those gay, lesbian transgender's -- it doesn't just benefit them, but it benefits the entire culture of the large, medium, and small business because it says to any employee that you are here to work and we are going to judge you on your skills and that's it. nothing irrelevant, but your job performance. again, the employment practices in the employment policies nondiscrimination -- and they are by private companies -- that they have to set their own playing field for their own companies often mirror the language and what we don't see in this -- these companies for major fortune 100 companies to small businesses around this country, is we don't see the kind of interpretations that mr. clegg says will happen. >> the problem is that to the extent that is true, you have

undercut the argument for the necessity to pass this bill in the first place. it is a rational thing for all companies to do is to do the kinds of things this bill requires. you don't need to pass the bill. not passing and is not going to have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. discrimination is not going to be having substantial effect on your state congress. companies are going to be taking steps to get rid of it, anyway. i think there are going to be situations where taking sexual orientation into account is going to make sense. it may not be common and it may not be something that involves what most companies do -- this is another problem with passing one-size-fits-all federal legislation. it may be that people who make airplanes have no reason to consider sexual orientation. the people who are in the caregiving business might want

to consider sexual orientation. it just depends. there are thousands of businesses out there. they are all different. i don't think we should be passing a federal one-size-fits-all bill in that situation. >> if i could just -- >> but if it seems to work? >> similar arguments to that were raised when president obama decided that you would consider lifting the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, what of our nation's largest employers. people said this should not be one-size-fits-all. this is not what we should have. we should not have people on submarines with sexual orientation -- will absolutely undermine morale and unit cohesion. and we have not seen that come to pass. >> with several commissioners who want to ask questions. commissioner harriet?

>> thank you. i guess i want to ask about this notion of whether or not it can be interpreted in a counterproductive way. they get to interpret their own policies. they won't have that luxury as there is actively congressional enactment. the chairman mentioned title vii has worked out well. i guess i disagree. we need title vii, but there are lots of ways to has been interpreted encounter productive ways. some have the difficulty now employers have in taking into consideration felony convictions by job applicants. i don't want that sort of problem to incur here. if inda's past. because of the way gender identity is defined in the current version, inda prohibits discrimination on the basis of "gender related

characteristics." can you give me some help on what that might mean? for example, in the price waterhouse case, we have plaintiff who argued she is not been promoted because she was, i guess we could call it she was pushy as a female. she said that center to restrict would be referred to as assertiveness in a male. is assertiveness versus non-assertiveness, is that a gender-related characteristic? what is a gender related characteristic? employers are going to want some guidance as to what that means. anyone. >> if gender related means gender correlated, which i think is certainly one way you could interpret this, then i agree that this is opening a real pandora's box.

you could probably find social scientists or statisticians that could find all kinds of characteristics have some kind of correlation with gender with sex. and if all of those are now characteristics that you can't discriminate on the basis of then you have made it very hard for employers to make decisions on the basis of any characteristics at all. for example, criminal behavior. i think that everybody would agree that men are more likely

to commit crimes than women are. ok? so is criminal behavior a gender related characteristic? well, it is certainly gender correlated characteristic. so does this now mean employers can't discriminate at all -- not just on the basis of disparate impact, but that it is disparate treatment now to discriminate against somebody on the basis that they have murdered the last employer. sounds like a reasonable interpretation of the definition of gender identity to me. >> but not a very reasonable example. >> tell us -- >> i think that is a bit ridiculous. in terms of how we've seen it interpreted, what i understand it means and i wasn't involved in the drafting, but i understand it means it is very much along the price waterhouse. it is dress, presentation, it could be interpreted as characteristics of involved in the price waterhouse case, a woman that does not wear makeup, is not sufficiently feminine. a man that is -- >> two sides of the same coin,

would you say that is part of gender-related characteristics that minted to be more assertive in certain situations and women are sometimes less assertive situations? what does it mean? people don't always conform to gender. >> i feel like that is what this is trying to get to, is that when one doesn't conform, price waterhouse stands for the theory, and i feel like it is in sponsoring that, if someone either conforms to or does not conform to gender stereotypes, they will be protected. >> this is not title vii. if assertiveness is something that is considered to be more masculine characteristic and calmness is considered more

feminine, it looks to me under inda, it doesn't matter which person has the problem. a male job applicant could say i was rejected because i do conform to gender stereotypes. i am especially assertive, hyper masculine. yet there are lots of jobs for being -- where being hyper assertive is a very bad thing. >> i understand the hypothetical. it is not what we've seen in states that have similar language. >> with title vii, takes 50 years sometimes for these things to work themselves out. that is about passing when was that becomes part of the law. it doesn't go away. >> we do have case interpretations of state law in which that is similar to this that can be used to rebut a non-stance claim, for example, because it is not -- the good news is, this isn't a blank slate.

we do have a body of law in certain states and we do have several years, at least, of experience. >> title vii has been worked out perfectly, but the fact -- sometimes developing 50 years after its passage. right here, for example, we have been told that title vii can be used in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity. nobody would have thought that in 1964. maybe that is the right way to interpret it and maybe does the wrong way, but it is wrong to suggest the language is not when of your a problem because it is not a problem now. that is not the way statutes work. >> i understand that, but i think it is more important in your considerations to a dress what is the real problem now that we are trying to ameliorate. >> i think that is the wrong approach. we have a problem, let's go

with whatever language we have right now. we want good language. we want language that won't be abused. we wanted to only cover the things we wanted to cover. do we have that now? i would say no. i think we have language that is extremely vague. we don't know what gender related characteristics are going to mean. don't we need to develop that? >> we have over 20 years experience. minnesota adopted a law that includes both sexual orientation more than 20 years ago. reason you're seeing sexual orientation and gender identity being incorporated into interpretation of title vii is because the similarity between sex discrimination, gender identity, discrimination, is historically bound up with one another. what is discrimination on the basis of sex is also discrimination on the basis of gender identity. >> 20 years in a small state like minnesota is nothing. very, very, very small when you

multiply that over the population of the united states of america and run it for 50 years, there are going to be a lot of cases. we want to get this right the first time. >> we have also been looking at legislation for more than 20 years. to address discrimination in congress. there is an ongoing conversations, not a new idea or topic. we have changed in which over time, hash things out based on best practices that we've seen in states, municipalities. laws are not static. they don't exist forever. while title vii has not been amended, certainly, congress has gone and changed other statutes to do with changes in interpretation, that supreme court decisions, address additional statutes to rectify the situations. it is not a static and permanent forever.

>> again, as a former bureaucrat, i will point out when i was in the civil rights division at the justice department, it was rare that we looked at how analogous state statues had been interpreted in state courts. i think the commissioner is right that the notion that you're going to be able to fix vague ambiguous or problematic language in a federal bill by saying, oh, well, here is how the statute that was kind of worded the same way was interpreted by stick with the minnesota is being way to optimistic about how this process works. >> i think what you're faced with is, do you respond to what you know and what we have experience with, or do you respond to what you fear? and there is a body of law there is experience with cases that have been brought under

the law, and there is a problem that needs to be addressed. i am perfectly willing, given my own organization's position on inda, to have another go at language that could be more clear or to be more specific. but i feel like telling what you got is based on significant experience of individuals who have been involved in litigating and involved in these cases and involved in this area of law are several decades. >> i'm going to move on. if i have time at the end, i will come back. i still have three other commissioners that want to ask questions. >> i guess a want to ask mr. clegg all the questions i have. i will ask you, it seems to me your agreement with commissioner harriet regarding language means you are trying to craft a bill under which would be no litigation or definitions when in fact our

entire judicial system continuously on a day-to-day basis issues decisions and looks at statutes and defines them every day. i'm in, statutes that have been around 50 years or 100 years. not justice ministry -- not just discriminatory, but contract law, tort law. i don't understand the objection, i guess. i'm in, verbiage is verbiage. i understood when you are talking about the dress and all that. it wasn't that difficult for me, but that is what we do have courts for. and from your document, you obviously don't trust courts. you think they are liberal. i guess the roberts court must be too liberal for you. my point is, do you think that is what lawyers and courts are for?

for the legislative process to be perfect, i mean, they talk about stuffing a sausage. i just ask you to define why you think we shouldn't litigate these things and defined them over time? >> i don't want to fix the statute. i don't want to pass the statute at all. >> that i understand. >> and i don't think the reason that we have courts and lawyers is to figure out how companies are to deal with employees who have this or that sexual orientation. i think that should be left to companies to do. i think there are some extraordinaire situations where we have to have laws that tell employers things that they can do and can't do. i think we had to have a federal statute that told employees they cannot

discriminate on the base of race. but those instances are rare. >> but aren't they protecting 5.4 million workers as opposed to the 600 complaints? who are we protecting, the 5.4 million lgbt workers or are we just protecting the 627 complaints or whatever? >> the question is whether this legislative is going to -- whether the problem being addressed here has a substantial effect on interstate commerce. actually, the number of employer -- of employees who are going to be protected by this law is all of them. because it is not just discrimination against -- sexual orientation is described as being homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual.

so anybody can sue under this statute. if you are straight anyone a job at a gay bookstore and you don't get hired anything the reason you were tired is because you are straight, you have a lawsuit, too. i don't think you can put it in terms of the number of employees were being protected from discrimination. potentially, all employees are being protected from this termination. the question is whether the underlying problem is one that has substantial effect on interstate commerce and whether there is -- where the circumstances are such, that the only way to address this problem is through federal legislation. i think the answer is to both of those questions, is no. >> clearly, when corporate america institutes the guidelines and rules and regulations, that is not really enforceable by the employee in most cases. is it? >> why does that matter? if the problem is

discrimination against gays, if that is what being asserted has -- if the problem that substantially affecting interstate commerce, if that problem is being alleviated by companies enacting unilateral policies, then what difference does it make if it is a private right of action or not? >> it is not enforceable by the employee. you can have a role and ignore the rule. >> you can have a law and ignore the law. >> but then there is a remedy. we talked about remedies in the law, we don't just talk about rules. >> my point is, there is slippage in both instances. just because you have a statute, doesn't mean magically that you're not going to have any more discrimination. even if you can bring lawsuits. different companies may structure these guidelines

differently. if you were a company, you could structure it, so here is our policy. if you're an individual and you think your immediate supervisor has discriminated against you on the basis of sexual orientation, you can follow complaint with the hr department. things similar to that are done in this area already. >> >> thank you. sexual harassment, if you're sexually harassed by your immediate supervisor and most companies now have mechanisms where you can complain about that to some person other than your immediate supervisor. so i think if a company wanted

to, it could set up protections against sexual orientation discrimination the same way. >> and many of those cases still end up in the courts. any more questions? commissioner? >> it has been asserted by some who oppose uniform federal standard that adoption of same will lead to sexual harassment in the workplace as opposed to redress sexual harassment in the workplace, is it your interpretation of this proposed

federal standard that this would be the case? and if you would comment as well on the issue of whether or not the existence of a uniform federal standard would prevent persons with a particular religious point of view from expressing that point of view in the workplace because such a thing would then become defined ipso facto as creating a hostile work environment as some opponents have argued. >> sure. so there's absolutely no evidence despite the fact that we have 21 states and the district of columbia that have not discriminate in laws on the books that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation that is led

to any rise in sexual harassment. sexual harassment is a very real and pervasive problem. it is something that disproportionately affects women in the workplace. i did not cover up your with those statistics in terms of what we're discussing today. we would be happy to get those to you. to the extent, however, someone who is straight is experiencing sexual harassment they have remedy currently under title vii. and it covers that only lgbt people, but straight people as well. so those individuals would have a remedy that only through their employer, but also in the courts if it were a persistent problem. >> any sexual harassment that isn't otherwise being addressed through existing laws, correct? >> correct.

the united states supreme court has already addressed the issue of people in the same sex and those are remedies that exist currently for individuals and this will not change those access to that remedies. >> so the same sex or opposite sex or if they're gay of straight, adoption of a uniform federal standard has no impact. >> that's correct. with regards to sexual harassment. which i want to tease out is a little different on the basis of sexual orientation. so someone who is engaging in the behavior based on the sex of the individual and in the sexual terms and sexual nature as of posed to an employee who is harassing another employee who is gay and using derogatory terms for someone who is gay in an teement drive them out of

the workplace. >> and it would be use of derogatory terms that would be addressed if we were to adopt the uniform federal standards. >> that's right. so uniform federal standards erase or at least give people remedy to address harassment based on the sexual orientation of the individual rather than harassment that is just sexual in nature and happens to occur between two people who are of the same sex. >> so calling someone a dike or a fag. >> that's what this would address. >> talk about then the relationship if any between that and the assertion that persons of a particular deeply held religious belief would be

-- have their first amendment rights circumscribed in these workplaces if there were the adoption of a uniform federal standard to protect lgbt people in the workplace. >> so religious employers /employees are already protected under title 7 and have the ability to make assertions about their religious beliefs in the workplace. i would say there is a huge difference between asserting in the work place and employees opposition to marriage for same sex couples or a belief that homosexuality is immoral and calling someone dike or fag. that we can make distinctions between what is assertion of a person's religious belief and what is harassing behavior. now, certainly if an individual post passage of a national federal standard for

nondiscrimination in the workplace were to target an lgbt individual to enter their workspace on a daily basis or routine basis and say to them i think you're going to burn in hell because you're gay, that would create liability for the employer and the employee would have the ability to sue for harassment and discrimination in the workplace. but i think that we can draw and certainly the courts have shown the ability to make distinctions between what is an individual's assertion of their religious beliefs and where that steps into harassment and abuse of another employee. and we see this in the context's effects as well. we do have many individuals throughout the united states who have sincerely held religious beliefs that wiment don't blodge in the workforce that only types of activists

are appropriate for women, that men deserve higher pay because they're head of household. we allow for religious individuals to express those views in limited ways in the workplace. but when they are targeting an individual or they are acting in such a way for such as actually providing women with lower salaries, that results in harm to the individual that is where we draw distinctions. >> i would just note that on pages 67-8 i talk about some of the ways that it would scompli kate the sexual harassment issues. and the two i have are pieces by hans better the competitive enterprise institute and professor eugene volumic on some of the virts amendment issues. >> i know you do and i thoroughly reject the rationale offered in those statements.

thank you very much. >> now everybody else knows that too. >> thank you. >> i join the commissioner in her thorough rejection. >> add me as well then. >> why are you having a briefing? >> because there are some actual serious issues about how you best implement this and you and i have who have debated many of these issues know, there are a lot of gray areas that even if you disagree on something, hopefully we can find some common ground on others to improve the entire framework. so i think this is in fact a very important enterprise. i wanted to start by addressing the commissioner's concern regarding the makeup of the panels. i believe that staff did invite a broad range of views to be present and in fact all commissioners are invited to

present ideas for staff of people to be invited and to help staff actually recruit people and of course we ask many groups who are interested in stakeholders who may be watching on air to know that they have 30 days to have -- that we have 30 days for people to submit written comments. so if you are out there and you have a different view and you want to make sure that the commissioners and staff take that into account please avail yourself of that opportunity. second i know that there's joking about this but i am concerned about disparagement of the dedicated staff at civil rights agencies as being nothing but ignorant

bureaucrats. many come with a lot of life experience and of course we also have a process of consultation when we do regulations and we propose new policies that take into account input from employers and affected communities. i don't want to leave the general public with the view that somehow bureaucrats put together laws that really are not based in any kind of reality. that is far from the case. doing regulation is a very long and painful process. so that is actually an oversimplification and a view that i don't subscribe to about how the government actually tries to play a helpful role on the issues that are important to everyone's day-to-day livelihoods and nothing could be more important than in the employment context. i'm curious because your argument against covering lgbtq

people seems to also apply to religious discrimination. is it the view of the center for equal opportunity that title 7 should not be trying to stop discriminationed based on religion? >> no. i'm not sure how that follows. no. >> because you argue that the lgbtq status is not immuteable which i don't necessarily agree with. >> wait a minute. i did not say that. >> well, in your comparison with lgbtq status and race you try to draw the distinction about how race is very different. but title 7 covers more than race. so i'm just trying to understand the boundaries of your argument because you try to make the point that we should not -- >> not accurately try to characaterize what i said. >> that's what i'm asking you.

>> no. >> please comment. >> the center for equal opportunity does not object to the fact that title 7 makes it illegal to discriminate against employees on the basis of religion. i don't see how there's an inconsistency between thinking that that kind of prohibition is acceptable and saying that we should not add an additional prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. the reasons that i give for being opposed to inda i think would not apply to

discrimination on the basis of religion. so i'm -- >> i want to be clear that i think it's appropriate to cover religion. and the reason i'm asking you is because you have put enormous trust in markets, in free markets to do the right thing and that you've made the statement that it's very clear in the case of race to you why title 7 is important. and i'm trying -- and the reasons you give are because of the long history that we've had with discrimination which we've also had against lgbtq people but you make the argument that race is not an immuteable characteristic whereas it's more difficult -- >> i don't think i used the word immuteable in my testimony. >> that's how i interpret it. so i'm trying to interpret why race is different from lgbtq status and also but yet the

basis of which is different is the same reason that is you could look at relingen in terms of smallness of the numbers of impact whether or not government should be involved in that. so i just want to make sure i understood where you were coming from. i wanted to ask you whether if inda were to happen so you've raised the issue of bona fide occupational qualifications. right? and so i want -- >> not in those terms no i did not raise that. >> i thought you did in your testimony. ok. >> but i'm heap to talk about it and i agree with the point that ink it was in the previous panel discussing the fact that there is no bfoq in inda. i'm familiar with that. >> maybe it was in the attachments to your testimony. but -- ok. well let me just ask the

question. do you feel that there should be bfoq's for inda? >> well, again, i'm not particularly interested in fine tuning inda to make it a better statute because i think it's a bad statute from beginning to end. i don't think congress has the authority to pass its. i suppose that if inda were passed i would want it in it. yes. >> and what would that look like to you? >> i think it would be parallel to the bfoq language in title 7.

>> i am trying to make sure that you accurately characterize what i said. >> that is what i am asking you. please clarify where i've gone astray. >> the center for equal opportunity does not object to the fact that title vii makes it illegal to discriminate against employees on the basis of religion. and i don't see how there is an inconsistency between thinking that that kind of prohibition is acceptable and saying that we should not add an additional prohibition against determination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. the reasons that i give for being opposed to inda, i think, would -- would not apply to discrimination on the basis of religion. >> i want to be clear that i think it is appropriate to

cover religion. and the reason i'm asking you is because you put enormous trust in markets and free markets to do the right thing, and you have made a statement that it is very clear in the case of race to you why title vii is important. and the reasons you give are because the long history that we have had with discrimination, which we have also had against lgbtq people, but you make the argument that race is not an immutable characteristic, where it is more difficult -- >> i didn't use the word "immutable" in my testimony. >> i'm just trying to clarify why race is different from lgbtq status and -- but yet, the basis of which is different is the same reasons that you can look at religion in terms of the smallness of the numbers of impact, whether or not government should be involved in that. i just wanted to make sure i understood where you are coming from. i wanted to ask you whether -- if inda were to happen, see every the issue of bona fide occupational qualifications. >> not in those terms, no. >> i thought you did in your testimony. >> i don't think so. but i would be happy to talk about it. and i agree with the point i think was in the previous panel discussing the fact there is no -- in inda. >> may be was in the attachments to a testimony. ok, well, let me ask the question, do feel there should be bfoq for inda. >> i'm not particularly interested in fine tuning inda to make it a better statute because i think it is a bad statute from beginning to end. i don't think congress has the authority to pass it. if inda were passed, i would want a bfoq in it. >> what would that look like to you? >> i think it would be parallel to bfoq language in title vii. which follows the prohibition in title vii of discrimination -- where it lists because of discrimination that are illegal, but then it says that -- this is 703e. it says that there is an exception where religion, sex, or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the operation of that particular business or enterprise. >> and what kind of religious accommodation, if any, would you think would be appropriate? >> again, it would not be limited to religious context. i think there could be other instances where there would need to be a bfoq for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. i described some of those in my world testimony. for instance, if you have a caregiver and the customer who was being given a caregiver

said, you know, i'm really not comfortable. this is a very intimate situation. i'm going to begin a bath by this person. i don't want to be -- the caregiver to be someone i think is going to be -- where sex is going to be an issue, where there's any likelihood of sexual attraction by the individual to me. so i am a straight male. therefore, i don't want women -- basically, i want a straight male to bathe me. i don't want women to bathe me for privacy reasons and i don't with them to be attracted and i don't want a gay man to bathe me, either. there's nothing religious about that. >> do you have aging parents? >> yeah. >> i have a very aging mother. and if we rejected every person she didn't want, we would have no people at all. >> you think there should be a federal law that requires her mother to have to hire whomever -- >> if someone said, it is very intimate, i don't want a white person touching me, would that -- would you feel like that was ok? >> that is a good question. of course, there is no bfoq for race. the reason is because the people at the time the statute was written were afraid that that exception would swallow the rule. at the time, that was a reasonable call. it there is a cost to that. >> that is the point i'm trying to make. can i ask the other panelists to answer the question about what kind of -- do they see

whether there is any need for bfoq and what kind of bfoq would you think was appropriate if you felt one was going to be necessary? >> the only bfoq we think would be appropriate would be a bfoq applied continuing to sex, but where gender identity is pretty consistent with the person's actual gender identity. if, for example, you have a bfoq for prison guards that requires only men to be staffing male prisons, then you would need to hire a transgender man to staff or permit a transgender man to be a male prison guard. >> state for the record what you mean by transgender man. >> an individual who was assigned female at birth and

transitioned to male at some point. >> in what way, just to clarify for the record? >> transitioning in multiple ways, but frequently, those who are transgender take hormones consistent with the sex that they have transitioned to. and some, though not all, also have surgery on their bodies to conform their bodies to the new presentation. >> so someone considered to be transgender would not have any surgery, which -- would still have the biological equipment they had at birth. >> your microphone? >> sorry, it won't go on. i just want to clarify for the record, you would be talking about a transgender man maybe someone with female body as it were, female organs that has taken hormones to make them -- is the correct? >> they may have had some surgeries.

they may have had surgery to have their bodies changed so that all of the genitalia now appears male. others may have had some surgery and not others. it varies from individual to individual. in terms of medical best practices, it is absolutely best for individuals to build a determine what level of surgery is right for them. >> which also conclude someone who is not had hormonal trip meant, has not had surgery, but dresses and otherwise identifies with the sex that they were not born with? >> commissioner harriet, after that, i'll ask you not to asking more questions because we are already over the panel time. >> i just want to make sure i understand what the terms mean. >> way back to the original question, we would support a very limited bfoq -- >> would you answer my question? >> i believe i have.

>> someone can be transgender that has another hormonal treatment or espresso gender identity as when they were born with. >> i'm sorry, can i get my question done? >> we would support a very limited bfoq. it does not seem there is a very -- in which summit and should be rejected based on their orientation or gender identity and engaging in employment context. very, very narrow instance even with sex, there is very

few legitimate bfoq. >> what about religious accommodation? >> with the bfoq? >> with any exemption or accommodation of religious views. >> as i put in my both oral and rent testimony, the title vii standard is an ideal model. it allows religious employers, those were religious organizations, to provide preference to individuals other own religion in addition we have very robust case law around the ministerial exemption for religious organizations as well. >> in addition? >> no, that was the only question for me. >> the only thing i would add is i think it is something that mr. clegg said earlier about working with young children.

i wasn't quite sure whether the comment meant to suggest -- >> i did not say that, i said adolescents. >> ok. whether the comment was meant to suggest someone's sexual orientation has something to do with one's ability or inability to work with adolescents. i think the medical profession and those who work with children, pediatricans to the amercican psychological association to the medical association have also put those doubts to rest. >> all i was saying is straight men are more likely to be attracted to adolescent females than gay men are, and that gay men are more likely to be attracted to adolescent males than straight men are. >> well, i think -- >> think so? >> a very robust panel.

we learned a lot, especially about mr. clegg's personal preference for individual care at some point. we're going to take a break for lunch. we will return at 1:00 p.m. with panel number three. thank you.

mr. slade: good evening. we are pleased to have the secretary of transportation, mr. anthony foxx, as part of our renewing america series, to discuss beyond traffic, and how the current state of our u.s. infrastructure is so very important to our u.s. competitiveness abroad. i guess you have been all given the housekeeping rules already. i guess i would add it is as important as ever to turn on -- turn off your phones or to vibrate, because it is on record and you would be on record as someone that failed to turn off their phone. so, mr. secretary, welcome to the council on foreign relations. secretary foxx: thank you. mr. slade: i have seen you

speak on other occasions and you are a very impressive speaker, so we are looking forward to this. secretary foxx: thank you. mr. slade: before we take a deep dive into "beyond traffic," this is a group of international enthusiasts and foreign policy wonks, maybe you could remind us why it is that our infrastructure is so important to us and internationally, our competitive position abroad. secretary foxx: thank you for the question. i want to thank the senate -- the council on foreign relations for having me. it is great to talk about -- talk to an audience who focuses on so many things happening across the world. to spend a little time talk about -- talking about the role u.s. infrastructure plays in the global space -- look, we as a country where the inventors of the modern aviation system,

the automobile, and many other innovations that have occurred in modes of transit and transportation. so, just from the standpoint of america continuing to create and innovate within transportation, i think the entire world has seen the impact of this country's focus on that. beyond that, we are very much a thread that as the global market expands, as goods need to move across the world in a timely, efficient, and safeway that american transportation networks are going to be critical. our rail systems and highway systems are sometimes referred to as a land bridge for international travel because their goods literally, cross our surface systems to get to

another point in the world. we have ports that are going to increasingly become important. we saw, just recently, with the west coast ports and the labor issues there, that what happens when some of our ports start to slow down and become less productive -- we also have challenges with east coast ports being drenched to a level of depth that will be respective to the vessels moving around the earth soon. we have an aviation system that continues to evolve, and international standard-setting that now happens at iko, but innovations that continue to be worked through such as next gen, and a lot of the discussion we have had because of recent flights that were

lost, in some cases, about the use of technology and tracking planes. so, there is a lot of innovation that i think is still out there to be embedded in the world, and again, i think the u.s.'s role is as an innovator, idea generator, bringing innovations into the marketplace, but just the sheer importance of our physical infrastructure cannot be understated because we literally help the world will. mr. slade: well, mr. secretary you have only been secretary now for a year and a half, but you have been a busy secretary. let's talk a little bit beyond -- about "beyond traffic, a very impressive document -- all 300 pages of it. there is a shorter version on the web. it is jampacked full of trends

impacts on our system. from those trends, you call them the choices we have to make -- maybe you can share the contents of that document, and what it is. secretary foxx: so, "beyond traffic," is the latest effort to assess the condition of the american transportation system and to forecast over a longer horizon than we typically have the ability to do on capitol hill and out our -- out in our communities, what trends are happening to us that we need to think about now and i just do. just a couple of things we were able to find out in the course of doing this study -- first we are growing. this country is going to have 70 more -- 70 million more people trying to move around in the next 30 years, so what i say to people is that commute

that takes one hour today, get ready, it will be longer 30 years from now if we do not do more. in some cases doing more mean some of the things we have done historically, which means adding lane miles to our highway systems. in some cases, there are areas that are more constrained now -- mostly urban areas where it is an practical, and you now need to think about doing something different with modal choices, adding pedestrian features, different choices, different ways of moving around -- so, the sheer growth the country will experience is, i think, a troubling trend given how much we are investing and how we are investing today. there are generational differences in how each generation uses transportation. i am still from the school -- you know, when i was 16, the thing to do was to go get a

car. that is how you got the girls. you know, that is what you did. mr. slade: i am glad you got the girls. secretary foxx: some people did. depending on what kind of car you had. but, anyway -- this generation this millennial generation, has a totally different perspective on transportation, and many of them are not looking to go buy a car. prickly, some of them are not even going to buy a house these days -- frankly, some of them are not even going to buy a house these days. they have a different relationship to they are more likely to be on the interior of an urban metropolis, use bicycles, transit facilities. this generation is looking for a quality of life, so to speak that allows them to move fairly organically between things, and they do not want to have a lot

of accoutrements on top of that. anyway, the bottom line is i think that is a trend. we will have to see how long it sticks, but assuming that it does, we have some challenges with how we are spending because right now out of a $70 billion budget, we are putting $40 billion into a highway system, and if we have a generation of folks that will not be as focused on the use of that -- we still have commerce that needs to move that way, obviously -- that may need we need to think about a balance that involves a little more transit, too. mr. slade: as secretary, you have responsibility over a lot of different modes of transportation throughout the united states -- not just highways, but airport, rail, seaports. it would be unfair to expect you to fix everything in the united states, right? as you also know from your

period as the very successful mayor of charlotte, north carolina, there are a lot of local and state authorities as well. so, could you talk a little bit, so we get the groundwork here, what are the respective roles of the federal department of transportation versus the state so that people do not set their expectations too high? it is --secretary foxx: it is a great point, and one way refer to in "beyond traffic." by the way, this is a real page turner. >> it does not have cliff notes. secretary foxx: there is a cliff notes version. to answer your question squarely, how things are built depends on the mode of transportation you are talking about, so for instance, freight rail systems are largely privately owned. so, a lot of our engagement with the freight rail system is on private sector

engagement. our highway system is largely state-driven, so the states have a huge role to play in the maintenance, as well as the continued expansion of our highway system. our transit systems are, yet again, a different level of governance because those are mostly local. so, the large transit systems across the country are largely a creature of local government or some type of authority that except an area of local government. so, we are all over the map when it comes to how governance shapes transportation. i think that is one difference you find in the u.s. versus another part of the world. a lot of places -- you know, france, they build french highways. they do not referring to a state. we do that, and that makes things more complicated. mr. slade: yeah. one of the fascinating

statistics were projections in "beyond traffic" is that in 30 years 75% of the u.s. population is expected to live in these mega-regions, the northeast corridor, the gulf coast, the chicago of -- hub so that is going to rejigger this federal state divide even more, right? there will have to be even more state cooperation, but what you think the federal government can, or should be doing to facilitate that cooperation? it is really going to change the map. secretary foxx: the "beyond traffic" study does not say this because it is intended to be more of a descriptive document than a prescript to document, -- prescriptive document, but what i believe is the federal government -- actually, although government, is going to need to be -- all of government is going to be more attuned to these issues.

i come from a city that is on the border near south carolina and part of our influence was from south carolina. the reality is the economy does not always tickets at two political jurisdictions. it focuses a lot more on workforce, assets within a given region, what have you. unfortunately, a lot of our decision-making right now is just within political jurisdictions. so, another feature of all we have proposed last year in legislation was an effort to encourage local communities to organize their transportation thinking along a regional cluster as opposed to just one county, or one city, starting to look at themselves as clusters of regional activity, and making transportation decisions that adjusted to that. i think that is a trend we will

need to bend towards as a country to be as successful as possible. mr. slade: i do not want to go off on a tangent, but recently in the press there was a governmental and -- side on the detroit crossing. on the one side we had the u.s. and she can, and the other canada, -- michigan, and the other, canada. would you use that as an example that it is tougher to get things done on our side than it is on there's? secretary foxx: i think we have many examples. there was a bridge project that was supposed to happen between the state of washington and the state of oregon. the politics outlined for a

point in time, and then the state house, or state senate changed in the state of washington. they did not want to do the project. the project sort of falls apart. we find these types of challenges all the time. so, the windsor project is a little different, because it has an international dimension to it. mr. slade: which is why i raised it for this -- secretary foxx: i understand. it is a little different because the canadians are really putting up a significant amount of the capital cost of doing this project, and notwithstanding a lot of efforts we undertook as an administration to figure out a way to do more cost-sharing. mr. slade: yeah. well, if we could, maybe, for a moment, focus on, probably the most, or biggest from a budgetary perspective, mode of transportation, the highway system, and move from a

proscriptive -- proscriptive to a prescript of, because there is a bill -- prescriptive because there is a bill before congress the administration has put there to reauthorize the transportation system. it is still sitting in congress while the current authorization runs out in two months right? could you talk about some of the key features of that bill and what will happen if you do not get something done in two months? secretary foxx: yeah. well, anybody find a pothole on the way here? secretary foxx: seriously. potholes all over this country are atrocious, and they are getting worse all over the place. what a lot of people do not realize is the transportation infrastructure, the road systems they use, are really and amalgam of the federal local, states and governments

working together. we have had 32 short-term measures passed by congress on surface transportation, and having been a mayor, this is what it means. if you have a one of $2 million were more project -- if you have a $100 million or more project, you might sit on it because if you do not know what is coming, it makes it harder to design a project, go through the headaches of public input, the push-pull of getting a project done. so, i think what washington has told the rest of the country is just stop, and that is the opposite of what we need to be doing. within that context, the president has opposed the grow america act, reflecting a 50% increase over current levels.

we think we should be doing ia -- doing a whole lot more highway maintenance. we should have a national freight plan that has money behind it as a country so we can make sure we maintain our place as the most efficient, effective, and save system of moving commercial goods across the world. we think we should have funding set aside for these local communities that have figured out how to cluster themselves along areas of economic spheres of influence, and we think we should have some greater protections for safety for the traveling public that we do not currently have as a public today. so, the grow america act is a huge step forward, but we need congress to pass it, and if they are not going to pass that, pass something. mr. slade: yeah. maybe if we could talk for a minute about one of the

elephants in the room, the federal highway trust fund. that, by way of background ever since eisenhower, our federal highway interstate system has been built out through this trust fund, which is funded solely by a gas? tax right i -- gas tax, right? if i recall correctly, from "beyond traffic," there is $30 billion of revenue currently being generated by the gas tax. $40 billion is being spent just to keep the current spending but $80 billion if we are going to make the vestment that we need, so we have -- the investment that we need, so we have a real problem with the gas fund. it is basically insolvent. so, what are some of your thoughts, the administration's thoughts, anyway, on how to plug the gap? an increase in the gas tax?

there seems to be a bipartisan lack of support for that. it will it be hitting up the general fund continually? the president has proposed a one-off, 14% income tax on foreign income, which might spark interest in this room, too, or tolls, right? there is the possibility of revisiting the tolling system for the interstate highway system. secretary foxx: well, this is a very important point. the highway trust fund has been roughly running 15 billion dollars short on an annual basis, and in recent years congress has tried to patch together -- patch it together using a variety of legislative duct tape and chewing gum to keep it afloat. i would say in response to the

question, i think it is misguided on our part to think that plugging the highway trust fund is a substitute for making the investments in our infrastructure that we should take. somewhere along the lines we got this impression that if we just got the trust fund plussed up, that would resolve our problems. the reality is if you just got the trust fund level off into last year's numbers, you would still be about $11 billion, $12 billion short, just on the maintenance that needs to happen on an annual basis in this country. i think the problem we have is everyone wants things to be like they were in 1956, and we are not in 1956 anymore. we are in 2015. i will say one other thing. just -- you know, i had an opportunity to watch a little basketball over the weekend, and i watched duke play a game

and for the first 24 minutes coach k looked like he would prefer to be someplace else. at the end of the game, he said it was like an out of body experience -- the team was not doing anything we told them to do for 24 minutes. the last 16 were fine. as the secretary of transportation, i am having an out of body experience every day because i go to these places, i see the bridges, the roads, the potholes, and it is "-- it is, like, not the country that i grew up in. i am criticized for being such a champion of congress not doing something on this, but it is not being pollyanna --. the country really -- pollyanna -- the country really needs this. our kids need this. if they do not have it, we will

be taking something away from them that they need, and i do not think that is right. mr. slade: you do not think the low price of gas right now is going to encourage congress to up the gas tax? secretary foxx: you know, look the reality is i think we're going to have to have a different system, and, you know, look, we have proposed a system that would, at least, for six years, give us a substantial bump in the amount of money that goes into our trust fund using pro-growth business tax reform. you know, i think it is, like, everyone wants the ribbon-cutting, but nobody wants to do what it takes to get there, and i think we are at a point right now, what we are in a much deeper hole then most of the country realizes. we are in a much deeper

hole. it is a serious problem, and i would be committing malpractice if i did not continue to try to say it. mr. slade: i forgot to mention that you are a lawyer. malpractice is on your mind. mr. slade: maybe we can go back for a moment to the question of the state, federal, local divide, because some would argue one of the reasons why congress resists reauthorization is two, in effect, encourage the de-evolution of funding responsibility at the state level, and, in fact, that seems to be happening. senator wicker recently referred to the fact that the states are a laboratory for fiscal innovation here, passing taxes, experimenting with tolls, and that sort of thing. is that, maybe, de facto what is going to happen?

is it, to some extent, realignment of responsibility in a direction where it is ok? secretary foxx: i wish we were having a real conversation about what that means, because what that means, in my view, is that we will do even the same maintenance of effort we have been doing. i think the revolution means we will be doing less -- less maintenance, less new capacity building. look, you look around the globe, there are countries that are experiencing population declines, and maybe that is a decent strategy for a country experiencing population declines, or declines in the amount of commercial goods movement, but we are expecting exponential increases in both of those areas. so, it is, like, what do we not get about this?

i am promising you, it is going to be more expensive for us to doubt all around for years years, and years, then it would be to just bite the bullet develop a strategy, stick to the strategy, pay now, because it is going to be a lot cheaper than trying to pay later. i have this conversation with secretary duncan a lot because i think education and transportation have a lot in common in the sense that they are both long-term. if you do not invest today, you will see the outcome tomorrow. you will see it in increased costs, and i just think that for the country -- if we get those two issues right, the country has a very bright future. but, if we keep battling along it is going to be a tough time. mr. slade: now we get to my favorite topic, which is public/private

partnerships. this administration has been a big supporter of ppp's as one way of encouraging capital into the transportation secretary -- sector. there has been a lot of high profile 3p -- the solution in pennsylvania, the rapid bridge program, which has been high-profile, i think, with you. i think, some 34 states throughout the country have 3p programs, and other countries, canada, and a lot of countries in europe have relied heavily on this system. so, what does the administration think about this? are there things in the pipeline to encourage further development of this technique? secretary foxx: yeah, we think

there is an increased role for the department of transportation to play in public/private partnerships, and i will give you a couple of examples. first, you know, while there are increasing numbers of states that are setting up public/private partnership offices, there is still a little bit of residual fear out there in the public realm around public/private partnerships. part of what we think we can do as a department is to help remote best practices -- promote best practices, to help issue model legislation, or at least put model legislation out there that states could at least take up, and to try to help create an atmosphere through which public/private partnerships gain greater acceptance at the delivery level. secondly, we have a lot of permitting work we do with the department with interagency partners. one thing we have learned is

when you talk about the cost of a project, oftentimes there is a lot of permitting costs associated with it, and there is a reason we have some of the regulatory requirements we have. we think you can get faster results without doing an injustice to those equities, and that means having all of the agencies sitting at the table at the same time, looking at a permit, making their comments. the tappan zee bridge project in new york is an example of this, as it had four or five years of permitting that would not have happened under the regular course of things. we were able to get that permitted in 18 months and that is an example of something we would like to replicate. that is giving the private sector confidence that the public sector can actually deliver. third, one of the roles i am hopeful the department can play a better facilitation role is helping the private sector and

the public sector find each other. there are a lot of projects looking for resources. a lot of private-sector sponsors would like to think about a partnership that might not have the tools to figure that out. we want to help them, while we are also helping to figure out where the deal flow might come from. this is big because in a time of scarce resources, if we could convert even 5% or 10% of the transportation work and to private/public partnerships, that is 5% or 10% that we do not have to find someplace else, and friendly, if the deal works for everybody, all the better, so i think this is a space where there is a lot of opportunity. mr. slade: we know you are supportive of that technique and we have for it with the department of transportation to develop this model guide for

highway 3p's, and i know you know because i just reminded you in the other room. mr. slade: what we are finding working with transportation projects throughout the states is there is an increasing use or federal support that comes in the form of credit assistance, you know, as opposed to grant-funding in the past. twotwo there have been -- there have been two programs in particular that we see a lot of, private activity bonds, a form of tax-exempt financing. does the grow america act increase the caps, encourage further use? the you see that sort of trend?

secretary foxx: absolutely making big expansions in both programs and the idea is to create more facility so that we can get more projects going. again, though, i want to say one other caveat to migrate believes that public/private partnerships are going to be the wave of the future, which is to say they have to be undergirded with a public-sector commitment to transportation. in other words, if you do not get a long-term highway bill and you just rely on the public/private partnerships, the problem will be the private sector will not undertake the risk to plan those projects. so there still needs to be an underpinning of a public-sector commitment to the long-term for it all to work. mr. slade: right. well, i guess i should warn you all that in about several minutes i will start turning it

to the floor for questions, but i do have one more question. i have to admit, i watched your recent interview with eric schmidt, and there was one question i thought that was hilarious. shifting gears to our rail system a little bit, why is it that it takes only three hours to get from paris to marseille and that is 536 miles, and the boston to d.c. express takes seven hours for just 437 miles? i think i got the numbers right. secretary foxx: well, this is a vision that the president and i both share, which is that weekends read up these times. you know, look, when the rail system -- that we can speed up these times. you know, look, when the rail system was created, at some point people decided to put both of those things on the

same grade, so in some cases speeds will be limited -- limited because you do not want to have rail traffic going at such a high speed at greater that is intersecting with vehicular traffic. having said that, the cost of getting there is going to be significant, but, again, as you point out, the rest of the world has figured out that there are ways to get there. i think the the future for high-speed rail in the u.s. is actually pretty bright, but it is going to take some funds, some commitment, a lot of time. but we will get there. we always do. mr. slade: at this point in the program, i would like to turn it out to the audience. i would remind you that when you ask a question, please stand and give your name and affiliation.

this lady right here. nancy: thank you. i am with the navy postgraduate school. i was lucky enough to work with the acting secretary of transportation as well as the acting deputy secretary of defense and secretary of the navy --he was a really smart guy. secretary foxx: yeah. nancy: he told all of us about the importance of minutes. we became so committed to the issue. i sit here listening, why don't we understand that? i'm here -- i am into story-telling. first of all, i did not know about this document. nobody has time to read 300 pages, so the question is what are the essential messages that you want all of us to understand? you ought to think about writing stories for children

middle school kids. it -- if the middle school kids can understand, the rest of the population can, and you need to get mike get your stories onto pbs. again, that is short, but you have to figure out how to tell these in a short time, and is your information department working on that? secretary foxx: actually, it is a great question, and we are working on that. here is the thing about transportation that is hard. if i give you a statistic -- i am going to make one up -- the average commute times -- i am totally making this up, so do not quote me on this -- the average commute time has gone up 20% in the u.s. over 10 years. that means something on one level, but it means nothing on another level. a lot of our story-telling, has to be told that a very localized level. it has to be almost

micro-targeted, in a sense. this road, in your neighborhood, that the state has been talking about for 10 years, has not gotten done because the money does not exist. if the money where their, you could get the road done. you would have 15 minutes save then your commute, or whatever. i think one of the challenges we have is that the country is so vast, and there are so many different ways which transportation impacts people, that we have to figure out a way to talk about this that reaches people where they are, but i think there is a way to do that. our team is working on it, and i appreciate the point. thank you. mr. slade: in fact, there is a 10-page, shorter version of this that a person like me was able to access and read quickly. nancy: where do we find them? secretary foxx: on our website. d.o.t..gov. nancy: what do i call it? secretary foxx: ma'am, if you go to "beyond traffic," on our

website, there is the long version and the short version. mr. slade: this gentleman. charlie: i am concerned about cyber hacking and its impact on our infrastructure, and i guess my question is -- how -- well, in the premises, virtually every corporation has been hacked, apparently. a lot of times we do not even know. how vulnerable is our american infrastructure to cyber-hacking, and what are we doing about it? secretary foxx: it is a great question, and it is an area that we are spending an awful lot of time on. if i were looking at circles

the smallest one being data systems within u.s. dot, which extend from everything from faa, doing flight management all day long, to other parts of all work. we are certainly not -- of our work. we are certainly not perfect. we certainly have had some high-profile vulnerabilities exposed to us recently, we always want to make sure we stay ahead of who is trying to get into our systems. that is an effort that will continue. longer term, as we become more technologically connected -- you know, you talk about connected vehicles -- we are having conversations about vehicles that talk to the infrastructure. nextjen, which takes the aviation system off of world war ii radar onto a gps system -- just about every mode of transportation is going to become more automated in some way.

and, as we do that, we have to be triply focused on making sure there are protections built in there to prevent the type of hacking that you are talking about. now, i would say, as we are working to build through next jen, a lot of that work is ongoing and is in the process of working that out. we will have to work with the industry. we have encouraged the auto industry, for instance, to form an alliance that allows them to share information on cyber security issues with our support because it will take that kind of partnership with an issue -- within industry to help us get there, but we are working on that issue all the time. mr. slade: this woman right there. reeva: hi. i am from georgetown university. where are we now with the north

american transportation system? when nafta was passed, it also had a lot of policy cooperation, and regulatory cooperation, and the area of transport was one of the -- you know, intermodal transport was one of the things that was supposed to give the north american region competitiveness in terms of global trade and industry, so i am just curious where we are with that now, and with the pending transatlantic trade agreement? i'm sure the europeans have a lot of things they want to have in place in terms of compatibility, port systems, surface transport, and aviation. so, anyway, that is just what i wanted to ask. secretary foxx: you are right. there is an awful lot of opportunity in north america for cooperation. i want to talk about two areas

where we are working with mexico, for instance, and then to talk more generally about how we are looking at our own national freight plan in the context of the continent, not just the u.s.. 's's one of nafta requirement -- one of nafta's requirements was that we created cross-border trucking program with the country of mexico, and just this year, after many fits and starts, we have moved forward with creating that program and that work is ongoing to stand it up. that essentially means that mexican -- mexican trucking companies will be at able to go from mexico to a point in the u.s. bringing or taking goods from one point to the other. that is a big development, by the way, because that has been a long, standing issue. the other issue is that we are

working with mexico to develop an aviation agreement that opens up more access for both mexican carriers, as well as u.s. carriers, and we are very very encouraged by the work that has been done on that. so, i agree, there are plenty of opportunities. as we have begun looking at our own national freight plan -- i talked about it earlier -- one of the things that we have discovered is that we cannot look at u.s. borders. we have to look at canada, mexico. we have to think about how these different connections intersect. if we build a road, it is supposed to go and mexico, but their main road is coming up through someplace else, maybe that will not be the best way to do it.

we have to have some level of international discussion about how that freight plan comes together, so that is a big take-home for us, l we are painted -- and we are certainly paying attention to it. mr. slade: this gentleman right here. allen: mr. secretary, you mentioned high-speed rail. i frequently take the bus when i go to new york. it is not much slower than amtrak, and the us sell a is expensive, not comfortable, and not very fast. japan has had high-speed rail since the 1960's. are we ever going to get there? secretary foxx: well, look, our administration has taken some pretty forward-looking -- forward-leaning stepson high-speed rail. we have not always been patted on the back for it, but the efforts to get high-speed rail

connections in california -- for all of the dustup that that created, that project broke ground in daniel -- in january of this year. we are now starting to see states like texas, and, of all states, florida, now coming with proposals to do it through public/private partnerships. so, we are trying to work with those project sponsors as well. in other words, i think the future of high-speed rail in the u.s., for the foreseeable future, is going to be connecting city pairs. i do not think you will see a wholesale system built out in one false whoop, but i think you will start to see city pairs connected and in some time you will see more of the country connected by high-speed rail. i really bullish on that, and i think it is going to happen. by the way, our bill does

actually put passenger rail into the trust fund. one of the challenges we have had in the u.s. is passenger rail has not had a dedicated revenue stream and it is not been able to predict year to year what the funding would be and we created a trust in for a single system that would have rail, transit, and highways in it. mr. slade: this gentleman in front. david: thank you. david short, with fedex. your comment a moment ago prompted me to offer a shout out, a congratulations on the mexico aviation agreement and the work of your team. i know brandon is with us. susan did an amazing job of the mexicans should be trusting her -- charging her income taxed because she spent so much time in mexico. and brian, the president of the team. the question is about next gem.

fedex flies to about 300 airports in the notice states alone, not to mention global reach. with our on-time guarantee, if we do not deliver pupils passages on time, we do not get paid. operating on time is critical. could i ask, mr. secretary, on the reason it has been so difficult to implement nextgen and your thoughts on the progress of implementing that? secretary foxx: so, nextgen has been the horizon, looking back depending on who you talk to it has been 20 years. it is a difficult thing to talk -- think about -- how you piece together our airspace on a gps-based system.

in this administration, i would say we have made more progress in the last few years getting nextgen advanced than we probably have made in so many years combined before. i will not put a number on it. some of the problems nextgen has had has been that the commitments made to fund the effort for nextgen have not always come through. so, there has been some years were the funding has fell short. some of it has been that it's just complicated. i mean, i was down in houston where we just -- i think we opened up like 60-plus nextgen capabilities in houston which is huge but when they started to establish -- like, it's the equivalent of taking i-495 i-95 and completely

restructuring those and having to go through all of the v.i.s. processes, all the public input processes to do that on more consolidated groups. i mean, that's what they're doing with the air space. even when you get into the technical features of it, it starts to create a lot of push-pull. and some of that is endemic to any kind of transportation project. so what i can say to you is, is this is an area of focus for me. i know that we will not get nextgen to the point of absolute completion by the time i leave this department. but one of the things that i have made it my mission to do is to make sure that we've got a clear pathway for nextgen before we leave. and that we're making as much progress every day as we possibly can as an administration. and i think -- by the way, we're starting to see the

product of it. you know, we have optimized profile dissents happening around the country today. you may know what that is. but for those of you who don't this is basically the airplane idles as it lands. this is a capability that nextgen makes possible. it saves fuel. it makes the airplane quieter and it saves the environment. but these are the type of capabilities that we're now seeing. you know, in memphis where we are able to move the planes closer together because of our work together on that. that also saves fuels an other costs. that's another promise of nextgen. so we're making progress but i won't be when the bell rings and say nextgen's done. but you're going to see nextgen's capabilities all throughout the next couple of years.

host: this man right here. >> good evening, tom clark with parson's corporation. made a lot of great points this evening, secretary. two many particular resonate with me, one is the length of the service transportation bill and the other one is the funding that it just fund. what do you see as the optimal length of the bill, number one. and number two, is there consideration in this bill for a mileage base user fee alternatives to be considered not passed as the source of funding but do some additional study on that and where you stand on that. thank you. secretary foxx: i think we've got to have any minimum of a four or five-year bill. we proposed a four-year bill. we're going to have a new and improved six-year bill. you've got to have multiple years of funding, otherwise you're not going to get the

benefit of any single years funding because these projects take a while to move through the system. aside from that, i think that the country -- i think the problem we have right now actually isn't in washington. that's going to sound a little her rhett cal but i think -- i think that's part of it. but the bigger part of it is that the country is not on fire about this. and you know, one of the things that really instill i think beyond traffic without any input on my part but it helps to make the case even stronger is this is a generational issue. this is a serious generational issue. and we are literally -- you know, it's as if i took my kids time-out a restaurant and i -- out to a restaurant and i asked

them for them to get what they wanted and i had more food and i had some nice wine and i even had some port after it was all over. and it's as if i said ok, kids, pay my bill. it's absolutely ridiculous. but anyway back to your point. i think a six-year bill would be great. four-year bill is the minimum. so we're starting to see experimenting with this. oregon has a small pilot that they're undertaking now. we don't want to stand in the way of laboratory democracy taking on those -- those types of studies. they're always helpful for us to understand. but at this point we're really focused on trying to just get a six-year bill that provides the basic level of funding and to try to move forward with

something like that. we're not -- we're not getting fancy. >> i'm chris hill from hamilton. you mentioned the connected vehicle program which is extremely exciting. but you also mentioned the challenges of planning to fix our highways and failing bridges. how then do we find the investment to build out the infrastructure needed for that program either from the state, local agencies or by incentivizing the private sector? second tar secretary foxx: on the connected vehicles? >> yes. secretary foxx: in theory the infrastructure would be paid for the same way. so in theory, if we were talking about, for instance, connected vehicle -- invehicle

infrastructure connected, it would have paid for using the dollars. it might be a more tech any logically updated -- tech any logically updated infrastructure. sitting here right now, i couldn't tell you if there's going to be a high price for technological updated infrastructure. it's going to help us settle some of these questions. for instance, you know, i was talking about the airplanes and how closely they can fund together when you're using nextgen technology. the same principles when it comes to connected vehicles on the surface system.

so you could imagine that our trucks could be moving at greater proximity to each other using technology partly to connect them. and if that would actually create efficiencies on the system because the distances between cars and trucks wouldn't have to be as great. you know, there are some aspects of technology that may up end what i'm saying. but what i -- i think the point that you're making is that the infrastructure itself is going to need to be maintained and invested in. we may get more out of it using more technology. we're still going to need the basic bones of it. yeah. >> pbs news hour. in response to mitt subsidy's comment we did more stories and

series on infrastructures than all the other series combined even though cars moving ever more slowly doesn't fessly make for riveting television. what are you -- i'm just back from six weeks in asia. what is the department contemplating doing tapping into the knowledge of friendly contribution like singapore, south korea which not only seem to know how to build things but come up with pretty creative ways of financing them perhaps more so even than the europeans who rely on a level of taxation that probably the united states would never tolerate no matter what kind of train you got? secretary foxx: it's a good question. it relates to the governs discussion we were having. the government of singapore is

the government of north carolina or the government of virginia or some other state. a lot of our surface system is state based. and because of that unlike some of our foreign countries competitors or friends, we don't have one-stop shopping when it comes to these three things. we actually have 52 different systems around the country when you count the territories that really function more or less independently of each other. so the innovations that you're talking about right now, the default is for those innovations to happen at the state level. the question we're trying to address as an agency is can we play a role in helping to facilitate and encourage those kinds of innovations to happen at the federal level given the

history we have with state driven, circle transportation system. i think we're going to get there. it had a lot of hair on it. it had a lot of -- a lot of dollars associated with it, a lot of challenges associated with it. but it's an example of the kind of financial creativity that needed to get big scale projects done. there's actually the gateway project that the rail tunnels that lead between new jersey and new york. you know, this is an area that i'm concerned about because those tunnels as they sit there have a shelf life and it's not all that long. it may take some ingenuity to figure out a way to get those tunnels paid for and design them differently. i think the reason we can't tap

into that today is because we have 52 different systems and what we're trying to do is create a clearinghouse for best practices to help us get to the answers faster and hopefully to the innovations faster. host: we have a firm, fast rule of ending on time. and i've just been given the-five minute warning. so we can have a couple more questions. let's go to this gentleman way in the back. >> mr. secretary i'm bob perry. i want to thank you for your remarks on beyond traffic. also we're looking forward to your trip to africa in a few months. a question that has to do between rail and energy and thanks to fracturing we have production in area where is we didn't have pipelines and the rail system is moving it from the dakotas to the east coast markets. that's a win. to say that the accidents that have occurred along the rail

system are a problem. they were designed to move coal and grain and now we're dealing with another problem. how do you see the solution on consensus of new safety standards? >> well, it's a big deal. one of the events in my job at d.o.t. up in canada and it was a horrible day not only for our canadian friends but really for all of us. and from that point forward i had been focused like a laser on trying to help our country get into a better safety posture when it comes to the movement of crude by rail to the point that we've taken 24 short term measures that were thought about as bridges to a long term answer which is ultimately a rule on this. let me just say this just to cut to the chase.

you have to have a comprehensive approach to this issue. you know, there's a lot in the news about tank cars and tank car standards but obviously the tank car is a mitigation device. it is not a device that's designed to prevent an accident. it simply is a device that contains an accident for some period of time. we have to have a prevention strategy. we have to have a mitigation strategy. we have to have an emergency response strategy. and one of the things we've really pushed on this department is to have a comprehensive approach that takes into account all of those areas. and i would say that i think that there's a building consensus both outside of government, within government that a comprehensive approach is the right way to go.

so we're still working through what i hope in the later stages of role-making but i certainly have to respect that process but know this is an area of great focus for me. host: we have time for one more question unfortunately. the question at the front table. >> i want to add briefly to the question of cyber security. there's a very complex mixed ownership in this country depending on the mode. the president's executive orders signed last month brought forward the idea of stronger information sharing and advisory organizations isao's and i wonder what the department might be able to do to build a sharing organization amongst all the various modes of transportation for which their responsibility because i do think the responsibility is crying out for better information sharing, thread information sharing and information sharing about best

practices and best results? thank you. secretary foxx: thank you. we are very open to trying to play a stronger role in trying to, you know, assist these conversations across the different modes of transportation. i would say that just the first thing we've got to do in each of these modes is get the modes, you know, within the modes having the discussion because there will be things you need to -- automobiles or to rail cars or to aviation that distinct. but to your point i think there are cross-cutting issues too. you know, our department intends to play an active role on the role cutting part of the conversation as well. host: mr. secretary, i would like to thank you for a very interesting and informative session. [applause]

secretary foxx: thank you so much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> paul is budget reporter for cq roll call. the headline on one of your

peafs says senate house take different paths to boost defense spending. how different are the paths and how much are they going to add to defense? >> they would both add about $40 billion to defense next year. the reason the paths are different are because the senate proposes to offset that increase by reducing defense spending later in the decade starting about 2022. the house had a different plan. the house would offset some of that increase. but it's possible that that plan will be changed and that they will remove the requirement to offset that. >> but this increase in the defense spending is through this oco this overseas contingent operations. explain that a bit to us. >> both budgets would stick with the sequester caps. these are the caps on

discretionary spending that are in law. that allows $523 billion of defense spending next year. so they're sticking with these caps. but to provide more money for defense they are using basically war funding -- funding for the war against terrorism. they're increasing that. that funding is outside the caps. so that's how they get around the caps. >> c-span and the c-span net works covered the markup in the senate and house budget committee late in the session and the house markup the majority leader kevin mccarthy came in to help them work out some difficulty over the defense spending. what was the issue and how did they resolve it? >> i'm not sure they resolved it yet. the plan from house leaders was to add a couple billion dollars more to defense spending and also to remove the requirement that the defense spending be offset. because some of the defense talks in the house -- hawks are

concerned that if that money has to be offset it might be impossible to offset it and then they will not have the money to spend. so it looks like they are contemplating putting something in the rule for conversation of the house budget which would remove the offset requirement. >> on another issue in terms of domestic spending. a tweet from -- you tweeted about the supreme court ruling. the ruling that maybe the g.o.p. wants could complicate the budget. how could it do that? >> the supreme court is expected to rule in about june on this challenge to the health subsidies in the affordable care act. the supreme court rules those are illegal, then the republicans are going to want to have a plan to at least temporarily replace those subsidies. and one way that they could pass that plan without democratic support is through the budget reconciliation process. so both reconciliation

instructions they wrote into these instructions which are very general and will give them the flexibility to write a replacement plan to the supreme -- responding to the supreme court decision after the supreme court decision. >> more broadly. how do the senate and house plans answer the president's request for increased domestic spending? >> they don't. they don't. both plans keep nondefense spending domestic spending at the statutory cap levels. the president proposed increasing both defense and nondefense and paying for it with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases for closing of tax breaks. the republican plans do not increase domestic spending. >> it seems that there was a good deal of chaving over the spending caps. the appropriations chair was quoted as saying he would like to see those caps lifted

legislatively. is that something likely to happen? >> thrazz good chance that could happen. i think what a lot of republicans foresee is that after these budget resolutions are passed republicans and democrats and the president later in the year could reach agreement on another budget deal similar to the one that was put together by paul ryan and patty murray which would actually raise the caps for defense and nondefense. and it would have to pass a law to do that. >> in a best-case scenario the house and senate finish their work on the budget resolutions by the end of the coming week. what's the deadline to get a final version out of congress? >> well, the deadline is april 15 for the house and the senate to agree on a common budget resolution and they are shooting to meet that deadline. but they don't have to because there's no penalty for not meeting the deadline. they could pass it after the deadline as well.

>> read more at cq.com, follow his comments on twitter. thanks for the update. >> thank you. >> as the house and senate get ready to debate their budget plans, house committee chair mack thornberry will talk about defense spending speaking at the center for strategic and international studies. that will start live at 9:00 on c-span 2. a look at the budget request with justices anthony kennedy and steven breyer testifying before a house appropriations subcommittee that gets under way at 3:00 p.m. eastern. >> up next on c-span, q&a with retired army general daniel boljer. at 10:00 a.m. eastern we'll be

live from the center for american progress for remarks from former secretary of state hillary clinton. ♪ >> this week, our guest is retired army general daniel bolger, author of "why we lost: a general's inside account of the iraq and afghanistan wars." he talks about his deployments to those two war zones. his thoughts on what went wrong, and his ideas on how to move forward as conflict continues in the two countries. brian: general daniel bolger retired, you opened your book with this paragraph. "i'm a united states army general and i lost the global war on terrorism. it is like alcoholics anonymous. step one is admitting you have a

problem. i have a problem. so do my peers. thanks to our problem, all of america has a problem. to whit: two lost campaigns end a war gone awry." general bolger: this is the most serious thing i have ever had to do in my life. where we are at in this war is not where i ever wanted to be. i owe the american people and an accounting of what i did, what my peers did. to see why and what we can learn from it. brian: whose idea was it to title this book "why we lost"? general bolger: i was going to call it something more neutral. like "the war on terror" or something like that. after i finished writing it, i realized what i had actually written was a narrative that gave an explanation of why we failed. brian: when did you retire?