.

the last office -- last time i visited ferguson, i made a solemn commitment. that the united states department of justice would continue to stand with the people there long after the national headlines had faded. this week, with the conclusion of our investigations into these matters, i again commend to the people of ferguson that we will continue to stand with you and to work with you to ensure that the necessary reforms are implemented. and even as we issue our findings in today's report, our work will go on. it will go on as we engage with the city of ferguson and surrounding minutes of quality's, and surrounding municipalities, to reform their law enforcement practices and to establish a public safety effort that protects and serves all members of the community. it will go on as we brought in this work, and extend the assistance of the justice department to other communities around the country.

and it will go on as we join together with all americans to ensure that public safety is not a burden undertaken by the brave few, but a pouch of -- positive collaboration with everyone in this nation. the report that we have issued and the steps we have taken are only the beginning of a necessarily resource intensive and inclusive process to include reconciliation, and to bridge gaps and build understanding. in the days ahead, the department of justice will stay true to my promise. vigilant in its execution. and the pursuit of justice in every case, every circumstance and every community across the united states of america. thank you. [applause]

>> this is the scene in washington dc this morning. it is pretty much the same for about 90 million americans. a winter snowstorm is pounding the section of the country. here in d.c., we are expecting between four and eight inches. added overnight freeze. the federal government has closed schools. none of our scheduled live programming will take place. it has all been canceled due to the weather. a tweet out, due to the winter storm, press secretary's daily briefing has also been canceled. be safe, stay warm. but a tweet that the d.c. snow has not stopped one house hearing this point. with the interior secretary. there, you see a picture of the secretary sally jewell. coming up tonight on c-span former astronauts, including buzz aldrin, will testify before the senate. topics include manned missions

to mars and the moon. he spoke on the need to find practical ways to fund session's. here is look at a portion of the hearing. >> why do i have to come up and say if you combine a mission, it is a whole lot better. and you have to -- you can do it where an asteroid is, like the council said we should do. but maybe that is not essential. i happen to think it is. you can fly orion with a long-duration support system. that is what we're going to do when we go to l1 or l2. we are going to take in orion up there, and there will be a system that lets us stay for much longer. we are going to be rotated commercial cruise up and down, not just -- crews up and down not just to the space station, but to the moon. we are going to do these things and we are going to build, but we don't have to put all the money in building those habitats because the foreigners are going to want them, and we are going to want them there and we are

going to want them at mars. they have to land, ok? we are going to develop a very sophisticated landing system and we are going to be a medic so many people on mars that we can take them along on the first landing, ok? take us long as visitors on your landing. let's not go broke by doing things -- let's astutely learn to do things ther that do make sense -- there that do make sense. >> witnesses testified before the senate commerce committee on space. you can see that hearing tonight starting at 8:00 eastern on c-span. the c-span cities tour goes on the road, traveling to u.s. cities to learn about the history and literary life. this weekend, we partnered with comcast to a visit to galveston texas. >> people thronged to the beach.

and the rising tide, the rising wind certainly drew them. i watched in amazement as both of these factors battered the beachfront structures. at that time, we had wooden bathhouses out of the gulf of mexico. and we also had piers and we even had a huge pavilion. as the storm increased in intensity, these structures literally were turned into matchsticks. the 1900s storm struck galveston saturday, september 8, 1900. the storm began toward noon, increased in its genetic intensity, and then finally tapered off toward midnight. this hurricane was, and still

is, the deadliest recorded national -- natural event in the history of the net is rates. >> watch all of our events from galveston saturday at new eastern on c-span2's "booktv." dell corporation founder and ceo michael dell spoke on wednesday talking about his experience of dropping out of college and starting his company at age 19 and the ongoing impact of technology and invasion on the -- innovation on the global economy. this is 45 minutes. >> can i have your attention please? can i have your attention? thank you. so i indicated earlier we are very pleased and honored to have

michael dell as our special guest. michael is a legend in the business world. let me give a little background. michael is now the founder and chairman and ceo of dell inc. which is one of the largest it service providers and companies in the world. it is a company that he started when he was 19 years old. he was a college under graduate university of texas and began assembling computers in his dorm room and started the company at 19. the company went public when he was 23 and he became at 27 the youngest ceo of any fortune 500 company. and the company became well known for its personal computers business among other things. and then he ran the company until 2004 and then stepped back as ceo to turn it over to somebody else. in 2007 came back as the ceo and in 2013 decided to take the

publically traded company private in one of the largest buy outs of the era since the great recession. it was the largest buy out about a $24 billion buyout. the company has done quite well. michael is very involved, as well, in philanthropy and he and his wife have a foundation given away more than a billion dollars very involved in medical research and children's health among other causes. michael is also very involved in the computer and technology industry. he is here in town in part for a ceo council among other things that he is doing in town. and i would say that in the computer world and the it world he is obviously one of the legends. he is one of the few people who started the company 20 something years ago in this industry who is still a ceo of a company in the industry. if i could just start off by asking you, you took your

company private in 2013. do you miss dealing with analysts? [laughter] is that a problem? >> i don't miss that at all. in fact, for entertainment i listen in sometimes to my competitors conference calls and it is really fun. >> so when you're publicly traded you have to deal with analysts and so forth. now that you are private what do you focus on instead of quarterly numbers? how is your company run differently now that you are a privately owned company? >> we focus on our customers and medium and long term and getting away from this shot clock has given us freedom and flexibility to invest in our business without, let's say, fear of the short term targets. and i think it's energized our team.

we had a very good year last year and it's really changed the focus to be more long term. >> so at the time you were considering doing this i remember you and i were in dabos. i did a tv interview and somebody asked me what i thought about your transaction that was pending. i said most buyouts of that size don't work so i wouldn't be that optimistic. i wouldn't look at investing in it. i didn't realize we were going to have lunch later that day and i would apologize to you, but there were other buyouts firms that looked at it. you did it with silver lake. have you called up the buyout firms that didn't want to do the deal and tell them they made a mistake? >> i wouldn't do that. i think, look, our business has some volatility.

it has some uncertainty. that's why the technology industry is so dynamic. it's changing all the time. and we have been actively changing our business. when you're doing that in a short term focused financial market it can be pretty difficult. >> so at the time firms like mine said he is a pc manufacturer and that business is probably going down and there is probably too many people that manufacture them very cheaply. so this wouldn't be a great business. what did people miss because you're not just a pc company or what did people miss in analyzing the way your company would operate in the future? >> as it relates to the small computer systems, pcs, tablets work stations we have had eight

quarters in a row of increasing our share of the overall industry. so that's clearly a good thing. there isn't necessarily a lot of growth there but by gaining share we can grow our business. there is somewhat of consolidation there. on the other side of our business in software and services and data center we have some pretty robust growth. now, we have spent over the last six or seven years roughly $15 billion acquiring 40 or so firms that acquired 150 companies and built pretty substantial capability in it solutions software services, data center. to give you a sense for this last year our deferred revenues grew more than 20% year over year which is pretty hard to do. many of our competitors similarly positioned would have

had negative growth in the same period. so we have been able to reshape the business pretty significantly and successfully. >> so what percentage of your revenues if you can say roughly are pc oriented? is that less than 50% of your revenues now? >> it's still a little more than 50%. i also think of it as the tip of the spear particularly in the emerging world. so if you think about you have 3.5 billion people in india, china and africa. while it services and data analytics and more complex solutions are interesting it's not actually what they buy first. what they buy first is infrastructure which is the actual machines that bring the

data, the servers, the network and then they get into the more complex areas. so when i look at our small computer systems business with businesses in enterprise in these emerging developing markets which still have relatively low penetration compared to developed markets there is robust growth there. in the developed markets it is kind of a replacement cycle business, but to be able to bring an end to end solution i think you have to have both ends of the solution. so we fundamentally believe to be able to solve the problems that customers have out there it is a combination of hardware software and services together. >> private equity firms usually like to exit at a nice profit and maybe three or four or five years. what will you do to help silver lake exit? will you take the company public again or have you had enough of

that? how would you give them an exit if you didn't do an ipo? >> they haven't shown any desire to exit anytime soon, but there are many ways for that to occur. >> going public wouldn't be your highest priority again? >> no. why do companies go public? there is certainly a role for public markets. when we went public in 1988 it was really the only way to get the amount of capital we needed for our growing company. but we don't really need capital now. we generate lots of capital. our brand is also very well known by our customers so the reasons to go public aren't really there. i find it much more enjoyable to

be a private company. i think the flexibility that we have is tremendous and we can take on investments with an uncertain outcome. that is quite attractive in our business. instead of having to manage -- to try and hit a particular target, we don't care about that. we are much more about the long-term. >> the own personally about 12 and half percent, is that more or less correct? >> 15%. >> now you are on to 75%? >> 70%. >> is it too late to invest in the ipo? [laughter] >> it might be a little bit late. >> let me go back to when you began the company. you were 19 years old.

>> flattered by the interest though. >> we always like good investments. unfortunately, we missed this one, but at 19 you're in college and you're a freshman at the university of texas. you grew up in houston. you're a premedstudent. your father was an orthodontist and you have a medical background in your family. you were preordained to go to medical school, i assume. what happened that led you to start fixing computers? how did that start in your dorm room as i understand it? you were assembling computers. how did that come about? >> it goes back a little further than that. when i was in junior high school i was in this math class and my math teacher had this teletype terminal. you could type in programs and the answer would come back. i became enthralled with this idea of machines that would calculate and threw myself into

all of that. fast forward to 1981 i'm 16 years old. ibm introduces the ibm pc. it was clearly aimed at business. and what was interesting to me about that is you have this computer for a few thousand dollars that any business could buy, not any business but a lot of businesses could buy. and it was incredibly empowering. it was exciting. and kind of threw myself into all of that. as i took the computer apart what i realized is that they were selling $500 worth of parts of $3,000 which seemed to me like a kind of criminal enterprise almost. it just seemed unfair. it's like how could it be $3,000?

and so i started mapping out what all the parts cost. and then started upgrading like people would upgrade cars and things. i was upgrading computers. and that ultimately led me to starting the company and making our own computers. >> you were in your -- you have two parents who thought you were going to medical school, nice jewish parents. >> that didn't go over so well. >> you tell your parents you are dropping out of college to start a computer company what did they say? >> they said you are bananas. it did not go over well. so we basically made a deal. and the deal was that i would take a semester off. at university of texas you could take a semester off and go back.

and if the business did well enough then i would continue. if it didn't i would go back to school. so after 90 days i had financial statements, business was booming and thriving and i continued. >> so the name dell is very simple name and sounds like it would always work. suppose your last name had been reuben stein? [laughter] you think the company would have worked as well? how did you come to name it dell? >> i don't think it would have been -- but the name was actually a bit of an accident. when i was in my dorm room i had a trade name called pcs limited. i was a sole proprietor doing business as pcs limited. i had this customer who was a lawyer.

he was kind of saying your business is thriving and growing. maybe you should incorporate. i said why would i want to do that. he explains the benefits of being a corporation. and i said so what's involved here? he said well how about you install another hard disk drive for me and i will do your incorporation. so that's the deal. so i installed a hard drive and he says there's two problems. first is you can't incorporate the name pcs limited because it is too generic. this is the lawyer speaking. i called it dell computer corporation doing business as pcs unlimited. i said fine. the second thing is he said you need $1,000 and he said you can't start a corporation unless you have $1,000. i said i will come back with $1,000. so that was may 3, 1984. company was incorporated with

$1,000 as dell computer corporation. fast forward three years we embark on our global expansion in the uk, hire a guy in the uk. he actually didn't show up for work so the second in command was promoted to be the head of the uk. and he is calling back to headquarters saying i can't make pcs limited limited in the uk so what should i call this company? back in texas business is booming. we're too busy. we just said you figure it out. so the guy in the uk says i'm going to call this dell computer corporation. so we were dell computer corporation in the uk. and we were dell computer corporation doing business as pcs unlimited in the u.s. for a

period of time. and then a bunch of folks came to me and said you should just have it be dell computer corporation. it has all worked out. >> i would say so. [laughter] so you are in your college dorm. do you have a lot of friends from your college dorm era who have said this is really their idea and they have sued you and said you took their idea? that hasn't happened, right? >> no. maybe they weren't that clever. but i had this one room mate who really got upset with me. there were boxes and so one day my room mate piled all the boxes in front of my door and so i couldn't get out of the room. and so i moved to a different. >> what happened to him? >> i don't know.

i think he is a lawyer somewhere. [laughter] >> so as i remember it when you started your company the thing that was very clever and was unique is you would say i'm going to by pass the middle man. i'm not going to go to the retail store to buy my computer. somebody would send you an order. is that essentially right? >> we created a direct business model. and that enabled us to create all kinds of efficiencies in our supply chain, customer information. today we have a what we call omni channel where we have channel partners and relationships with customers kind of combined together.

>> today as i mentioned earlier in 2004 at your relatively young age i guess you were 40 or so or something like that, 39? you just turned 50 years old. so -- >> in the 50 club. >> 50. 50 to go. 39 you say i'm tired of being ceo. i will step upstairs. and you did that for a couple of , years. you have somebody else running it. what did you miss as the ceo? or why did you come back? . >> i was actively involved in the company. i think the industry rate of change started to accelerate. and the board asked me to come back as ceo. and i think we needed to make some relatively swift changes in our strategy. and i was happy to do that. that's what we did. >> you came back.

let's talk about the industry today. what do you see the biggest challenges for the american technology industry, the industry not only in silicon valley, obviously in texas and other parts of the united states where people are building companies that are technology leaders? do you see foreign challenges that are great? what do you think the biggest challenge is you face? >> i think if you step back what's interesting about our industry and the way our customers are using the technology is there was this enormous wave of let's make existing businesses more efficient and more productive using technology. and all of us have been doing that for a long, long time. that has been going on. now you are seeing this how you -- you know -- how you reinvent things or invent them completely new given all of this new technology that is out there. and in the technology sector we kind of live and breathe this all the time but now i think it

is showing up in sort of all industries. and for any company in our sector, you have to change or die. you have to evolve. for us that has meant aggressively growing in these new areas like software services, understanding the challenges our customers have like in cyber security and helping to go build solutions to go solve those problems. >> now, you still make a lot of pcs. do you make tablets? >> we do. >> is that a growth business? do you think that will replace b -- replace pcs? >> i think of the tablet as a descendant of the notebook. the notebook is the living descendent of the desktop. there are many different shapes and sizes for the products. you've got work stations virtual machines, tablets,

notebooks, desk tops. gaming machines. we make them all but let customers decide. i think with the enormous growth in mobile devices, particularly smart phones, there was, i think, maybe a bit of a swing to believe at some point that all of those devices would replace the pc. i think the reality is it is more of a multi device world and not just the pc and the smart phone and the tablet. it's now all of these embedded computers, the wearables, the internet of things. so you are kind of going from this world of let's say a billion connected devices to 100 billion connected devices. as the cost of semi conducters comes down you have this instrumentation and kind of making everything smart and intelligent. that creates this data that has to be turned into insights and knowledge.

that is really the big opportunity that all organizations have out there is how you use this data to make what you're doing more productive or reinvent it. >> i want to talk about big data because you have so many customers you know what they are interested in among other things. do you use the data for other purpose that you can make another business out of all of the data that you have? >> sure. we use it to improve the efficiency our own sales and marketing and services. increasingly, with data scientists that work for us help our customers be more productive, efficient with better outcomes in whatever it is that they are doing whether it is health care, education banking, finance, et cetera. >> you don't make manufacture smart phones? >> we do not. >> and the reason is?

>> a lot of ways to make money in it other than smart phones. the i.t. industry is about a $3 trillion industry. and of that roughly $2.75 trillion is commercial business enterprise public sector, and $250 billion is consumer. we are much more focused on the 2.75 trillion and so from a device standpoint what does it mean? pcs, tablets, embedded work stations. then we get into the data center, all of the infrastructure, cloud computing, software to find network storage, compute. then we focus on the systems management, the security, the big data. and then ultimately one of the most exciting areas is services

because we find more and more customers want us to help them implement all of these systems run them for them and help them make use of all of the tools. we think the combination of all of these things together are really important. >> so you bought one of your acquisitions was perot systems. i think that may have been your biggest. did you deal with ross perot in negotiating that? how did that come about? >> i didn't personally deal with him in the negotiation but he still comes to work every day at our office. >> really? [laughter] >> yeah. >> do you tell him what to do? [laughter] >> i don't think anybody tells ross what to do. >> so what about apple has said they are going to come out with a wearable watch. are you going to make a watch? >> no. here is a way to think about the

smart phone. for every 50 smart phones that get put into the world a new server pops up. and the reason the server pops up is because when you get a smart phone it doesn't have anything on it. and you put stuff on it that comes over the network. where does it come from? usually not another smart phone. it comes from a server. and so this massive build up -- so you think about the companies that are providing the services that users are using on their mobile phones. we're providing the infrastructure and the equipment to be able to power those. >> as a young man when you were running the company you met with steve jobs and bill gates, how did you compare the two of them? are they different in personalities? were you competing with them?

are they are customer of yours? >> pretty different. some form of collaboration , you know, and/or competition with either of them. >> ok. and today you were in washington recently for meeting with government leaders on part of the technology ceo council so you met with president obama. what would you say the technology ceos said to president obama about technology? were you concerned about something? what did he say to you? did he ask for free computers or anything? [laughter] any advice? >> he didn't ask me for free computers but i did wonder how come there is no computer in the oval office? maybe one day there will be. >> probably hidden. >> yeah, probably something like that. but we focused on a couple of issues. i think trade promotion authority.

we are exporters and u.s. technology industry has done very well. and to do that, to continue to do that we think trade promotion authority is very important. we talked about immigration and certainly the focus on the stem skills that we need in our business is a big one. we talked about taxes and how do you keep the sector that we are in competitive. all of our foreign competitors don't deal with this repatriation problem. and then cyber security. there are a number of bills that are worked on. that will help us address the challenges. cyber challenges is a big one. we see on behalf of our customers about 120 billion events per day.

and i really built a threat intelligence to be able to understand what's going on. on. you have state-sponsored groups. you have criminals activists espionage. you have terrorists. they are all using the cyber domain as a big attack factor. david: were you impressed with any members of congress? michael: very impressed. [laughter] david: do they seem to know technology very well? michael: i think they are more and more knowledgeable. we met with some of the incoming freshman. some of whom came from our industry and had a refreshing

insight into our sector. we are pretty proactive about explaining what challenges we see and communicating what the opportunities are. it is a frustrating environment. there is not anybody who would tell you something other than that. david: people always want to know what the next big thing is. if i wanted to make an investment, what area when i put my money in? michael: there are probably many next big things. this idea of the data economy big data, machine to machine communication, machine learning we think that is an and norma's opportunity for not only our customers -- an enormous opportunity, not only for our

customers but the i.t. industry. roughly a $1 trillion opportunity for the i.t. industry in turning this data into real insights. the availability and cost to acquire the data keeps going down dramatically. david: you started your company by bypassing the middleman and went directly to the customer. apple has a lot of stores in the united states. i think microsoft does as well. you have no stores in the united states. are you considering having stores? michael: our business is 85% commercial business enterprise public and 15% consumer. we do have stores that are operated by partners in the emerging market. for example, china we have 1500

exclusive stores. we just opened our 400th store in india. we are opening one every 16 hours there. business is booming in the emerging world. david: you get more than half your revenue from the united states still? michael: it is about 50-50. david: as you look at your life, you have the opportunity to give away a fair amount of money. you are involved with philanthropy. to atone for your sin of not going to medical school, you're creating a new medical school in texas. why did you decide to do that? michael: interestingly, the university of texas system, with its main campus in austin, did not have a medical school. many regarded that as an oversight in opportunity. we have been working to bring

this together. now, we have a new medical school, a new teaching hospital. over the course of 2016, 2017, will really get going. david: at your age, ill gates stepped back as ceo of his company. do you have any plans to step back as the ceo? michael: very happy to keep doing what i am doing. it is a lot of fun. i think privatization has made life more enjoyable. david: you and your wife has a -- have a foundation of giving away a good deal of money. if you disagree on where the money should go, how do you decide that? [laughter] michael: if we disagree, we just don't do it.

fortunately, we have a lot of the same values and beliefs and that has been some great ingredients for a fantastic marriage. david: mary 25 years? michael: 25 years. for children. the foundation is something we do -- four children. the foundation is something we do together. david: explain this to people. everyone would say, this man has a perfect life. what is not perfect in your life to make us feel better? [laughter] david: make us feel there is something that is not perfect. is there anything you could say that is frustrating? [laughter] michael: i feel very fortunate

and grateful to be born in this country and the opportunities that i have had. i do not have a lot of complaints. there is nothing you should feel sorry for me about. [laughter] david: do you have a high handicap in golf? michael: i am undefeated at golf. david: wow. michael: but i don't play golf. [laughter] david: for outside activities, you are obviously in pretty good shape -- michael: i like to stay outside in move around whether it is hiking, walking, running cycling. david: if people want to get a hold of you, they can e-mail you? how do you stay in touch with your office? michael: we go to the office. that is one way.

all the normal ways. e-mails, phones. david: you think it would be as easy -- do you think it would be easy for michael dell to start a company today? what would your advice be to young entrepreneurs? should they drop out of college? should they get their degree? if your children came to you and said they will drop out of college and start a company what would you say? michael: i would want to hear what their idea is. i don't think dropping out of college is for everyone. it worked for me. it did not work for charles manson. [laughter] michael: if i was 19, i would be

trying to figure out what company i was going to start. if, in the process of going private, somebody had bought the company from me, i probably would have started another company. david: carl icahn was saying something like, he would make an offer. it's supposed somebody had done that? you would have cashed in your chips and started another company? michael: if somebody had done that, very likely. david: in the computer area or technology area? michael: i am not going to say what the company would be. likely in the computer -- that is what i love and no. david: most of your philanthropy in the united states or outside? how do you side -- how do you decide how much to put in the united states? michael: it has been expanding around the world. we have been active in india and

also in south africa. we continue to expand what we do. the focus on children and urban poverty. we have done a lot in the education sector, using insights we have gained from the dell experience in terms of, how do you use data and knowledge to inform progress? in education, there is a standard that has been adopted by over half the states in the u.s. called edify, a way of normalizing all the information that a district may have about a student's performance and outcomes. the challenge is, the kid goes

from third grade two fourth grade, what does the fourth grade teacher know about the student from the third grade? it depends. did the teachers talk? were records cap? -- were records kept? the other challenge you have two kids can go into two different classrooms in the same school, learning the same subjects and have different outcomes. how does a principal, a district parents begin to understand that data? we have been focused on those kinds of obstacles. david: what would you like your legacy to be? what would you like people to say about what you accomplished? michael: the goal we have set

for ourselves is to figure out how to make a bigger impact on the world through philanthropy than we have through our business. don't exactly know how to do that. i think we are off to a reasonable start. the foundation has done some great work. it is not easy to do it really well. we have treated it like an investment activity with real measurement of results and returns. we also look for projects where we can change the trajectory, make a meaningful difference and then leave and have it continue without us. david: living in austin, your well-known.

can you go into a 7-eleven and not have people say, i have a good idea for a computer? do people leave you alone when you're walking around? you don't shop that much probably. michael: i like to shop online. i find that easier. david: do you ever walk into an apple store and -- [laughter] david: they would know who you are right away. michael: i have not had that experience. people generally leave you alone. i don't find it is a big problem. david: have you had role models in the business world you have a spinal -- you have aspired to be like? michael: i think you can learn from just about anybody positive or negative. in the tech sector, we have had great folks before us who have

paved the way and let through all sorts of challenges. i have been fortunate to have known and worked with just about all of them. david: you seem like a very even killed person. you do not seem to -- even keeled person. you don't seem to raise your voice. how do you tell people they are not doing a good job? what is your way of showing anger if they are not doing a good job? michael: i don't think you have to throw things. it would not seem like a good idea. i am direct in my communications with our teams. spent a lot of time on making sure -- certainly for the executive team that i work a lot with we are all aligned on what

it is we are trying to accomplish. everybody knows how they are doing, relative to the objectives we have. there is no confusion about where we are. david:i think having a realistic assessment of where you are and what is working well and what needs to change is important. david: when you met with the president, he said he would like you to serve as a senior cabinet officer, would you ever consider going to government? michael: no thank you. [laughter] david: what you would like to do to help your country is what you're doing now? build a good company, operate it, pay taxes. michael: i can be more helpful than that. i have taken on various roles

from time to time where i think it could be helpful. for example, the united nations asked me recently to be there in bassett are for entrepreneurship -- there in bassett are for entrepreneurship. the general assembly is going to vote on the sustainable development goals. my job is to convince world leaders that job creation and entrepreneurship ought to be one of the sustainable development goals. goal number eight if you happen to be voting. my experience around the world is that, if you look at new jobs 70% to 90% of them are created by entrepreneurial businesses. small, growing businesses. governments can or cannot do things that can help that.

i have seen some interesting experiences. we have a site in morocco. i was there recently. we have 2000 young, excited people that are energized and love what they are doing. i remember when we were deciding whether to put that site in morocco or tunisia, it was close. maybe 60% morocco, 40% tunisia. the moroccan government did a few extra things to make it better and we decided that was a good place to go. i think we should be thinking a lot about where the next 500 million jobs come from. i believe they come from these entrepreneurial businesses. we also should be thinking in these conflict zones, where you

have a lot of young unemployed people, how do we figure out how to get them jobs? if you have a new administration but you still have a lot of unemployed young people, you have not really solved the problem. what i also worry about is these places where we have been dropping bombs for a few decades , once all the smoke clears, you still have a lot of young unemployed people. unless they can go back to their families and explain that tomorrow is going to be better you still have a problem. there is no new administration that can solve that problem. we have to be thinking, how do we create jobs over there? that to me is the root problem. david: any regrets in your career? again, to make us feel good that

there is something you think you did not do right. michael: you could've done this or that. that is not how i live. david: if i wanted to go out and buy a pc, which one would be the best value for money for me if i wanted to spend a couple thousand dollars? michael: i understand you are reasonably well off. david: not compared to you. [laughter] michael: what i would recommend for you, given that you are traveling all over the world and you want to have the latest and greatest, our newest xps 13. depending on the configuration call it $1000. david: no discounts. $1000. [laughter] michael: everybody gets a discount. david: i want to thank you for a great interview.

[applause] david: this is the first map of the district of columbia. michael: thank you. [chatter] >> the snow continues to fall in washington d.c. we are expecting four to eight inches. weather has shut down the federal government and closed many schools and stores. congress left town yesterday in anticipation of the storm. this picture giving live updates

. snow, heavy at times throughout the day. for those of you who are rushing into the district with your sleds, the hill is reporting that u.s. capitol police are spoiling your fun. they have denied eleanor holmes norton's request to lift the ban on sledding on capitol grounds for the weekend. she said to the capital board police chief, sledding is prohibited under the traffic regulations for the united states capitol grounds, a regulation that was written back in 1876. tonight on c-span, former astronauts testify before the senate on the future of the space program. the talk about manned missions to mars, the moon and nearby asteroids. witnesses testified before the senate's commerce subcommittee. you can see that tonight starting at 8:00 eastern on c-span. supreme court justices will be

meeting tomorrow to go over the challenge to the health care law subsidies. the residual impact people with subsidized health care insurance in 34 states that declined to start their own exchanges. the court plans to release the audio of the oral argument tomorrow. >> you would see a much and jeff combination. washington was a large man. very robust. natural athlete. madison is a skinny guy. >> this sunday on q and a, david o stewart on james madison and the partnerships he made that aided in the success of our nation. >> his gift is his ability to form remarkable partnerships

with the great people of his era. it also alludes to his gift to the country of his talents and what he was able to do to help create the first self-sustaining constitutional republic. >> a discussion tuesday on u.s. canadian relations. the debate with politicians focused mostly on the keystone pipeline debate, climate change and domestic security. peter van dusen moderated the event from the newseum in washington. ♪

>> hello and welcome to washington dc. we have come to the american capitol to talk about us canada relations, and they are a little bit frosty these days. a long relationship of respect cooperation and friendship between two of the world's great neighbors but now it is marked , by friction. we are live at the newseum on pennsylvania avenue for our latest townhall. tonight we present keystone and beyond, the future of us canada relations. i am peter pan dues and -- peter van dusen, the executive producer of cpac. a special welcome to our viewers watching on c-span and the united states. we will draw down on the state of the relationship between canada and the united states the trouble spots, bright spots and the road ahead.

we will take questions from the audience as well, and you can join the conversation on social media. with me for our townhall this evening, bill owens, senior strategic advisor. he stepped down in november as the democratic representative for new york's 21st congressional district. that runs right up to the canadian border so he is very familiar with the issues. ryan bernstein is chief of staff for republican senator holden of north dakota. welcome. we hope the senator's feeling better. canada's man in washington. a former premier of manitoba . senior attorney with the national resource defense council who has worked in both canada and the united states on the environment and climate change.

with us, as always, the -- paul wells the political editor for mclean and washington bureau chief for mclean. , louisa savage. in a moment we will begin the conversation on the state of canada us relations let me take a few minutes to set the scene. >> perhaps it is a well-worn joke in washington, but the fact that open sport is being made of the us/canada relationship these days is telling. no one expects things will always flow smoothly, but the list of irritants is piling up and so is the resentment. >> a president who simply has not got it that canada is important to the prosperity of the united states. it's frustration with a white house that clearly does not want to engage canada, to promote the

healthy economic relationship. >> we are supposed to be the best friend and closest neighbor , but instead we keep getting hit with these things. >> nothing has caused more frustration than the keystone xl pipeline. the project has now been held up for six years. the latest twist, a veto by the president to kill legislation from congress to authorize the project. >> lets be fair to our canadian neighbors. we should allow them to do the same in ours. they are our best i lies -- best allies. let's build the keystone pipeline.

>> the president openly undermines the value of the pipeline to america. >> it is not going to be a huge benefit to u.s. consumers. >> laura dawson is a former senior adviser on u.s. canada economic issues. >> he has been disparaging about canada. the harper government has been disparaging about the u.s.. >> president obama has said climate change is a top priority for him. he has taken steps to put the u.s. on its way to meeting commitments. under current policy canada we will fall short. the case in washington might have been strengthened if they had introduced long promised greenhouse gas regulations. prime minister harper making it clear that will not happen anytime soon.

>> it would be crazy economic policy. >> the project to build a 2nd bridge linking detroit michigan and windsor, ontario. the busiest trade crossing between the two countries. not only is canada paying the entire $4 billion upfront cost canada is also footing the $250 million upfront cost of the u.s. customs plaza on american soil because the obama administration refused to. >> the government of canada has been fabulous. i think the u.s. federal government needs do a better job. >> as an american it is embarrassing that we cannot find our own infrastructure and equally embarrassing that we are asking canada to foot the bill and when it is all over and paid for, we want half of it. >> at least the bridge project seems to be going ahead. on

not so for a planned ferry terminal. on canadian soil but leased to the state of alaska who recently wanted to upgrade the terminal using only american steel. canada said, no way, and threatened legal action. alaska canceled the project. if canada and the us cannot solve smaller squabbles, what about the big stuff? the long-running dispute over canadian and mexican beef and pork sold in us stores. us law requires those products to be labeled. details on where the animal was born, where it was raised and slaughtered. canada says that costs it s producers a billion dollars

per year. the wto has twice ruled mandatory labeling is discriminatory. it is true the us canada relationship is envied by most countries in the world and overall is a good one. operation -- cooperation on border security. that progress has been slow. canadians and americans fought side-by-side in afghanistan and are allies again. with the two countries focused on disputes it is hard to imagine them working on vision items. big ideas that demand cooperation and trust. >> a willingness to put aside short-term domestic solvency -- sovereignty concerns in favor of the larger cooperative vision which i do not see any more. >> at the end of the day there has to be a personal

relationship and chemistry between the two leaders that we just have not seen. it for the past six years. >> who can forget the sense of promise and both countries when barack obama was first elected. now some suggest better relations will only happen with the change at the top, maybe in both countries. >> that sets the scene for our conversation. we will work through some of these issues we have raised allowing for your questions. we will start our panelists off at the same spot, what is the state of the relationship? let's start there. paul wells, let me start with you. what is the state of the relationship? >> the relationship between americans and canadians is fine.

i am going to philadelphia after my stop here for two days and expect to be well treated by my captors. [laughter] billions of dollars of trade back and forth. the two countries working in parallel, but the relationship is frosty. my predecessor says he has never seen the relationship between the two heads of government as cool as it is today. some people say that is just about a pipeline, but there is other evidence. the heads of government used to meet every year: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009. the last two times it was stephen harper's turn to host that summit, he canceled. barack obama has visited twice.

the last president to visit canada that rarely was richard nixon who decided one trip was enough. there is a lot of evidence that this relationship is not functional. there is a lot of blame to go around. it is too easy to say it is harper's fault or people who like the canadian government to say, well, obama is lost in his own world. they are actually very similar. they are loners. that similarity of style and divergence of ideology is costing the two countries. >> what is your view? >> it is interesting to disaggregate what is happening in the relationship at large and the trade relationship, the security cooperation intelligence cooperation everything that goes on in

and desegregate what is happening at the top, which is these two leaders who are not rushing into each other's embrace. what does that mean for the broader relationship? well, they are not meeting. it means that they are not setting priorities for the relationship, looking forward to the future which is what happens at these summits kickstarting bureaucracies into trying to deliver things that can be announced and set the agenda . perhaps it is more a question of what is not happening than what is. >> let's get your view on the state of the relationship. >> we think it is a good relationship from canada. we see it firsthand. the local people and people between canada and the united states.

they get along very well. we are worried about possibly the frosty relationship that the united states has with canada based on the keystone pipeline . we think this could jeopardize the economic relationship. we know canada has other options for economic vitality. i think unfortunately what we have gone through in the united states has affected the relationship. we don't want it to, but long-term we need to work to put things back together and make things right. >> let's get your view. >> i don't think america has any better friend than canada. we have lots of trade. $2 billion in economic growth between the two countries

everyday, a shared border, an extremely long history of working together, fighting together, working together on a number of issues for decades. friends need to be able to talk about issues and need to be able to discuss what really matters. one thing we have got to think about is, last year was the hottest year on record. sixteen of the last hottest years on record happened since 1997. we are now confronting climate change, dealing with blistering drought, rising seas, floods. just a tremendous impact that we are experiencing, and the reason we are experiencing a globally is because of fossil fuels. we're having a difficult conversation about fossil fuels, and that conversation is likely to continue. the opportunity for

the two countries to talk about how to confront that problem is where the future us canada relationship can go. canada has a clean energy revolution going on right now. in the last five years, there has been a doubling of renewable energy, 30% growth in clean energy jobs, a doubling of electric vehicle sales, a number of things happening. those same things are happening in the united states. you have these clean energy economies are growing, and the opportunity which gets to the heart of the relationship because it is where our administration is right now, how can we confront this climate problem? i look forward to the beyond the keystone part of this discussion because it is where i think we need to go.

>> and we will get to that. >> from my perspective living one hour for montreal i do not see any change in how the citizens interact with one another. this is not a situation that comes down, if you will to , the grassroots. governmental issues, some irritants, but trade is increasing consistently which tells you that business is largely ignoring what the media and politicians are stirring up as a problem. for most people this is not an issue. the relationship continues to be strong. people are working together more and more. we are seeing increasing trade. from my perspective i see this hasas something we are focusing on

at the political level, but when you get down to business and people, people are comfortable that we are still friends. >> ambassador. >> first of all, i would give some advice to paul, just a diplomatic bit of advice. don't wear montreal in the philadelphia area. i think, listen, both countries are can do countries and i think we have seen, especially in the united states and a bit of my bias way it is a bit of a can-do government. my 6th crisis showing the border -- shutting the border down in the last two years. but the country and the decisions that are made as everyone has described are very, very positive. i think that all are treated equally, but there are different levels of government.

it is not all the president. i am frustrated with him about the keystone pipeline, disappointed in nebraska because we have had three setbacks as well. i also believe that some of the comments in the scene setter are accurate about his inaccuracies in the pipeline. i think it was four pinocchio's this week. to say all of the oil is going off is wrong. to say it was all going from canada? who knew that north dakota have been bequeathed to canada? we are disappointed with those comments and we will continue to do what we have always done. it is our job to get the facts

out about this proposal. on the bridge, i found the president to be, in most ways, to be helpful. the biggest blockage is both here with the private owner of a bridge blocking in the michigan house, senate, and then the michigan delegation appropriation of money. we had to get a financing agreement which is paid back by the users, both capital and interest. we got a presidential permit with a lot of cooperation from the white house, a waiver on the us steel covered under by america that goes back decades , which was brought in legislation and a waiver to the

white house. the customs plaza should have been paid for by the taxpayers on either side of the border. when we could not get that through we had to then go back and get a solution because this bridge has been talked about ever since 9/11. the biggest choke points are trade and security, and sometimes you just have to have a can-do attitude, otherwise it will be another decade or the appropriation would come from the taxpayers as opposed to through a triple p. we also got the cooperation from the white house on the operating cost of the bridge you could have a clip tonight, keystone and then the president after the horrible shooting on october 22, reaffirming his solidarity with canada, reaffirming his

commitment to working on border security and domestic security threats, reaffirming the great cooperation that we have between our two countries. i remember there was an urban myth created in the united states that all the terrorists involved in 9/11 came through canada. it remains today, and i am thankful that the president stood up and stood strong with canada in that time. it helped us deal with threats on the border and was a strong statement. if he could approve the pipeline i would be happier. >> we are going to get beyond the pipeline. we need to stay with the pipeline. it is what is making news in the relationship. the president has veto this legislation. what is the next move?

when will we see another move to try and legislate to push this through? >> soon. you don't have to wait long. tomorrow i am moving forward with a veto to override called the cloture vote. we will get that. we will move forward, which sets up the veto override. we are four votes short but are still working on it. we still have good commitment from the democrats. we had 63 supporting as last time. we are working on a few others. the president said one of the main reasons he was vetoing this legislation was that we were cutting the process short that is after six years he is claiming we're cutting the process short. he we will

-- we will continue to go back to the democrats that said this process needs to play out. this process has played out. we have had several environmental impact statements are coming back saying there is no environmental impact, that it lowers greenhouse gas emissions. we will make that argument and see how it goes. after that, it has been clear from the majority leader that we will continue to push this project and look at other legislation, probably appropriations, maybe the transportation bill. we got close last time. this is an infrastructure project. it supports 42,000 jobs. it could be appropriate to put it in the highway bill. >> who wants to jump in? where do we go with this debate and process? are we going to get a pipeline approval under this president or a decision?

let's start there. >> repeat the question. >> is barack obama going to end up having to say, in effect, allow this pipeline because of what happens in congress, or we risk not getting a decision at all? >> right now the process has been going on for a number of years. >> who wants to jump in? >> we will see if we get the veto override. the president was cryptic in recent comments saying it might take me a few weeks, might take me a few months. a lot of people predict he will

not decide it all before the end of his term, and so now there is a lot of pressure on hillary clinton. to me it is interesting both the bridge story and this pipeline story raise a bigger issue which is how canada as a foreign country build infrastructure in the united states. if we look back at the 1980's , the big thing was signing free trade agreements. how do we build that infrastructure? you mentioned alan gottlieb who came to washington and said we are all dealing with the state department and white house. he changed the way that canada conducted diplomacy focusing on going after senators and congressmen.

to be old -- to build real objects, it is not about sitting down with the president or the congress but dealing with landowners, whether ranchers in nebraska or a private bridge owner in detroit and then dealing with local governments state legislators, campaign contributors, nongovernmental organizations whether the in our d.c. or in the case of the detroit windsor bridge the tea party. you have all these players. it is reasonably -- it is regionally if use -- there are a lot of proposals on how we

manage this. we need a binational commission on infrastructure or some kind of development bank i understand . i understand the state department is looking at its own process for prioritizing spending on cross-border infrastructure so that the most important trade ports are getting the money and not just the ones where a border congressman is able to get his project into a bill and get it funded. with the case of the pipeline, how do we deal with these issues before we are into a specific project where you're having public meetings in nebraska and people from all over the country come in and focus on this one project to play out a much broader national discussion. i see this as a broad challenge. >> i think just >> sure, and then congressman. >> we have not talked about the

power of money and the ability to raise money. there is a lot of money against the bridge in michigan, a lot of money. there is a lot of money moving around for and against the pipeline. that is the broader discussion. it is quite different than it was ten years ago. it takes six years to get a transmission line between one state and another state. one lawyer per megawatt to get a transmission line approved. when we are dealing with these two proposals with clean energy, it has taken us for years. -- taken us four years. these take a lot of time.

the ability to work and the public interest for and against something is really, really slow and not just a foreign government. it takes that much time. even in canada there is no national grid. all the transmission lines go north and south. on the pipeline the state department said, and has been correct that the pipeline is not built, the oil will come down on rail. they made that prediction three years ago, and last year, and they have been right. a million barrels a day extra since barack obama has been president, more than any other president. it has come from canada to the united states. it is just getting there and the -- in the wrong way, in my view.

the state department said that if it is not built it will be coming down on rail. rail has higher emissions, higher safety risks. when you look at those three liabilities, one of them is to canada, the cost. the second safety issue is to the americans. they just had a horrific accident in west virginia. the oil went through chicago the . the third issue is higher emissions. if the president says no, you are actually going to have higher emissions. i would argue strongly that the united states is taking two of the three liabilities by saying no. it is the president's right to do that, but we have over 63 votes in the senate and 61% of the house voting for that

pipeline. >> we will come back to you in a second. i think the question everyone wants to know is, while barack obama is president, one way or the other, we will this pipeline -- will this pipeline get approved? >> it is less and less likely as time goes on. it is unlikely that he will approve it. whether or not the congress can put together a peace of legislation and attach it to it so that he has no choice may be a road forward. i would argue that what would be far more sensible here would be to come to an agreement where we have a trade offer. i would talk about the senate immigration bill, why

not construct a deal that gets the senate bill acted on ? something we clearly need and also allows the pipeline to go forward. when you talk about the safety issues, we have many pipelines. there is very little risk or increased risk in building another pipeline. the argument that environmentalists take is that by doing that we enhance the likelihood of continuing to use fossil fuels. the fact of the matter is, i i am a proponent of moving forward with renewable energy. i strongly supported the biofuels plant at fort drum which is taken fort drum off the grid.

an excellent result, created jobs, and is a clean energy project but we have to do things in ways that make sense. one of the issues i talked about is what do you need to do to educate the american public and american legislators about what is going on in their state relative to canadian business, ? that has to be done in the legislative office, not necessarily in dc but district offices where people who work for canadian companies or have relationships with canadian companies are coming in and talking to those legislators. >> let's give you a chance to weigh in. suggesting that it is less and less likely. for some people there may never be. what is your view on what you are hearing?

>> i would agree with the congressman about the likelihood. the reason is not political. there has been a strong case made on a number of issues which includes the climate impact. tar sands actually sinks in water and does not act like conventional oil. as americans have come to learn more and more, it is not in keeping with the type of energy where we want to go it has risks

. it has risks to water, to the climate. i disagree on the rail issue. there has been an argument made. we know the industry is pursuing both real and pipeline. the us oil industry is moving oil by rail, but there was a projection made a projection made that there will be 200,000 barrels a day of tar sands that will move by rail if keystone did not move ahead. guess what? only 40,000 barrels a day are moving. it is not pipeline versus rail. pipelines are cheaper. that is what the industry wants. rail we will be used for balkan crude, certain types of destinations.

so we don't want the public to be misled into it will be either or. >> you want to jump in? >> at the risk of not being particularly helpful, i want to express astonishment that it has taken this long. the president expects to make a decision in the next weeks or months. i remember before the end of his first mandate, i ran into a colleague in the congress. she said, don't you worry. this will be passed as soon as the 2012 presidential election is behind us. if it is mitt romney, he will approve keystone on his first day. if it is barack obama, he will approve it a few weeks later. scotty was not wrong at the time. the entire weight of

conventional wisdom was the same, that this was something that would be settled in the first part of 2013. we are now toward the middle of 2015, and everyone has their fingers crossed. that is an indication to the extent of which this one decision around which so much is happening but this one decision has caused the bilateral relationship to fester. >> i think it is not our finest hour. there is no question about it. i strongly believe it is and not -- it is in not only canada's best interest but also the greatest respect to danielle oil by rail continues to go up. you mentioned water. the whole the whole issue of having a pipeline is much safer.

i agree with the scientists in the state department. there was a battle between oil and the environmental industry in washington, and i believe the state department wisely assisted a certain way. i think the project should have gone ahead. i would not want to be a decision-maker when you have environmentalists and labor fighting each other or energy versus environment. although, i think that is a false trace a lot of times. and have a report that says 28 people will die if this project is not proceeded with. i've never heard anyone talk about safety and the environmental industry. i have never heard people comment, even the epa does not comment about the safety issues. when they issued their letter couple of days ago. i think if i were making the

decision and i got a report about comparison the safety and a political argument i am going with safety all the time. all the time. >> ambassador, if the president rejects this well -- will canada essentially take the administration to court? >> well, they cannot decide until the decision. the delay is not a decision. so, i am not going to speak for somebody above my pay grade, as some of my friends would say. >> would your advice be, if this gets rejected, let's take it to court? >> my advice would be to continue working to get it passed. we have the senate, 63 votes for sure, the house about 13 short. let's keep at it. again, how do you make a decision when you have a report that says this is the unsafe option?

i can tell you, if something happens and all of those people that got this report cover the secretary of state, the president, all the president's staff, if something happens, but by god i hope it doesn't happen like it happening canada, but i can tell you, the media will go back and hold people accountable for having a red flag and ignoring it. this is the biggest red flag i have seen on any report that the president has to deal with. and i wouldn't ignore if i were him. that is just a personal, unbiased the phonetic you. [laughter] >> i don't think actually, the administration realizes how big of a deal of this would be initially. the obama administration approved the alberta clipper. the same source, taking it down into the united states. so they already approve that. and then in 2011, secretary clinton wrote us after some concerns that there was a delay and said this pipeline should be

decided by the end of 2008 -- 2011 so i think the administration is moving down that course before they started hearing from the environmental community and you could see the state department was heading down its route with environmental impact statements. they came back clean. they said look this is not environmentally friendly. i think only down the road as things change in the political environment within the administration not on the public side. poll after poll has shown 60 to 70% approval for the pipeline so i think it's changed at the very top of the political administration. >> do believe that canada believes that it's not a question of if but when? it will get built. >> we think it will get built. the merits are there in the -- and the economics are there. canada is going to build pipeline and build real and we have to take advantage of this i think it will. >> congressmen do think it gets built? >> i think the longer this is delayed in a second term the less likely the president will approve it. >> what about the next president?

>> i think the next president could certainly take care of this issue but i go back to what i said before it i go back to my republican friends and say make a deal that is an option and a win-win. turning from his negative conversation into something that is a positive because there are things the president wants for his legacy zog lets make a deal. >> and daniel you would be happy with that? [laughter] >> well we sort of talk a little bit about deals here and i think it's interesting because there has been a lot of talk recently about deals around keystone but let's keep in mind here that the broader issue is climate. it's easy to reduce the narrative to say here is a pipeline and keystone is catering to the environmental community. that is a narrative that plays

well with the public, but is it about an administration is wanting to create a legacy round climate and there is a community of people not just the environmental community, there are nobel laureates and scientists and a huge number of people that come in and said this pipeline represents increasing and expanding industry in canada coming to the united states that we do have a say in who should have the same he goes about to begin our products and what type of oil do we resource and this will increase that source of oil considerably and so this is really about a broader conversation about what we can do on climate and any deal around the pipeline that is around climate, if this is canada saying we promise you that in exchange for letting us have this industry which actually causes more climate

problems we will make promises , for climate. that type of climate deal doesn't make any sense. >> this is us now getting beyond keystone slowly but let's have a conversation around a pipeline and climate change. we know the former mayor of new york michael bloomberg and you and special ambassador for climate change is suggesting look there can be a deal and , keystone were there should be explored. moving forward with keystone in exchange with climate pact between canada and the united states to do better. is that how we move forward? essentially canada does more climate change and maybe gets the pipeline and turned? >> there can't legally be a quid pro quo but i do agree with the mayor and we have proposed a similar table to deal with oil and gas regulations and including the methane flaring proposal that just came out from the bpa a couple of weeks ago,

the draft regulation. it makes sense for canada and the united states to have one table to deal with these regulations. we did it with light vehicles. we are doing it with the ships on the great lakes on both ballast and bunker oil. we are doing it with a heavy -- the heavy vehicles. we have worked together with the state department on black carbon and we think there should be one table on oil and gas. we did it with ozone depleting material years ago with ryan maloney and ronald reagan. it just makes good sense but we can't have -- we are at they -- already have higher costs in alberta on the climate initiative for the innovation fee versus california thermal so why don't we sit down with all the heavy crude for example coming in from venezuela to the united states, heavy crude from canada, heavy crude in california. we are not afraid.

we like the way we did light vehicles emission standards. we have the benefit of reduced gh ease and it's sensible to do that. >> is there something there paul? , >> it's interesting to hear this talk of a grand bargain approval of keystone in return for greater environmental. we can say it up in canada. >> it's illegal. you can't say that. >> but you can sit up in canada. [laughter] >> our u.s. audience may not be aware or as aware as we are in canada that the keystone project is hotly contested in canada. the official opposition in the democratic party is dead set against keystone and the northern gateway the western facing pipeline the one that the leader likes is energy east which would snake pipelines through to vastly expanded export ports in brunswick.

and the opposition party leader that is leading in the polls , justin trudeau supports keystone but believes the reason it's not being accepted is because canada has not done enough to fight climate change. he says if he were to become prime minister and he has got a shot at it, that he would increase carbon pricing but -- put essentially a carbon price which would reduce and that would make a american so -- would make americans so grateful that they would reduce keystone lickety-split. sometimes i'm skeptical whether that would work. >> we should ask daniel if that would work. i wanted to ask the ambassador because for those of us here and -- in washington following this for several years we keep, kept hearing canadian officials saying we are working on these oil and gas regulations. and a few months later we would go back and ask them again and they would say we are working on it and the prime minister said it would be crazy. i am not sure where this is

going in canada. maybe you can fill us in. >> the quotas also had a sentence in front of it saying i , forgot the exact wording, it makes sense to work together in this continent on some of these issues. and he has consistently said that. as part of that they are doing a work to bring to the table if we can get a table so we can have an approach like we did with light vehicles. it's not an either/or. it's not as a people are getting ready. >> the thing i don't understand though in the united states, they agreed to the same climate targets and because the united states realize so much on coal -- relies so much on coal energy and is able to shift from matt

-- oil to natural gas variable to get to their targets more cheaply than canada can. they are in fact given the presence plan on climate getting there in the projections are they will get there. canada will get halfway from what i understand and part of the reason is because of the oil sands. there aren't oil sands in the united states so what is it that we are waiting for the u.s. to do before we can do something with oilsands? >> we have gas in d.c., we have gas in pennsylvania and we have gas in ohio. we have vehicles being constructed in ontario and we have vehicles constructed in michigan. the way we handle the vehicle issue is to have one table and one set of regulations that were aligned across the border so they would be no economic advantage for not doing something, but rather it would be equal in terms of the economy and better for the environment. that is what we did with ozone depleting materials. that's the way we have proposed that we deal with it. so it would take for example and

, yes, canada has a lot more heavy crude in oilsands have -- and have already have 50-dollar-ton innovation fee. there are tougher regulations in the turner valley in rules that were brought in on methane flaring, but we can do both. we can have an equal playing field on the economic part of this, and have higher standards as we do with light vehicles to get better results. >> what you are saying is for canada to regulate emissions from oilsands you want to do that in harmony with the u.s. putting regulations on heavier types of oil in the united states? >> we have talked gas, oil and methane gas. >> are there discussions ongoing? >> we don't have a table. we had a table in light vehicles and we had a table on the whole

issue of ozone depleting material. we have had a table working on black carbon with the state department. we are willing. >> so you are saying the administration is not willing? >> it is tougher in the united states to get a table. >> try ikea. [laughter] >> we can find you a table. danielle, if you can respond. >> there are couple of things. i think we will simplify this a little bit. we have two countries. one, the u.s., the problem is coal. so we have to go after coal and this is after a number of years when the u.s. hasn't done anything and now we can say the u.s. is finally moving ahead on coal and the regulations if they are implemented will do that. the u.s. can lead under copenhagen. in canada the reason canada is

, not able to meet its target and is projected to miss its target by emissions due to the combined emissions from d.c. and canada is be -- because of the oil sands sector and that is rapidly growing. so that is why the oil and gas regulations or some other policy like a price on carbon across canada will be needed in order in order for canada to meet its carbon promise. right now it's set to break its climate promised internationally. so it really doesn't make a lot of sense for canada to point to the u.s. and say hey we are not going to move ahead on oil and gas because you are. what makes sense is for canada to put together a plan just like the u.s. has and together, the two countries can meet in copenhagen and work together to go as a pair to north america and should be going to the world stage and say together we are going to make -- make these international issues.

>> is the president's climate plan are republicans going to , let it happen? there's a lot of talk about blocking it in the senate. what is your view? should the president count on his plan moving forward? >> we are going to have a vigorous debate about that in the united states senate and i'm sure the house of representatives. we will be looking closely at the new carbon rules and one of the things they think we are going to try to approach this on -- is on technology. one of the things i would like to point out about the oilsands is the united states department of energy is investing in oilsands. they recently announced a $500,000 loan to shell to work on a quest project to help reduce carbon dioxide in the air. they are going to take that carbon dioxide, sequester it. it will be up to a million tons per year so the united states is partnering with canada on carbon dioxide and that is what we need to continue to do on the

technology side. that is what we will bring to the debate on the president's climate agenda. let's look at the technology and not necessarily the regulations. >> it's going to be an interesting debate here and what i do with my friends in the coal states is invite them down to saskatchewan for the carbon capture sequestration. there's a lot of interest here. on coal, subject to what happens with epa regulations, the epa's regulations will take american electrical generation from coal from 38% to 30% by 2030. if those regulations passed. if they don't it will still bump around based on the market. when gas went from $11 down to under three dollars, there was a lot of substitution from gas into the electrical grid in the united states. it was a market-driven decision,

you are right. all of you are right about how much coal is in the united -- coal there is in the united states. if for example last winter is factored into the emissions and if we have another increase on the gas price without regulations will have no change -- we will have no change on coal and a fairly difficult time in meeting targets in the united states although they have done better than canada so far since we signed the copenhagen agreement together in 1999 and 2000 or 2010 rather. i think that we do need a common table on oil and gas regulations because in the morning we compete with each other. d.c. gas could compete with gas in california and in the afternoon we want to work together on emissions. having one table like we do with light vehicle and emission -- vehicle admission standards -- vehicle emission standards is

the way i think mayor bloomberg proposed it and certainly canada is willing to do it. >> let's drill down on that a bit. if we could press you just a little, so what is the stumbling block? >> like i said, we haven't got a table. i got my answer at ikea and we might have to bring paul down and put an ikea table up. >> is this why we need the president or prime minister to get along better? >> well, we proposed it to him and he has the right to say yes or no and it's tougher in the united states because there are a lot of states that don't want the president to deal with gas regulations and there's a lot of people should i say in the administration who are nervous getting in the middle of this fracking debate in united states with regulation. if you look at what's going on in colorado you have a democratic geologist coming up with a proposal on getting an agreement on the development of gas in colorado and he has got environmentalists opposed to it

on one side and the industry saying it's too far on the other side. it's like the bear and the arcade. he gets shot from both directions. >> so we have the headline right, canada is willing to move forward on taking greater steps to do with climate change but so far the united states doesn't want to talk. >> here in washington, they did the light vehicle admission -- emission standards and they came here and said alberta wants to work with canada and work with the united states to up our game on oil and gas regulations. he was right here in washington saying that. >> if i may, i just want to put the question but i'm pretty sure i know the answer but i just want to see. we are going to miss our greenhouse emissions targets by half by 2020. let's say we get our act together through a mix of better regulations in consultation with the americans and national

carbon price and canada hits its targets in 2020. will keystone then be ok? >> well, i think it really comes down to understanding the broader issues around the industry itself. we have an existing industry of 2 million barrels a day. that industry is fair. it is operating. we haven't seen groups like nrdc going up and shoving those -- shutting those operations down. a real concern we have is with expansions of the proposal is to tripling quintuple production. i don't really see how canada can do all of that and make climate targets. if anything we need to be ratcheting down. we have to keep two-thirds of 's feel's and the ground. so is there -- so, there is the concern that canada wants or industry or alberta wants to pursue this massive expansion and that's not in keeping with climate change.

keystone enables that expansions of their concerns about that expansion. if anything we would encourage canada to consider capping production, looking at the existing production addressing , some of the issues raised by aboriginal communities looking at better technology to clean up but proposals and pipelines that , -- proposals like pipelines that would enable that growth, it doesn't seem to make sense if you are going to be combating climate change. >> just to follow are there any circumstances under which you would support the approval of the keystone xl pipeline? >> not likely. >> so, no. >> this is the advice i have given. and i think it was a proposal in alberta getting some traction , with some people in the environment a movement all of a sudden it went from x dollars per ton to $100 a ton so all of a sudden, they might agree to

our proposal and every environmental organization i know in washington won't agree to it under any circumstances. >> but that is why it doesn't seem to me. there's a huge conflict here. they say we promised we would -- we would like to expand or -- our oil sands industry and in turn protect the climate. it doesn't make sense. it's incompatible. the deal that needs to be made is a deal on climate and clean energy. that is where the opportunities are. >> let's bring in the congressman. >> as we have this debate i think you put the issue on the table and that is this is really about the argument of how quickly can we get to all renewable fuels energy environment? we are now beyond keystone.

and by the way i would accept the deal that was climate based as well as an integration deal. i just want you to know that. [laughter] >> while you are jumping in and i don't want to break you from your thought. >> you have done it. [laughter] >> what is your view of canada's record on climate? >> i see it as clearly complicated. we do have these agreements that we have entered into. it doesn't look like canada will get there. >> is canada lagging? >> i think they are struggling with it the same way we are is -- as we go through the debate about coal, fracking relative to gas and oil. unfortunately we are at a place where i believe, for the surgery will -- for the foreseeable future we need fossil fuels. , the question is that gas, is it oil, is that cool and in my view you can't say no to all and

expect to have an economy. so you need to figure out what is the left for -- the lesser evils and move in that direction. the fact of the matter is as the united states increases its production of oil and gas that may be the biggest threat to keystone in reality because there may be a few will no need. now i think that's a little bit of a pipe dream because i don't think that happens for a minimum of 20 years, but as this occurs, we have had the greatest upsurge in oil and natural gas production in the history of the country. so to be critical of him when he is in my view balancing issues related to coal-fired plants and substituting natural gas seems totally inconsistent and illogical. i think that this is a balancing act.

it is one that requires us to take these things into account and we have the environment clearly is an issue. the economy is an issue and you somehow have to come to a balance. it's a mosaic and it's a shifting mosaic. >> can i get a sense, name -- how many members of the audience feel they want to ask a question when the time comes in the next 15 minutes or so? five or six people. fair enough. danielle did you want to jump , back in on that? >> i mean on the idea of where we are headed there is no doubt that we have a certain amount of fossil fuel reserves. the question is what is a mosaic -- what does that mosaic look like and how are we going to prioritize that? i think we have a situation that the bush demonstration where we -- administration where we were making more deeper investment investments and were not paying

enough attention to renewables and energy efficiency and the obama administration we have seen this investment in this focus. canada, there is a wonderful clean energy technology industry that is growing and moving forward, but a lot of that is happening at the provincial level right now and there is not a federal signal that has been sent either on a climate price or a national energy strategy that the government is willing to invest in. so that is what we want to see happen. we are pushing the obama administration every single day and we think that's the way to go and believe me we have spent a lot of time advocating that administration and canada doing the same thing. i think that will do a lot for the relationship. >> i wanted to ask paul a question. two years ago we had a panel like this and talked about keystone and one of the issues we kept hearing was well at this -- well, if this pipeline is

rejected this oil is going to go to china because we are building a pipeline to the west coast. can you update us on how that's going? >> that is hard. [laughter] the prime minister gave an extraordinary interview at the end of 2011 to one of the national television stations where he said i hear from people in washington that we can make this keystone project work and he said i told them that's fine but we are going in another , direction now and the direction was westward towards china. he made the biggest official visit of his time as prime minister to beijing and guangzhou and they brought back panda bears and it was all very lovely but then they discovered a couple of things. first of all when you buy things in china that people expect to buy things in canada and what they wanted to buy with canada -- wanted to buy was canada.

and that was unpopular. including his own conservative base in canada which is leery about what is still a communist government. so the prime minister slept on the investment restrictions. he was very slow to implement a bilateral investment treaty and his great ambition to increase exports to asia has not gone away. in fact, exports to third countries of all sorts have been inching up. but china as an alternative to the united states does not work. >> just on oil he mentioned president bush. i think we had 600,000 barrels a day in his eight years coming from canada to the united states. i think we are at a million barrels a day in six years with president obama, so the oil is getting to market. on clean energy we are all for that idea, more clean energy. we propose faster more decisive

decision-making on transmission lines with clean energy in them and sometimes we get certain that support hydro being defined as renewable and sometimes some states say if it's not renewable but if it's bigger it's not , renewable. what is your position on renewable energy like most international organizations? >> hydrois renewable energy is my definition. that's the conversation we need to spend more time on. in the end right now there is quite a bit of hydro coming down from canada to the u.s. i know there is an interest in sending more. hydro is a little more complicated issue than wind and solar only because there are concerns with potentially new big dams but at their existing dams and capacity can be wrapped up so they are opportunities there.

there's issue with transmission were transmission goes but those are issues we can work through. that' go. and to look at where the infrastructure opportunities and where the incentives? it will likely be canada exporting clean energy economy to the u.s.. mostly, it will be canada to the u.s.. those are the conversations we have to work through. they're not easy because it's not automatic necessarily for some of these and obviously some states have said what is renewable and what's not? under the clean power plan there is an opportunity there. i want us to talk about having that conversation which is really about expanding that clean energy portfolio. we will have difficult conversations over fossil fuels but they don't have to be wrapped up together. >> nrdc considers hydropower renewable. >> it's generally considered. >> i know that sometimes we have environmental groups here saying hydro is not renewable and only wind and solar is renewable. >> we define it as really about

-- >> how little you -- praise the lord. >> this is a good place to pivot. the last 20 minutes we have in the debate, we will go to questions. so, we all accept there are irritants and we may not all accept there are more irritants and it's in the past although i would argue there's a consensus around that and times are tough between the two countries is not the two leaders. so what is being lost because of that? some focus has been on keystone. what has been punted to the side of the relationship because of that? i know you have been thinking about that. why don't we start with you. what opportunities we might be losing in a relationship to make perhaps a more powerful north america given the sideline but

-- given that we are sideline fired. >> one is you can probably go to any business group in canada. the canadian council of ceos has a paper that is sick. the proposals they would like to see the two governments work on. they have prepared ahead of the summit that was planned for canada earlier in the year and that never happened so they are sitting on that and now we will have an election sending canada and there will be an election here. during an election things kind of freeze so i think we are going into an even more frozen moment. in terms of other opportunities we are not talking about one danger that i see here is this has become such a partisan issue. notwithstanding some democrats but for the most part it has become a big partisan political issue. i don't know that far beyond the harbor-obama relationship i

don't know it's healthy for canada to be a partisan issue. sure you get strong allies on , the hill. you get republicans behind your cause but the harder they advocate and push, the harder the other side pushes back and you are suddenly stuck between these two sides in the president gets pushed into a corner and the pressure on him is enormous at that point. one thing we are losing is being above the fray. we are now in the political fray and how do we get out of there? >> it's unfortunate how this played out and it has polarized and politicized. unfortunately, the conversations we have been having in the united states senate has been about this foreign corporation of this foreign action or what are we doing for this foreign country? we are unfortunately looking at the border. and putting ourselves within that. we have to look more broadly on this. united states and canada have

a really unique opportunity to be a geopolitical player in the world and if we combine our resources and work together it will change the dynamics we are looking at in the world. or in the middle east or other areas of the world that we don't necessarily want to be. there's an opportunity for us to change the dialogue talking about what can north america due -- do as a powerhouse around the world? that has been one thing that has been unfortunate about this. we look at canada is something -- as something that are trying to do for themselves and not what we can do together and how it will benefit the united states. look at the world how it could be viewed through the eyes of the united states and canada working together. we could be north american energy secure soon and that would change the world dynamics much, much more than just energy. >> anybody who has a question , this would be the time to make your way to the microphones and we will get you in a couple of

seconds but go ahead congressman. >> i think when you talk about understanding what we have the nafta country -- countries represent 20% of the world's gdp. that is a significant and important fact. we have lost the opportunity to push forward or push ahead beyond the border. it has lost some of its steam. the regulatory cooperation council may be more important than the beyond the border program because that would reduce the costs to companies on both sides of the border. get if you will standards aligned. those are things that we have lost focus on because we have become focused on this issue and it has taken attention away. it has taken dollars away and it has become a political talking point. each side uses it in the best caucus politics to drive home their point of view but it is

not constructive and it is seriously taking away from our ability to drive this north american juggernaut that we have. when you think about what's going on in ukraine the ebola crisis, the middle east we need , to focus on how we strengthen the nafta countries so that we can be as you are suggesting economically self-sufficient and i'm not suggesting we not have trade agreements with other countries but it's a very important point. your question was what are we missing? we are missing the opportunity to improve our ability to train amongst ourselves. >> another interesting one when we get to it, but, you know, we deal with republicans and democrats who support us on various proposals and sometimes the majority are republicans and sometimes the majority of who we are dealing with for example on the bridge was the democratic administration.

so we have to make that up with -- mix it up with everybody in the public interest of canada and it changes. but the longer i hear the conversation, and tpp -- ntpp and water policy and clean energy policy and some of the things we have to deal with in the future are very important but when the prime minister and president get together at the -- but they spent most of their time about how to keep this world safer and how to we continue to work effectively together. and how to we are quite invading our efforts with isil with the pentagon, the state department and the white house back to our government.

on the border, you know, the credibility we have with the law enforcement agencies not only working together but training staff together i think five years from now will be described in positive terms. we went from an agenda after 9/11 to a plan. it's slow and it won't make the news and it won't be the biggest irritant and it won't sell magazines and it won't be tweeted but it's going to be slow and it is deliberate. and on regulatory reform even little things like an agricultural mishap or a situation with the help of some animal on either side of the border. we had a policy in place that would close down the border on both sides, and that we contain it locally. these are real substantial differences. i happen to believe five years from now the biggest opportunity they're going to have between our countries and the biggest challenge we are going to have

is water. we have 20% of the freshwater in the great lakes alone. we have the three oceans that we share and waterfront disputes and opportunities every day going from east to west. i think that's going to be interesting. when we are on the cpac panel in five years we are going to be talking about water. >> are we going to be talking about keystone? >> we could be talking about keystone. [laughter] but it won't have water in it i guarantee. >> i guess it's obvious reasons the two sides don't bring a sense of purpose to economic and trade issues. as the due to security issues. maybe that's an obvious reason why. people's safety may be trumps it. >> we saw the horrible tragedy in canada in october and in quebec just before that but that is what they get up every morning talking about. after the fort hood murders that took place, we have talked about

domestic terrorist threats in our countries at every meeting we have had. that consumes most of our time. media time is mostly on the pipeline, and i quite enjoy it. it's not as if that is the only issue we are dealing with. >> danielle, i want to give you an opportunity as too wrapping up this part of it. what's being lost in terms of the big picture and a wider vision for the future for our two countries? not excluding mexico here, but in terms of the focus on some of irritant -- the irritants we have had in the past three years? >> obviously covering a little bit of new ground. if we are going to look at the relationship between obama and harper, obama is focused on climate. climate is going to be one of the key issues the president wants to carry on and is not -- it is not going to be just

keystone. there are a whole lot of things the obama administration is pursuing, and together that , package is going to put us back in place where we should be as one of the world powers who should be a leader on climate energy. we have to be there and we want canada to be there with us. if we are looking at where the relationship should go look at where the president is and hopefully the featured -- future administration will be and look for that common ground. i think there's common ground on clean energy. in 2008 prime minister harper and the president signed this clean energy dialogue. i would like to say the clean energy dialogue focused on carbon capture and sequestration has done some things. the opportunity was greater than the current dialogue is pursuing. that is going to be about rolling up our sleeves and looking at it more intensively and delegating that two groups -- to groups of people below those two leaders that they don't have to worry about it being about them but the epa and canada working together for example.

that has to be where we had in -- head in the future and before we end here want to make sure i -- i want to make sure i acknowledge the fact that there is really important clean energy work going on in canada. there has been concerns for the federal government that truly -- government but truly ontario quebec and d.c. are some of the best even compared with a lot of u.s. states and that is where a lot of innovations happen. not exclusively those provinces but certainly lot going on there. and because of that i think it has gotten this conversation going in canada how important is the federal government, the federal government steps up and we have that relationship across canada and with the u.s.. >> you mentioned the provinces. >> rob merryfield and i

represent alberta. we just had our premiere here a couple of weeks ago and the ambassador made reference to it. he wants to make the dialogue part of an keystone. if you're in the energy business you are in the energy business. in alberta for those of you who don't know, we are recognized by the world bank as first in class in flaring production of methane gas production. first in class as far as carbon capture storage. we put about $300 per man woman, and child into storage. no jurisdiction in the world like that. the only place in north america that has a price on carbon that reduces greenhouse gas emissions. the oil sands of alberta announced this fall a reduction of fresh water by 50% by 2020. i don't see any of that coming from places like venezuela that brings in oil at a higher emission than alberta or canada. i don't see any of that kind of

restrictions and environmental stewardship from any of the middle east or africa and copies -- countries -- african countries. so, here we are america's , largest friend and ally feeling like we should be their enemy because your enemy gets treated much worse or much better than your allied. it doesn't make sense. this is a ridiculous position because there are 80 plus i plans going across the border at the 49th parallel. the keystone pipeline is just one. we are integrated as a continent, and we should be. so i pulled one thread out of that and make it into a lightning rod when we should be working on being first in class in independent as it an entire north american economy that would be the envy of the world and could then actually export some of our green technology and best in class to the world to our allies instead of enemies to

echo -- enemies? >> joint different that than a question? [laughter] >> i would like different question and get comments from the panel on whether they see it the same way. >> some of them are going to come and some of them aren't. [laughter] >> well, i would like to ask danielle then, why venezuela -- >> let's start there. >> so, the argument has been made that the oil from keystone will replace venezuelan oil. and we reject that. and we don't agree with that argument. right now, we know that israel and oil is already on a decline so it is not a decline. but getting to the broader issue is what is alberta's environmental record? are used to live in alberta for five years. i know those policies up there. right now, alberta does not have a good record on environmental stewardship.

the have been a number of plants that are not being implemented. the toxic funds have grown to the size of washington dc. so there are a lot of legacy issues, in addition to the climate issues. as a first nation, we are externally concerned about cancer in the communities. so all of these issues are issues we are raising. where is the oil coming from? is the massive expansion of that oil source, in keeping with a clean energy economy and environmental stewardship? and the record in alberta, the answer is no. >> i would like to say, from our side we trust canada more than we trust venezuela nigeria. if somebody is going to do it right, canada is going to do it right. and there is a transparency issue. canada is transparent. if you want to know what is going on in canada, canada government represents well.

we know what is going on in canada. let's do business there. let's do business with somebody who knows what is going on and how they're are doing this and what the plan is for the future. we are not holding power like this with venezuela. so, this is where we need to have that table. this is the table -- we keep talking about tables. this is the table. this is the real table. >> and i saw a hand up earlier for questions. go ahead. three minutes left. >> $350,000 a barrel -- $350,000 bills a day from venezuela. i heard a few years ago that it was all going to disappear. the state department put in its report it will displace venezuelan oil. it will. if you look at the oil from the balkans, and from the oil stance -- sands, it bumps around.

it has for the last four years. >> well, the epa doesn't agree with that. >> this is extra stats in the u.s. department of energy. produced last week. >> we can agree to disagree. >> those are not disagreements those are facts. >> we would be on keystone. >> just to wrap up your, we have a couple minutes left. but we sort of skirted over a couple of other irritants. we don't have time to delve into it integrate detail, given the fact that a whole lot income of i guess we're thinking those are things we can deal with? maybe we should have got another half hour? >> when you talk about country of origin, we have lost a couple of times in various -- we are on our third appeal. it seems to me that the solution to that is to simply indicate on the packaging that we have beef

made or coming from canada and the united states. salsa problem, resolves the cool issue, if you will, but does give the consumer knowledge about where the product is coming from. that is a big piece, i think, of what our responsibilities are in the united states. you know, when you look around at the issues we have been talking about, we are looking for tables. i agree with the ambassador. >> the next and will have a table. [laughter] >> at the top of the pyramid is the security issue. and it is paramount right now. i think that is a fair discretion for the prime minister and the president to be having. we have lots of other groups who are out there. you mentioned the council of ceos in canada. we have the canadian-american business council. we have other groups that could be handling these issues if, in fact, some of it was pushed out. i think many of us believe that

that is where these proposals should come from because they would get the proper amount of attention. >> you want to quit -- country of origin labeling. we continue to fight those from the canadian tied. >> -- it would be raised in minnesota and processed in iowa so i think people want to know where their food comes from. it has to be a way to deal with that reality, and not -- we won three cases, we are going to win a fourth to we would rather renegotiate than retaliate. [laughter] >> it is healthy and it will continue to be healthy between the united states and canada. [laughter] >> well, we have come to the end of our time. i want to thank all of our panelists for being here. it has been an enlightening conversation again. it has been good to have you and the audience with us.

continue to at least continue the dialogue. as long as everybody is talking maybe not the two guys at the top, but the rest of us keep talking. as long as the rest of us keep talking about the issue, there is always a way to work with her. thank you for being here. thank you to all of you in the audience. and we'll see you next time. thank you. [applause] ♪ >> and as expected, the senate failed yesterday to override the president's veto of the pipeline. since it failed in the senate, the house will not have a vote on the veto.

well, as you can see, the bad weather continues. in washington. it is only getting worse. as predicted, four to eight inches of snow predicted for the region. schools have been closed, kids in washington, though, are trying to make the best of the snow. they are planning a sled-in today to protest a sledding ban on the capitol grounds. despite protests, has not been waived for this weekend. a blog reads, but if you are up for a little civil disobedience, a sled in his plan for 1:00. come armed with sleds. #sledfreeordie. head of d.c.'s snowstorm one congresswoman was asking the capitol police to lift the sledding ban. they would not budge. astronaut scott kelly and a

rustin -- russian cosmonaut leave later this month for a one-year mission. this is a nasa tweet showing them prepping for the launch on a marched when he seventh. they're going together data on physical and mental changes asked that space in long-term safe -- spaceflight. buzz aldrin will testify before the senate. topics include manned missions to mars, the moon, and nearby asteroids. he spoke on the need to find practical ways to fund space missions. here's is a look at that portion of the hearing. >> what you're have to come up and say to you if you combine a mission, it is a whole lot better. and you can do it where an asteroid is, like the national research council said we should do. but maybe that is not essential. i happen to think it is. you can fly or ryan with a long-duration support system. that is what we are going to do when we go to l1 or l2. we are going to take in or ryan -- an orion up there, and it

will allow us to stay up there much longer. will be rotating crews up and down. commercials will go to the vicinity of the moon. we are going to do these things, but we don't have to put all the money in building those habitats because the foreigners are going to want them. and we are going to want them there, and we are going to want them at mars. the foreigners have to land, ok? we are going to develop a very sophisticated landing system, and we're going to be letting so many people at mars, we can take them along on the first landing ok? take us along as visitors on your landings. let's not go broke by doing things, but let's astutely learn to do things there that do make sense. >> the hearing will also include a panel of its -- executives

from private spaceflight companies. that hearing is tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. and tomorrow's supreme court -- tomorrow, supreme court justices will be meeting to go over health care subsidies. they heard oral arguments yesterday's on whether enteral governments or states should subsidize. the planter released the audio of the oral argument tomorrow. you can listen to it tomorrow here at 8:00 eastern on c-span. the foreign affairs committee held a hearing this week on the ukraine-russia conflict. members include the secretary of state for european affairs. this is just over two hours.

>> ambassador nulan, -- ambassador nulan welcome. our topic today is ukraine under siege. and ukraine is under siege by russia at this moment. unfortunately, the response to russia's aggression by the administration has been quite tepid. a year ago, russia invaded and seized crimea. and some thought that vladimir putin would stop there. not so. last april we led a delegation to ukraine. we travel to the russian speaking east. i think we had eight members on the delegation. we went into town on the border. and i have to share with the members here that the many ukrainians that -- and these are russians begin ukrainians --

wanted to be ukrainians. they did not want to be separatists. we spoke to the women's groups there, to the boilers groups, civil society, the jewish group various ethnic minorities, the governor, the mayor. mr. engle spoke at the largest jewish community center in eastern europe. the largest synagogue. and i can just share with the members here what allen will attest to. the attitude was -- one of the thoughts shared with us was that it seems russia has recruited every skinhead in the russian speaking world, and are trying to bring them into the east. they said, we are holding them here until hostilities are over. because we can spot them. but they are coming in from russia in order to try to

overthrow our government. so, we have seen the situation where moscow moved from annexing crimea to aggressively supporting militant separatists in eastern ukraine, and indeed bringing russian troops into the country. and russia may now try to secure a land bridge to crimea. that is the great concern here. that was the worry we heard, that they would further expand this conflict. that they might try to seize the tuesday to -- the strategic port. now, when we talk to the u.n. agencies on the ground, they count over 6000 civilians who have been killed in this conflict. there are one point 7 million -- 1.7 million ukrainians have now been made refugees.

today, the actions taken by the u.s. and are eu allies, including economic sanctions and aid and diplomatic isolation have not checked putin. indeed, over the pastor, he has become bolder. even menacing nato countries, as he seeks to divide the alliance. the obama administration and a european allies have put hope in diplomatic and cease-fire arrangements, but it is not working. last week, i met with the first deputy speaker of ukrainian parliament, who said that his country urgently needs antitank weapons, such as the javelin. he needs radar to pinpoint enemy fire, and order to suppress that artillery. and he needs communication equipment to overcome russian jamming. ukrainian forces cannot match the advanced equipment that russia is pouring into eastern ukraine. and, by the way, when you see

tanks come into eastern ukraine those are not ukrainians in those tanks. those are russians. there is no shortage of the will to fight, only a shortage of defensive weapons. but at the committee's hearing last week, secretary kerry president obama has still not made a decision on whether to send defensive lethal military aid of two. six months after president poroshenko told a joint session of congress, in his words "one cannot win the war with blankets ," it was not surprising but still discouraging to see him have to shop for defensive weapons, and unfortunately, it has been very, very difficult and i was discouraged to read in this week's "wall street

journal," that the agreement keeps ukraine in the dark. satellite images are delayed and is obscured, making them less useful. and they are approaching countries like canada to share information. this is not u.s. leadership. moscow is also undermining ukraine's economy. today, russia is using it natural gas and other energy sources for political use and to generate economic chaos in the country. ukraine is facing an economic precipice. it desperately needs help. russia is doing it by bouncing out conspiracy theories and propaganda anyone who has monitored what has been up on the air is well aware that this propaganda is offensive, is and at sowing confusion and undermining opposition to its aggression in ukraine and elsewhere but we are barely in

the game of countering this with the facts. as i told the secretary last week, i would like to see more administrations are for the effort mr. angle and i have taken to perform our international broadcasting. the broadcasting board of governors is broken. if we cannot begin to change minds, then the struggle over ukraine today will become a generational struggle for the future of eastern europe. ukraine's fate has security implications for well beyond its borders. we passed this bill into the senate last year. we were not able to bring it up and get it out of the senate. we did not have the administration's support for it but we have thatvetted this and have a great deal of support in this institution for getting back up on the air with radio-free europe, radio-liberty type broadcasting that we did to great effect with the message that will get the truth

effectively into eastern europe and into russia. it is time for strong and unwavering support of ukraine. it is time for this right now and many of these midi members on this committee are concerned u.s. policy toward ukraine may soon become too little, too late, and i now turn to the ranking member for any opening remarks that mr. engle of new york might wish to make. . nuland, welcome back. let me say i had the pleasure of working with you and i am a fan of your hard work. thank you for all you do. in ukraine, the events of the

past year and the ongoing russian aggression threatens the security and stability of the entire region and undermines decades of american commitment to and investment in a europe that is whole, free, and at peace. this is a threat to the whole international order. today we face great questions. what can and should be done, and who should contribute to solving this problem? the united states is providing substantial assistance to the government of ukraine, including billions of dollars in loan guarantees and nonlethal military aid. we have also imposed significant sanctions on russia. we sanctioned russia's aggression in ukraine and targeted key sectors of the russian economy. and we have seen results. russia's economy has been taking on water, and this has only been magnified by the recent and oil prices. these policies are good but only up to a point. they do not go far enough, in my

opinion. russia's military gains in ukraine have slowed, but putin continues to rabelais and along the line of contact in violation of the minsk peace prior agreement, which mandates that russian-supported rebels pull back their forces. the government in keyiev is committed to reform, but leaders their struggle every day to preserve ukrainian sovereignty and while our financial assistance has capped ukraine's economy afloat, they still confront a bleak economic outlook in the risk of a financial meltdown loop large. -- loom large. when ukraine give up their arsenal, the u.s. made a commitment to help protect integrity. that was made by china, russia, other countries as well. now our commitment is being tested. let me also say that i think nato made a grave mistake in

2008 when it refused to admit ukraine and georgia into nato. i know that germany and france resisted, the united states tried to push it it did not work, and i think we are paying the price today. i do not think putin would ban -- what have been as aggressive if ukraine was part of nato. last month, i met with president poroshenko. i met with him in europe, his request was simple. provide ukraine with key weapons and military technology to defend itself. specifically, ukraine needs light, antitank missiles to protect is up against missiles attacking heavy russian-supplied armor, not to evict thousands of russian troops inside ukrainian borders. ukraine needed countered battery radar to pinpoint attacking you artillery and tanks, not to win a war against russia's military, and ukrainian better medication technology to deal with russian

efforts to jam their signals not to advance on moscow. i was laughing when -- at that conference in munich, that is secretary, you and i both attended, to hear the russian foreign minister denying that russian troops were in ukraine, saying it was just ukrainian rebels. lies, lies and more lies. i've spoken on the house floor calling on our government to supply defensive weapons to ukraine. mr. chairman, and i know you agree with me, ukraine is not going to win a war against russia, but it can impose a greater cost on vladimir putin's aggression and slow russia's advances, and it has a chance to remain on its feet when all is said and done, if it can impose a greater cost on putin's aggressive it and slow russia's advances.

it has resisted providing such resistance -- such assistance. there are risks in allowing putin to continue the aggression in ukraine and to threats other people, neighbors on russia's for literary. as we reach the frontiers of nato allies, the dangers to europe increased tremendously. the dangers to a nato alliance increased immensely. congress passed the ukraine freedom support act. this legislation authorized the provision of defensive aid. i was proud to lead house efforts to pass this legislation and happy president obama signed it, but i have been disappointed that the administration has not used any of the tools provided in this law. it is time to ask the hard westerns. are we willing to stand up to vladimir putin aggression before he kills more people, does more

economic damage threatens our nato allies, or are the risks it just so great that we will simply cut our losses? as time passes, our options growth fewer and less effective. that is why i am announcing today my plan to introduce new legislation that will offer ukraine greater assistance on a variety of fronts. it will dial-up the pressure vladimir putin for his reckless, destructive, and destabilizing policies, and it will send a clear message that the united states stands with the people of ukraine against russian aggression. i look forward to working with chairman royce and other colleagues as you move ahead with this effort. finally, let me just add that our european allies need to confront these same questions of strategy and political will. in my view, wealthy country such as germany, france, and others have a lot more skin in the game economically and strategically. they should be doing more to

assist ukraine on the economic front as they seem even less willing than we are to provide even military assistance. they should double down, dig deep, and ensure ukraine does not enter a financial meltdown, this will be a win-win, keeping ukraine solvent and prevents a greater for -- a greater catastrophe on the eu's borders. the government in ukraine is watching, the whole world is watching. we cannot sit by and allow putin to continue his aggression. again, ambassador nuland, thank you for appearing here today, and i look forward to your testimony. >> this morning, we are pleased to be joined by ambassador newland, and before joining her session at the department of state, ambassador nula served as the department of state's spokesperson. she also say that -- served as

the permanent representative to the nato from 2005 two 2008, and she focused heavily on nato russia issues during that period of time. without objection, the witness' full prepared statement will be part of the record for the members will have five calendar days to submit any statements to the committee and any material to the record, which we will ask the investors to respond to in writing. we would ask, ambassador, if you will please summarize your remarks, and then we will go to questions. ambassador nuland: thank you very much, chairman royce, ranking member engle members of this committee for having me back today to speak about the situation in ukraine and for your personal investment in that country's's future. let me also take this opportunity to just say that we share this committee's sadness and outrage over the murder of freedom fighter and russian patriot and friend to many of us

boris nemstsov. the outpouring of concern from congress again demonstrates bipartisan u.s. respect for those in russia and across the region who are working for reform, clean government justice, and dignity. today, ukraine is central to our 25-year efforts for a europe at peace. i would like to focus on three areas in particular today. first on the hard work that ukraine is doing with the u.s. and international soup or to build a more democratic am independent, and european country. second, i will address the opportunity that russia has two implement the february and september make meth agreements, as well as the further cost our allies will have to impose its minsk is further violated. finally, i will touch briefly on three other new threats to european security that we are working on -- energy vulnerability, corruption, and

propaganda, as noted by the chairman, that the ukraine conflict also brings to high relief and all we are doing on that. first, a quick reminder -- 14 months ago the kiev, maidan and towns across ukraine erupted in peaceful protest by ordinary ukrainians who were fed up with the sleazy, corrupt regime that was bent on cheating its people of their democratic choice for more european future. they braved temperatures, brutal beatings, and sniper bullets. ultimately, the leader of that rotten regime had the country, and that he was voted out by the are limits including most members of his own party. in ukraine began to forge a new nation on its own terms. i want to take a small opportunity here to highlight the very hard work that your counterparts in the new ukrainian rodda have undertaken just since they were seated in november.

it has been a beehive of activity, tackling laws to battle corruption, to reduce government inefficiency, to clean up the energy sector to establish a new police service, to improve the climate for business, it has also been moving forward on political decentralization to give the ukrainian regions more authority in advance of local elections. these reforms have been politically difficult, but they will also stabilize the economy, and we are starting to see the region stabilize even today, and they will support the swift disbursement of imf and international donor support. i can ask you to imagine what it would have been like if you had been asked to pass that must legislation that quickly and that painfully. as ukraine has to do, the united states and our european allies have stood with her. this past year, the united eights provided almost $355 million in foreign assistance to strengthen energy assistance, to

aid ukraine's poorest citizens to help fight you corruption $118 million in security support alone, and to support political reforms, elections, and clean government. there is more on the way. as secretary kerry testified last week, the president of the budget includes an fy16 request of $513.5 million, almost six times more than our fy14 request, to build on these efforts. we are working with europe ukrainians, and imf to strengthen the country's economy and support the government's reform hand to implement this legislation, including a new $1 billion u.s. loan guarantees and up to another $1 billion later in 2015 if you and we agree that the conditions warrant, and if ukraine is able to meet its reform targets. this brings me to my second point.

even as ukraine has begun building a peaceful, democratic, independent nation across 94% of its territories crimea and eastern ukraine have suffered a reign of terror. today, crimea remains under illegal annexation and human rights abuses are the norm not the exception fofor crimean population, especially for those who cannot give up their passports and began lesbian. hundreds of heavy weapons and troops at fort across the border, a commercial airliner was shot down the summer, donetsk airport was alliterative, ukrainian pilot languishes in a moscow jail on day 82 of her hunger strike, and the city of dobaltseve fell to

separatists six days after the february 12 minsk agreement was signed. overall, as usa, mr. chairman, 1.7 million ukraine's have been forced out of their homes and over 6000 have lost their lives. we have worked in lockstep to impose deep sanctions on russia and its separatists cronies as the cost for these actions, no sanctions are deeply on the russian economy. our unity with europe with regard to ukraine remains the cornerstone of our policy toward this crisis and the fundamental element of our strength. standing up to russian aggression. it is in that spirit that we salute the efforts of german chancellor merkel and french president hollande in minsk on ferrari 12 to try again

with president poroshenko and president putin to in the fighting in ukraine's east. the minsk packaging agreement september 5 come us of them are 19, and if every 12 implementing agreement offer the promise of keys, disarmament, political normalization in eastern ukraine, and along with them the return of ukraine's state sovereignty and border control in the east. for some in ukraine, conditions have already begun to approve -- improved since february 12. in parts of the east, the guns have been silenced and the osce has begun to gain access, but the picture is mixed. just today, we have osce reports of new heavy shelling from separatist positions around the donetsk airport and in towns outside marioupul, and we have reports of a new 17 russian

convoy going over the border from russia into ukraine with no opportunity for ukraine for the icrc to inspect that convoy and we all know what they have contained in the past. in the coming days, here is what we and our international earners have to see. we need to seek a complete cease-fire all along the cease-fire line and eastern ukraine for stop we have got to see full unfettered access to the whole zone for osce monitors, and we have to see a full pullback of mantras as to belated in the agreement. if implemented, these steps will bring peace to eastern ukraine for the first time in almost a year. it will also allow for the implementation of the following steps of minsk, mainly access to ukraine for its citizens in the east to begin bro work with their population and eventually so we can either international border closed. as we have long said, the united

states will start to roll back sanctions on russia when the minsk agreement are fully implemented and so are our european partners. as the president has also said we will judge russia by its actions, not its words, and we have already begun this week intensive consultations with our european partners on further sanctions pressure should russia continue fueling the fire in the east of ukraine or in other parts of the country failed to implement minsk, or grab morland, as we saw in d ebaltseve. only one of the threats to european security that we are working on -- there are others including energy dependence from a single, unreliable source, the cancer of corruption, and the kremlin's pervasive propaganda campaign where truth is no obstacle. we are working across all of

those fronts to harden european resilience to these new threats. just briefly and there is more in my longer statement on energy security, project i object, we are working with the eu and key countries to change your opposing energy -- to change europe's energy landscape. on corruption, we are working with governments, civil society, and the business community particularly across central and eastern europe and the balkans to close the space for dirty money to go in and undercut democratic constitutions and pervert the business environment. and on russia's propaganda, we are working with the board of governors to ramp up efforts countered with troops. we are requesting $20 million in foreign assistance in public diplomacy funds for state department funds to counter russian propaganda. mr. chairman mr. ranking member members of the committee, america's investment in ukraine is about far more than protecting the choice of a single democratic european country.

it is about protecting the rules -based system across europe and globally. and it is about saying "no" to borders changed by force, too big countries intimidating small, and demanding influence. it is also, as you said mr. chairman and mr. ranking member, about protecting the promise of a europe whole, free, and at peace. i thank each of you, and i thank this committee as a whole for its bipartisan support and commitment to these policies. thank you very much, and i appreciate this. chair royce: i do have concerns that intelligence sharing is really a name only when it comes to ukraine, and i know we cannot get into great details on this but you believe our intelligence sharing with ukrainians is robust enough for them to protect themselves? because we get the information from them about the struggle

they are having. we know the canadians are trying to assist them in this but you know, at the end of the day, they have got to prevail against these russian-backed rebel forces and russian forces that are on their territory now with tanks. ambassador nuland: mr. chairman, and this unclassified setting, let me sibley say that our intelligence cooperation with ukraine as well as with ukrainians, armed services have been improving over time. there are certain constraints, as you know, but we are continuing to look at more that we can do to protect our own assets and that we are sure will be used properly. "capital tonightchair royce: let me ask you another question because i noticed from the head of nato to the director of national intelligence to the new defense secretary, it seems like nearly every u.s. official supports providing defensive weapons to

the ukrainians. indeed a letter from many members of congress, including myself, mr. engle the speaker wilson go to the president on the subject -- will soon go to the president on this subject. where are we on this decision? president portugal continues his appeal to us, obviously. ambassador nuland: thank you mr. chairman. as i mentioned in my testimony as you know, we have provided $118 million in security and border assistance. to date, this is all in the defensive, nonlethal area, but some of it is on the high end of defensive, including the very important counter fire radar batteries we were able to provide over the last few months, with ukrainians report to us have saved lives particularly in the most intensive conflicts around donetsk airports and debaltseve.

with regards to the question of providing more legal assistance as my secretary, and secretary kerry testified last week, that question is still under discussion, and the president has not made a decision. chair royce: i want to get back to this issue of russian tanks that are firing on cities and on ukrainian positions. if they cannot get precision antitank missiles or weapons to use on the ground, there is not the capability to stop those tanks. we are not talking about, you know transferring offensive weaponry like tanks or selling those ukraine. what we are talking about are weapons that are purely defensive but are absolutely necessary if there is going to be any credible deterrence to what the russians are doing town by town now in the east.

the request here is not for more blankets or meals. i saw the inventory of what we sent them. what they are requesting is quite precise -- defensive weaponry that will allow them to hold their positions. ambassador nuland: well, mr. chairman, as i said, these issues are still under review, including the types of equipment that you note, which would bond directly to some of the russian supply. just to state for the record here, some of what we are seeing, we have since december seen russia transfer hundreds of pieces of military equipment to pro-russian separatists -- tanks, armored vehicles, rockets -- chair royce: the point i am making is this is not all being transferred to russian separatists. they are not driving those tanks. those are russian soldiers driving those tanks. i would just make the point --

to not decide is to decide. ambassador nuland: understood. chair royce: that is the point we would make. lastly, per your observation on the broadcasting, i just wanted to make the point in terms of the dysfunction. yesterday, it was reported that the new ceo of the agency, and the y lack, is resigning his post after six weeks on the job. we know the problems that staff and others have had over at the dbg. we have heard from our former secretary of state, secretary clinton, that the agency is defunct. myself and engle put a lot of time and effort working with those who had a very real interest in reforming this, gaining a consensus, that legislation is necessary to get

this agency back up to the business that it did very well in the 19 80's and turns -- in terms of disseminating information into russia and into eastern europe. that was his nation needs to have support from the administration and i would leave you with that request ambassador. ambassador nuland: may i just quickly respond? chair royce: yes. ambassador nuland: at secretary kerry told you, we are interested in reforming the bbg. we had differences from your proposition, but i wanted to give a shout out to the bbg and the work they have been doing to counter russian propaganda, and particularly broadcasting in ukraine. they have devoted 20 people and $6 million to russian language programming, 104% increase over

maidan spending. they have now launched a half hour new russian language program, which helps fill the gap in clean news. it is being pulled down by broadcasters all along the periphery of russia and the russian speaking population in ukraine are also receiving it, and they are now reaching about six one 6 million viewers -- 6.6 million viewers. they have been good partners to us, and our budget request more for that. chair royce: we are in consultation with those in theater about the effectiveness. trust us when we say reforming the bbg is necessary at this time. we have to be able to take some decisive actions to get this back up and running the way it worked effectively in the 1980's. i'm going to go with mr. engle of new york, the ranking member of this committee for his questions. representative engel: thank you mr. chairman, and madam

secretary, i want to put my weight said. i want to read you the first part of a report put out for radio free europe and radio liberty yesterday and would like to comment on it. u.s. commanders system 12,000 russian soldiers in eastern ukraine. 12,000 russian soldiers are supporting pro-moscow separatists in eastern ukraine. ben hodges said the russian forces nato military advisers, combat troops. hodges also said 29,000 russian troops are in crimea. hodges said in berlin on march 3 , helping ukraine with weapons would increase the stakes for russian president vladimir putin at home. that domestic support for putin

against usury. something that can stop a russian tank. the white house talk decided by the -- decided to send arms to ukraine and hodges reiterated washington wanted a diplomatic solution. hodges also said u.s. plans to train three ukrainian italian -- italians have been put on hold to see if the cease-fire deal forged last month will be fully implemented in general martin dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff also voiced support for army ukraine on march 3. because before the senate armed services committee, dempsey said washing should -- washington should absolutely consider providing nato. the ultimate goal -- goal was to fracture nato and i would add to destabilize ukraine. meanwhile, barack obama and european leaders have agreed actions would be necessary if the fire agreement is violated.

it is almost like when i was a little boy and gary akin used to tell this door, too. his mother with tell him to do something and she would say i'm going to count to three and you better have this done. she would go 1 2. to an quarter, two and a half, and she was getting more and more time. that seems what we are doing. we are so waiting and hoping that things happened that just look at this as a sign of weak. i think the strongest thing you can do now is to try and defensive, lethal weapon. -- it's to provide a strong, defensive lethal weapon. quick thank you. this gives us an opportunity for registering your view on this important subject. i will say that we are watching

very intense ugly whether or not february 12 agreements are implemented. i decided concerns already today following the vicious taking of double and other tools are in our arsenal, including the beating of the sanctions and are in consultation with our allies aren't how that would go if we see more violations. in your written testimony, your written statement you mentioned, and i am quoting, in the coming days not weeks or months, we need to see full, and federated action for monitors. this include territories along the border with russia and trust with the ability to inspect the so-called humanitarian convoy regularly entering the ukraine from russia? >> we have been pressing for that. in particular, the two border

post if able to monitor on the order. unfortunately the con voice seem to find rose 10 kilometers north or south of where the osc self monitors are. but yes, the implementation agreement of february 12 calls in the first instance for monitoring and verification of season by her along the internal line, as well as pullbacks of heavy weapons. what is true hired by the agreement is not simply the tanks and artillery pieces moving back to be able to count them, to be able to see them in permanent storage, to be able to come back on a regular basis to ensure they have not worked in redeployed elsewhere. also, eventually to have access to the entire special status area and would be necessary if the political pieces are to be implemented. view elections, etc. so we can be sure it is free and fair.

>> let me ask your final question. -- let me ask you a final question. i am really concerned the men implementation agreement -- min tsk agreement does not provide a resolution acceptable to russia. can you help me make sense of this gecko quick you are correct, mr. ranking member, that the way the implementation agreement with sequenced on february 12, restoring ukrainian sovereignty on the eastern boarder is the last item and does not happen until the end of 2015. as a set in the statement, we are also firms that me away -- that means we will not roll back sanctions until it is fully implemented. so that is part of what we have

now. those ukrainians fighting you know are in the process of working intensive week to reform the constitution. taking new steps to a -- to accelerate the work, including the bill i mentioned to provide greater powers to the region in advance. so we are cautiously optimistic that with european and u.s. health, there will be constitutional reform in ukraine in 2015 that will meet the standard. we will see whether the separatists are willing to work with the government and whether we have elections and new eastern ukrainian authorities that can work on decentralization there. >> thank you. thank you for your hard work and good work. >> thank you very much. i will recognize myself. adam ambassador, many members of the committee will continue to hammer the obama administration on this damaging and unnecessary

and senseless to say -- senseless delay in providing the legal aid the ukraine so desperately needs. despite the fragile cease-fire, ukraine continues to suffer casualties at the hands of separatists backed by moscow. they fear they are using the opportunity to cease-fire to regroup forces in preparation of yet another offensive. ukraine is in such tragic need of legal aid, and as you heard, the head of the nation's intelligence community and ahead of the defense department agree. just last week secretary kerry testified before the committee as you have heard that no decision on legal aid has been made yet. so we ask and continue to ask, what is the holder of you come

our allies need our assistance now. so in what part of the interagency process is the decision on legal aid for ukraine currently stalled yucca does the state department believe the united states should send a legal aid to ukraine yes or no ech? and you said that the president has not made a decision yet, but you didn't say what you believe and what the state department believes. i would like to hear that. also, the act and list, the tragic murder a few days ago of the russian opposition leader came just days, as we know, as he was about to publish evidence of the russian military in ukraine. have his murderers been sanctioned as human rights violators under the act? and can you give us an update on the progress or lack thereof of adding names on that act so we can sanction those violators?

and also secretary kerry has said that russian foreign minister lied to his face about russian involvement in ukraine. what is the extent of russian involvement? are russian solders in ukraine? are we prepared to say that? participating in the conflict? and on the 1-2-3 agreement, i'll ask you to give me written responses to these because there's a series of questions. i have been advocating for the administration to withdraw from the u.s.-russia nuclear cooperation agreement, the 1-2-3 agreement to prevent the potential future use of u.s. nuclear technology and assistance against our own interests. and given putin's continued aggression, will the administration suspend the russia 1-2-3 agreement? lastly, i have been critical how the administration plans on using funds to provide democracy and human rights in russia especially after 2012 when putin

kicked out usaid from russia. please update the committee on what the administration plans to do with that money that is been left over from the russia -- u.s.-russia investment fund. >> that's a lot, congresswoman. let me go a through them quickly. thank you for letting me take the 1, 2, 3 question in writing. i want to make sure we get it right. with regard to the process, the president did ask agencies for recommendations and advice. those recommendations and advice have gone forward to him. i think you will forgive me if i take the same position my secretary took when he was here that we will provide that advice confidentially and i'll decline to speak to in an open hearing. with regard to the brutal murder of boris, i think you know before this we had met our annual statutory requirement to provide more names under the

legislation, but that was before this event. so as we look at our list at the end of this year, we will see what we can learn about who the perpetrators are. we have made absolutely clear publicly and privately to the russian federation that the international community will expect an investigation that meets international standards and that finds not only the shooter but the orderer of the murder. >> not headed by putin. i know my time is expiring, but if we were to add -- aggressively add more names to that list of human rights violators, i think that we would see a change and russia knows we are not serious about implementing that legislation.

i would love to get the answers to my questions in writing. thank you. we go to brad sherman of california. >> ambassador, one thing i noticed about your opening statement was your lavish praise. the ukrainian parliament passing so much substantive legislation and you compared it to congress. >> i didn't compare it. >> i would just note for the record and maybe it wasn't a comparison, but came very close, that every day someone in the administration urges me to work hard to block legislation they don't like. and 99% of the bills that the administration does not want on the president's desk are not there due to the hard work of your allies here in congress. if you want lots of legislation passed, be sure that that is a consistent view of the administration. many of my colleagues at the beginning talked about how we

need a strong policy. who would come here and advocate the weak policy. but we do need to put this in process. we seem to face unlimited challenges, china, south china sea, afghanistan, some difficulties in pakistan, and other places. we have to go with the strength and nuance although frankly i think in this case a little bit more strength, a little less nuance. there's talk about a -- capturing and going and building a land bridge to crimea. my concern is they want to build a land bridge to moldova and take all of ukraine's coastal territory and access to the black sea. a lot of discussion of whether we should provide lethal weapons albeit defensive lethal weapons to ukraine. such lethal aid would have an effect on the battlefield, but also a political effect. these aren't weapons they are getting their hands on from pair

guy -- pair way. these are weapons from the world's superpower. we can give ukraine money, we can give them weapons -- or we could give them weapons. if they had money they could buy weapons. if the ukrainian government had sufficient money, is there anything that they -- in the way -- looking at the defensive weapons that are being discussed, that they could not buy from some source? so real question here is it can we have the battlefield effects suggested by my colleagues by providing money? >> first of all, congressman, i certainly didn't mean any invidious comparison. i was simply giving props to the -- >> i understand. >> with regard to your concern about a race all along the southern rim of ukrainian territory, not only a land bridge to crimea but onward to

moldova, we worry about that too. that is why we are paying such close attention today to these villages between the seas fire line -- >> if you could focus on the question i asked. >> with regard to what one can buy on the international market, a number of the things that the ukrainians have requested are not readily available unless the u.s. were to license onward export, and we have a number of countries, including our allies -- >> we are just talking anti-tank weapons. i see those in world war ii movies. >> they have also been out shopping on the world market and have had a lot of difficulty getting countries to provide in the absence of the u.s. providing. >> yet our enemies turn money

into weapons with great ease. you mentioned the importance of -- if we could have order in the committee. you mentioned the regions and the devolving power to the regions, controversial in kiev yet if power is devolved to the regions that undercuts russian propaganda. it creates more support for ukrainian state. where is it true under the present constitution the governor of each state is appointed by kia? -- k i know we have governors from texas wondering if president obama will appoint their governor? had the ukrainians changed the system so each region could elect their

own governor? >> that is one of the issues that will be debated as we move your constitutional reform. their system is very similar to russia where the executive is pointed in the parliament locally. on the issue of decentralization to say it is probably popular across the ukraine. one of the ways they managed things and was able to help them manage things is because everything was centralized. local policing, all these kinds of things, and i think you will see that. next hopefully you lifting your own governor would be part of that because our friends need to help themselves, not just asked for our help. they could help themselves a lot by hoping the russian propaganda. >> we go to chris myth of new jersey. >> welcome.

first of all, i do believe that delay is denial. i do believe we have the de facto arms embargo on the ukraine. it is reminiscent to meet the balkans world wednesday in a totally misguided passion insured azmi and and the croatians did not -- bosnians and croatians did not have the ability to defend themselves and now we see a rip high happening to our good friend and ally in ukraine. when you get to the secretary of defense, ashton carter and james clapper, and one of my colleagues mentioned, and excellent speech given by a top military commander, then hodges, he has made a number of important points in his speech. perhaps chief of which is well

ukraine's defensive capabilities may not necessarily turned the tide overnight but soon it will make the diplomatic solution were probable, and that is exactly what happened, as we all know, when the croat broke the arms embargo. it was the croatians are able to break arms embargo and for most of it to flight. i think the ukrainians are waiting for the kind of ability to defend themselves. president advisers are saying do it, mr. president. when you get two world leaders presently -- admonishing president obama and congress, it is time to wake up, i believe and respectfully take their views into much greater account. as my colleague of said, delay is denial. people are dying. over 6000 are dead. i do think it may bring up

another issue, the hollowness of the military increasing. we're not there yet but on the life float to being weekend because of defense spending. we know angela merkel has admonished not to go with military defensive capability. only order to of germany's defensive fighters are a -- are available. general special forces joint exercises with no working helicopter. an engraved invitation to vladimir putin to continue his aggressive with. i think the alliance itself and the united dates needs to stop up and help ukraine. that was two weeks ago. the ukrainians, and while they do not want to take this publicly, and just like benjamin netanyahu said this in the

opening speech, part of it was praise for obama, they do not want to say it publicly, they need us. they have to say it lightly and walk on eggshells, but they told me off the record how profoundly they disappointed -- how profoundly disappointed they are in obama, especially in light of people around him saying please, this is a time for american leadership. when will that decision be made? the pipeline took six years and finally we found out where the president released as when he vetoed the bill for the keystone pipeline. what is it, next week, tomorrow? the statements today admonishing the european union not be free but assured in being optimistic about where this is taking us. there are parallels i think god for -- for the 552 monitors on the ground doing wonderful work.

i am never meeting with them. score past. how many people are being killed the? war. . -- horrible stuff. no weapons. they are in the same boat. they need defensive weapons and need them now. tomorrow maybe? delay is denial. >> thank you congressman. we are watching the implementation of minsk. we do have concerns about firing on the ground in the past couple of days. i think the environment and whether it is implemented will affect the calculation. >> hopefully soon. the ukrainians are suffering so much. the member of the parliament in her 82nd day of a hunger strike. what do we know about her?

what are we doing to try to get her release? >> we of great -- we have grave concerns about her condition. we believe she was abducted illegally across the board. if they wanted to give a humanitarian gesture there is nothing they could do more quickly than to release her today. we have concerns about her health. she was seen by a european doctor last week or two weeks ago. as you know, when you are taking and no calories, every day matters. in every meeting we haven't every level -- in every meeting we have and at every level we raise the condition and asked that she be released immediately. >> thank you. we go to mr. gregory meeks ranking of the subcommittee in europe. next thank you, mr. chairman. let me just say for me, this is very complicated. i do not think there is just one

solution to it. i am not even sure where i am at on that. let me ask this question. i know we are spent a lot of time on weapons. i am a multilateralist. i think the world is different it cannot just do things on her own. i think it is leadership when you bring countries together. it is difficult. it is easy to do things by yourself. it is harder to do things in conjunction with other, and that is no leadership in my estimation. -- and that is leadership in my estimation. had we had dialogue and where is the eu partners giving defensive weapons to ukraine, and in my mind i am still unclear what is defensive weapons, whether or not the weapons -- everyone says ukraine cannot be russia. where is the eu partners on the

issue of ukraine? >> thank you, congressman, and thank you for your support of euro -- europe as the ranking subcommittee chairman. with regard to managing our response on ukraine, spend almost as much time working with nato and eu partners as we do working with ukrainians, because the unity is so important and makes it impossible for the kremlin to divide up. there are -- all 28 alex have provided some form of security assistance to the ukraine, one of the commitments we made to each other. it can take the form of training, take the warm support for the medical needs of the military. the u.k. in: just -- in polan

just announced they would start training ukrainians along the notifications we just sent to you all. where the divide happens in the debate is happening, and there are allies and partners on both sides of the debate, as there are folks in washington, the question of the weapons. nonlethal defensive weapons. everyone has been supportive of what we are done and what the committee has funded. the president obviously have discussed this with all of his partners. most notably chancellor merkel when she was here. the president had a lot of time to discuss this at munich. but let me ask this differently. my concern is even before we can deal with militarily, accused -- a few folks i have talked with

are concerned about the dire straits, the economy of the ukraine. some have said to me the economy and corruption could cause this ukrainian government to pull even before they get further down the road. even the money we get, questioning whether it will go into corrupt hands. my question is, what is new in this government and the legislation that changes our calculation on this front, and gives encouragement? i know politically many are concerned about the economy and corruption right now. where are we there? >> thank you for raising this point, the other major line of vulnerability for the ukraine

and where we have to sure her up. we thank you for your support and generous city -- generosity. last year's $1 billion loan guaranty at the u.s. contribution to the multilateral effort that the imf is leading, as you have seen in the past you weeks, as the ukrainians have started the very hard legislative work and implementation were to attack the problem in the economy it has been extremely intense. i gave a long list in my opening statement. you will see a full list of the legislation they have passed to pass an anticorruption bureau cleanup public permit, open the phone -- the banking system to security, to get the oligarchy and others to pay taxes and breakup monopolies of these types of things will require implementation. most of the economic support funds we of us to all for ukraine for 15 and again for a

16 go to the u.s. mentors and advisers, the ability to work with them on implementing legislation. but it is a long, long road. they are seizing it by the horns. that is why we have structured our support to ask you for the second billion dollar loan guarantee now, but not to come back to you for the third one until the fall when we see how they implement. our system -- our assistance is tied to performance. the ukrainian people have expected no people expect no less. that's what they stood in the snow for and that's what we expect as well. congressman meeks: thank you. congressman royce: we go to mr. dana rohrabacher of california chairman of the europe european and emerging threats subcommittee. congressman rohrabacher: thank you very much, mr. chairman. let me agree with mr. meeks that this is a very complicated issue and perhaps a lot more complicated than the black and white alternatives that we have been hearing about today.

at one point we've heard that the ukraine desperately needs economic help. and i would hope that our goal is to do what's right by ukraine and bring peace to ukraine and not our goal being to basically defeat and humiliate russia for actions that it has taken. because if that's our goal, the people of ukraine will continue to suffer and suffer and suffer. back to the ukraine desperately needs economic help, this whole incident in history started when the government of what you call the rotten regime that preceded the current government of ukraine went to our european allies to ask for help that it desperately needed for its economy and the deal that was offered by our european allies

was not sufficient and in fact much less than what the russians offered them instead. and when that deal was taken by the rotten regime that you mentioned, all of a sudden that's when it became so rotten that we no longer are the people -- or the people could no longer put up with it. the pivotal moment wags when it accepted the deal that was -- moment was when it accepted the deal that was offered by russia which our european allies were not willing to do. that ignited this situation. that's what turned the policy type of situation and perhaps the and perhaps the overturn of rotten government through a electoral process into instead the overturn of the rotten regime by violent

demonstrations and nondemocratic means of overthrowing that regime. they could two years later could have kicked that guy out with a free election. they didn't wait. let me ask you about -- ok. let's hope what we're doing now is aimed at trying to end the conflict that started in that more complicated way than black and white. what people are advocating that we send weapons -- and -- to ukraine, the defensive weapons would any of these weapons be under -- do we see any of these weapons becoming part of the arsenal of that part of the ukrainian army that is financed which i believe the third of the ukrainian army that is in conflict is financed by an aligarch, a private citizen who happened to be a multibillionaire? voim first of all, congressman thank you.

i'll especially take issue with some of the facts you presented here. congressman rohrabacher: go right ahead. that's fine. victoria: first of all, in the fall of 2013, the reason that folks went to the midon was not because money was taken from russia. it was because former president yanakovich that he was promising his people. congressman rohrabacher: have you read that agreement? victoria: i have. congressman rohrabacher: do you believe that agreement was superior to what the russians were offering? victoria: let me speak to that. so in the same period in the fall of 2013 when yanakovich was talking to the association

he was working on an i.m.f. package similar to what is offered later and what we have now. i was working, as the u.s. government's representatives to him to try to get him to meet i.m.f. conditions. i had more than 30 hours of meetings with him. and he declined to meet me. congressman rohrabacher: i only have 25 seconds before they cut me off. victoria: let me speak to the weapons issues. congressman rohrabacher: it's not your time. they'll cut me off in 15 seconds. i hope that what we're doing is try to bring peace to the ukrainians and not to humiliate the russians and there's a lot of people -- and i understand -- i was a big cold warrior as well. our goal is to try to have peace in that part of the world, not to try to humiliate russia again and again and again. there's too many people being killed out there.

and i would hope that we have -- that with decentralize, which seems to be accepted by both sides, that that strength of those -- -- that area of eastern ukraine can remain part of ukraine, even though you have the separatist violence going on, with promise of decentralization and respect for everybody's rights and an end to the violence, that we can end this situation and that -- that should be our goal and i would hope that we don't get caught up in trying to re-establish a cold war with russia because we have so many people who have grudges and should, by the way, i understand that. russians during the cold war human ukrainians but our goal shouldn't be right now them pay

for that during the stalin era. i'm sore ue but they're going to cut me off right now. congressman royce we'll go to gerry connolly. victoria: mr. chairman, can i? i think it's important for the record to say that only thing that united states and our european partners want from russia with regard to ukraine is to leave ukrainian territory. leave ukrainian territory with their military, with their advisors to allow the border to close, to allow sovereignty to be restored. and as we said, these sanctions will be eased when mens is fully implemented. my concern it is the policies of the kremlin that are hurting the russian people now, hurting them economically, having their sons come home in body bags. that's what i worry about. i've spent 25 years of my life trying to integrate russia into europe and into the international system and i worry about the fate of russia citizens as much as ukraine's.

congressman royce: we'll go to mr. gerry connolly of fairfax, virginia. congressman connelly: thank you, mr. chairman. i heard my friend from california. i got to say the logic of the ukrainian government made bad decisions and therefore russia had to respond is a pretty killing message to others in europe, including the ballotics and former soviet satellite states. sovereign nations get to make decisions, even decisions that may be unpopular in the kim lynn and they can do so without the fear of being invaded and their territory annexed

illegally and i would hope that all of us would keep that in mind. madam secretary, mensk agreement, does the agreement include interallia, the deoccupation and deannexation, illegal annexation of the crimea? >> -- victoria: congressman, it does not. the problem in crimea will continue. congressman connelly: then i have a problem with you and your policy. you say the united states will start rolling back sanctions on russia only when the agreements are fully implemented. well, that means you've conceded crimea. is that u.s. policy? victoria: it is not, sir. congressman connelly: why would you roll back -- why would you roll back -- i swear i'm not playing with the audience. this is a passion with me. with started with crimea. why would you make a statement like that? you're saying as long as you clean it up in the eastern part

of the ukraine, we will roll back sanctions. that's what you say on page 3 of your testimony. victoria: i do indeed. let me explain, if i may. thank you for the opportunity to do so. over the course of 2014 we put in place four, five rounds of sanctions with the europeans. the first two were a direct response to crimea and then in december we add sanctions on crimea which effectively make it impossible for any u.s. firms to invest there. those sanctions will not be rolled back unless there is a return of crimea to ukraine. so the sanctions that we're talking about rolling back are other sanctions that were applied in smons to actions in eastern ukraine but crimea sanctions will stay in place and the point here is to demonstrate that if you bite off a piece of another person's country it dries up in your mouth. congressman connelly: well, you got kind of two categories of

sanctions, crimea sanctions and non-crimea sanctions. victoria: yes, sir. congressman connelly: if you're vladimir putin, how seriously do you take that? victoria: well, you take it seriously because there's no u.s. investment going into my korea now and it's incredit -- crimea now and it's increedly expensive for them to maintain. congressman connelly: i would respectfully suggest, madam ambassador, we need to re-examine that policy because it is not deterring behavior by putin in the eastern part of the ukraine. people are dying. you yourself in your opening statement documented illegal movement of military equipment across the border with impunity . and it seems to me that you've unwittingly sent a message to the kim lynn, wink, blink, get out of the eastern ukraine and maybe it can be ok. that may not be your message but if you're a k.g.b. thug the aggressor, in this case, that's the message he's hearing. the evidence on the ground would suggest that's the case. victoria: first of all, if i may -- and i think it might be helpful if we sent our

sanctions team up to show you the breakdown between what we hold for crimea and what we hold for eastern ukraine. i think that might not be -- congressman connelly: state and -- victoria: state and -- congressman congressional: that would be great if they brief congress. victoria: when at the come back from europe. in my statement, we have begun consultations this week with our european partners on deepening sanctions if we do not see -- >> how many violations has there been on the agreement? we have counted there have been over 300. >> victoria: they have been more than 100. >> isn't there a prorks there isn't much teeth? with the best of intentions, merkel and olum is trying to negotiate with nothing backing it up. wouldn't it be useful to have the united states and its nato partners at least threatening to provide defensive equipment and defensive weapons and training for the ukrainian military so that's a piece of what's behind the agreements? victoria: well, as you know, it

was in the week leading up to the agreement that the conversation between us and our allies went public so it's very much in the ether here but i think equally importantly is to be in line with europe on the additional sanctions if the agreements are further violated or there is land grab grab and that's what we're working on now. >> thank you. mr. chairman, my time is up but i want to echo, i think, your opening comments. >> mr. connolly, yes. >> when one wonders when the united states government at the state department decides a policy is not working and rethinks it because people are dying despite the best of intentions and i hope we come to some point where we rethink our policy with respect to the ukraine and crimea. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. congressionally. we go to mr. salmon of arizona chairman of the subcommittee on

asia. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you so much for being here today, ambassador. to date the sanctions that have been imposed on russia have had really little impact on putin's decisionmaking. >> thank you, mr. congressionally. we go to mr. salmon of arizona chairman of the subcommittee on asia. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you so much for being here today, ambassador. to date the sanctions that have been imposed on russia have had really little impact on putin's decisionmaking. the administration has stated that additional sanctions are being considered but without the commitment of some of our allies, some of our european allies oto enforce those sanctions or impose sanctions as a body, the likelihood of those sanctions having much effect are not real great. are there other sanctions that the administration is considering and do you believe

it will impact putin's decisionmaking in the near ferm? you stated in your opening comments that what's really impacted them is the price of oil. and that it's really brought their economy to their knees. so i'm wondering if maybe it's time also for us to consider our policy in selling natural gas to our european allies. the process just hasn't moved very quickly and one of the reasons i know germany has been so red sent to allow us -- reticent to allows us to provide arms to the ukrainian is their heavy reliance on natural gas from russia.

same thing has been true on support of sanctions. isn't it time for us to start pulling out the stops and start selling l.n.g. to our allies in europe? victoria: thank you, congressman. as you know most l.n.g. goes to asia because the price is higher. under the trans-atlantic partnership if we have a trade between the europeans and the united states then they would go to the top of the cueue in terms of acquiring l.n.g. it's a fair point where we could or should do more. with regard to sanctions, we have not yet changed his decisionmaking decisively but we are having a profound effect on the russian economy and we do think it is the trifecta of sanctions, low oil prices and 15-plus years of economic mismanagement in russia.

i can go through some of the statistics but i think you know them. foreign currency reserves down 130 billion just over the last year. credit at junk, inflation running 15% and 40% in food prices. so, you know, he's -- he's -- kremlin policy is under stress here which is why it is important to keep these sanctions in place. and to consider deepening them. we have, as i said, working with the europeans on what more we would do secretary tarially if we do not see minsk implemented, if we don't have an end to the cease-fire violations, if we do not have a heavy weapons pullback, on and on, but also even deeper sanctions if we have a further land grab. and we are, as i said, watching these at-risk villages and our sanctions team is in europe this week. >> the chairman mentioned in his opening statement that we made a pretty ironclad promise to ukraine when they agreed to get rid of their nuclear arms and to date the u.s. and nato response to the russian aggression has been pretty muted at best.

in fact out of the 118 million nonlethal assistance the u.s. pledged last year my understanding is only about half of it or about half of it was delivered by year end. don't you believe that there will be long-term consequences for the u.s. and nato if we fail to live up to our commitments to defend our allies? when are we going to make that decision as far as whether or not provide at least defensive weapons to ukraine? i know that question has been asked and hopefully you carry that back to your boss because as far as we're concerned nothing's going to get better unless we step up our commitment to honor the promises that we made and my feeling is nobody's going to trust us in the region if we don't honor those commitments. victoria: thank you, congressman. >> i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman for yielding back. we now go to brian higgins of new york.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary, how many russian soldiers are in ukraine today? victoria: congressman, i am not in a position to give you a definitive number in this unclassified setting. you've seen ben hodges make a calculation from u.s. army europe. i would say it's in the thousands and thousands. >> nato -- victoria: sorry let me also just while i have you here say that what we can say in this unclassified setting is since december, russia's transferred hundreds of pieces of military equipment, including tanks armored vehicles, raw systems, heavy arrillry. the russian military has its own robust command structure in eastern ukraine ranging from general officers to junior officers, as the president said not too long ago. they are funding this war, they are fueling it and commanding and controlling it.

>> in practical terms, does that constitute invasion? victoria: we have made career that russia is responsible for fueling this war in eastern ukraine. >> yes or no, constitutes invasion? >> we have used -- victoria: we have used that word in the past, yes. >> if ukraine was a member of nato, under the collective defense posture of article 5 what would the consequence of russia's invasion of ukraine be? victoria: well, article 5 would give all of the 28 allies a responsibility to defend ukraine from aggression. just to make clear that even in 2008 when ukraine was discussing with nato an improvement in its relationship, at that stage we were only at the membership action plan, which is the preparatory phase. >> isn't in reality putin's concern about america encroachment and nato encroachment on what was formerly the soviet union? victoria: i can't speak to what's in president putin's

head. that's a place i don't think i can go. what i can say is there's no justification for being concerned about countries peacefully associating with a defensive alliance. we've said for 25 years that

nato is not a threat to a russia that does not threaten us. >> russia's defense spending has tripled since 2007. today it's involved in about a $300 billion program to modernize its weapons. new types of missiles, bombers and submarines are being readied for deployment over the next five years. spending on defense and security this year will increase by 30% in russia, representing 1/3 of its federal budget.

putin has said very clearly that nobody should try to shove russia around when it has one of the world's biggest nuclear arsenals. last count russia had 8,000 nuclear weapons. he has threatened to use nuclear weapons on a limited basis -- if that's possible -- to force opponents specifically the united states and nato, to withdraw from a conflict in which russia has a stake such as in georgia and ukraine. that is pretty ominous. that's a pretty ominous statement. your thoughts. victoria: well, we obviously have grave concerns about the massive increases in russian defense budgeting over the recent years. it's particularly concerning given what's happening to the russian economy and to the russian people. as i said before, inflation across the country now running 15%, 17%. food prices ramp antley increasing, including 40% in some areas. credit at zero. the inability of russians now to travel because they can't get homes because they can't get loans. this is a kremlin that is prioritizing foreign adventures over the needs of its own people and that's worrying. >> i yield back, thank you. >> we go now to mr. randy weber of texas. >> thank you, mr. chairman. madam ambassador, you mentioned earlier the body bags, the boys going back to russia, that it had to be tough on them. do you know what the body bag is, the number of soldiers they're losing?

victoria: it's not possible congressman, to have a final count because of what russia has done to mask these numbers. as you know, they have criminalized discussion of it inside russia. they have threatened mothers and wives and family members. >> so you don't know. victoria: the ukrainians assert at least 400, 500 people. >> they check into it too deeply they lose benefits? victoria: absolutely. >> so what's the body count for ukrainians? victoria: as i said in my statement, close to 6,000 lives have been lost in this conflict or over 6,000, i believe. >> how long do you think we have before ukraine becomes another crimea? that's annexed into russia? victoria: well, as i said, congressman, the entire thrust of our policy is stop where it is and roll it back. that's why we've been imposing these increasingly tough sanctions and you see the russian economy suffering as a result, providing increasing amounts of security assistance albeit on the nonlethal side.

>> but the sanctions haven't stopped the body bags from flowing both directions, have they? victoria: they have not and this is what we continue to try to seek is a full implementation of the commitments that vled mir putin himself just made less -- two weeks ago in minsk. >> do you trust him? victoria: i don't think that's a good word. >> i think you're wise in that regard. you said it's difficult for russia to sustain their occupation of crimea. in your comments i recallier. victoria: i didn't say it was difficult for them to sustain it.

i said therm hemorrhaging money. extremely expensive for them to sustain it. >> maybe that's our problem in congress. that should be viewed as a difficulty. so they're hemorrhaging money. so you don't think that that makes it difficult for them to sustain their occupation? victoria: well, they still have, as you know, more than $300 billion in sovereign wealth. what they're doing now is using the money of the russian people, the hard-earned money that should go for their long-term protection, to prop up this puppet annexation occupation.

>> so we made it difficult for them to sustain their -- to -- you don't want to use the word difficult. you made them spend money to sustain their occupation? victoria: we are declining to invest in this territory that is now occupied, yes. >> so they're spending a lot of money. how do we make it that difficult and more so for them for in the ukraine? victoria: well, as i said, as we continue to watch this implementation or nonimplementation of minsk we're looking at the next range of secretary tarial sanctions either to deepen the sanctions on the finance side, on the energy side, on the defense side or to add sectors of the russian economy. >> would you agree we could make them hemorrhage money in ukraine if we're destroying their tanks as they entered country? victoria: well, they have been hemorrhaging their money on weapons. >> that's not my question. if we're knocking out their tanks left and right, does that cost a lot of money? victoria: certainly money down the rathole, that's for sure. >> and we'd certainly rather have body bags going back to russia than our side of the border? victoria: we want peace and a end to body bags in any direction. >> do you think putin understands peace or do you think he understands force? victoria: again, i'm not going to get inside his head. it's not a place to be. >> ok. well, fair enough. if you're married, like i am, sometimes it's difficult to get in your spouse's head. so let's put you over in the president's head then, can i do that? victoria: you're welcomed to try, sir. >> no, i think the comment is you're welcomed to try.

is the president disengaged, not worried about this? victoria: absolutely not, the president has been the leader of this ukraine policy. he's been enormously engaged. i've been in meetings with him where he's passionate. >> he's got 21 months left. how many more body bags have to take place in ukraine before you -- before we send them lethal? and i'll just call them lethal weapons. i hate the word defensive weapons. i mean, a weapon is a weapon. so how long is it going to take? how many more body bags before we get in gear to make this decision? what do you think the president's thinking? victoria: again, these are his decisions to make. we will certainly convey to him your concern. >> ok. your decision from my advantage point is, what kind of pressure, what kind of information are you giving fought president that says, mr. president, we need to act? victoria: congressman, as i said a little bit earlier on in this hearing, i'm going to take the same position that my secretary took when he was here last week. the president has asked us for our advice. we have provided it to him. but i'm going to keep that advice confidential for purposes of this hearing. >> mr. david cicilline of rhode island. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, ambassador nuland, for your testimony. i want to begin by also recognizing the tragic murder of russian freedom fighter boris nepsov, who was brutally murdered in the streets of moscow and to urge our

government to do anything we can to ensure the perpetrators of this horrific crime are brought to! i know many in this country are sending thoughts and prayers to his family and friends and colleagues. unfortunately, these so-called tragic events are quite common for those who dare to criticize mr. putin and his cronies and i think it's important that we acknowledge the extraordinary efforts of this freedom fighter. i thank you for your testimony. i want to just focus on the corruption efforts that are under way. as you well know, ukraine has

historically had the distinction of being -- dubious distinction of being one of the most corrupt countries in the world. i wonder how the new government in kiev is doing? are we going far enough? what are we doing to support those efforts? are we seeing the tough decisions that need to be made and the kind of prosecutions and firings and the development of an independent judiciary to help vaps the anti-corruption efforts that was a source of so much of what happened at the midon? i just wonder if you'd speak to some of those issues. victoria: thank you, congressman.

corruption has been a country-killer for ukraine. it's also been an opening for malign influence from the outside in ukraine's business. not only because ukraine's own citizens demand it, because the democratic health of the country demands it. this has been a major focus of our collaboration with the ukrainian government. as i said at the outset, they have just over the last three months passed an enormous amount of legislation, much of it designed to tackle corruption, just to name a few things. a new anti-corruption strategy a new public procurement system, the creation of an anti-corruption bureau and national agency for prevention of corruption. strengthened anti-money laundering regulations

disclosure of public officials domestic and overseas assets for the first time, partial judicial reform including a prosecutor general. more to come. the u.s. is providing some $38 million in the assistance money that you've given us for that purpose. we have advisors and trainers in many of these entities. we're also supporting civil society for oversight and reform. other new positive developments that go to the corruption and past dirty money practices they're standing up a new patrol police. the police, as you know, have historically been subject to bribery. the new prosecutor general has issued arrest warrants, new arrest warrants for some of the corrupt officials. there's a new apple budsman appointed -- ombudsman appointed. they have cut payroll taxes to reduce incentives for unreported wages, eliminated eight regulatory agencies and consolidated them into one increased transparency of state-owned companies, made banking recapitalization more transparent. a lot of this is legislation on the books. we now have to see it implemented. we have to see oligarchs and everybody pay their taxes, be immune to special and sweat heart deals. we will watch like a hawk. the ukrainian people will watch like a hawk. the people will be judged by this flokal elections in october. ukraine son the path. they have to stick it now. >> great. thank you. just turning to a new subject, could you speak a little bit what role the ukrainian reliance on russian energy is playing in this conflict and what the u.s. and our allies are doing to help alleviate ukrainian reliance on russia? are european allies able to separate themselves from their

own energy needs as this sort of conflict continues? victoria: congressman, as you know energy has long been a noose that kremlin has had around the neck of subsequent generations of leaders. this government is bound and determined to break them. our first effort was to help them get gas from parts of europe other than russia so we worked with hungary, slovakia and poland last year to start slowing gas flows into ukraine. we worked with the european union as they have brokered the gas deal that ukraine wut cutt which was a much fairer deal for the winter of 2014-20 15. we are now working with them as i said, to open up, demonopolize the energy sector to help them get more of their own energy out of the ground to work on energy efficiency. if you've ever been in kiev in the winter and had government

windows open, you know how badly that is needed. about third of the heat is going out the windows that shouldn't. so we're working on all of those things to break the dependence but also to help ukraine get to that place where it can be an energy supplier for europe. >> thank you. i yield back. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. we go now to mr. scott perry of pennsylvania. >> thanks, mr. chairman. ambassador, great to see you. please don't take any of the comments personally but as an american quite honestly i am disappointed and disgusted with the ineffectual and pathetic response from this had a

mferings regarding this -- this administration regarding this circumstance in ukraine. let me start by out by saying, does the administration agree -- because we heard in other forums about grievances, legitimate grievances, so does the administration agree with the justification from putin regarding the protection of ethnic russians in any way shape or form? victoria: there is nothing that justifies the kind of violence that we've seen russia unleash in eastern ukraine. >> i agree with you. but -- victoria: however -- >> they have legitimate grievances, does russians have legitimate grievances? victoria: russian speaking ukrainians have long wanted some of the things that russia championed for them, language, rights, decentralization. but all of those things were on offer first from the transitional government of yatsenyuk onward and now with poroshenko. >> history sometimes gets lost on us as we go through our days. i just want to make sure that administration is familiar and aware of the history of stalin and khrushchev in the 1920's and the terror famine and starvation of the ukrainian people and deportations and the re-establishment of russians into the ukraine and so when putin says that he's going to protect these russian-speaking

citizens, with all due respect they were moved into ukraine by killing the ukrainians and it's important to know that history when we talk about legitimate grievances. so i'm concerned -- i, too, agree we should send defensive weapons to ukraine. i'm in the agreement camp on that. so does the current posture of -- the strategic patience that i hear about, how does that fit in? how does their decision not to send defensive weapons at this point, how does that fit into strategic patience or is it part of it? victoria: nobody's been patient what we've been seeing in eastern ukraine. >> the ukrainians have been patient because they have no choice. victoria: we have sent, as you know, $118 million in -- >> defensive weapons.

forget all that other stuff. defensive weapons. i imagine you've been to a war zone. i have. victoria: yes. >> blankets and all that, they don't stop bullets and tanks. you have to defend yourself. harsh words. we have to get back to you and we're deciding that doesn't help. i'm talking about defensive weapons and strategic patience where does that-g on the other? -- that hinge on the other? victoria: i would note again the counterfire radar batteries we did send saved lives. it enabled the ukrainian forces to target where firings were coming from so they could defend support it. >> with all due respect, that is the absolute minimum standard. it is not going to be effectual. thaws why i said pathetic and ineffectual is valid, in my opinion. let me ask this -- can you explain the concerns within the context, the concerns about providing defensive weapons within the context that president requested hundreds of millions of dollars from this congress for moderate fighters in syria?

in that context where we'll send those folks weapons weapons, not defensive weapons but weapons and training that somehow ukraine and the people that have been there that are more like us than the other, they can't have those weapons? how do we -- how do we reconcile that? what's the calculation there? victoria: well, as you know, the train and equip request for syria goes to the need to defeat the isil threat which is an exowe sention threat to the home -- exowe tension threat to the homeland. >> do you find that to be a little incongruent? we don't know the syrian fighters are. today they're fighting isis. the next day we're fighting assad. don't you find that a little incongruent? have the ukrainian people said they'll fight the united

states, kill us? have they ever said anything like that? victoria: well, certainly we will register your strong position on this issue congressman. i would say that $118 million in security support is not nothing. i hear you want to hear more. >> at the end of my time here, we hear sending defensive weapons will escalate the problem. not sending them, that will escalate the problem. there will not be a problem because there will be no more ukraine. thank you. i yield back. >> we go now to lois frankel. we go now to lois frankel of florida. >> thank you, mr. chair. i was on that trip with you and mr. engel when we went to ukraine last year. thank you for your testimony. i want to say that there is -- i feel anxiety when i hear some of my colleagues, their unflattering remarks. i'll tell you why. when we were in -- i have three questions. when we were in ukraine, we heard -- i'm going to follow-up mr. cicilline's question because he was with us. we heard time and time again how the corruption of the ukrainian government undermined the government, which you alluded to, allowed russia's aggression to proceed.

but it was not just the laws. it was cultural. and so i'd like you to, if you could, expound, number one first of all, would you have even considered giving weapons to the previous government yanakovich, would you consider that? and is the culture or the corruption that was in ukraine which you're waiting to see if reforms take place, how does that affect whether or not you're willing to turn arms over now? that's number one. number two, could you tell me the sanctions on russia, what are the implications relative to the issues that we're facing

in syria and iran? have there been any implications? be and number three -- if you could get to it -- could you tell us in your opinion what are the implications on our allies and relative to the budapest agreement if we do not resist russia's aggression? victoria: well, the last one is a big one so let me just quickly go through the first ones.

our security relationship with ukraine was -- has -- went through ups and downs after independence in 1991 related to the quality of government at the top. under the yanukovych regime, our concerns not only about the military but also our concerns the human rights record so we were doing very little. with regard to our current cooperation, we're subject to leahy standards and appropriate vetting of units. one of the major lines of effort that we have going in our advisory effort with the ukrainian military is to root out corruption and infiltration of that military. so that's something that we work on very hard. we have, as secretary kerry has made clear when he was up here and every time he's before you worked hard to continue to be able to work with russia on global fathers where our interests align so that takes you to the work we do on the p-5 plus one, not as a favor to moscow to the united states but because they, too, have no interest in a nuclear armed iran.

similarly, our work on afghanistan, our work to try to come to terms with the violence in syria, which has not been completely successful, but those conversations continue. we judge they do it out of their own interest, not as a favor to us. with regard to the threat to allies, we have not talked today but have in the past about the intensive effort under way in the nato space to ensure that that article 5 deterrent is absolutely visible, land, sea and air. we have young americans, as you negotiation in the three baltic states and poland and soon to be in bulgaria and romania showing presence. we're working on new headquarters laments in other ways to be able to reinforce am them very quickly -- reinforce them very quickly if we need to. if the violent sweeps across ukraine, if ukraine breaks apart, falls, etc., i personally don't think the effort to gobble countries will end there. >> and what -- you said before the president has -- is taking our considerations as to whether to give weapons to

ukraine. what are the considerations? victoria: without getting into it in too detailed a way in this setting, just to say, again, that we are giving a significant amount of nonlethal security support, defensive weapons to the ukrainians. the issue is whether to increase the lethality. the issue is the kinds of systems. on the one hand, it goes to the ukrainian need and desire to defend against the incredibly lethal offensive things that russia has put in since january, february on the other side -- on the other side it actually goes to whether it

goes to harden or whether it escalates and is considered provocative and makes it worse. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you. let's see. i'm going to yield the chair here to mr. tom emmer of minneapolis, minnesota. why don't you go ahead and chair this. i have a meeting i'm late for. >> thank you, mr. chair. madam secretary, you've already answered quite a few questions but i want to run through something so you can clear this up for me. the minsk agreement, you referenced what russia had agreed to implement. could you please quickly tell

me what have they agreed to implement and what have they implemented since the agreement? victoria: thanks, congressman. first a reminder that february 12 agreement was an implementing agreement on prior commitments made by both russia and the separatists on september 5 and september 19. so the full package includes obligations both for the ukrainian side and for russia and the separatists. first and foremost in the february 12 package is a full cease-fire on the fighting line, a full pullback of heavy weapons to their ranges by both the ukrainians and the russians and the separatists. full access for osce monitors to that zone to inspect and verify to the rest of ukraine. then on the ukrainian side thereafter --

>> you can continue to watch this live on c-span.org. we're going to leave this now. the u.s. house is gaveling in momentarily for their last legislative day of the week. they will take up today re-authorizing amtrak. their debate will include seven amendments, and that will do it for the house this week. they've canceled thursday's session due to an anticipated snowstorm on the east coast. the senate, meanwhile, is in session. voting at this hour on a bill that would nullify a national labor relations board rule on union elections. the senate also expected to take up the consideration of a veto, the president's veto of the keystone x.l. pipeline bill that passed in the house and senate a couple weeks ago.

follow the senate debate on c-span2 and here on c-span live now to the house floor. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] we are watching the stay on day. that is wonderful. i am sure the cravings appreciate the fact that somebody is watching what is happening from the side of the world. when is it going to get bad enough that the president and this administration are actually going to follow through on promises that have been made to the ukrainian people?

>> again with the promises that have been made for strong comic support and security? >> disarm yourself to maintain stability in the region and we will be there. >> we will certainly can say your concern about this, congressman. the chair will recognize mr. bill keating of massachusetts. i just want to thank you for your work. the three teams i have had including classified briefings with you and with the ambassador have been it short and very, the communications are great. i am going to deviate from my question. at least once in this hearing, we have to put this perspective in because it is reality. so many of the questions have been unilateral. it is the u.s.. it's russia. the reality is that is not where our strength is.

the center of gravity in all of this i think from a military perspective was described by general breedlove when he said our unity of effort with the europeans is that strength and is what putin didn't bank on. i want to give you the opportunity to discuss how important the coalition is to the success of ukraine. it's my feeling that, without that unity with the u.s., we are not going to be strong in our response and ukraine will not have the opportunity to move forward itself. could you comment on that because it is lost somewhere in today's hearing? ambassador nuland: thank you for that, congressman. i said earlier that we in the european bureau spend as much time working with europeans on ukraine as we do working with ukrainians on ukraine because this unity is essential and because that unity is constantly being questioned and probed by the kremlin. if they can split us, that is their best line to imperil ukraine. first and foremost on the economic side, where it has been

a culmination of our strong transatlantic support for the fees, are strong transatlantic contributions that have made the $17.5 billion package that we have on offer for ukraine possible now without that it would not have been in the four to five rounds of sanctions we had done. if the u.s. had done those unilaterally, we would have a situation where european companies would have been able to back filled. if we did not match with the europeans were willing to do the opposite would have been true. we do believe that particularly in september -- in december, the kremlin undermined it our unity and our ability to work together. it is not always as quick because it takes 29 countries to coordinate, but it does make us really strong in defense of ukraine.

mr. keating: when you look at minsk and the backend, we would not have preferred it in terms of russia's border issues -- and when we are having these other discussions and other questions about why can't the u.s. just simply do this -- is it important that we do this in a unified manner with europe? what would happen if we didn't? what would happen if we just veered off the way some of these questions have been pointed today on our own and just did this? what would our prospects for success be diplomatically and militarily? ambassador nuland: again, it would have provided an opportunity for the kremlin to divide us from major allies like germany and france. one of the reasons we shout out merkel in hollande is they have hours with president clinton. without that, he might have felt he could get away with it. mr. keating: i would like to see defensive weapons in place myself but i also can't have this hearing end without commenting on the fact that we have to do this with partners and it is a dynamic decision. and if we move away from that, we weaken ourselves. with that, i yield back.

mr. emmer: the gentleman yields back. the chair now represent -- now recognizes representative mang from new york. miss mang: a fund purchased -- this deal gives him the assets to launch a new oil company with assets throughout europe. it produces about 100,000 barrels of oil per day. this is disconcerting for two reasons. one, it is the sort of business that we are supposed to be deterring. and two, it provides for russian control over significant european energy supplies. mr. friedman is not currently subject to european subjects despite his close ties with the kremlin. do you know if he is or he might be a potential target for sanctions? ambassador nuland: thank you for

that. i am going to get back to you on some of the details. but to make clear, u.s. and european sanctions have targeted russian public and government assets and entities. mr. friedman runs one of the few remaining private companies in russia and as such has had his own strong views as a private citizen about appropriate russian-european relations. but let me get back to you on how we have evaluated that particular deal. but it is not a russian government deal. miss meng: thank you. my second question -- u.s. law currently allows for the vesting of frozen assets pursuant to i apa under certain circumstances. such circumstances include when the u.s. is directly engaged in conflict with another country or when we have been attacked by another country. in such cases, the president has the authority to make designations of the frozen

ambassador nuland: thank you for that. i am going to get back to you on some of the details. but to make clear, u.s. and european sanctions have targeted russian public and government assets and entities. mr. friedman runs one of the few remaining private companies in russia and as such has had his own strong views as a private citizen about appropriate russian-european relations. but let me get back to you on how we have evaluated that particular deal. but it is not a russian government deal. miss meng: thank you. my second question -- u.s. law currently allows for the vesting of frozen assets pursuant to i apa under certain circumstances. such circumstances include when the u.s. is directly engaged in conflict with another country or when we have been attacked by another country. in such cases, the president has the authority to make

designations of the frozen assets. should we consider broadening the law to allow for vesting our frozen ukrainian assets? ukraine is in need of cash and this would be a good way to get cash into the country. ambassador nuland: i will admit you have stumped the witness. i will take that with our treasury colleagues. miss meng: thank you. my last question, i would like to get your impression on russian influence in europe. russians own media properties in great written and russia has close ties with political parties in britain and france, mainly the u.k. independence party as well as a national fund in france -- national front in france. some of the ties, such as the energy relationships are clear. others are more in the shadows. can you shed some light on

russian influence in the european media and finance sectors and give us a sense of who in the western european political landscape art process -- are close with the kremlin? ambassador nuland: this is something we are watching extremely closely. i think the russian investments in government top again to in europe are clear for everybody to see the massive that their new life form sputnik has made in germany and france, etc. interestingly, there has been a public backlash in both germany and france to the kind of propaganda russia is trying to sell and the market share for that kind of effort has not been as big as they hoped. just as in the united states the market share is relatively small. because they want truth, not kremlin publication. the more nefarious money sloshing around, it that is what you highlight, funding candidates and potable campaigns out of kremlin coffers setting up false ngos to look like they are representatives of civil society but really they are representative to the four -- the foreign governments view.

we are working together to make sure that the public in those countries know where this money is coming from. mr. emmer: the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes mr. ted poe from texas. mr. poe: like you, we are concerned. russian tanks are in that third and they are not going to leave.

though west pontificated and said this is bad and meanwhile putin is still there. in the meantime, russia goes into crimea and take over crimea. now they are in western europe. when they successfully take over eastern ukraine, they will keep moving, maybe to the baltics. last year, when you are here, in may, to be exact, i asked you the purpose of u.s. sanctions. and the question -- is the purpose of our sanctions to stop the russians or is the purpose of our sanctions to make the russians leave crimea? and you answered that the purpose of our sanctions were to make the russians leave crimea. is that still the purpose of sanctions against russia regarding crimea? to make them leave? ambassador nuland: yes, sir, we want crimea restored to ukraine. we have designated sanctions

vis-a-vis crimea. we talked a little bit earlier in the hearing about the impact that that has had in crimea. and we will continue to keep those in place. mr. poe: so the russians leaving crimea? ambassador nuland: they have not resulted in the russians leaving crimea but it has raise the price to russian coffers. mr. poe: it may be the sanctions and it may be also the world price and oil has dropped, which may be the main reason for the russian economy. are the russians building military installations and crimea? ambassador nuland: as you know they have had bases historically and crimea. mr. poe: are they building more? ambassador nuland: there is significant evidence to indicate

they are putting new improvements into those bases and new equipment. we can get you a classified briefing if you'd like. mr. poe: so the sanctions have not stopped russians building military installations and crimea. are any of those nuclear installations? ambassador nuland: i think we would like to speak to you about dubious capability in a different setting. mr. poe: anyway, they are building up their military presence in crimea? ambassador nuland: yes, sir mr. poe: that would seem to me that they are there to stay. what do you think? ambassador nuland: i think we need to maintain the pressure and we have to maintain the cost and we have to keep safe with ukraine so it can continue to try to get its territory back. mr. poe: when i talked to the president of ukraine last year asking what we could do, he replied that they would prefer that we send something other than canned food to them, which is what we were doing.