. next. so i will touch base on a few policy opportunities that are somewhat u.s.-centric but include conservation in common canada and mexico. very important to us and coming out of this report is an act that its administrative by the u.s. fish and wildlife service. servedritical funding for neotropical migrants threat that western hemisphere. we had about 3.5 million to about 5.5 million appropriated by the u.s. congress each year, and a large amount of data that have gone to the program, and we had a number of projects in canada and u.s. united air three countries. another one that is north american focus is the wetlands

conservation act, another successful act has put billions on the ground in canada, mexico, and the u.s.. also an important lessee here in the u.s. within our congress. next. this is a u.s.-only program, but charles rocked up grasslands, and there policies within canada and mexico that i am not an expert on, but i know are very important to the conservation of grassland birds, and something for all of you to think about. in the u.s. them it is our u.s. farm bill conservation programs. these programs provide cost-sharing, can serve environmentally sensitive land, and work to conserve not agricultural land, but wetlands and grasslands that are components of that. next. in north america we have migratory bird joint ventures, created in 1986. extremelyeen

successful partnerships for the conservation of birds, but they are the regional impact on air, water, and healthy land.on some of these boards statebusinesses, ngo's, and federal agencies, and support for these programs is critical for us. next. i will mention one last thing, the state fish and wildlife agencies have a funding source that goes to state wildlife action plans. the reason i want to mention this is although i am talking about the policies separately, they are really all connected. a good example is a gold winged warbler, and in pennsylvania, they have put $200,000 into habitat protection for this species through this grant program, and i have leveraged about $1.5 million to do that with other partners. at the same time the farm bill conservation programs i mentioned have developed a

conservation program for the species and are putting habitats on the ground, and at the same time, the neotropical average room or conservation act is putting habitat on the ground in central america, the carrara, and other countries on their nonbreeding habitat. this message that as our three or birds, we need to work together to be successful in their conservation. next. i you could just go one more, will skim over this one. we have a blue-ribbon panel in the u.s. that is looking to increase the level of wildlife funny. we had 26 conservation and wildlife and business leaders in the u.s. come together. what we are doing right now is asking the u.s. congress to put 1.3 dollars billion of current energy and mineral royalties into the conservation of wildlife in the u.s..

next, another thing i will mention is we have some state fish and wildlife agency investment, which is in some ways to help match the investment made by our federal partners. we have projects in the yucatan peninsula that connect to the state of missouri and the state of tennessee. we had projects in the chill ihuahuan desert grasslands are there is an initiative that has over 100 sites throughout the hemisphere, and within north america, there are very important sites for shorebirds that we are working to engage additional stakeholders, whether businesses, local communities, you name it. these are all partners that to

conserve shorebirds throughout the hemisphere and throughout the continent, we need to work together on. next. in the final thing i will thaton in this part is business strategies we looking at developing. you have seen the signs from the state of the birds report. how do we take that science and say, where exactly can we have the most bang for our buck from a conservation perspective? this concept came out of the national fish and wildlife federation, and therefore is very business center, and they said we want to understand the risk or make business perspective on where we are going to put our money at conservation success, and that is what we're trying to do do these strategies. this is for the atlantic flyway for the atlantic posts of the continent, -- hosts of the continent. i will quickly mention some of the ideas of partnerships that

we have throughout the hemisphere. a lot of these can translate the north america also. charles touched on a few. one being coffee. a coffee, good for wildlife, good for forest. they are good for what percent protection, good for climate change mitigation, and also good for local livelihood. tim hortons in canada has a strong partnership with farmers in central america on shade-grown coffee. next. cap ranching. i know national audubon and some other partners are looking at how do you move this grass-fed beef market that is very popular in north america right now to also be bird friendly or wildlife friendly? this example is from the america,cone of south and it initiative that has developed a $1 million market for sustainable grass-said

bird-friendly beef, in the ranches participating were the leaders. that is a great example of the way to go, to the people on the land, the businesses, the local communities being the leaders. next. great examples, whether you're working with partners in south carolina, california, in south america. using certain techniques to make rice more friendly to wildlife, more friendly to birds, and creating a new business market. next. fisheries. we havees mentioned, had a lot of the climb in our seabirds, so working with industry to help maintain fisheries, but also install new technologies and have cooperative agreements about timing of fisheries is really important options for us to work together with the industry. next.

this is my last slide, and i wanted to leave you with a few thoughts that many folks in the room, not just myself, been talking about, the fact that birds are ambassadors. the unite has, bring us together. they are something we share as a continent. in thea lot of science bird community. we will do use that science to be strategic in our resource allocation to enjoy the best return on our conservation investment. as aink birds can be used galvanized or to address continental challenges and --aged a diverse stakeholder a group of stakeholders and partners. we believe we can use them as indicators and develop approaches that meet social and economic needs. i will leave you with that. thank you. mr. mehlman: next, humberto,

care to share with us? good afternoon. i am humberto berlanga. i work on the national commission of national biodiversity in mexico. it was created 25 years ago, and has become a leading institution in terms of compiling, administrating, and applying biodiversity information. 11institution serves different ministries in the the civil well as in society, to them minister of energy. giving out information about

biodiversity. there were very good things set we can workhow together, and you have seen good examples. i have the spanish version of the document you have there, transposed in three languages, french, spanish, and english, for the people in our three countries, and that is a demonstration of how we are joining our efforts to try to work together, but i would like to share with you my personal experience on how we evolved to come up to be able to produce this type of document. it is not easy at all. now everybody today, everybody were 20 yearsere ago things were very different. where we in mexico were obligated to focus on

biodiversity because we did not have enough people to specialize in addressing all the different groups of wildlife, flora, species compared to what you have any u.s. or developments in candidate. it was very unbalanced. from the 25 was years ago, beginning of the 1990's, the focus on protect any to ecosystem government that is covering now 18% in mexico, major islands, and other major ecosystems in the country, and now we're thinking about other doors that as core ridors thatore andw species to migrate thrive. i want to give you examples of

the difficulties we've gone through in the history of collaboration in our three countries. when we started 20 years ago, there was not a map that we ford use as a common ground geographically understanding or plan what we wanted to do together. vegetation types, there are many. what is a good one that we can what areally understand -- meet in using our only salient -- our own scientific development, and why they should be our concern. usingstarted to work in an interesting approach. it was the regions of north america, and we developed the first set of conservation regions in the world. and it is a map. it is from us. we all did that. it is a practical tool use to

beginning to organize our vision in the geographic scale. there were also the need for the interest of trying to replicate to see how we could use some of the u.s. and canadian experience in organizing society through the joint ventures, which is something we do not have down there. we invented a concept that was a -- alliance, and it was to have an analogous organizations that would help to coordinate work ngo's, stateety, agencies, federal government, international, so it was to help create these organizations in mexico. it is a different understanding on what their role and what type of objectives that they can pursue.

there used to be a coordinator andhe u.s. for some time, those were very fond years, and and veryery active consistent in trying to help our stakeholders to begin to think differently, which is basically what is more difficult to do when you work and plan your day. international, tr inational, how to change people to get them to think differently or institutions. institutions change very slowly, and people do not understand what we intend to do. it takes five years to assume that change, no? we work very hard for the alliance in

mexico which is intended to be connected with the joint ventures in canada and the united states, very much in the way that was explained, connecting regions on the continent that your species. that is the role of the local communities which is very is working.nd it in so many ways it is working. it is working not the way we imagine that. say, there is an alliance that appeared that is going to be connected to two giant ventures in the east of the united states -- i do not know. it is not happening exactly that way, but it is happening. there are now collaborations because we have those maps that we developed, the regional maps, and we have many other tools that we are applying right now

from 20 years ago. or 20 years after. the other example of wanted to point out is how we came up with because, i mean, basically it says very bad news, no? it is a diagnostic of is happening. talking about the birds approach him it was like a theme, it was almost forbidden because the -- the groups in the u.s. were divided, whether they specialize in shorebirds or in land birds, there is no other country in the world that can replicate that between organizations and the number of specialists and resources and everything. it is impossible. concern and the commitment of our agencies and the scientists and the people

involved in bird conservation in the three countries of north america was the key for changing that vision, i mean, that system. i remember many meetings where were proceeding with the north american conservation initiative, sometimes like a a proposal that was intended to change the way we were working -- and we were obligated to focus on biodiversity, so we did not have institutionsloping and organizations and studies for shorebirds -- we need to work with birds. and that is the best way i can associate with my partners in canada and the united states are accelerating the process of generating knowledge. it took time and it took a lot

of meetings and a lot of resources and a lot of the elements to come up to where we are. now everybody understands and thinks in terms of biodiversity, but they are still working in their main focus, so it was really not a threat to try to come up with a more integrated vision or what was needed in conservation in the context of wired diversity. -- biodiversity. of datat have 100 years of bird migration in mexico. 100 years in canada and 120 years of bird programs in the united states, and why is there not a bird banding program in mexico? we have yet to get to the point where the agencies understand that you need a banding program

for getting the information you need for making decisions. in the u.s. and canada, that information is generated and it is used for making decisions, which is very important. now we have a signed agreement for cooperating, for canada, the u.s., and mexico to develop our bird banding program. but coming back to the question of how we come up with this? we love information. -- we werehing was it, becauseo use some scientists in mexico were not comfortable with the approach them with the methodology that was proposed to come up with an assessment of the conservation status of the birds of north america. process forike a

confusing people, including me, let me tell you, because i have been a coordinator in mexico for 15 years now. did take that approach, to have good scientifically based idea of how birds are doing in our continent, in north america, and it took them about seven or eight years, inviting all the experts in mexico to participate, so they had the opportunity to provide all their knowledge and all their experience through using a provided the values we needed to study mexican birds. one of the things they have seen them when we started these --

the world was divided -- shorebirds, land birds -- but we decided to do all the birds at once, different from the u.s., which was made land birds, and then the first group, and then aquatic birds, marine species, and at the very end the ducks. so we have other sources of data, and we had come up with a database of north america's thesis. some of -- north america's species. some of this was difficult because for example birds that staff is-- district the south of the u.s., are ranked very high in the u.s., because there are a few registers in arizona. five so common, but it had

u.s.in southern we helped to do this teaching upcess for trying to clean this different perception of the matter and come up with a very database, which of this document. another tool in common that was developed by our best scientists and administrators, people from the government, and in mexico we have the participation of more birds, andperts in we are supported with those in canada and the u.s., and -- when you read this you will find the state of the birds, and that you

will have access to the database. if you are interested in knowing on with a is going specific species, you can take a look there. thatl finish with saying during this last 16 or 20 years from a we have been accelerating and improving the way we collaborate, because we have learned a lot from each other. now we have new visions and new think we areut i better equipped for trying to paste some of the challenges that we are facing. tot are we going to do reverse, to stop and reverse what is happening with that set of species? it is not only about species. one of the things that changes is we started to try to change

the perception and the understanding that our birdsirds is not only the that migrate, but these are birds that are in our region, that are in our home, our real, but any important change suites in our minds. this,ood example of endemic species in yucatan, that this part of the habitat that is shared with another one that winters there, and they interact with each other during the wintertime, where they spend the winter in mexico. an understanding that to incorporate that into a vision for protecting the full lifecycle of birds, where they greed, where they fly through, reed,- where they b

where they fly to, to make solutions for the future for the challenges they are facing now, and they are the canary in the coal mine, right? they are telling us something. there is something we are doing very wrong if we are about to ine one out of three species the next few years. so we need to activate in the , we need to work with the stakeholders come to find other ways of facing edese problems, and th empowering the people be one of th keys, and citizen science that has become a major force for generating invaluable information, which i shall explain with that map that the species. we have more information than

ever. veteran scientists and many more scientists in the three countries, and the things and to do act in a direction, with the participation of the -- and that has become -- i will finish with that -- and thanks to the collaboration with our partners, we had our developing in conabio strong strategy for involving communities in assessing what is the status of andbirds, where they live, at the same time changes the perception of their territory. that people fall in love with the birds and they begin to be concerned about.

that changes everything. that changes the. we're trying to use time as mentioned, as was for example, if we change the way we produce -- in a particular area, we can use birds to say, if that is a sustainable practice is having an impact on the diversity or hundreds of birds. sippers are good indicators of that. to makeway to also understand some of the project managers, the planners, the economies that birds are an incredible fool for assessing the impacts of our interventions in social and economic issues. try to put that together is helping us to doing things better, always in the context of

the collaboration of our two nations -- three nations. thank you very much. thank you, humbert to. i would like to give a concluding presentation. and i thought it might be interesting for some of you not as deeply immersed in this to pull together some information kind of on -- and especially in the spirit of competitiveness in the north american region, to pull together some information on what you want to call it, birds, birdwatching, as a kind of an economic force here in north america. bit oflled together a information from some of the literature that is out there on this stuff. unfortunately, or the way it works, there is quite a bit of information available from the

u.s., some good information available from canada, and much less available for mexico. we will see more of this kind of analogies test analysis and if you -- analysis in the future. birdwatching is a big business here in the united states. these are some recent efforts from a five-year study that is with someat large never screwed this estimate has more than 70 million people in the united states engaged in some form of wildlife watching. most of that is birds. all of it. a lot of it is around where we live in their houses, quite a bit of it are people who travel away from their homes, sometimes large differences. the estimate this study comes up with is large, that people are spending over $50 billion

u.s. a year on this kind of activity. these are two pie chart step below to show how these numbers break out. as you can see, a lot of expenditures. the left-hand pie chart is based on equipment. tripods, all of that kind of stuff. a fair amount is related to travel in other expenditures. in a lot of communities to generate income and dollars support local economies. again, if you look at this sort distributed inis the u.s., people are going different places, region to region, but it's still pretty high pretty much all over the .ountry it's just a national -- national pastime, if you will. and then another thing, of course, that interested a lot of us, particularly in the

nonprofit world trying to raise funding, as you might expect, these sort of expenditures, where the participation is skewed to people with higher incomes? that's both an opportunity and challenge for us, i think, going forward. and then if you kind of break this out in terms of trends, these surveys are done every five years. some of this, very interesting, particularly on the right. we have increasing trend in the in expenditures over time. we expect these to increase as we go forward. they are very interesting because other similar trends for some of the more traditional activities, like hunting in particular, are going downward at the same time.

looking at some generally similar data from canada, i think we see a lot of similar stuff. this is a percentage of canadians taking part in nature related activities of some kinds. the numbers are very high. a lot of, as we see in the u.s., a lot of people are getting out there and participating in these activities in canada. again, similarly, a lot of canadians are's ending a lot of time out there in these activities. this is data on days spent on it. most of the time is spent where people live, but a sizable portion does involve travel to different parts of the country. summaries here. it's a quite sizable expenditure , over 40 billion dollars canadian annually being spent on these activities.

again, these are sizable expenditures of this type of activity. at least eyeballing it, roughly similar breakdowns in terms of spending on equipment and travel and things like that. again, in canada, much like the u.s., local communities are deriving significant economic and if it from nature related tourism. similar to what we see in the u.s., a lot of this spending is skewed towards people with higher relative incomes. mexico, again, there is very little big data out there. but we do have an estimate that birdwatchers spend over $23 million, almost $24 million in u.s. and mexico in one year. we know that this has only increased over time.

i think that what is of course interesting is that, as i'm sure all of you know, mexico is a major, major tourism hub for all things and the tool biggest tourist resources are the united states and canada. we know a lot of people who are going there for the wildlife. not the birds. [laughter] it's true that people are going there for its natural riches of all kinds. in fact i was able to find that in 2009 it was the 10th most visited in the country -- in the world for tourism. giving you a flavor if you are not as into this is some of us, there are fascinating things to be seen in mexico in the natural world. i included two samples. the picture on the left looks like a bunch of black dots in

the sky but this is actually a shot of migrating hawks and vultures. humberto, you might agree with me, i don't think it is exaggeration to say that the rooftop of the hotel the end the venido is one of the best birdwatching sites in the world. withng through that area exceptional days over one million individual raptors passing through that one part of mexico. right this is a fabulous bird that i've never seen. rosie does bunting. many of us want to see this and

if you do, you have to go to mexico. not only that, you have to go to a small part of oaxaca. we are spending large quantities of money to do these things. not to bore you with more numbers, but these are the iurces are used -- sources used. digging into this bottom line in the u.s., it's very interesting. a gold mine of specific information for those of you interested in that kind of activity. so, that's all i'm going to say. we will sit here and will be happy to take any questions that anyone has. i think there are microphones, which might be easy. >> hi, dave. thank you.

thank you all very much. this was terrific and interesting. i have one question. just going from what humberto was saying towards the end of your talk, birds as impact indicators, as a canary in the yourmine, i was wondering unscientific take on how often do ngo's and government's use asd centric indicators impact indicators of interventions? >> that's a really interesting question. know, a couple that i these bird reports, we didn't invent them in north america. some of the first ones were from the united kingdom, australia, and other places.

they have great examples of using some of those indicators and what they call quality-of-life indicators. in the u.k. they use their farmland or grassland birds as indicators of the health of their farmland, agriculture, and their quality of life. there are places that do that on a countrywide scale, it's probably rare. they have other examples where there are more local examples of where people are doing that, from a quality-of-life or showing that a wetland is healthy by the number of birds it has as an indicator. anyone else want to add? >> canada has sustainability indicators that are based specifically on birds. have they driven policy? probably not yet. but they are part of the suite. thate relatively new at

kind of indicator, so i'm not sure that they are being watched the same way that economic indicators are. if the economy drops, there's a huge concern. if the environmental quality indicators drop, i don't think there's as much attention paid. birds are not perfect indicators. some are not sensitive to habitat change compared to other wildlife, but they have two or three big assets. the biggest lie far is that lots of people watch birds. so we have a huge database to work from. even if they are not a perfect indicator, even if some butterflies might disappear for the birds do, or rare insects, we can keep a lot of diversity and we can get data for birds and attention for birds, which is the other piece of it. they are widely used in sort of assessment stuff. diversity, people

tend to use them as indicators. doesn't mean that everything else is perfect, but if we are keeping the birds we are keeping a chunk of the ecosystem. in the u.k. it is actually driving policy. farm policy is being driven by these indicators. in canada i don't think it's driving policy yet, but of course that's where we want to go. when the indicator declines, we want people to realize that this is something that they should take action on to increase the indicator. humberto: we have a specific , in thein mexico chapter of mexico that covers , there'smerican part another corridor associated with central america which is very and we are applying -- there is a model for

intervention to improve on the idea of help by improving the that produce -- but sate timber, honey, coffee, all providing some services like ecotourism. we have been working on very hard in the last few years is a way to incorporate a system of evaluation of the response of birds to those interventions. by level of response, when i assess a change in group practice -- for example talking , time for that is maybe a few years. you have maybe a baseline. it's not rocket science. understand forto

the people that work in the field. that helps to connect to -- what is the status of our birds here? if you modify a practice into a one withainable involvement to assess using ,atural history and knowledge as you monitor the populations, see how the birds react to that change. well, we started a few years ago and we have a troop of more than 350 who are trained in the ,quipped working in 11 states trying to help us to assess the practicessustainable that are being imposed in order to help create and maintain connectivity between protected

areas in the southwest of mexico. it is in some way and experiment , to have like a more formal approach to it. >> thank you very much. my name is alexander, former salvatori and diplomat -- diplomat.n the question for charles francis , when is theious next one going to come out? [laughter] that is 1a. 1b is -- how difficult would it be to include central america -- or at least the northern triangle -- into this? if i could ask deborah in , it wasar, and humberto

interesting to hear what it was like 15, 16 years ago. wonder, at the risk of you being mexican and talking about the central americans, i would be interested to hear your assessment of where things are in central america by comparison to where you were, 15, second -- 16 years ago. that is 2a. 2b, deborah, how could one incorporate more? i understand that there are some of these activities in the triangle to fund these u.s. government, federally funded programs. charles: we had a lively debate on when the next one is coming out yesterday. the question is, how often do we need them? [coughing] excuse me, sorry.

to that. two pieces one, how often we update the database behind it. the other is how often we take the trouble and time to generate one of these reports for distribution. i would say that we would not do another one for at least five years. we haven't decided on that. there was also a debate because there was a different report in canada. they have done two of this type in the u.s., but several in between as well, looking at the trends of data we can do for mexico because we don't have a long-term monitoring. these reports from time to time we think is very valuable for attracting attention in bringing in the awareness as an indicator. you know, some of these things don't change that quickly. bird populations just don't respond every year, unless it's

built into a policy use, in which case we could do some quickly. so i think we might do another one in perhaps five years? whether it is a joint one or how we do that, it hasn't been decided yet. bringing in central america, the protest of creating the database is actually underway. as to whether to do the report i don't think is that much discussion. i think that humberto has been involved, in his experience, to take his north american and us-based methodology into mexico and it has worked closely with the rocky mountain observatory, which was leading this exercise. i will actually punt that one tot two humberto -- humberto as well. humberto: the prime minister in some way took our advice as to

what the best way was to make sure that the process of developing assessment of the population of the central could be morees -- more better done. rica.ularly from costa we were insistent in involving the local authorities in order ,o create the involvement connection, and commitment of the local authorities. specific group a few years ago. to at least provide a blessing or a framework for us to help organize their own assessment, based on our experience. withxample that translates able to bend was

easily shared with the world, our friends. principles, there is a name and interest in explaining the expansion or shedding of the continent. central america is an important area for the three of us. that is shared with mexico. we have done three workshops so far. the conservancy of the rockies? sorry, the name changed. .hey work for this you have seen support from many of these institutions. u.s.rto: u.s. -- deborah: fish and wildlife service?

the missouri department of conservation? humberto: they have handled for workshops. we have had one in panama, costa rica, and nicaragua. this year we will have the final one in honduras. the governments are involved. there.process that is it is their assessment. they have done this. not we. we didn't expect this, and so on. ownership. they perceive a lot of things that they gather with that information. even circulations. part of this is that finally we have a database we can share. using the same methodology from

panama to work to northern canada. i hope i answered your question. >> coming quickly on the international component, in a sense our leaders have challenged us in that recent meeting. part of it was about developing for conservation over the next 100 years. we sort of hoped they might say something like that. now they hope -- now we hope they can deliver. that would not involve just u.s., canada, and mexico. many of the canadian species don't stop there. they keep going. we are working throughout the hemisphere. care abouti hope we more than that, but if we only care about the ones coming to the u.s. and canada every year, we definitely need to protect their habitats elsewhere. we are definitely working towards hemispheric policy and

cooperation. it's going to take a while, it's challenging. can't just said, we come down and tell them what to do. we have to work with them as they tell us how to conserve the birds there. we need to work towards getting that dialogue and conversation. i know you guys are running out of time. i will quickly answer your questions. from a u.s. perspective, the neotropical migratory conservation act that i mentioned, any of that funding can be spent in south america, central america, the caribbean. there are many projects throughout central america already happening. as i mentioned, we also have a kind of southern wings program. the state fish wildlife agencies are working together, where we have been helping an organization that is

implementing a landscape conservation strategy on the caribbean coast and we have been helping them to work on that from our bird perspective. why they are doing it is watershed protection for the boat, amphibian, and endemic word species. coming together where we have a shared goal. those funds could be used in we continue to reach out to partners to make sure that people know that they can apply for those grants. i also think that having conversations with groups like this and talking about how you can help us support policies in the u.s. that help work on providing funding outside the united states, whether it's support from ambassadors or centers in mexico and canada. sometimes it's a hard sell for our congress to say -- we want to send tax dollars outside the country.

but there's very good reason to do that. we share these species. from our perspective, bringing people together even lose into the security realm, where you are creating goodwill in joining .ogether for a common cause whether that is watershed protection or birds. >> [inaudible] deborah: sure. >> hi, there. i'm with the united nations environment program. thank you for sharing your knowledge up there today. what charles was speaking about, engaging on a hemispheric level, some of the things we are trying to do working with arthur's in canada and the u.s., some of the countries in south america, it's using the arctic council as an institutional mexican -- the bird to advance

initiative. with canada's leadership it comes in waves in terms of developing a work plan and a communications strategy. i believe that a letter has gone out to you, humberto, for engagement from mexico in this initiative. i guess one of my questions is -- are there sufficient institutional mechanisms in place to institute the collaboration we're talking about at a hemispheric level? if not, what could be done to enhance those? you have mentioned all which ross a fair bit. i don't know how familiar you are -- familiar you are with the treaty, but i know there has been much interest in perhaps advancing that, whether it's getting the u.s. or other countries to sign onto that pathway. opportunitiesing in advancing that particular treaty. thoughts and those mechanisms and ideas, welcomed.

[laughter] >> [inaudible] >> i teach at trinity washington university. oil in thell, we had gulf of mexico and i was wondering if your research addresses that in terms of the affected has on bird migration. deborah: those are both good questions. there are certainly conversations going on hemispheric weight. the convention on migratory species, which not all countries in the western hemisphere are part of, but there was an american flyway's framework developed to try to get at these high-level policies, that we could all work together within the government on biodiversity and bird conservation. you got the wetlands conservation throughout the

hemisphere. we have had conversations about -- do we? how do we expand the north american bird conservation to be a american bird initiative and whether that would work in central and south america or if they would need something different. there are a lot of discussions going on out there. talking with our congress for years and many ngo's ovens warning the u.s. in that and that will keep -- i think it will continue, fortunately. and we will continue to try. i don't think -- a lot of what was done in the gulf uses a lot of the data we have used in the report. over the past number of years it has specifically looked at the impact. also trying to say that we don't just want to spend the money only in the gulf. there are places in canada and other spots where we need to

spend that money. the impacted species migrate to other places. create theed to report was used to impact the restoration of species in the golf, but not necessarily through this particular report. adding onto the policy mechanism, we are still basically trying to explore that. one of the things that we did at the trilateral meeting, there's a trilateral meeting between the u.s., canadian, mexican wildlife agencies that was established partly through the framework of the cdc commission on environmental cooperation. basically it's part of the nafta free trade agreement. between that year and this year we did have representatives from the convention of migratory species, the convention that created the agreement. the convention of migratory species has mechanisms to create

agreements within it, which can include signatories that are not part of cms. one of the interesting questions we as northll american countries, none of which are signatories or maybe challenging the change can work together with cms, which has no central -- which does have dignity or to develop appropriate mechanisms. i think the answer is that we are still exploring that and that people interested in that type of realm , it would be very interesting to get together. it's not my area of expertise. technical side, but i am engaged with the trilateral as well. it's an area we want to continue to explore. what is -- in a sense -- the lowest overhead and most comfortable approach for getting everyone together? is

challenging. we don't want something imposed from any one of the countries. we can't say to south america -- join us. we have to find a way to join in the common ground. whether it's true in the cms or through a new agreement, or through something less formal -- there are networks that are also very well represented. what we also need is a government that works, so that we can get the policies and legislations needed to implement what's needed. humberto: as debbie said, some is not reflected here. one of the big programs we have ebertalking about here is , a very powerful source for

information that is growing very fast. the fastesthat is growing in the world. it is in the hundreds of millions registered. are now arriving at a moment that is in the history of science, one that we have never seen. developing new statistical tools. it's not structured information. leading to that information, trying to get the patterns and trends, as you mentioned, it is important. tool ford a particular monitoring -- how do you say that? oil bert? affected by the oil problem.

they did follow up with the birds and what was happening with them in the months after. that information is all in the website. we have chosen people to get close to what is happening there on the dimension of this disaster. i wanted to mention that. in terms of instruments and mechanisms, there's a vision that we all share. the initiative took over the continent. hopefully one day we will get there. i think the three countries have done a good job in terms of accumulating experience and being more sensitive to each other's needs and concerns area

i remember i forgot to say that. when i was -- these many meetings -- we were planning about population objectives and habitat objectives. we were more concerned with improving and increasing, leaning into those things. at the time we were in a position to much better understand also including population objectives in our priorities, as they can include the possibilities of components in the processes. that's like a very good example of the type of change that has happened in the last 20 years.

>> before thanking the panel, i would be remiss not to recognize the great work of the staff members from canada and mexico, some of which did the program repairs and so on. we want to thank them very much. send a special thanks to the intellectual author of this collaboration, nadia in the back. [applause] that humberto's point in at the end is exactly what my north american collaboration, bringing out the best of what we can all bring to a collaborative. talking about that, there are ways in which we need to learn from each other and learn together how to talk to each other and work together. i think you all have given us a great model for this, as we look within the wilson center for other ways in which we can help promote north american

, be it in economic prosperity, security, or many other areas. this is a great model. this is an interesting program for us here and we hope to continue with the collaboration. thank you all for attending and we hope to see you back here. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016]

if you missed any of this event, you can catch it anytime on a website,

c-span.org. live coverage today looking at ethnic and just minorities in nigeria. the westminster institute hosts. it starts at 7:30 tonight here on c-span. at an0 p.m. eastern look examination of jobs in the dustbowl era. a look at how rising seas and other climate changes could impact the economy. here's a preview. >> we just looked at two centers that we think of as centers of innovation. we can see that those with a one meter rise are expected to be highly effective. that thisto note is one meter rise and the projection on where it is likely to occur moves closer and closer as each study emerges. one year ago we thought this would happen in a century. that it mayorried happen within 30 to 40 years.

the life of a mortgage. if you are in new york you might think -- that doesn't look terrible. snow more people from new jersey crossing the bridge. maybe it's not so bad? [laughter] youif you are google, should be asking yourself why you are building your headquarters where in 30 years it should be flooded. if you are asking yourself at facebook -- why are you invested in locating offices here? >> some news from the presidential campaigns. hillary clinton has reportedly named term white house transition team. ken salazar leads a group, which includes former national security adviser tom donlon and former michigan governor jennifer granholm. also, the president for the center of american progress, and the head of progress maggie

williams. more now on the white house transition project. including officials who have helped to plan the past few agency transitions, including former white house -- former white house chief of staff. and how the new administration picks cabinet secretaries and personnel for federal agencies. this runs two hours and 40 minutes. >> one of the most striking features today is the bipartisanship dashes of partisanship in the congress that writes the laws. the president and white house the planning, and departments and agencies that carry out the policies. it was not always the case. in 1952 president truman wanted to bring into the white house the republican and democratic presidential nominees to meet with his cabinet and white house

staff members. he met with a partisan divide. he had wanted them to come in because he found that when he came into office he was not prepared. he came in in january of 1945. roosevelt died in april. truman knew nothing of the atomic bomb. by that experience, he wanted to bring people in such that they could understand what was ahead of them. adlai stevenson accepted. general eisenhower turned down truman's invitation, in large part because he said he was running against the administration's programs and the public would not understand why he would be coming into the white house when he was running against. truman was very upset and he sent a handwritten note, which he would sometimes do, because he could slip by staff and they wouldn't see it and stop -- and stop him.

he had a handwritten note to eisenhower commenting on his own way of looking at the turn down by the general. he wrote -- i'm extremely sorry that you've allowed a bunch of .crewballs to come between us you have made a bad mistake and i'm hoping that it won't injure this great republic." nature of partisan that transition a longer distinguishes the handoff of power from one president to his successor. our five panelists today are in it position to discuss the shape of transition as each of our officials has gone through one or more of them at a senior planning level. additionally, they are all involved in current efforts to fortify the transition process and find areas of agreement that will ensure a presidential transition in a bipartisan setting, the theme of our

conference. threenference is one of that we will hold at texas presidential libraries. the other two will be at the lbj library, september 22 23rd, dealing with national security, and then on october 18 at the george h.w. bush library of crisis management with two scenarios, financial and national security crisis. all are around this theme of the andrtance of bipartisanship cooperation. we are beginning with two chiefs of staff. matt mclarty came in at the beginning of the clinton administration. joshua bolten was at the end of the bush administration. his chief of staff. the september 11 attacks in the

transition out of office of george w. bush changed the tone and actions undertaken during the transition. in 2008, president bush led the most determined transition out of office we have experienced. he began the cycle into a 2007, in discussions with this chief of staff, joshua bolten, who led the effort. bolton, in turn, close to the circle that truman proposed to structure by having representatives of the incoming and outgoing chief executives meet well for the election. he brought together representatives of the two candidates of the white house in july, almost two months prior to the 2008 party conventions. clay johnson, who led the transition is the executive director for president bush into office in 2001, clay johnson was

the deputy for management at the office of management and budget and lead the department and agency in planning work and gathering information for choosing a new team. he's going to be on our second panel. equally important in the 2008 transition was interest in making use of those administrative preparations by those leaving the transition efforts for senator and then president-elect obama. christopher lu, executive director of the transition effort for president obama, was in those july meetings and work as deputy and on the bush team. -- isnow the secretary that -- deputy secretary in the department of labor and involved in the transition out of office of president obama. lisa was the codirector and began working in july, assembling teams to go into the

departments and agencies to collect information on programs, staff physicians, and upcoming schedules and budgets. president bush and his team willingly led the transition andrt was resolved senator then elect president obama was eager to use. they are all part of the effort to solidify the games -- the gains in the agreement process. matt mccarty as well as clay johnson have been the leaders of the institute projects for reforming the appointment process. lisa brown was part of the obama administration appointment reform effort. they are knowledgeable to talk about the transition. program today comes about through the work of many

institutions in individuals. panelists have come to speak about presidential transitions. we think everyone is here for coming to talk to us about the subject. thank you, alan, for your support, and your interest in our project. we appreciate it and the work that you're doing in the presidential leadership program that you support. next, the george w. bush presidential center has provided logisticalll as support. director of operations, as well partnerne, our public who we are coordinating with on the white house transition project.

staff ofwe think the the white house transition project. to afford for our conference and often honor analytical programs. let's begin with josh bolten and max mclarty to do transition -- no transition to their work as chief of staff. this will be followed by a program on the presidential appointments process and the discussion of the administration transition out of office. thank you. [applause] sit where you like. i'm sitting here. [laughter] >> you can tell who's in charge. [laughter] >> the 2008 transition was by all sides viewed as the best

that we have had. you all put attention anyway that had not privily been the case. i wonder if you can talk about the elements that you see that were important in that transition. why was it so good? >> thank you. for the recognition of the work that the bush administration did and the president did himself. that is my answer to your question. it comes from the president. max knows this better than anybody, so much in a presidential term and the executive agenda comes from what

the president says he or eventually she is interested. -- interested in. that was sure of the 2008 presidential transition which president bush directed me more than a year before the transition and as he mentioned, late 2007 it's on the president first spoke to me as his chief of staff and talked about how important he thought this presidential transition would be because it was the first presidential transition in our modern history during which our homeland was actually under threat.

9/11 changed everything. about the bush presidency in our country. so he was determined that we not have an unnecessary period of vulnerability during the early months of the incoming president's administration regardless of party. that was a relevant to president bush's consideration when he said he gave me the direction to run the most effective and most complete transition in american history. that was a low bar to meet. [laughter] traditionally, i've been on both ends of a transition already, both going out of the bush 41 administration in the coming into the bush 43 administration. it is a low bar in a bipartisan way. just on something that attracted attention.

-- not something that attracted attention. not a question of partisanship. i think you will agree. >> i do agree. >> historically in america, a question of we don't need to do that. don't learn on the job. they had time to get there feet on the ground and run the place the way they want to run it. we don't need to spend a lot of time doing stuff, doing preparatory work for the next gang and that probably isn't particularly welcome in the first place. it was deftly a change of psychology and in the 2008 transition, we had ultimately a

terrific partnership with a very well organized obama team that will be represented on your neck panel -- next panel. >> what direction did he give you? >> the truth is, i don't really remember. [laughter] i do recall that it was not detailed instructions. that wasn't george bush is style to say i want to make sure they have all their appointments in place and that the briefing books are here in the diagram of the west wing, that is, anybody who knows george w. bush knows he is a leader and a man of principle. he empowers people to do their jobs. he considered it my job and the

job of my staff, the staff -- job of clay johnson to figure out what the details were. but, what i do recall him saying explicitly is that i want these people to be as prepared as possible to deal with a crisis should one happen on the first day of the next ministry should. -- administration. that is both a tall order and a major undertaking. >> there was a threat on the inauguration. >> there was. we were particularly concerned about a terrorist attack during the actual inauguration. it is a moment of extraordinary peril when you think about it. because so much of the government actually moves. in other systems a key people at the top move around but most of

the government remains in place. in our system, the top few thousand leaders of government are actually replaced in a transition, especially transition between parties were basically everybody who used to be there is out all at the same moment. it is not like it is a slow process of the one-month a few people come in the next month or people and so on. it is noon on january 20 every four years that the people who have been in charge suddenly have no authority anymore. they are done, you were out. your badge does not work. you can't get back into your office. nobody either expects to or should follow your instructions. it is a very abrupt change in

our system and the new people, i remember walking into the white house on january 20, 2001 and you walk into a blank office and there's nothing on the walls, a few supplies on the desk, computers but there is nothing in the memory bank. you might know the phone numbers of a few of the people you may need to reach but it is a very complete and abrupt transition and for the country, that is a real period of vulnerability and i don't think it lasts all that long. but the first few days in a crisis, the people who need to

make the decision might not even know how to reach the other people that they need to reach to take action. what we did in the transition period in 2008 and 2009 was we did our best to prepare the incoming folks to work with each other and also to pair up the out coming -- outgoing people with the incoming people. we held a tabletop exercise in early january in which we assembled cabinet officers who were relevant to a national security crisis. we assembled in the old executive office building and we

had all the outgoing officials there who would be involved in a national security crisis, secretary of homeland security, the national security advisor, the secretary of health, we populated a chemical-bio attack. we had all the right officials in the outgoing message and who knew each other and you who did what. and we brought in their incoming counterparts and we went to the tabletop exercise with the old people sitting next to the incoming people and i don't know if -- i don't know how much you can learn and it three hour tabletop exercise about how to act in a crisis but the main thing was that they laid eyes on the other people with whom they would need to communicate and i

will bet for most of the people in the incoming obama cabinet, that was the first time they had met fbi director muller was one key official who emma because the nature of his position, transitioned across administrations and would be a key person to know and can indicate with in the event of a crisis. one other thing i will mention that we did, we asked the home and security secretary, who had planned a vacation with his wife that 1:00 p.m. on july 20, we asked him to stick around for a

day and during inauguration day he was in an off-site with the incoming secretary, security in the control center where they could monitor all the threat information and we asked him, even if his authority would be eliminated as of noon on generic 20, we asked him to stick around, be there for advice and so on for secretary napolitano as she takes the reins. it turned out to be important because there was a threat on inauguration day. it turned out to be a credible threat.

it turned out not to be an actual threat, an actual incident but there was credible intelligence suggesting an attack at the inauguration itself on the mall. so, we were -- i mentioned -- i mr. bolten: had our people as well-positioned as we could under the circumstances to have a smooth handoff. ms. kumar: and a bipartisanship, they had both worked as prosecutors and knew each other very well. it was an easy discussion between the two of them. matt, can you tell us about the discussions about transition into office that you had with president clinton. mr. mclarty: i would be glad to. first of all, it is good to be with you. and it is a great privilege to be here. and a privilege to be with the chief. without always look forward to. our transition was different. it was a different time and place.

and i think josh makes a key point about 9/11. changing the psyche of our country, that personal security became national security, etc. -- and vice versa. it affected transitions. and it was a much earlier time. i think at that point, governor clinton, like most presidential candidates before him was very concerned if you have a serious developed large effort underway on transitions, that it would be easy for the press to say, such a show of arrogance here , measuring the proverbial grapes in the oval office. and indeed even with president obama, there was a little talk about that with his transition efforts even after 9/11. that was part of it. i think in our case, as lisa

remembers from her time working with vice president al gore unlike josh, i came into the , transition late from the private sector having served as a chief executive officer of a gasyork stock exchange company. came in knowing some of the people but not all. on the positive side governor , clinton, like most president ial candidates had laid out a clear agenda of what he wanted to accomplish in his first 100 days and first two years. that in and of itself laid out a roadmap in terms of the policy work in the administration. i think secondly, during the transition, a high priority was placed on the selection of the cabinet. we spent a lot of time there and i think that our work reflected that. , you certainlyan know, talked about the loyalty and competency and engagement of the cabinet in the clinton administration.

we also spent a lot of time integrating offices. which was clearly a priority of the president elect, he and al gore had run as a team. before that, the vice president had been an important figure but it was not fully integrated into the presidency as we see it with more modern presidencies. where we got behind the curve was with the selection of the white house staff. i think that was a setback for us. although on the policy side, we were able to move forward with the economic plan. we were able to move forward with the cabinet and i like so much the spirit of bipartisanship, or the theme, because we did receive good cooperation from the republican members of the senate getting a cabinet in place. as clay johnson know so well, that is only a start. and chris does as well, you need

to get the deputy and assistant secretaries in place. so that was our experience. i think on the national security front, before 9/11, before the terrorist events we have seen and are so troubled about and unsettled about, it was a different landscape although there were abilities there. -- vulnerabilities there. i do think that there was a -- that worked during the campaign, able to make the transition. the final point, and josh has alluded to is, the real two hallmarks of the transition other than being open, prepared, start early, which i think now has become much better understood, and much more accepted. recently i've spoken with the , business roundtable he has been active with your projects,

speaking at the national governors association this weekend. i just think it is much better understood how critical transitions are. it is that moment in a 77 day period where there is so much to be done, so many various stakeholders to respond to and it is a moment aware it is essential to pivot from campaigning to governing. that is what transitions, the hallmark of any successful transition. ms. kumar: one of the aspects of moving from campaigning to governing, is that there are different needs. the rhythms of a campaign are different because you have, you trying to win each day and you have a policy agenda that is limited that you are talking about. but when you come in to govern you need people that are less

partisan in a sense and once -- ones with experience in the washington community. because you are going to move from one issue to another where you may have coalitions of supporters and then your enemies are your friends in the once -- ones afterwards. when you have campaign people, is your god is good, and the opponent is -- your guy is good, and the opponent is bad. how do you make that transition of personnel, of bringing in people who are appropriate for governing who may not have been on your campaign and what do you do with the campaign people that you want to reward and how does the president deal with that? i'm getting a -- mr. mclarty: i'm getting a

headache just thinking about this. [laughter] mr. mclarty: you make the right point. you have had people in the campaign that have truly worked their hearts out for the candidate and the campaign and in many cases, made tremendous sacrifices, whether they've taken a leave of absence to the -- from their job or moved to little rock, arkansas in our case or texas to spend a year , plus of their lives trying to get george w. bush or bill clinton elected, there is a feeling of loyalty. , ase who have brought you in the old saying goes. by the same token, you do have to be pretty steely eyed and not empathetic thatun you are moving into a different passage and a different requirement. you have to have a blend of people that were in the campaign

that are naturally and hopefully well-suited to make the transition to governing and there's usually a good number of people in the policy realm and the press realm. you need new people, bother -- other people in our case, , governor clinton knew a lot of other fellow governors that were natural cabinet selections. he had worked with a number of people in education so that was a natural area. a number of people in the national security area. that was a natural. that is how you make the transition. you have to keep that balance. there is one other major factor that is different, that is the members of the congress and the house and senate. you are not going to get your first hundred days moving in the right direction with your legislation as josh knows so well, and is so skilled and -- at handling members of the house and senate, without establishing immediate rapport with leadership there. and i think the other part of

that is to reach out early and carefully and appropriately, he -- because you cannot get ahead of yourself or that will create problems in and of itself. in our case, i don't think we did as good a job reaching out to the republican side as we could have in retrospect. i think we caught up with that on welfare to work in other legislation later, but that is absolutely key and very different in campaigns. that is a new constituency. and finally in our case, you , will talk about this a little later, or plan to talk about it, we had 12 years of republican s in the white house. that is quite a big change when you have a different administration and different party come into the white house. in our case, i think it is worth noting, governor clinton only got 43% of the vote.

that also had a difference in our dynamic. and in that transition. ms. kumar: josh how did you all , establish your legislative relationship? you had less? [laughter] fewer votes. first of all, president bush came in with a landslide by comparison. [laughter] mr. bolten: don't underestimate 571 votes in florida. [laughter] mr. bolten: but that -- mr. mclarty: now you tell us. [laughter] mr. bolten: that made it challenging. that made the start of the administration pretty rough because a substantial portion of the country was pretty raw and a substantial portion felt that president bush had not been

legitimately elected. it had been decided by the supreme court and so on. we were keenly aware of that. the president was aware of that. he was keenly aware that he needed to reach out at the beginning of his administration and make sure that everybody understood that he intended to be the president of all the people, not just the folks that had voted for him. there were a number of outreach efforts at the start of the administration. governor bush, bush 43 when he was governor here in texas, as clay can describe well, had governed as a real uniter and he had hoped to be able to do the same in washington. he had been intending to go to washington at the education -- as the education president

and do that on a bipartisan basis, and so the administration started out with an agenda that included tax cuts and education reform as the top priority and the education reform, his partners were the democratic chairman ted kennedy in the the chairman in the house, and they were his close working partners on what eventually became the no child left behind act. but sadly for the country, that , kind of momentum was very hard maintain, even after the aftermath of 9/11. ms. kumar: why do you think it was? the $64en: boy, that is trillion question. why have we not been able to

stitch together some substantial element of bipartisan cooperation in the last 20 or 30 years. it seems to have degraded through each presidency and there are a lot of things to point to. there is gerrymandering in the house. ofch makes the vast majority house members safe in their seats. except for a challenge from the fringe of their own party. it tends to make house members much more responsive to the right, the extreme right in the republican party, extreme left in the democratic party and make them less inclined to be receptive to compromise.

there is the influence of the dramatic change in how and where people get their news that the explosion of media outlets from which we all benefit it has been -- a benefit, which has been a tremendous and it must respect positive change in our society. it also means that people take the bias in the news and aren't operating off of a common set of facts. that used to have a unifying effect in the country. manyi mean, there are so factors involved. i do not think you can identify one, but i think you can say that the biggest challenge for the coming generation of

government leaders is to try to breach -- bridge the divide. ms. kumar: certainly the transition has proved to be an area that democrats and republicans can work together whether it is in congress or in an administration. so, at least we have one area and i guess that there are a few others, but it is hard to put that together. for both of you all, what is the advantage of a fast start? and if you have trouble at the beginning of the administration, lose the way on the fast start, how can you get it back together? mr. mclarty: first impressions are important. all of us have heard the phrase in presidential history and campaigns, the first 100 days,

that is the goodwill coming off the election. is the first 100 days or the first six months of the administration. it is also the same time as he pointed out, you are to get your -- getting your team together and may have the least experience in some ways to implement that. i think in our case, the economic plan was crucial because the campaign had largely been about domestic issues and the economy. had we not been able from a policy standpoint to develop an economic plan and to move that to the congress and get it passed in the beginning of the administration, i like her to as -- i am not going to go as far as to say you might have had a failed presidency, but it certainly would have been written about had you not been with anything on

the plan. much like joshua to do with the election, we passed that by one vote in the house and vice president gore both the time the -- the tie in the senate. that was crucial. that was essential to the start. because you are also going to have, in most cases, we certainly did, some bumps, some unexpected, what i call ufos, some un-since -- some unforeseen occurrences that are going to in and you have to deal with, whether they are micro, unsettling problems or whether they are major unforeseen occurrences. you can have all of your plans and agendas laid out as perfectly as you would like, but you are inevitably going to have to deal with the unexpected events. so it is essential that you lift off. i think a real crucial element comes into place, many of you in

the business world here and it is what clay and i have been so adamant about and committed to, you need to get your team in place to deal with all of that and it starts at the cabinet level in the white house senior level. you have to fill out the remainder of the administration. ms. kumar: you all had some bumps at the beginning as well. the economic transition, i was -- that was part of the transition that was well formed when you came in. you created the national economic council which continues today. mr. bolten: yes. ms. kumar: i think the president management council was created early too, and the economic program. but there was trouble with appointments. mr. bolten: we did. it would be a just josh, to get your perspective on this. i think that most

administrations have had some issues on appointments and are and or confirmations. we certainly had it on the attorney general. on the other hand, as i had noted earlier, and again i give the republican leadership and the senate a lot of credit for this -- we got our cabinet in , the attorney general's office. i believe more properly than any other administration i got in -- in place because we had cooperation from the senate and getting those approved. we got those in place but we also had some other issues, some military issues that came out that were distracting for a central message and central effort to those things in place. i think what you have to look at is at the end of the day, most presidencies will be judged by peace, which now i would say is

security in the homeland, and prosperity. that's the two goals you have to keep before you. ms. kumar: getting the white house staff in place early is something that now everybody seems to recommend and clinton has talked about how that was one thing that -- mr. bolten: that was a lesson learned. i think we spent a lot of time on the cabinet which pays big dividends. mr. mclarty: not only did we had the collegial cooperative cabinet, they gave us great advice and were able to amplify , and you know this from your time in the obama administration amplify the president's message , and a pretty impactful way both in the country, internationally and on the hill in congress. i think the real point about

transitions, david you have been such a part of it, have really gotten in an understated way -- understanding way how critical it is to have early, developed, engaged transition efforts that are on a separate track from the presidential campaign and that will help and is key to getting the white house staff in place in addition to the other positions of government. mr. bolten: can i underscore what he just said, because that is crucially important that the environment that the white house transition project has created, the partnership for public service has created, the legislation that was adopted as a result of the efforts has altered the mindset about presidential transition, because it used to be that those candidates who were even focused on the importance of the

transition were reluctant to admit that in any public sense because you would immediately be accused of measuring the drapes, getting ahead of yourself, being arrogant, and so on. we found that even in 2008 when i reached out at the direction of the president in the summer of 2008, before the conventions i reached out to the presumptive campaigns, romney and obama and mccain. the obama campaign got it. they were well organized and had a terrific team in place led by john podesta and chris lu. the mccain campaign was very nervous and very reticent to be seen as having a plan, having leadership of the transition and

so on, precisely because they do not want to be accused of measuring the drapes and getting ahead of themselves. and if so there's been an -- and so there has been an important change in the environment just in the last few cycles about the propriety and necessity of making the preparations and is one of the ways in which operations like yours and terry's and others have made an important contribution the way we run our -- contribution to the way that we run our public life. mr. mclarty: if i may build on what josh has said and such a thoughtful and articulate manner, i think the environment has changed. a lot of people in this room and a lot of others have helped to move that forward. i do think 9/11 has changed the psyche too. i also think that

administrations coming and have a bit of a different attitude, how much can i learn from this other group that either i was smarter than or better than, after all i did defeat them? i think, you write about that in your book. there is a much better understanding that even if you have sharp differences on policy, there is a lot to learn from prior administrations who had been in that chair or seat in the white house. there has been a change in that environment. building on the broader change that john spoke about. ms. kumar: the outcomes of these transitions out of office, one has to be legislation. it institutionalized many of the things that you did. you had an executive order that created the council. that is in law.

so you have legislation in 2010 that created the pre-election transition effort so that after you have the national party nominating convention that the transition headquarters that is open up to the general services administration and provide support for candidates if they choose to use it. mr. bolten: people should understand, this is paid for by the federal government. which is crucial, it is not just that you get money. it is that you have the standard operating procedure to set up an office, put people in it and let them start planning and hopefully going forward, it will be a natural thing for both candidates to engage in that important planning activity.

and in 2016, march 28 i believe president obama signed , legislation that the presidential transition improvement act is going to provide even more because the transition cornet in council has to meet their by law and it is created six month for the election and there is an agency transition director counsel that was created that has career civil service people running it. so that information has to be provided, the kind of information that you and clay have put together in 2008. so that there was a legislative impact on the kind of work that you did.

well, max referenced a conundrum. discussedrum i have here is that the transition is the time that has maximum opportunity to change. for example, when you're coming into office is a good time to make organizational changes. because the public is watching and they are willing to support, and members of congress also are more willing and the public is more willing to support you. but on the other hand, you are bringing in a team that is inexperienced that does not really know where the levers are and how to make them work, how do you deal with that? [laughter] mr. mclarty: it is a conundrum. it has not been fully resolved at this point. it goes back to what i tried to note earlier, you have to try

your very best to blend the organization of the campaign staff, many of whom have been deeply ingrained in the policy development as well as the campaign on both domestic and foreign policy issues but with new blood and implicitly, experienced hands if you will from the washington scene. in our case, howard pastored came in as head of legislative had as and he had long-standing relationship in washington and had a partnership there on a bipartisan basis. he was well suited on the legislative front to have a number of relationships already established. a little bit later on as you recall, we reached out to david served fivehad

presidents. and he served in a number of administrations and we specifically wanted to get someone from the republican side that could help us build those bridges. so those are the types of things you do. the only other point i would make that maybe we have not emphasized enough for this group and for the c-span viewers and so forth, is just the magnitude of what is really entailed in a 77 day transition. work toly have so much get done in such a short period of time. and there are so many stakeholders, people that voted for you, the opponent process, getting your people in place, in our case, the governor stepping on the world stage, meeting other international leaders. establishing relationships with members of congress, often who think they are pretty important in this process.

the press, it is a different press that covers the white house band has generally covered -- than has generally covered the campaign. there is a multiplicity of stakeholders that have to be engaged in a very short period of time as you are lifting off. ms. kumar: josh how did you deal , with the conundrum? mr. bolten: we had a blessing in the outset of the bush 43 administration. and in the campaign in which george w. bush was elected in -- elected, and the blessing was that a large portion of the country thought that george w. bush was stupid. i mean, the reality is that he brightxceptionally person. i spent my career in government policy and george w. bush is one

of the sharpest policy minds i've ever encountered in decades. but that was not the reputation he had. and to run a campaign that was chock-full of substance. that would have been george w bush's instinct anyway. we ran a campaign that was disciplined and setting out in one month it would be to health care policy in the next month would be tax policy and the next month with the energy and environmental policy. there were speeches that went with that. fact sheets that well with that. with the end of the campaign we post a 300 page book of campaign speeches and policy papers that were the governing agenda for