are not sustainable. senator portman. >> i've had a lot of titles, i can't keep a job but it's never been secretary. first of all, thanks for getting into the sustainability issue, i didn't get to hear the entire dialogue but i think that's a critical bart of what needs to be done as we talked about in the opening remarks. and i know you also talked about enforcement. suspension, debarment, and other ways to have enforcement play a more credible role. i want to talk a little bit about database of pricing information which is something that's in senator mccaskill's bill and also been talked about by the war time contracting commission. and a number of the ig reports

we are looking at how that can be sustainable in the long-term. so it is meeting some needs in the country. you noted that the foreign assistance act requires that we focus on sustainable development and we do do that in usaid programs. it's a key factor for consideration whenever we are developing program or projects. i would say we've had some work to do and we've taken seriously the cwc recommendations and, in essence, we have put together a sustainability policy in afghanistan. and actually i was talking with the deputy director of our office of acquisition -- sorry, of afghan and pakistan affairs. he noted when he was in afghanistan recently they're implementing the sustainability policy at the provincial reconstruction team level. we are taking it seriously, we are, indeed, putting policies into place, and we're looking the longer term sustainability policy in afghanistan. >> anything from state, secretary? >> i would agree that there clearly are issues. we try to do a lot in very, very difficult environments and obviously we have not succee

and that in my mind is what sustainable energy for all is about. how do you bring together governments, donors, the international community, the host governments that are involved, the private sector, banks, pension funds, hedge funds, civil society, the kinds of organizations that can continue to be the monitoring groups behind this, how do we bring them together in order to create this value proposition. in the past there have been efforts at coordination to try to achieve greater investment in energy access. but the issue that we have often found, and this was fascinating in some of the discussions that we had in the context of the u.n. and i should -- seeing tim wirth here in front, tim, u.n. foundation, reed, you guys have been absolutely fantastic in providing substantive -- not just financial support, but the substantive support that has been so necessary on this effort. one of the things that came out of this discussion is when we had a dialogue with the private sector and we started talking about issues like commitments, the private sector

sustained the develop an, in other words, requires sustainable energy. but securing progress on sustainable energy for all this year presents both opportunities and challenges. once a decade as well this year, a symbol at a global summit to promote the elusive goal of sustainable development and based on the idea that economic growth or environmental protection and social justice must proceed simultaneously. these events as the event this year does creates an opportunity for imagining and envisioning a new set of solutions for developing a new political narrative and a new set of expectations about what we, the world, both governments and the private sector need to do to promote this agenda and perhaps rio this you can refresh interest in sustainable development and reimagine solutions that catalyze new partnerships and partners. that is our hope. let's be honest. these are challenging times. the lingering effects of the weak economy, the financial instability, the euro crisis, high unemployment, slow economic growth plus a highly partisan political envi

such investments are necessary to help sustain a modern, competitive economy. they encourage innovationnew ideas, which lead to new products and services, and ultimately to new, highly skilled, well-paying jobs. the key is to leverage private sector investment in research and development. in spite of our efforts so far, canada is not keeping up with other advanced economies on this crucial front. in response to the jenkins report on innovation, we will provide substantial new funding to make it easier for entrepreneurs to access venture capital. we will extend our efforts to promote small business innovation, through government procurement contracts. we will provide new investments to support innovation and market development in the forestry sector. we will double our investments through the industrial research assistance program. we will provide new support for partnerships between businesses and universities. we will make new investments in advanced research infrastructure on our college and university campuses. we will streamline and improve the tax incentiv

that you think are not sustainable. secretary portman. senator portman. >> had a lot of titles. i can't keep a job, but it's never been secretary yet. [laughter] first of all, thanks for getting into the sustainability issue. i didn't get to hear the entire dialogue, but i think that's a critical part of what needs to be done as we talked about in the opening remarks. and i know you also talked about enforcement, suspension and debarment and other ways to have enforcement play a more credible role. i want to talk a little about database of pricing information which is something that's in senator mccaskill's bill and has also been talked about by the wartime contracting commission. it's basically, you know, how do you get a fair price. and competition, i think, is the best way. but another way, of course, is to insure that we have a database of pricing information that is transparent, that's accessible and that is one that the agencies and departments can rely on. one dramatic example is a report that came out of the spe

sustainable, long-term growth. others now have little room to maneuver. we are free to choose our future. we have made our choice. our government chooses prosperity, for all canadians. prosperity, for all canadians. we will take decisive action to ensure our economy will create good jobs and sustain a higher quality of life for our children and grandchildren. more related to this story more related to this story .deep cuts to military mark your 2012 federal budget explained in this budget our government is looking ahead not only over the next few years but also over the next generation. we are taking major steps forward to build on the strong foundation we have laid since 2006. 2006. it is not enough to maintain canada's advice. we must position canada with the world's large and dynamic emerging economy in a changing global economy. we must avoid this. we must realize the enormous potential of our great country. potential of our great country. >> he helped to shape it over crucial generations from serving as minister of finance to attending the paris peac

well, what is sustainability? how are we overusing resources? how do we really dramatically change our way? we have to change definitions, as you point out. gross domestic product by itself does not help. so we've been talking than for 20 years. but there are now i think institutionally i think that's beginning to change. i'll stop with that. the other questions are great. but that was a good opening. >> and that addressed also the -- >> the first question. >> the planning under pressure question. >> okay. >> not fully. >> let me try. they're really great questions. and of course we are all trying collectively to find answers to some of these very difficult questions. just to go back on your point, nancy, on the gas. actually, if you look at the way gas projects are done, gas to power projects are done and how renewable energy projects are done, the gas technology is very well established. it's less risky. there are no barriers to developing those kinds of projects. so what needs to be done on the renewable side is derisk the projects that we tr

sustainable energy and sustainable development initiatives by feels as the most famous or most known initiative of course, but biofuels is not the end of the story. many have implemented other initiatives. all of them leading to the concept that we need to address the energy to -- issue from the point of view of social inclusion and economic growth, and brazil's recent history has proved that we can address that without a conflict between growth on the one hand and sustainability on the other. we would rather prove that you can have both at the same time, that that growth can lead to sustainability and vice versa, but for all those reasons, we're glad that such an important event is taking place today and we are sure that the panels this morning will improve very important contribution and efforts to rio plus 20. thank you. >> thank you. so now we plunge into our first session. could i invite tim wirth and vijay iyer to come up and sit down. and while they come up, let me introduce them very briefly. i think tim is very well-known to all of you here. he's a former senator from colora

looking at the sustained allegations, the occ had sustained allegations of 4% of the cases it closed, the same rate as the mediation right. in outreach, in april, on april 9, the police department invited the occ to make a presentation at the police academy to a delegation of four visiting justices from the highest court of one area. the chief investigator, an attorney, and i discussed the value of civilian oversight of law enforcement, our investigation procedure, our mediation program and policy work. this also includes the informational brochure, and i want to thank the occ a turning -- attorneys for having that brochure translated. on the next evening, on april 10, i participated in a school of law, women of color collective mentoring event, where i answered questions about my career and the sec -- occ. these questions were posed by members of the collective, and that was quite invigorating. that concludes my report of recent activity, and now i would like to move to the report that was in your packet, and it has a very long title, which inspector monroe already read, and i will g

one of my principal concerns is sustainability. by that i mean how do we ensure that our work, reconstruction and development work and so on, will last and be carried on by the afghan and iraqi government and the people of those countries? the issue is critically important because we are mature are good investments to go bad. that means we have to consider not only how many additional schools and health clinics to construct, but will sustain them? the they have the medical professionals and the teachers to be able to sustain them and keep them going? on this issue, the wartime contract in commission was not very optimistic. and i will look forward to hearing from the panel on what steps are needed to reduce this risk of future waste or lack of sustainability. beyond ensuring that is fiscally unsound, we also have to picture that is -- fiscally sound, we also have to make sure that it is done with our values. the report said that existing prohibitions on a human trafficking have failed to suppress it. they have an incentive to bring

this is what we mean by ensuring sustainment. it includes the police, the afghan national army, an afghan air force, is building up to a search force of some 352,000. we expect the final size to be smaller than this. the government of afghanistan [no audio] has made some initial decisions about course structure. the summit will discuss the funding arrangement for the cost of insuring sustainment. to maintain full responsibility for security. the afghan national security forces will need the right support, including finding and training from the international community. -- funding and training from the international community. in chicago, i will be arguing for substantial international support and i will go to chicago prepared for australia to pay our fair share. australia will also be prepared to provide training to the afghan national security forces after 2014. we are already involved in institutional training through the afghan national army artillery training school. in the future, we will support the proposed u.k.-led afghan

i think we have get a sustainable recovery -- even in sustainable is questionable. everyone here, business sector people, former business sector people, said that we need the crutch of 6% to 10% government deficits, plus continuous rounds of quantitative easing. it's a pretty stretching the meaning of the word to call that sustainable. i think we probably can get by with something less than that. but how do we get shared prosperity on the agenda? that's the type of recovery we should be talking about. i think we should be raising people's expectations when we talk about it in the way we are talking about it we're down sizing people's expectations, and that prevents change. >> i really don't need to downsize people's expectations. to be fair to those who are viewing regulatory uncertainty plays a role here. if you look -- go back to where we started. dodd-frank, you ask five people in the industry where they think this is going to turn out, how do they think the volcker rule ends, you will get five different opinions. that is uncertainty, isn't it? in your industry,

blockade running sustained their armies in the field. when blockades were still quite porous, blockade runners became fairly prosperous for their endeavors. some argued that blockade runners should be run by the government, but that ran against southern society, and both secretary of the navy and secretary of the army decided to leave blockade running to the entrepreneurs. that in hindsight was clearly a lost opportunity for the south. for instead of bringing in the kind of materials the confederacy desperately needed, the profit-driven blockade runners brought in what was more lucrative. the cliche that comes to mind is rhett butler. it was true that the market, more than the needs of confederate armys, often determined the cargos. the pattern of trade, which is indicated on this slide, usually began in england, france or belgium with legal merchantmen shipping their goods in traditional trans-oceanic ocean ships, carrying them to a port nearer the united states. the most popular were bermuda, nasa in the bahamas and close to cuba. ther

sustainable energy goals have to be met. and leveraging different financing sources, for instance, climate investment funding, large scale investments are making a huge difference across the world in how we are able to bring both the public and private sector together. we also have to scale up some of the proven programs that have delivered in the past few years. many grand funded programs like the energy sector management assistance program, lighting africa and the global aligns for stoves, programs like that have delivered substantial results and these need nb scaled up including programs like the global gaslighting production. there is also a big role for knowledge for assistance in countries to achieve these goals and the knowledge function is another idea that the world bank, partners with the international and energy agencies to see how this can be built up. in closing, i wanted to say that this is a very challenging agenda. and i've only touched on a few aspects. i welcome the -- the u. and the partnership that this w

i'm not a believer that we're on our way to a sustainable recovery. we also had a period at the beginning of last year where admittedly not to this degree but the numbers look better and then the strengthening faded. you know, we still have more downside on housing. the fed has been talking about a fiscal cliff that we're going to reach in january 1, 2013. they actually thought it would be january 1, 2012, but some of the tax breaks, particularly the lower payroll tax rates, were pushed out another year. but we're going to have, unless other measures are taken, we're going to have fiscal spinning fall off in 2013. if nothing else that is going to be another drag on the economy. >> now, i'd like to just stay a little bit with the discussion we've been having, because i don't think we've framed the problem right. this is washington. we want to get through policy and prescription first. but prescription isn't worth a damn unless you do diagnosis right. now, there are three explanations broadly speaking, of this problem out there. one is a republican amer

but it's not going to be sustainable if it does not include, if it does not create jobs. we have had periods in recent history where we had growth but without jobs. doesn't have jobs it is not going to work. but if i may just add as a subset, i think what is really needed as well is a well functioning financial system that operates in the public interest. that is, i think it's a sector of the economy that is very special that has specific attributes and privilege and therefore has also a duty to society. so more of public interest in that financial sector for it to actually work properly i think is critical and as a former lawyer background i would say an independent, efficient judicial system because the issues of corruptions and the like have to be addressed at that level properly. >> do you think tlz is some momentum for that. >> yes, yes. >> for change within its financial sector, in terms primarily about regulations or is it -- >> it's b you know, we make, you know, big-- of the regulation and too much of it. there have been for the last three years a huge focus on t

sustainable growth from g.d.p. numbers that come out every quarter ok first their estimates they will get revised in three months we've seen huge revisions usually downward happen before this this is something that is a normal thing a normal part of this and in addition to that as you point out there is a difference between sustainable growth and just growth that has anyone. see from the years where construction was great and that goes into g.d.p. and that was built on a bubble that burst that was not sustainable and those are the kind of things that i can't parse out what is going to be sustainable or what isn't what is good growth versus what is just growth that's calculated an estimate of g.d.p. that the government decides on me that's a great point right because there are certain things like you mentioned like construction which everyone thought that would just that would just go on forever clearly real estate is going to be the safest investment and that's never going to change and we saw that to be a huge mis

the first is with regard to sustainability. you know, bun thing we learned during the recent crisis is cash is a fact, income is an opinion. and when it comes to income-based taxation, that is exactly the opinion that changes all the time. when you no longer have to define income, so is it a section 3 c sub 2 income? or is it a this kind of income? that's what they play with all the time. we have -- i just finished my taxes. we have to move away from this multidefinition of income. and i think the only way to do it is again to move to a cash tax. second for simplicity reasons. right now, we will raise about a trillion in individual income tax, about $400 billion in the corporate tax. . the compliance costs, not the economic distortions, the compliance costs on that are about $300 billion. so we're paying 22 cents in compliance for every dollar we collect in revenue. if you're looking for low hanging fruit, you want to minimize the number of tax pacers out there, you want a simple definition of income and again, i think you get

future performance in the financial sector and other sectors of the economy that was not plauzably sustainable over time. so there's been a bit of gravity and expectations as people think about what it's going to take for us to grow in a more balanced same way going forward. we can't have an economy where we expect growth to come from sustained borrowing by relatives individual income to finance overinvestment housing. not a plausible long-term strategy. again, i think the broad adjustment you're seeing in the u.s. economy we should find encouraging. it's nor investment and export led. it's coming with a improvement in private savings rates. even the beginnings of improvement in public savings, public debt, fiscal debt coming down. bringing down burdens, financial sector much more stable, and we have a very resilient, very dynamic american economy. you can see that across the broad strength you're seeing, and i think if you look ahead, the world is i think still at the early stage of what's going to be a very long period of pretty substantial rates of growth in the emerging world in the most p

sustainable development, in other words, requires sustainable energy. but the securing progress on sustainable energy for all this year presents both opportunities and challenging -- challenges. world leaders have come together to work on the use of goals of development justice. these events great opportunity for imagining and envisioning a new set of solutions, for developing a new political narrative and a new set of expectations about what would -- what we, the world, and both private governments and others can do to develop this agenda. honest, these are challenging times. the lingering effects of the weak economy, the financial instability, the bureau crisis, high unemployment, slow economic growth, and harsh political environment in some countries, and elections in others make it particularly challenging times. little appetite exists in some donor nations, perhaps many, to ask taxpayers to fund a large scale global effort. at the same time, nations are struggling to make progress in climate change with a global agreement still years away, and like

purchase, purchases of sustainable products on organic -- harvesting, techniques. nonchemical techniques and the like. >> terrific. we have a couple minutes before we begin our keynote addresses two. more questions from the audience. give our speakers one final chance to offer their closing remarks. in the back here. >> hello, my name is kathleen. i have heard a lot of emphasis from both of you speakers about the, the multibillion dollar commitment from private sector to fund sustainable w energy access for all. there seems to be a difference of emphasis the two of you were talking about, funding that will go to research, and funding that will go to rollout of the initiatives. i would be interested to hear you talk a little bit more about what the balance is for researching new technologies and expanding the delivery of existing solutions. >> great. >> our final question, this gentleman right here. >> i am diego, american university. thank you for taking a second question. my question is, what is the stand of the united states and the global community on biofuels a

allbee: it's not just about the sustainability of the assets, it's about the sustainability of our water resources. parts of this country that thought of themselves as water rich 20, 30 years ago, now are discovering that they really are not water rich, they have source supply issues, they have serious questions about how they're going to accommodate additional growth in their communities. melosi: if we can find alternatives, we can preserve a water supply. conservation of water is a way of generating more water. allbee: we think that a household can actually reduce its water usage by about 30%. and that's hugely important in terms of the amount of infrastructure that community's going to require. narrator: las vegas is one of the fast-growing areas in the country. it's a relatively new city under constant construction. but because it's in the arid mojave desert, the challenge of las vegas is supply. woman: all the growth and everything that's occurred in southern nevada has been with colorado river water. without it, the west as you know it today couldn't exist. narrator: to sustain the

is military strategy in afghanistan it turns out that the afghan military is too broke to sustain its current size so afghanistan has announced that they're going to cut about thirty percent of its force and this will happen after nato mission there ends in two thousand and fourteen and when that happens afghan afghans will be stripped of a huge amount of its funding that's because the seven billion dollars a cost to cover salaries equipment and everything else is covered by foreign governments so when the west pulls out afghanistan is out of luck in this announcement comes as the approval rating for the war is at an all time low let's take a look back at the ratings over the years and back in two thousand and seven fifty six percent of the americans polled said that the war in afghanistan was worth fighting while forty one percent disagreed moving along although the numbers at that number has kind of fluctuated gun. the longer that we have stayed in that country support for the war went up significantly in june of two thousand and eleven just a month after president obama announced t

or not sustained and examples of them. that is what i have. thank you very much. president mcczzu -- mazzucco: any other further comment? seeing no further public comment, public comment is closed. please read line item number four. secretary monroe: number four, the awards committee recommendation. president mazzucco: it was, quite frankly, probably a very unusual day that we gave out some of the gold medals. to tell me a little bit about this process. it is a very interesting process. the only folks allowed in the room are members of the police commission, staff, inspector monroe was there, and officers to help a civil service rank of captain or above. nobody else can be in the room. at that time, there were presentations about the officers that would be presented with valor. the officers are present. after the presentation, the officers are present for an eight questions which the staff and captain, and they routinely receive questions about how far they were from individuals and the thorough process, and then the offic

in the medium and long run speaking of advanced economies and sustainability the us for example its debt now stands at fifteen trillion overall u.s. debt is fifty seven trillion and the debt ceiling may or may be raised again it's widely expected it will by the end of the year if not earlier is this going to send another problem around the global economy and is this sustainable well first of all i hope very much the new order of the birds they couldn't we send signals that would be destabilizing i am very confident that we will not experience again. on the ceiling for the borrowing so of of the united states of america i think that the experience has demonstrated that it was not good but all that being said i think that all countries. it is again a new feature of the global economy all countries including your votes they're going to be have to demonstrate that they have strategies and they have fiscal policies that are sustainable in the medium run otherwise they will not inspire confidence so in a way the. problems are the the center of a larger problem which is you. characterizing