to -- as the government working with the business is coming in is to make the community more livable make better quality of life. i have two members teaching youth leadership programs. that is one of the things going on. they teach adult leadership programs so they take sustainability in their own neighborhoods. buy them doing that, that teaches people how to empower themselves. i think that is the first direction. as a city, the you say -- staying on top of it and working with the health department, we have representatives here teaching us about some of the items we have not paid attention to have a city, you can work to create the importance of how you deal with youth violence, how you make it so it is reduced. when you reduce that, companies come to your city. we're starting to see that trend

now. silicon valley, they are starting to come to our community. we are going to be opening up some new businesses that will employ people. they're working with her junior-college. the junior-college program has the most fantastic on the job training for welding and diesel mechanics. it is overwhelming how much they are getting through and how these jobs are becoming available to people before that had lost hope. some was that given through our collaboration, our education collaboration and all of us working together. the true goal is to reduce youth violence, get the guns out of their hands. when we get those he kids that need our help, we need to lift them up and put them in a position to transfer to the future. >> complements of our friends at family programs today we will

have a chance to talk about the community. we have a sense that if we can have our communities safer, we could attract more businesses. that would bring more opportunity. read is one of your priorities in terms of your campaign. >> and campaigning i campaigned around the idea of holistic community safety. it's taking it beyond just prevention, intervention enforcement, reentry, but root cause conversation. what is the economic self-sufficiency in our community? what are the educational outcomes for aryan people? how does -- outcomes for our people.

the people of the city of oakland consider it a priority. the city just did a scientific poll of the voters to say what are your top priorities with the budget? well over 80% polled said safety and crime reduction. the second choice had a third of those responses. our voters are generous. on the last election, we had two taxes past. in california that requires a two thirds vote. for people to vote to tax themselves it sounds miraculous but a public safety tax that pays for increased policing as well as violence prevention initiatives. our school district got a

fantastic initiative passed to fund linked learning, that school to career connection. getting back to these root causes, that is more my challenge. expand the conversation to make sure that people are thinking beyond prevention, intervention. i want to be in that room. [laughter] the issue of housing affordability is a big one in the bay area. it is expanding the scope. >> thank you. i would not end this conversation without asking you to challenge the national leaders. the decision-makers who could be partnered to work with you to achieve the goal that you have for the city in terms of reducing community violence. what more can be done, should be

done? you already mentioned how you yourself in that it priorities including taxes, policies. what more would you want to see from federal partners and maybe national groups out there doing to support this work? challenge us, no holds barred, what more can be done to support communities such as yours? >> i have to start on this. my list is long. it is shameful. we are the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have subsidized day care for children. that is shameful. [applause] happy mother's day. [laughter] universal preschool.

every's -- every study shows what a great return on investment it is. free community college. a reasonable minimum wage. oakland california minimum wage is 12.25. i as a city should not have to pay out of my general funds to enforce a reasonable middle wage. that is the federal government's job. [applause] that is the beginning of my wish list. >> i have to say and echoed here, the thing about coming together, we all have to have conversations about what collectively we can do. if we do not take advantage of the time we have together to share that, it is a missed

opportunity. this is precisely why we wanted a panel with mayors. we knew the mayors would give it to us straight. >> there is one additional thing on a grand scale, if we were unconstrained by the current system and current culture at the federal level, congress in particular whenever there is a shooting in minneapolis. i say, if there had not been a gun there there would not been a -- there would not have been a shooting. [applause] there is room within the second amendment for rational laws regarding guns and gun policy. that is a key thing to reducing gun violence and youth violence in our cities.

if i was unconstrained by current politics, that is something i would say. [applause] in a more practical sense, i will say you all have been great partners. thank you. within the environment we are operating here in washington dc, you are employing really great sometimes clever, dedicated ways to partner with cities to move the agenda forward as best as possible. that includes recognizing that cities we are nimble enough to just try strategies. we have some hands-on experience with the issues that we are facing. the one shift i would make within this is to have a willingness to invest in parents. people are really eager to invest in kids. i found this on the early childhood and, and childhood

prevention, it is really appealing to invest in kids. there is no way to invest in kids without investing in their parents. particularly kids who are parents. in the city we have a parenting program, support groups that we support. we have resources for people. king adolescents. -- we have resources for people parenting adolescents. to be willing to invest in parents, that will help us invest in kids and the next generation. >> we also have our administer out of juvenile justice has talked about the engagement with parents. we have heard that conversation kind of start more and more. that again, we are continuing to learn from you all as you share.

that is great. as we near to a close, i want to give you a chance to respond. dana: the first thing i would like to say, if i could see the work sustained for long-term. i know as priorities shift in washington dc, there sometimes our shifts and programs i am hoping it will continue to go forward and you'll continue to expand to other cities and insight that desire for assistance of technical training. funding for programs that help reduce poverty, as well as funding to help work with parents. as we advance education and advancing making sure children are reading at grade level, when

it is time to read to learn, we need to work with her parents. in our city there is a high literacy -- illiteracy rate among parents. a parent cannot read, they cannot help with homework. some of those programs going forward if you schedule funding to assist us, our respective communities will help to mitigate violence in our neighborhoods and enhance the look safety -- public safety. finally, career and technical training programs, we need more. we recognize that not every child will go into the college immediately. i will share my story, some children need to come out of high school with a skill set that they can go into the workforce. my life and personal story in one minute. at eight years old i lost both of my parents to gun violence. it was the community and grandparents that raised me.

when i graduated high school, i did not go a way to college although i had been accepted at king and temple. i stayed home because i had a younger brother to raise who is sick -- seven years younger. i went to school at night and worked as a bank teller intel and might degree -- bank teller at night and earned my degree. people given the right social supports can achieve and succeed. that is why the form needs to continue. thank you. [applause] >> mayor duncan. mayor duncan: we have an hour, i will go over my list. like someone says, we send our

motion -- we send our money to washington and they tell us what they will give us. i think the need to work harder with us on the education level. i think we need to make sure every kid graduates from high school. we need to go into those areas where they are not, and make sure they are. make sure they have the ability to make that determination whether they want to go to college or the workforce. i think we need to work with our health department. we need to have healthy children adults, they are way more productive. sometimes the health department issue gets forgotten. we have children with mental health that never get examined, they get sent to prison. they were probably not sensitive -- should have been put up somewhere else. we took the easy way out as a community, shame on us. don't get me wrong, i am a firm believer in law-enforcement.

i also believe the department of justice and everyone else has to put more money into law enforcement so that we can put officers and communities where they are staying and working with their neighborhoods. that will help all communities. a good example is we have two officers that are in a tough neighborhood. one of the programs that they have put themselves in, they are actually teaching parenting classes. they went and learn how to do it. i get phone calls on that where they say this is awesome. don't let it go away. we sometimes ignore the police athletic league's. when you have a thousand kids signing up to play baseball -- we need money to make a sustainable because our first is public safety responding to calls. we need some money coming out to the communities. that is what i would like to see us do. [applause]

i know we have to wrap up. but as we have traveled out, and has been the mayors to a large degree, alongside of our fantastic police chiefs across this country, that have really been helping to drive the change . when you all speak about prevention, when an officer speaks about prevention, it carries a certain weight. and our public health partners have told us that it meant so much to their efforts to prevent , to have folk such as the mayor and to have the police chiefs out front talking about prevention. we know the work is not easy. we know you have a time of things on your plate. but we could not have been happier to have you join us this morning to set the stage and to

show people you really can in fact challenged us and share with us really what is on your mind. it does inform the conversations we are having back here in washington to ink through how we can better support the great and fantastic work you all are doing. thank you so much for joining in. please give them a round of applause. [applause] will discuss his resistance to giving president obama more power to authorize the transpacific trade deal and

efforts to authorize the patriot act. those conversations plus your calls, tweets, and e-mails. >> sunday night, chris hatfield produced many videos and shares

scientific and personal aspects of life in space. i was looking at eastern australia and watching a shooting script -- shooting star . i had a realization that was a huge rock going 20 miles per second and made it to the atmosphere. as it had hit us we would have been dead in an instant. >> sunday night on q&a. >> we return to more on the national summit.

this is 45 minutes. >> i am humbled and honored to be joint by mary lynch. i am delighted she has taken the time to be with us today. on behalf of carol mason, i

would like to think all of you for making a trip to washington your commitment for reducing violence in your communities and for expanding opportunities to young people. we are grateful for your participation and very proud to be your partners. let's see who is here to represent. can i hear from the east coast side? [applause] where my heart is on the west coast. [applause] how about our southern side? [applause] and the midwest. [applause] a final shot out to our

international representatives. we are so happy to have all of you here. we have a busy day ahead. i would like to take a moment to thank those who had a hand in organizing our program. you know how much work it is. it looks smooth today, but it takes a lot of effort behind the scenes. three people deserve our recognition. sarah, who just opened the conference. carol mason's chief of staff good buddy. we have a lot of fun in the office together. he does a fantastic job.

georgina mendoza mcdowell. [applause] and void. both from our office overseeing the day-to-day foreign activities. they handle countless logistical matters that went into making this summit possible. thank you. the agenda looks fantastic. [applause] i want to thank our federal partners inside and outside the department and on capitol hill. great support across the government. as you can see, this commitment runs to the highest level. behind each of these leaders is

a host of dedicated staff working hard to make our vision a reality. i want to thank all of you who have joined us from across the country for a real dialogue about how we can prevent youth violence. i had the pleasure of meetings a youth representative this morning, and i know our country is in great hands. they are a fantastic group of young people. you are on the vanguard of our nation's work to protect our community and our kids. we are grateful for all you do and very glad to have you with us today. now i have the great privilege of introducing our next speaker. in her first week on the job our attorney general defined the challenge we all face every day.

moving forward the conversation about civic trust while ensuring our communities are safe and our law enforcement officers are supported. this is not new territory for loretta lynch. as the attorney in new york, she worked hard to see that our laws were respected and upheld while ensuring they were justly applied. she has pledged to continue the commitment as our attorney general. we are very fortunate to have a leader of her experience and vision. i know i speak for all of us when i say how excited i am to have her with us at the department of justice leading efforts to reduce youth violence. please join me in giving a warm welcome to loretta lynch.

[applause] >> thank you, thank you. good morning, everyone. that's it. that's what we need. energy. commitment. i want to thank you for your exemplary leadership and your commitment to improving public safety. it is truly outstanding work you do. i want to thank carol mason. the work ojp does strengthening

partnerships, ensuring a focus on evidence-based approaches and funding and of native projects is a vital part of our efforts to build a more just society all americans deserve. i want to take a moment to acknowledge the president of the program for his long-standing commitment to this important issue. let me tell you again what an honor it is for me to be here with all of you this morning. it's a pleasure to join with all of you. so many devoted public servants and passionate civic leaders as we rededicate ourselves to the security of our children and

youth. i want to acknowledge the young people who are here today, some of whom i had the privilege of meeting with this morning. i want to thank you for your advocacy on this compelling issue. as we have seen, preventing violence in our communities is not just an abstract concept but a clear and pressing need that requires more than a prosecution strategy, but rather an approach that sees all sides of this challenging issue. healing our neighborhoods, building mutual trust. they are not just lofty goals and are not unreachable. they are the tangible pieces of the more prosperous and peaceful society. last week i travel to baltimore to meet with public officials law enforcement officers, and

community representatives. i spoke to women and men who have taken to the streets to clean up trash. i talked to those who were not concerned for their own safety and security but for the safety and security of the residence of baltimore. i think i was most impressed with the young people i met with . about nine of them who were working within their community and with their peers to make the city a better place for everyone. a few of them seemed to have read more about civil rights law said most lawyers i know. they were optimistic about the future of their city. they are a testament to the strength of our young people. even those who live in tough neighborhoods and face economic challenges, they and so many

like them are making a real and positive difference. they are serving as an example to others. i told them i hope they would challenge their peers to do the same. in many communities in baltimore and across america it is too easy for areas to get caught up in drugs, gangs, and violence, and given to a troubling status quo. are you this more than a statistic. they are our future. it is a distressing reality that a significant majority, over 60% of our nation's youth have been exposed to crime violence, and abuse, either as victims or witnesses. this violence can take many forms. it can occur virtually everywhere, from the streets of our neighborhoods to the far reaches of cyberspace, from the schools where our

research has shown if children become exposed to violence, the exposure will make them what likely to fall behind in school. more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression. more likely to suffer from drug and alcohol abuse later in life, and ultimately more likely to perpetuate the cycle of violence in which dr. martin luther king jr. called a descendent viral of destruction. that is why things like this are so important. it is like the work that you are doing to improve law enforcement, to increase support for violence profession -- prevention efforts and expand

access to family and social services is so critical. it is why the obama administration, led by the justice department has dedicated itself to these efforts. at the heart of our commitment, is our national forum on youth violence prevention, representing 15 at communities and agencies that work together and build local capacity. these communities, from boston to san jose, from seattle to baltimore use prevention, intervention enforcement and re-entries -- reentry strategies to stop violence. through their collaborative efforts, we have already seen homicide in juvenile violent crime drop in nine out of the 10 cities the participated in 2014. some cities even reported changes in quality-of-life measures.

a national forum success has been complimented by the community-based -- based violence prevention program which operates in 16 cities. it targets youth gangs and gun violence by targeting law enforcement, concerned residents, and faith-based organizations. after implementing the evidence-based practices recommended by this program, cities have reported reductions in gun violence and increases and community engagement. outstanding efforts like these are not only noteworthy, they can be duplicated. we are striving to bring them to more cities across the country. the on these efforts we are also supporting evidence-based interventions for children. we are expanding our base of knowledge and developing strategies for our descending childhood strategy.

we are working with our partners in the private sector and across the federal government, including secretary of education arne duncan who you will hear from later today and secretary of labor tom perez, to end the school to prison pipeline that tends -- sends too many children on the well-worn path from the schoolhouse to the jailhouse. we're standing up and speaking out against so-called zero-tolerance school discipline policies that bar the doors of opportunity for children who need support. leaving them sick -- stigmatize and marginalized, left out and alone. as many of you know, some communities are particularly vulnerable and require a special effort. through the tasks force on a american indian and alaskan native children exposed to violence, we report with leaders and tribal communities as well to bring down the alarmingly

high rates of drug abuse alcoholism, and even suicide and to develop fresh, data driven strategies to address these problems together. under an array of programs to reach the more than 100,000 children who were victims of human trafficking each and every year we are working to end the scorch of modern day slavery. for victims of crimes, they recently released a study on male survivors of violence and their families ran and witty presidents my brothers keeper initiative, we are rallying government and private sector leaders to create and expand opportunities for youth across the nation. we are demonstrating to young men of color, and all our young people there country cares about them, values them, and is determined to help them.

just last week, the president announced a new independent nonprofit focused on providing invaluable support to boys and young men of color at every point of inflection from early childhood to high school graduation, to lifelong development. of course these are vital, in some cases round breaking efforts, while we have made important progress, my colleagues and i also recognize we have much more work to do. government cannot conquer these challenges alone. that is why your efforts are so important. that is why the work that this forum is helping to institutionalize must go on. it must go on until every young person's enabled that is a place of safety, not danger. it must go on until a child path zip code does not dictate that child's teacher -- future.

it must go on and tell every child has the opportunity to grow, learn, and succeed free of violence abuse, and fear. my friends, i have no illusion that this will be easy, the complex challenges will not be revolved -- resolved overnight. but i speak over this organization, i cannot help but be optimistic about all that we can accomplish in the days ahead. i have no doubt that we will meet these challenges. we will overcome these obstacles. we will create a safer, more just society that all of our young people deserve. i am confident with the passion and hard work of the individual. in this room, along with our partners and friends around the country, we will make new progress, reach new heights, and expand opportunity for young people across america. i want to thank you once again

for your dedication commitment, and unwavering devotion to the future of our nation. i urge you to keep up the outstanding work, and i wish you a productive and successful conference. thank you for allowing me to share a few minutes of it with you today. thank you so very much. [applause] >> thank you so much attorney general lynch. we appreciate those tremendous words of support, and we are very grateful for your commitment and leadership. now i am pleased to introduce another one of via

administration -- one of the administration leaders of the national forum. under the leadership of arnie forum, the department of education has been one of the closest allies to reducing you violence and expanding opportunities for the young people. from the forum's inception secretary duncan has made be full range of his department's resources. funding, staffing, and expertise available to support our collective efforts. we are especially grateful for his leadership in addressing the school to prison pipeline, promoting school discipline, and providing educational services to youth and correctional facilities. secretary duncan has put the department of education front and center in making sure our kids are given the support education, and guidance they need to get on the right path.

i am so delighted he could join us today. please welcome, secretary of education, arne duncan. [applause] arne duncan: thank you so much good morning. i am thrilled to be here. i want to let you know personally, how much i appreciate the difference you are making in this hard work. i tell you why this is so personal, growing up in the southside of chicago, playing basketball too many of my friends who helped protect me sometimes have lost their lives to violence. when you are 13, 14, 15-year-old kid, when you see that stuff its cars you. it stays with you. when i led the chicago public

schools, by far the hardest thing i had to do was to go to the funerals of all of the public school students who were shot and try to talk to their families. try to say something to the children in the classroom to make sense. on average we lost one child every two weeks due to gun violence on average. the vast majority of these students were not gang bangers. there was a young girl shot in the morning by an ak-47. there was a young man on a bus going home after school, i thought things could not get worse. when i came to d.c., those numbers one up. i think there has been some reduction there but whether it is my hometown or anywhere in the nation what we have seen is staggering. the loss of human potential and leaders, we as a nation cannot afford to continue to let that happen.

high school graduation rates are at all-time highs. at a nation -- as a nation come a we are nowhere near where we need to be. he talk about college, chemistry and physics, there are fundamental building blocks we have to put in place. our children have to be fed, if they are hungry, it is hard to concentrate. we have to take care of their physical needs. they are scared and living in fear. it is hard to have those dreams of the future. in chicago, i had a picture a young man had drawn, it was a fireman, and the caption was, if i grow up, i want to be a fireman. that since a deep message. if i grow up. it is hard to think long-term. we worked you are doing, as difficult as it is, i want to

let you know how much it means to me personally. i could reflect ongoing to ferguson recently. i want to let you know we had some extraordinary young people across the nation and all of our communities. when i heard from the young people, thankfully more so than the adult, it was stunning. the leadership, creativity, courage, the sense of what they could accomplish, it gives me hope about where we can go. in ferguson, i had never heard the depths of fear of the police department itself. story after story from young people, a young girl talked about how her father was beaten, that was just the norm. if we are serious about reducing youth violence, we have to be serious about reducing adult violence as well.

went to challenge ourselves as adults when you're not doing right thing. last week in baltimore, some extraordinary young people -- i will walk down a list of what they were looking for. the top of the list was jobs. summer jobs, afterschool jobs and a chance to do something positive. people end up selling drugs, not because it is a first choice, it is a last resort. when you're trying to survive and eat, we had to have jobs for young people. i probably should not say this in a room like this, but occasionally if i go home i will sit down with gang leaders, and asked them how to gain peace what is the biggest impediment to getting you guys off the streets, it is jobs. we have to create as opportunities for young people who have to make some young -- money. [applause]

community centers, afterschool programs, we talked about not enough extracurricular programs. sports teams were great, but the debate teams had no coach. it does not make sense. community centers that were old, broken down, decrepit. i think all of our school should be community centers. our school should be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day. thankfully a vast amount of schools are safe havens. very little violence happening at schools. a vast majority is happening at the streets. more vocational programs, more chances for folks to figure out how what they're learning in school is relevant to the rest of their lives. one idea i throughout his the idea of public wording schools.

that is a controversial idea. the question is do we have some children weather there is not a mom, dad grandmother, no one is home. we should have safe environments for these kids. we should give them a chance to be successful. there are a small handful of public boarding schools, including one in d.c.. i want to challenge folks in here to think differently. as a final thing i will say i am increasingly convinced our young people have an answer. for us as adults, in terms of -- [applause] the answer is more simple. we should be held accountable for two things, one, for listening. really listening in a deep way to what young people are asking for.

and we should be held accountable for delivering as best we can what they were asking for. we cannot go and listen to young people saying they desperately need summer jobs and not have a way to create some. all we do then is exacerbate the cynicism. if we can just all start to think about holding ourselves accountable for ongoing partnerships ongoing listening and then month by month, quarter by quarter, year by year delivering to our young people i think we could go a long way to eradicate these huge challenges. thank you for your hard work. think you for your commitment. whatever me and my team can do to be good partners, please hold us accountable. if you want our kids to be as successful in life as academically, if we do not fall the problems, or not the game.

this is a gateway, this is the ticket, the key to get our students where they need to be. thank you ray much. -- thanks for having me. [applause] >> thank you secretary duncan, we appreciate your ongoing support, delighted you could be with us today. i hope we all can accept his challenge to listen to you -- youth and act on their recommendations. i hope we have a lot to show for it at the end of this conference. our next speaker is another one of our close federal partners

from the department of health and human services. mark long is the senior advisor in the administrators office of policy planning and innovation at the substance abuse and mental health service administration. she provides leadership on national policy related to mental health and substance use. issues for children, adolescents, and families read she has dedicated her career to improving the lives of children families and communities. she has also been a super great supporter of our work on the forum. please welcome clark long -- lark wong. [applause] lark: ok, good morning for the third time. silly good morning.

-- still a good morning. thank you. i have the honor of welcoming all of you on behalf of the department of health and human services. there are a number of hhs agencies that are actively partnering with this youth violence prevention initiative with the department of justice. as the previous speakers have done i would also like to express a special welcome and thank you to the young people and the young leaders here who are presenting their cities. your courage, resilience and inspires us to be better public servants. your work to end youth violence in your communities motivates us to be more conscientious members of ours. your continued optimism in the face of struggle gives us the confidence that by working together we can create better

futures and opportunities. in fact let's have these young leaders stand up so we can acknowledge them. [applause] terrific. thank you for being here. the timing and urgency of this summit cannot be greater. before them was born out of youth violence in chicago several years ago, and now continues as of violence, trauma and racially charged events are occurring around the country at a much to regular basis. the latest events occurring 30 miles from here in baltimore. i would like to share briefly three things with you. first it is with urgency outrage, and necessary specific

action steps that we need to disrupt the finding that your zip code is your destiny. study of the d.c. metro area found that life he could be correlated with the metro routes. the further from the heart of the inner city, the greater your life expectancy. just last week it was reported that in the ward eight has 10 times the rate of infant deaths that were three has. two words nearly five miles apart. ward eight residents are primarily poor residents and people of color. and office senses data geography plays a significant role and shaping a child's chance of future success. some counties dramatically improve a poor child's odds of moving up the social ladder. others have a negative for on the children where poor children

are affected. counties would be worse mobility have the largest minority population. poor children in these neighborhoods contend with struggling schools and racial and economic health and housing segregation. we need to collectively do something about this. second point, kids that are too sad, or too bad have problems learning how to add. we know more about the impacts of toxic stress, traumatic stress, and exposure to violence than we have ever known in the past. we have research techniques that map the neural development in the brain that occur with such exposures. we now know that those adverse childhood experiences can lead to chronic physical diseases,

risky sexual behaviors, to the inability to regulate emotions and behaviors, sometimes associated with violent. children exposed to physical maltreatment and complex trauma are often tightly wound, overly vigilant, overly sad and depressed, hopeless or angry and aggressive not knowing how to deal with it. we cannot expect that these children can just ease into school with focus and intent to learn. these children become wired differently, it takes a lot to rewire them, we know it can be done. it is not just a matter of school readiness, getting our children ready for school, but schools must be ready to receive and support these youth and all that they bring into the classroom. [applause] thank you. so we must asked ourselves, can we asked -- disrupt the past? especially for youth of color.

especially for youth with different kinds of physical, mental, psychological challenges. districts are focusing on assessing the trauma of young people. emergency room interventions neighborhood programs, mentoring programs can prevent or reduce the impact of trauma and violence. we have emerging evidence that for you in detention, addressing their traumas may result in less probability of reoffending. we need to put this trauma knowledge and prevention practices to work. my third and final point is collaboration, which is what your teams are doing here, and what we are trying to do as federal agencies and working with you more than being in the room together, it means putting resources and innovation on the

table. multiple agencies are involved in this initiative, the department of justice, education and housing labor, in this sense we are all making a commitment to collaborate and support the public health and the public safety. we are learning to talk across our silos and departmental mandates, which is not easy to recognize that public health safety education housing go hand in hand together. that good outcomes in each domain are dependent on the other and are essential for flourishing neighborhoods. convening and talking is the first step. we must have resources whether that is funding, data, people, or new ideas. we must generate sustained political will. we must identify practices and

policies that work for specific communities. as federal agencies we are trying to go beyond the talks. we invite you to visit a new cross agency website that brought about 15-20 agencies together. and to visit this website www.. youth.gov/national forum. in defiance funding announcements, informational resources, learning about success stories and evidence-based programs. you have to recognize that each one of our federal agents that we have our own collection of evidence-based practices whether in juvenile justice, child welfare, health and mental health, education, law enforced, all components for building safe , resilient and thriving communities. challenges to put all of those together. we need to use new strategies including technology, which is so much the medium of youth of

today and something we can learn from their leadership. in closing, i want to acknowledge your critical work and express our commitment to ongoing collaboration. and the collective impact that we can have in ensuring that every child has a support to maximize his or her potential and contribute to a thriving community. finally i will leave you with three questions after you go to the summit, first think about why were you in particular selected to come to the summit. why did you accept the invitation. third, or are you going to do differently when you go back to your community. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you so much. what a great challenge.

now i am pleased to introduce our final speaker, one of our biggest, and i mean biggest supporters on capitol hill. congressman bobby scott has fought consistently and passionately for comprehensive juvenile justice reform and affected prevention programs for youth. it is safe to say he is one of the nations most vocal advocates for kids. he has been a tremendous athlete -- ally and supporter of the administration's work under the national forum. it is worth pointing out that his district is not have a forum site. you know how much his heart is in this work. it is an honor to have him with us this morning. please welcome congressman bobby scott. [applause]

bobby: thank you. thank you betsy, very kind introduction. a promise for a future site. good morning. i want to thank you for being with us today. i want to thank the attorney general and secretary of education and representatives from health and human services for coming together and pointing out the choice -- they represent the choice. we can educate the next generation today, or we can and car straight generation tomorrow -- incarcerate the generation tomorrow. your dedication is one that should be replicated.

we know what works. when it comes to areas of public policy, we know what works. it is not always politically expedient. what polls well or what has a catchy soundbite. for too long, we have followed the political slogans and soundbites. we have come up with slug ogans. three strikes you are out. if you can get it to run, it is even better. if you do the adult crime, you do the adult time. all do very little if anything to reduce crime. a couple of them actually increase crime. they have loaded up the prisons to the point where we lock up the higher portion of our country than any other.

if we turn that into a cradle to college and career pipeline, we know we can save money. what it takes an effort. it takes commitment. it takes making the right choice. a continuum of services starting early. teen pregnancy prevention to reducing the number of children born to dysfunctional families. prenatal care can reduce mental retardation and learning disabilities. reducing child abuse. early childhood education to make sure the children can read by the third grade. up tot the third grade to learn to read. after the third grade your read to learn. afterschool programs and

constructive things to do. and access to college. when need to make sure the people growing up see their older brothers and sisters and neighbors going to college and higher education. if they see they are not going then they can figure out they are not going, either. that has a devastating impact on their ability to stay up late at night and do all the studying and make the sacrifices. we know if we can end the cradle to prison pipeline and create the cradle to college and career pipeline, i have introduced the youth promise act which promises what many of you are doing today. the processes you get the community together. you figure out how much money are you spending on prisons and teen pregnancy. if you have a good crime reduction program, you will reduce teen pregnancy. what you spending on it today? a lot of communities will be absolutely embarrassed because

in very high crime areas they may be spending more on social pathology -- incarceration, teen pregnancy -- than they are spending on the school board budget. put that number in the middle of the table. if you're going to come up with the plan to reduce that in half then you should not limit. if you have got $100 million wasted in in incarcerations. you have to make sure that you come up with programs that can do something about it and you are not limiting your imagination to programs that may help a few. you need to have a company has a program. when you come up with that plan -- evidence-based as opposed to what? as opposed to the slogans and soundbites you would be funding if you did not put that in the bill. , with an evidence-based plan to do something. as you implement the plan, make sure it's working. then as people save money, get

them to chip back in so the programs will be funded in the future. we will fund the program once. that is the kind of approach that can significantly reduce crime and save money in the process. we know the prevention and early intervention approach is the way to go. the attorney general mentioned a report on children exposed to violence. they are much more likely to be victims or perpetrators of violence in the future. the solution in that report was to actually reduce violence. they had a lot of things you could do. the interesting thing about that report is it mentioned the criminal justice system twice. one, you are trying to many children as adults and you ought to stop that. and two zero tolerance ought to come to and end -- an end.

[applause] the entire report was prevention and early intervention counseling and things like that. the attorney general's report concluded that the kernel justice system is not an effective way to reduce violence. -- the criminal justice system is not an effective way to reduce violence. when he to make sure we are reducing violence. i want to thank you for making the right choice to follow the evidence and reduce violence rather than to play politics. you are doing what works and proving that prevention is the right strategy to use. for that i want to thank you. i want you to keep up the good work because the nash generation is counting on your good work. thank you very much. -- because the next generation is counting on your good work. [applause] >> this sunday night at 8:00 and

"first lady's, influence an image," we will look into the first lives of rachel jackson emily donaldson, and angelica van buren. rachel jackson was called a bigamist during andrew jackson's 1828 presidential campaign and died of heart attack before he took office. nishis niece becomes the white house hostess. when widower martin van buren becomes president, angelica van buren becomes white house hostess. sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's original series "first ladies." from martha washington to michelle obama. sundays at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span

3. c-span's needw book is available. providing lively stories of these fascinating women creating an illuminating entertaining, and inspiring read. it is available as a hardcover or an e-book to your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. next 2016 presidential candidate senator marco rubio participates in the south carolina freedom summit. he joins the field that declared and potential republican candidates in green felt this past weekend. his remarks run 10 minutes --- in greenville this past weekend. ♪ sen. rubio: wow, there are people on the balcony, all the way at the top, thank you for having me. it is a real honor to be here,

thank you very much, it is a real honor to be back in south carolina, people have believed in me, and your great former senator, jim demint, was the first person in washington to support me when the only people who thought i could win were the people at home. [laughter] sen. rubio: and four of them were under the age of 10. [laughter] sen. rubio: this is a long way from where i come from not just geographically but literally. both of my parents were born into poor families in cuba. my father never really got to go to school, by the way. when he was nine years old, his mother passed away and he would have to go to work and he worked for the next 70 years of his life. my mother was raised by a disabled father who struggle to provide for them. they met and they got married

and they worked hard, but they were like most people who ever lived, no matter how hard they tried, they could not get ahead because they did not come from a rich or politically connected family. in 1956, they made the decision to leave behind the only country they had ever known and come to the one place on earth where people like them could have a chance. here in america, my parents never became rich or famous, they worked hard and a preserve your, and my father was a bartender, my mother was a cashier, a maid, a stock clerk at kmart, like i said, they were never rich or famous, but they were successful. they were successful because less than a decade removed from the despair that i described to you, they found good jobs, they owned a home, they raised a family, and they left all four of their children better off than themselves. date lived what became to be known as the american dream -- they lived what became to be known as the american dream. for starters, america was the

most powerful nation on the earth, called upon not once but twice to help the world confront and defeat evil. our economy was the envy of the world. an economy that had millions of jobs with jobs that paid enough to help people achieve a better life. but now in the early years of this new century, everything feels different. there are questions about whether america is still the most powerful country in the world. china is increasingly claiming territory in the south china sea, newton invades his neighbors -- putin invades his neighbor, and radical jihadists behead christians and even conducts attacks in texas. and barack obama appears unable to do anything about these things. at home, there are questions about whether the american dream can survive for much longer. people are living paycheck to

paycheck, and one expensive place away from a catastrophe. many people of thousands of dollars in student loans and their degree did not lead to a job. for the first time in 35 years you have more small businesses dying than being born. so why is this happening? why is this happening to the greatest nation on earth? at its core, the reason is this, because the economy of the world all around us is undergoing historic and dramatic changes. but we are still led by too many people who are trapped in the past by ideas that no longer work. what this reminds us is that we are at a moment at our nation's history where we will decide whether to embrace the future or confront its challenges or to be left behind by challenges. if we choose to embrace the future, i want you to believe

that the 21st century will not just be as good as the 20th century, it will be better, and the american dream will reach more people and change more lives than ever before. but to do this, we have to wake up to the reality that yesterday is over and to turn the page and to be proud of our history and to embrace the future. america has always been about the future. we want to expand the stream to reach more people and to change more lives than it ever has. this begins i excepting the mantle of global leadership, by understanding that we have to because there is no nation and the world that can do it instead of us. that begins by having the strongest military power in the world. [laughter]

[applause] sen. rubio: continues by working with our allies in asia and the racing borders and boundaries and control the sea and shipping lanes of asia. in europe, by reinvigorating a nato and to prevent vladimir putin by redrawing the lines of europe. in the middle east, by confronting iran's convictions to take over the region and standing firmly with the only pro--american free enterprise democracy in the middle east israel. [applause] sen. rubio: but also to not just find radical islamists, but to defeat them. people ask what should our strategy be, i refer them to the

movie "taken." have you seen the movie "taken," with liam neeson? he says, we will look for you, we will find you, and we will kill you. [applause] sen. rubio: at home, we need leaders that understand, that understand we need investment in business, and for our government leaders, they think we can keep taxing and regulating, but we can't, and we need to be able to compete with other countries. that's why we need reforms to our tax code and 12 regulations so that america once again becomes the best place in the world to work, to start -- and tax regulations so that america can once again become the best place in the world to work, to start a business, to buy a

house, to raise a family. and we want to was again balance our budget and to repeal and replace the law that discourages people from taking the place of others at work. we also need leaders that understand in the 21st century the best-paying jobs in this century require more skills of than ever before. but we have an outdated higher education system that is leaving for too many people behind stuck with loans and agrees that the only two jobs, degrees that too many of our people today have found are inaccessible to them because they have to work full-time to raise a family. and that is my point that i am trying to make two people when i talk about this, that at 2016, it is not just a choice about

the laws that we are going to pass, it is not just a choice about what party is going to govern our country, it is the fundamental question about what kind of country we are going to be in this new century, and if we want it to be the greatest era in the american century. i'm running for president. i'm asking for your vote because while america owes me nothing, i have a debt to america that i will never be able to repay, but i believe that i must try to ensure that people who are trying to do what their children what my parents did for me and still do it in this new century. if we can achieve that, we will usher in that new american century. the future will be better than our past. our children and our grandchildren will be the freest and most tourists americans -- prosperous americans of that ever lived. thank you, and god bless america. [applause]

♪ >> on the next "washington journal," john duncan joins us to talk about his piece in "american conservative" called "the return to the peace party." he will explain why he thinks the republican party needs to move away from military intervention overseas. then keith allison will discuss is resistant to giving president more power to authorize the transpacific are to ship trade deal. later, our guest from purdue university will explain their new poll measuring civic knowledge in america. those conversations, plus your calls, tweets, and e-mails. our show is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span.

>> the new congressional director is a handy guide. also, district maps, a full dot map of capitol hill, and a look at congressional committees, the president's cabinet federal agencies and state governments. order your copy today. it is $13.95, plus shipping and handling at c-span.org. now fcc chairman tom wheeler about his agency's budget and an update on the upcoming spectrum auction. broadband access 911 emergency services, and net neutrality rules. this senate appropriations subcommittee hearing is an hour and 20 minutes.

senator boozman: senator boozman: today, the subcommittee will consider the fiscal year 2016 budget request for the federal communications commission. i'd like to welcome our witnesses f.c.c. chairman tom wheeler and commissioner ajit pai. we'd like to hear the details of the f.c.c. budget request and the work that you are now doing to carry out the agency's core commission. we're mindful of the ongoing need to clear the way for economic opportunity and for international competitiveness. the f.c.c. plays an important role ensuring that united states continues to lead the world in innovation and communication. however, i fear this leading role is slipping. under previous chairman, the agency released a book highlighting the critical

importance of regulatory independence and transparency and the success of the telecom sector. according to the book, quote, if the regulators tied closely to the incumbent governor it could heighten investment risk and serve potentially to deter future investment, unquote. unfortunately, the lessons of yesterday may have been lost on today's decisionmakers. with the f.c.c.'s embrace of the president's plan for internet regulation, the commission moved farther fart and farther away from the independence, transparency and regulatory certainty our nation deserves. the f.c.c.'s policies and actions have an enormous impact on our country's economic growth and potential. i'm interested to hear more about the commission's other efforts to promote economic growth, reduce regulatory burdens and increase transparency, predictability and accountability in the regulatory process. as members of this committee, we

have the tremendous responsibility to ensure the funds we oversee are spent wisely. under the budget control act and the budget resolution, the discretionary spending cap for fiscal year 2016 limits nondefense spending to $493 billion. this represents an increase of just $1.1 billion over the fiscal year 2015 level for all nondefense departments and agencies. while the f.c.c.'s funding is offset by fees, that does not in any way minimize our duty to ensure the agency is operating effectively and the funds are being spent responsibly. this year the f.c.c. is requesting an increase of $73 million, 21% more than what it received in fiscal year 2015. in a disappointing move, the budget proposes to pay for over part of that increase by transferring $25 million from the universal service fund to augment the f.c.c.'s operating budget. the universal service fund is

intended to help ensure that all americans have access to telecommunication services. it's not intended to be a reserve fund to pay for the f.c.c.'s operating expenses. many people in arkansas think the f.c.c. has forgotten about rural america. transferring money away from the broadband deployment to offset agency spending in d.c. aggravating that all-too-real perception. all agencies need to best allocate resources. spending on staffing contracting, space, equipment and needs and technology must all be appropriately balanced to make sure that agencies carry out their core statutory mission and functions.

as we've seen too often, access to more funding does not necessarily ensure that an agency will successfully achieve its mission or spend that funding wisely. finally, as we review your budget request, i'm interested to hear what decisions you have made to operate more efficiently in order to carry out your responsibilities within current funding levels and would appreciate more specific information regarding the cost of the f.c.c.'s projected move of its headquarters. the american people want a government that works for them not against them. they want us to curb wasteful spending and promote economic opportunities for everyone. these are the priorities of the american people. they will be reflected in the critical oversight we conduct as we consider the fiscal year 2016 budget request for all of the agencies within our jurisdiction. again, i look forward to your testimony today and to working with you to address the challenges before us and to clear the way for continued leadership in communications. thank you. i will now turn to my ranking member, senator coons. senator coons: i want to thank chairman wheeler and commissioner pai.

i want to thank you for your service and appreciate you being here today given the difficult and important jobs you have. i want to examine the f.c.c.'s budget request and ensure our national communications are infrastructure is reliable effective, efficient and constantly innovating. as americans grow to be ever more connected, we demand even more from our connections. mobile broadband, smart homes, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, hdtv interactive television all exist but on a foundation of shared, limited public resources. and as the f.c.c. continues to work to foster an environment that encourages these technological achievements, it must ensure our communications systems work for all americans regardless whether they're rich or poor, urban or rural, young or old. even though the f.c.c. is relatively speaking a small agencies, it touches the leaves of -- agency, it touches the lives of millions of americans every day. about 2/3 of adults use smart

phones. cell phone companies need access to spectrum resources to expand their networks. already this year the f.c.c. has auctioned 65 megahertz of spectrum in the 1.7 and 2.1 gigahertz bands, the aw-3-s auctions allowing verizon to affect their life bringing in $44 billion to the u.s. treasury. the upcoming incentive auction will be the f.c.c.'s most complex yet and will continue to make more spectrum available while bringing in significant resources for the treasury. so i look forward to hearing more about the f.c.c.'s progress in preparing for the upcoming auction and resources you might need. i'm just -- just as cell phone use is becoming common, it's critical our offices and schools have fast and reliable broadband services. they oversea the universal service fund which expands access to communications systems

vital to all americans. the f.c.c. has worked in the past few years to modernize the fund, to ensure that it includes broadband access while also reducing waste. not only is it important that every student in america have access to state-of-the-art tools to power their education but also that every town, no matter how rural, have some connection to the vital information systems that drive our economy and increasingly our way of life. the f.c.c. also has a crucial safety and security role our nation's communications networks do more than keep us in touch with friends and families and job opportunities and emergencies, robust networks also save lives. i look forward to an update about your efforts to improve 911 services, in particular, and to enhance the emergency alert system as well as your role in helping passenger and freight trains meet new safety requirements. your budget request for this year, as the chairman reference, is $413 million, $73 million over the f.y. -- over the 2015 level. fully offset by fees and with a new proposed transfer from the u.s.f. which i look forward to

hearing you discuss. the f.c.c. also requests $117 million for the auction and fully offset by fees so none of this has an impact on the deficit. i'm curious to hear more about the investments you propose to make in the next fiscal year. aging i.t. infrastructure in particular may cause inefficiencies and lead to mission critical vulnerabilities to cyberattacks. these risks are especially concerning as you plan to conduct your first-ever volunteer incentive auction. funding has been frozen for several years and the forecast for f.y. 2016, i regret to say is not encouraging so i hope you will also take this opportunity to explain in detail how the f.c.c. is identifying cost savings through increased efficiency and eliminating waste. we have a lot to discuss today. some important ground to cover. so thank you again for coming, to share your perspectives on the f.c.c.'s spending requirements and program goals. chairman boozman, i thank you for your leadership and i'm eager to keep working together to advance these bipartisan

initiatives. thank you. senator boozman: thank you senator coons. chairman wheeler, i invite you to share your testimony. chairman wheeler: thank you very much, mr. chairman. senator coons, members of the committee, you know, you have my printed statement. i'm kind of -- i'm an old businessman and i'm presenting to my board of directors here and i thought i'd present like i did back in the day and so you also have a slide deck there that we can walk through hopefully. if you look at slide 2, our current reality is that we are paying too much in rent, that we have inefficient field operations, that we're missing the ability of -- to use technology to reduce costs and that we're burdening fee payers for benefits they don't receive while at the same point in time risking the universal service fund. our response is a budget with

the lowest f.t.e.'s in 20 years, the first requested f.t.e. reduction in 10 years, the first review of field operations in 20 years and a reduction in contractors. now, i've heard this described as the, quote, biggest ever f.c.c. budget. it's not quite that way. the fee-generated budget is lower than last year's budget before the extraordinary items of our move and a few unfunded mandates. if you look at the next slide, slide 3, gives you -- this gives you a quick view of the trends in the agency. as you can see on the left

funding has been flat for the last five or so years. it's a period of time that we had 8% inflation so in essence it's an 8% decline, and you're seeing our f.t.e.'s at the lowest level ever. slide 4 talks about how this is happening at a time of increasing demands that are of great importance to the economy. the chairman talked about this is an agency of economic opportunity. the kinds of things you see on the left in terms of new equipment authorizations licensing is how that opportunity gets expressed in the economy, and we are putting fewer people against that increase in things that are necessary for the growth of the economy. if you take a look at page 5, we can walk through the cost reductions that we are proposing in this year's budget. we are not filling vacancies.

we'll have between 100 and 150 people leave the agency for one reason or another this year, and we're not going to fill all of those positions. we are updating our field office activity. when you have the kind of plat funding we're looking at, we have to be more efficient. and that's one way of doing it. we're going to reduce the number of contractors. we're asking for more i.t. funds so that we can reduce the number of contractors. everybody knows contractors are the most expensive bodies that you can hire. and this is the kind of business-like assessment that we'll make on an ongoing basis. so that reflects itself on page 6 in how you build the budget itself. it is the fee-generated budget as i said earlier, is lower than last year before the extraordinary items.

the move, which will save money but which we have to pay for upfront, it will save $190 million gross, requires a $51 million down payment. and in a few hundred billion dollar budget that's a big skew. the mandates we had imposed, that we've been told to carry out but not funded, such as broadcaster relocation, such as public safety, do-not-call, such as the broadband map, such as cost-of-living increases together they come to about $65 million, $66 million. you move those to and reduce that budget by $66 million and that kind of puts in perspective really where we are on an apples-to-apples budget. on page 7 we look at how that increase breaks down in percentages.

71% are these unavoidable costs that i just discussed. 18% goes for i.t. improvements which, again, are the underpinning of being able to be more efficient and have cost reduction. 9% goes to the mandates that we have, and 2% goes to cyber fixes that we have been told we have to have in place. but if you look at page 8, you know, controlling costs through technology is how business handles the kind of situation that we find ourselves in. and so let's take a quick look what we're doing with technology. we're going to move to the cloud. that saves us $1 million to $2 million a year. we're going to have a single architecture. that means less maintenance which means fewer consultants and more productivity.

and we're going to move to a common core platform which again will save us $1 million to $2 million a year. but as i said, the big enchilada in this budget is the move. the way the government accounting works is you have to pay it upfront. the chart and page 9 talks about why it needs to happen illustrates why it needs to happen. we're going to move to smaller space. we're going to move from 650,000 square feet to 475,000 square feet. we're going to move to lower cost space. we're paying about $60 a square foot right now. i think we can get it -- g.s.a. says we can get it to about $45 a square foot. and to make these kind of savings which will total $190 million, we need to invest $51 million this year. the question has been asked on the last slide, expressed on the last slide, the question is, why don't you just stay where you

are? our lease is up. we could stay in place. if i were the landlord, i would use that great bargaining position that i have to make sure that the rates go up substantially. we would have to have some relocation activities just like we have to have for another move. we have to have new physical assets because of a newly designed spaces and so actually you end up spending about $4 million more to stay in the same place than if we were to move. so that's why we think it's a prudent investment to spend $51 million this year to save $190 million over the life of the lease, and i look forward to discussing it with you further. thank you. senator boozman: commissioner.

thank you, chairman wheeler. commissioner pai, you're welcome to give us your testimony. commissioner pai: thank you. chairman boozman, ranking member coons, members of the subcommittee, it's a pleasure to appear before you today. thank you for inviting me to testify on the f.c.c. budget request. we ask a 17% increase in the budget authority or a baseline budget of $413 million. although while commissioners are asked to vote on a budget proposed by the chairman, i've not been asked to participate in the development of this request and i'm unable to support it. here's some perspective. when the f.c.c. faced the monumental task of conducting 80 separate rule makings to implement the telecommunications act of 1996, the agency's baseline budget after adjusting for inflation was only $277 million. or 33% less than this budget request. at a time when domestic discretionary spending is

generally scheduled to remain flat under the current budget caps, i don't believe that this request is fiscally responsible, and at a time when median family income in this country is still lower than what it was in 2007 federal agencies should be looking for ways to tighten their belts. for these reasons, i'd like to offer three specific suggestions as the subcommittee crafts the f.c.c.'s fiscal year 2016 budget. first, i do not favor transferring $25 million from the universal service fund, or u.s.f., to the commission to fund the f.c.c.'s work. wherever possible, money from the u.s.f. should be spent across the country to realize the promise of universal access to communications networks to every american no matter how rural, as ranking member coons aptly put it. not here in washington on administrative expenses. second, funds from moving the f.c.c.'s headquarters should not

be in the general budget authority. instead, congress should give us specific budget authority for this purpose. if these funds are included within our general appropriation amount, it will paint a misleading picture of the commission's baseline budget and make it harder to reduce that budget when the need is no longer there to spend money on moving expenses. third, congress should deny the commission the use of appropriated funds to implement or enforce the plan the f.c.c. recently adopted to regulate the internet. whether applying the general internet conduct standard to new business practices, drafting advisory opinions and the enforcement bureau or hiring a new ombudsperson for the internet, the commission will spend a lot of money and time applying regulations that are wasteful and unnecessary. and that are already proving harmful to the american public. given that f.c.c. is struggling to fulfill core responsibilities

under the communications act, it is irresponsible to spend millions of dollars regulating the internet. outside the budget, there is another issue with a fiscal impact that i'd like to discuss this morning. the f.c.c. must take immediate action to end abuse of the designated entity program. what was once a well-intentioned program designed to help small businesses has become a play pen for corporate giants. the f.c.c.'s recent aws-3 spectrum auction is a shocking case in point. earlier this year the f.c.c. disclosed that two companies each of which claimed it was a quote, very small business, with less than $15 million in revenues, to get over $13 billion in spectrum licenses. those very small businesses are now claiming over $3 billion in taxpayer funded discounts. how could this be? dish network, which has annual revenues of approximately $14

billion and a market capitalization of over $31 billion has an 85% ownership stake in each of those supposedly small businesses. to be frank, i'm appalled that a corporate giant has attempted to use small business discounts to rip off american taxpayers to the tune of $3.3 billion. this is money that otherwise would have been deposited into the u.s. treasury and it could have been used to fund over 581,000 pell grants to pay for the school lunches of over 8.3 million schoolchildren over a school year or have the tax credits for the hiring of u.s. veterans over the next decade. as appropriators, as taxpayers you know that this is real money. the dish entities applications are pending before the f.c.c. if dish didn't comply with the f.c.c.'s rules, we must reject any discounts, and going forward, the f.c.c. must

fundamentally reform the d.e. program to prevent big business from ripping off the american taxpayer ever again. the american people deserve no less. chairman boozman, ranking member coons, members of the subcommittee, thank you once again for inviting me to testify. i look forward to answering your questions and to working with you and your staffs in the days to come. senator boozman: thank you. thank you, commissioner pai. the -- let me ask you, and you touched on this. the f.c.c.'s 2016 budget request contains spending increases of more than $73 million. this represents a 22% increase above current levels. in your testimony you said that you did not support that. are there any areas where you believe the f.c.c. should shift

resources from current activities to pursue other priorities? commissioner pai: i do thank you there are other areas that would benefit from more f.c.c. sustained attention. eliminating waste, fraud and abuse to lifeline. making sure we have a stand-alone support mechanism supporting broadband in rural america. that has been on the shelf for a couple of years. it would be great to get that kick-started. additionably, freeing up more spectrum for both licensed and unlicensed use in the five gigahertz band, accelerating the i.p. transition. and providing relief to the a.m. radio band. there are great broadcasters who have been dying for over 22 years and the f.c.c. focus on that. there are many areas that could benefit from that if the f.c.c. focused on it. senator boozman: how has the

agency's focus on internet regulation affect its allocation of resources? commissioner pai: mr. chairman, i think it is no question it's diverted a substantial amount of staff hours and financial resources toward what was essentially discretionary projects. i often said that net neutrality was a solution in search of a problem. the internet was not broken before the fcc tried to fix it. the agency has spent an inordinant amount of time what has been over 300 pages of regulations which are going to have to be implemented and enforced in the coming years. it will have to litigate those issues in the courts and it has detracted from the core purpose of the f.c.c. under section 1. which is to realize the promise of communication services for every american. so if we focus on rural broadband, if we focus on providing more resources to schools and inner cities, there are many things we can do to increase broadband deployment but net neutrality has been a , diversion. senator boozman: chairman

wheeler, following up on that, earlier all five f.c.c. commissioners promised the senate commerce committee that by year's end they would complete the u.s. rate of turn to allow support for stand-alone broadband. this is an effort that the commissioners support and this is what the committee supports. these are areas where we can tom -- so that we can make a difference. could you update us regarding the status of that effort? chairman wheeler: yes. thank you, mr. chairman. it was -- first of all, i don't change one comma in the commitment that we will have this done this year. three of the five commission offices, mine included, actually sat down with the rate of return carriers to begin to work through the process of just how do you build this new model to make sure that we're delivering

broadband by rate of return carriers. there is -- the challenge in this there will be puts and takes for individual companies , and we're trying to say, how do we keep our eye on the ball which is to deliver broadband in rural areas, and at the same point in time, not create contingencies that unnecessarily burden those companies that are trying to provide that kind of service. i think we made good progress. i expect that we will be moving towards a new model, that we will release and propose shortly, but we are dedicated at the proposition and we are going to get this done. senator boozman: shortly is --

the next month or two? chairman wheeler: by football season. senator boozman: despite the marketplace, the sec has not regulated regulatory fees. let me ask you, despite rapid changes in the marketplace, the f.c.c. is not substantially updated the regulatory fee structure. will you commit to updating the way your agency collects regulatory fees to ensure the fees are equitablely spread throughout the industries that f.c.c. regulates? chairman wheeler: yes, sir, mr. chairman. that's an ongoing effort. we're trying to do is we're trying to peg the regulatory fees to the expenses that are associated with them. because -- and this is one of the things that's at the heart of this universal service fund issue that we've been talking about. because broadcasters are paying

for the administration of universal service, and other licensees that don't participate in universal service. and so how do you make sure there is a relationship between that which you get charged and the services that you receive? we have also moved to reduce the burden on small businesses. if your fee is less than $500, you shouldn't have to hire some lawyer or accountant for a couple thousand bucks to make your filing for you. and so we just eliminated that altogether. but, yes, to your specific question, changing how we do fees is a very important part of what we're doing. senator boozman: commissioner pai, would you like to comment? commissioner pai: i share the chairman's vision of making sure our regulatory fee structure is calibrated to the realities in the marketplace as it stands. without revealing nonpublic information, what i can say is the commission is on the brink of making additional chris coons -- additional progress towards that goal. senator boozman: senator coons. senator coons: thank you chairman.

i appreciate the opportunity to continue some of this conversation. if i would, i mentioned in my opening statement i'm very interested in the incentive auction and the auction fund. chairman wheeler, if you'd start. congress authorized the f.c.c. to conduct three different auctions in 2012. you're preparing for the third. the voluntary incentive auction. could you go in a little more detail why this is so much more complicated, and how the aging i.t. infrastructure of the f.c.c. continues to operate with is in some ways a barrier to a successful auction and whether you expect to meet the goals of starting the auction making spectrum as badly needed ideally suited for broadband by early 2016, and how you'll ensure that broadcasters might be made whole while maximizing the spectrum auctions? chairman wheeler: a laundry list there kind of lays out exactly why this is a big undertaking. i keep calling it a rubic's cube because what we're doing is , we're having to go into the marketplace and buy spectrum from broadcasters.

then we turn around and repurpose it and sell it in a forward auction to the wireless carriers. but that center ring in the rubic's cube is where the real action takes place because as the amount coming in varies, as somebody says, ok, i'm out of the auction now, you have to have real-time rebanding that determines what your auctioning out here. that does your software point. i'll be very candid, sir, when i walked in this job about 18 months ago, i sat down with a team that's a terrific team. this has never been tried before in the world, ok. and the policy issues and how they are going through this is terrific. i said hey, folks, i used to run software companies. i'm worried about this software component. and i am worried about our

ability to have the i.t. infrastructure that can do the job. so i requested a six-month delay so we could get that right. we are going to have this auction the first quarter of 2016. the software's going to work, actually just had a briefing on it last week. we had a red team working on it. we are actually trying to run this like a software company. i'm confident we'll have a successful auction in 2016. senator coons: i appreciate you talking about how proactive investments in dealing with aging infrastructure on the i.t. side and proactive investments although significant, in a relocation may actually net positive to the taxpayer over time, but why some of the government accounting rules requires you to do so in a lump sum. chairman wheeler: thank you, senator. let's separate the real estate from the i.t. aspect.

on i.t., we have 100,000 unique data sets in the agency. this had grown kind of like topsy over the years. somebody says hey, i need -- and something gets created. we have 207 different platforms that don't speak to each other. the maintenance of those alone is an expensive proposition. if we can rationalize all of those, put them in the cloud have a common platform, we are going to be able to reduce f.t.e.s that support them and even beyond that the consultants who you bring in to have to do the fix on this or fix on that but you need someone that's a specialist in this because you haven't built the program. for instance, we did an update using the new -- using our new

approach of our consumer site that we brought in for a fraction of what the consultant said he would charge us for. we want to do that across the whole agency. that's on the i.t. side. on the real estate side, i used to -- when i did real estate deals, normally you would just take the build out cost and everything and amortize them over the course of the lease. obviously the owner of the building takes a little more in that process. the government says, no, that's not the way we do things. we do things, we pay them up front because that's what's best for the taxpayer. and it's going to cost us up front $51 million this year to save $190 million over the course of the lease. and i think that's a good investment, sir. senator coons: commissioner pai raised the concern if we approve or authorize the appropriations that will in some ways distend future considerations of what

the base budget is. is that a legitimate concern? is that a reason not to do this? chairman wheeler: i don't think it is a reason not do it. i think commissioner pai's idea it should be segregated and flagged this is what it is. is a terrific idea. senator coons: commissioner pai, any idea you would like to offer on anything or the last question how to best ensure that taxpayers receive benefit yet the appropriators get a reasonable baseline going forward? commissioner pai: thank you for the questions, senator. turning to the voluntary incentive auction, i believe that we have to get this right. congress gave us only one chance to get it right. so i think it's critical that we get it right instead of getting it done based on a particular deadline. in terms of getting it done right, i have three general buckets of concerns. one, we tend to be making the incentive auction more complicated than it already is. as the chairman pointed out sort of like a rubix cube. there are different proposals on

the table. for example, dynamic reserve pricing, the variable band plan. different spectrum blocks with different levels of impairment people will have to figure out. going to make it even tougher for broadcasters and wireless companies to make the decision to come to the table and to come to the table with sufficient resources. secondly, i think there are important technical questions that need to be ironed out. for example, as the chairman pointed out, how do we know the repacking software is going to work in crunch time? similarly, what types of uses should be allowed in the guard band. that's something that engineers have to inform us about. then there are also other -- third bucket is other factors outside of our control. we heard from a number of carriers and from the capital markets that given the amount of money that was unexpectedly raised in the auction, it might be difficult for some of the carriers to turn around on a dime and participate as robustly as we would like them to in the incentive auction. that's how each of these three

items plays out, i mean not in terms of the timing, but it's critical for us to sort them out regardless. to make sure that we manage to meet congress' expectation for this auction. senator coons: thank jerry moran you. senator boozman: senator moran. senator moran: mr. chairman, thank you. senator coons for having this year. when i was in the position as ranking member, it had been nine years since the fcc testified in front of this committee. chairman powell came that year and we had the fcc in front of us every year cents. -- since. i think it's one of the most important agencies this subcommittee has jurisdiction over. i thank you for conducting this hearing. i thank the chairman and the commissioner for joining us. can chairman compeel, over the last week i asked several people who come in contact in their business lives in the f.c.c. what questions they would like me to ask you. the ultimate suggestion was, whatever you do, ask for a yes or no answer. and i'm going to try to do that as often as i can.

although now i'm the one using up my time. senator coons asked a question about the incentive auction. and what i heard you say is that you are confident that the auction will occur early in 2016. that is a yes. chairman wheeler: that is a yes. senator moran: my question is you have been having meetings with broadcasters. do you believe they now have the information necessary to make an informed decision whether or not to participate in that auction? chairman wheeler: for the most part yes. but we are not complete in the set of rules that we are developing. so -- which will get those done in the next couple months. then they will have the information. senator moran: do you have the ability at this point to predict how interested the broadcasters are in allowing their spectrum to be auctioned? chairman wheeler: wow. predicting a market. i can say that there has been great interest.

i have had major broadcast c.e.o.s in my office saying that they are seriously looking at whether or not they would put their spectrum up. i think that there is great interest in participating in that auction. we won't know until we open the doors. senator moran: likewise, senator boozman asked a question about rural broadband. i want to focus on the universal service fund. the circumstance we find ourselves in -- first of all i'm pleased to see we are moving in the direction toward the order that was entered prior to your arrival, mr. chairman. in your visit with me at the time of your confirmation, you committed to reforming the reforms and i'd like to see that to continue expeditiouslyly with -- expeditiously with a great deal of common sense and sensitivity toward how rural the country and how small many of those providers are. one of the things that i'd like to ask about this morning, though, is the universal service fund in so many instances the

land line is no longer the desired option by the customer. yet the universal service fund collects money on that service but we need that money to be used to deploy broadband in rural america. what is the plan to transition the universal service fund phone support to help support broadband so that rural customers can access that broadband at comparable rates? chairman wheeler: thank you, senator. first of all i want you to know i'll continue to live up to that commitment to you. i came right in and said this q.r.a. stuff, which you and i had a long discussion about it is ridiculous and it's gone. and as i said earlier, we are in the process of looking at just how we put together a rate of return package. i agree that it doesn't make much sense to have the linkage between narrow band and broadband.

i know commissioner pai and i are in agreement on that point. the difficulty is it's harder than just cutting the cord here, because we need to make sure that we are not just supporting existing broadband, but we are also providing funds to the nonserved areas. and how we get that right is essentially what we are going through right now. but we need to cover more of rural america, and we will do that, and we are doing it in this order, in the other order that the commissioner pai and i both just voted favorably for a couple months ago, and we just actually took the action a couple weeks ago, we released $10 billion to be spent over the next six years by six companies

in the price gap carrier arrangement. then we put in behind that a structure that says that those areas, they are not going to serve, we are going to auction off. we are going to put auctions back to work to say, ok, who wants to serve this area, and what will it cost to serve it? one of the things we are going through is -- we are going through both changing the existing models that people are used to working with, and the problem is as i said, that's something that affects companies, but also changing the overall construct and saying it's not just your father's u.s.f. program anymore. we want to look at bringing new people in. we want to look at having markets decide things by auction. that's what we are committed to doing. senator moran: if the industry could come up with a plan, is