and the possibility that medicare will not pay for procedures were the cost-benefit analysis is such where we may lose some people, they may die, for lack of care. the government says, because we are running the show we are concerned about cost and we are not going to pay for it. the implementations are not just for the mammograms, cervical cancer, prostate cancer, but also end of life care which is the most expensive. at what point is the government going to step in and say they are not paying for it and you will die earlier than if you have received the treatment. that is the most disturbing part of the implication. >> can you address the language in detail? >> there has been an accommodation in the congress for years now among the pro- abortion and pro-life communities to college truce and say there will not be federal funding of abortions. it has been resolved. i think most of the american taxpayers believe that is a fair way to resolve the issue. we're not going to decide the substantive issue. unfortunately, this moves it to the left and say under certain circumstances there will be federal funding of abortions. that, i think, has the pro-life community concerned. it has me concerned. i think we should get to the uneasy truce where everyone had agreed that no federal money would be used for the funding of abortions. [unintelligible] >> ok. thank you everyone. [unintelligible] [inaudible] >> a think we should leave it to individuals between them and their insurance companies. you and i assume that people have that kind of insurance are going to pay more money. >> how you see the debate pay -- playing out? >> there is three weeks. i would expect we would not get to a final in until january. because i do not know how something that took three weeks to put together in the secrecy of the leader's office, you would expect 100 senators to digest that in three weeks. [inaudible] >> coming out, today's state department briefing. that will be followed by senate finance meeting on treasury nominations. later, senate republicans hold a briefing on health care legislation. in 1989, judy shelton wrote about the coming soviet crash. now she is talking about the u.s. economy. >> this is unprecedented. this is the unending deficits and what i consider an unconscionable accumulation of debt. >> judy shelton on sunday night. >> the u.s. and other countries criticized iran today for not responding about the comments on nuclear fuel. this is about 30 minutes. >> adapter noon. happy friday to all. -- good afternoon. i have a couple of items i want to start off with that i will take your questions. the first is to give you an update on e-5 plus one. the ministers of the united kingdom, germany, france, japan, and the u.s. met in new york in september. they agreed that "the meeting in october will provide comprehensive and long-term solutions to the iranian nuclear issue through dialogue." expect a serious response and will decide as a result on our next steps. we heard this -- we're disappointed about what happened in geneva. although the iaea has visited, we noted that there director general's statements should have declared the construction of this facility and is therefore not compliance with the safeguards obligations. in addition, the construction of a new enrichment facility is in defiance of several resolutions. the iaea board will discuss this issue next week. iran has not engaged in the dialogue and has refused to have a meeting before the end of october to discuss nuclear issues. they have not responded positively to the iaea comments. we urge iran to reconsider the opportunity offered by this agreement, to meet the humanitarian needs of its people, and to engage seriously with us in dialogue and negotiations. this remains our objective. we have agreed a new meeting will take place shortly in order to assess the situation and decide next that's in the dual track approach. bear with me. this has to do with a vote taken earlier today with regards to iran's human rights violations. the united states welcomes the resolution passed today by the united nations calling upon the government of iran to comply. the resolution expresses deep concerns of the iranian authorities to peaceful demonstrations in the wake of the election. we call on iran to abolish any executions including stoning carried out without due process of law. the resolution calls on them to cooperate fully with and admit entry to the un members. the special group on the green peppers and promotion and protection, the group on human rights defenders, portrayed the invention, and forced or involuntary disappearance. i will issue the full statement after the briefing. this is the largest vote margin on such a resolution on iran in the un ever. over 60% of members voted in support. with that, i will happily take your questions. >> the statement said they took stock of recent events. was there no discussion about the way ahead at this meeting? >> i think the political records wanted to take a look at their responses, or lack thereof, to a number of calls by the international community. i think what was certainly agree on was that we needed to have a follow-up meeting to talk about next steps which is all a part of the dual track approach which we have taken from the beginning. this next meeting which will take place will take a closer look at what measures we may need to take with regard to iran. we continue to call on them to accept this proposal. we think it is a good one. we think is a great way for them to show, if in the -- if indeed they want to be peaceful, to comply with the international community. we will have to see. there has been noted federal for the next meeting. >> the fact that they will meet rigid way to -- the fact that they will meet? >> we are hopeful that will change their mind. this is something that the iranians agreed to in principle. if you remember back to geneva, it was brought about under the auspices of that idea. since then, they have had a difficult time saying yes to this proposal. we are hopeful that they will obviously take a look at the dual track approach. >> i just wanted to clarify. on the two issues, you said they should have disclosed it earlier. the problem here is their decision not to share that with you. is that correct? >> they are not responding positively to the proposal. i do not one to get into details of the proposal. i think most of you know what is included. what we're saying to iran is that it needs take this offer. they committed to doing so and we think it is a great confidence building measure for the international community. i do not know why they have not been able to say yes until now. it is really hard to say if this is due to the internal political climate. they need to step up. >> it sounds like this is a serious moment than. -- tehn. -- then. >> at the next meeting will take a look based on i ran's response up to that point. -- itan'ran's response. i'm not saying that the next meeting is it and we start moving. >> then why stretch it out? >> we have said from the beginning that we're willing to go the extra mile with regards to diplomacy. the president and secretary have been very clear about that. they have had plenty of time to it -- to consider this proposal. we still hope they will reconsider and give the iaea a general address that that is up to them. as i said earlier, jill, we have two tracks. at the next meeting we will take a look, again, at where things are and then discuss the way forward. >> will the next meeting be in weeks or months? >> i do not know yet. i do not suspect months, but i do not know. i do not know at this point. i would assume it would be, but it could be at another level. >> on the second try which might involve sanctions, is there confidence that they agreed that is one road they may have to take that sanctions should be discussed as a potential next step? >> of the issue of sanctions has been discussed before. this is not new. we have said that we want -- there is a window of opportunity for iran. it will not be open forever. if they do not respond to the calls from the international community on its obligations that we will have to look at the pressure track. i do not want to get ahead of where we might go. i think it is very clear. the international community has said that if you are willing to take important confidence- building measures such as the reactor proposal that it is possible we could move towards a better relationship. they have yet to make that decision. >> can you conclude they are starting you along and buying time? >> i cannot tell you what they are trying to do. as i said, i think the international community's patience is limited. we are saying to iran that we're reaching out our hand and we want to work with them addressing the concerns that the international community has about your nuclear activities. this tehran proposal is a good one and can go along when addressing a number of concerns that the international community has. it certainly would be a important confidence-building measure. it is really up to their government. >> legally, officially, has the actually said that they're not going to do this? there has been so much back and forth. maybe they will, maybe they won't. what is the official version from the government, if there is one? >> as far as i know, they have not responded formally to this proposal. we have heard a lot of soundings. he addressed those yesterday. you know, we just hope that iran will give a positive answer to this proposal. that is the best i can help you with on that. >> are china and russia on the same page? are they willing to discuss the measures against iran or new sanctions? >> i do not wish to speak for other government, but i can tell you that the p5 plus one has been of one mind to approach of their nuclear program three two track approach. both countries, like the other members, agreed that we've concerns about their nuclear activities that need to be addressed. we all believe that iran having nuclear weapons capability is that a good thing. in that particular instance, yes, the members are in agreement that they need to live up to their obligations. >> even they have their pot -- economic or political issues that they are beyond those issues? economic or political concerns are there. [inaudible] >> i cannot speak for what their concerns are except to say they have made it very clear that their nuclear program is a concern. they need to address those concerns. iran having a nuclear weapon is not in the best interest of the international community. >> how far along are you, is the united states, with its allies in determining specifically what kind of sanctions he would use? -- sanctions you would use? >> as you can imagine, and i'm not going to get into details with what actions we could take in regards to the pressure track. again, what i would say from here is that they need to take up this offer. iaea in the united states, russia, france, have worked on this. it is a good deal for their people. -- iaea and the u.s., russia, france. i do not know what else to say. iran needs to respond. >> do have sanctions ready to go and it defined at this stage? the united states has the package ready to go and will sell it to its allies? >> as i said, i do not want to get into a discussion of what measures we may or may not be thinking about. as i said at the beginning, we have been committed to this dual track approach. recalling them to address the outstanding issues. -- we are calling them to address the outstanding issues. i do not want to get into what those may or may not include. >> when it becomes too late for them to respond, i know you do not want to draw out beneficial that line, but there must be some stage in this process where an iranian response is going to be too late? >> the window is not going to be open for ever. we are not at that point yet, but we will let you know whenif or when we reach that point. [inaudible] we keep talking about new sanctions more sanctions? >> as i have said and others have as well, you cannot really compare the two situations to anything. sanctions have been used in the past as a tool to try and influence the country's behavior. i do not think it is a good idea to compare these situations. iran is what it needs to do. week and others continue to call on them to accept this proposal that they agreed to in principle. . we and others agreed. >> the u.s. that this is going to create more tension in the middle east? how is the u.s. going to address this for israel or other countries? >> i think they're non- compliance has raised more tension. there are lots of concerns not only in the neighborhood but throughout the international community about their nuclear activities. the need to comply with their obligations. once i ron does that, if and when, it will reduce tension. -- once iran does that, if and when. >> of meningitis going to be visiting-- they're going to be meeting in brazil. it did does that diminished solidarity on the nuclear issue? >> the president going to brazil, that is an issue between the governor of brazil and the governor of iran. we would hope the governor would raise some of these concerns in those meetings. beyond that, i do not have anything to say about that. >> could you bring us up-to-date on the latest developments? >> many of you are aware that there was a statement made last night about taking in the absence. we welcome that he is going to take a leave of absence. except -- expected from implementation. this will allow some breathing space. -- expect its prompt implementation. the announcement will allow for the people of honduras to focus on the elections. that is really where we are. >> does this mean you are happy? >> i mean " we welcome." anything else on honduras? >> is this a good solution, though? no longer is the united states expect him to come back? >> for the crisis in honduras, there should be the implementation of the san jose accords. the sooner we get that implemented, the sooner we could get to what we hope would be a resolution to this crisis. [inaudible] >> that is a good question. i do not really know the answer to that. i am sure there is one. >> he says he wants to delay elections. >> there was an accord that the president and his team agreed to. we think that if we're going to address the issues of restoring democracy, if we're going to deal with the question of reconciliation, that the best way to do this is to move forward with the implementation of the accord. it is in the best interest of the honduran people. the want to end this crisis. as we have said, one of the most important thing that need to happen first is the formation of the national union government. we want to see that happen as soon as possible. >> on honduras? >> know. -- no. the statement between u.s. and china, there are still things going around india saying china will play a major role in south asia. [inaudible] how can turn a place such a role when millions of people are under communist rule and they have no respect for any human beings over there were supporting him and around the globe? they're calling the time has come for the u.s. to support a major security council seat for india. >> to get to the first part of your question on india and china as a two rising powers, there are very important on the rise in global scene. china, as we have said, there are issues of concern that we have with the chinese and we have raised them. all levels of air action and hopefully china will move in the direction that we would like to see it go. it is an important nation. india and china, they're going to be countries that we deal very closely with in the coming years. i do not know what more to say about it. they are key. our relationships with both are growing. do we have concerns? yes. they both have concerns with us. it is why we need to work closely and have intensive dialogue with both countries. i think both also realize the importance of the indo-sino relationship. they need to improve that for regional and global security. the second part of your question with regards to -- please refresh my memory. >> a un security seat backs -- sear? -- security seat? >> we will have to see how that goes. i do not know about any announcement. if i had an announcement, i would not want to make it here. >> the civil nuclear cooperation is hailed as the big triumph as u.s.-indian relations. one reason is a lack of a pre- processing. where do we stand with the re- processing agreement? is that something we might expect with the prime minister's visit? >> there are a number of players involved dealing with that question. we said from the beginning that that agreement brings india into the nonproliferation mainstream. i will see if we have anything to give an update on. yes? >> i wanted to ask about the raid today on the village by afghan and native forces. there were angry villagers on tv screens that forces were killing innocent people. i just wondered, as the administration's policy formulates, what is going to be done to placate those villagers and make them realize that these rates are important, or are they important? >> as a general principle one of our concerns, and i think the general has made this very clear, we want to focus more on protecting the civilian populations. that is critical. winning over the populace in afghanistan is a must. it is a very dangerous security environment and there is no question about that. you have heard many people speaking, the secretary, the president, about what our objectives are in afghanistan. we think it is important that the taliban be defeated. those groups, networks, are a major threat to the security and well-being of the afghan people. . . we will be continuing to pursue our efforts along with our partners, but also at the same time, do our best to try to bring some stability and peace to afghanistan, which it desperately needs. >> there was a rate, nobody told us what was going on -- >> i would have to refer you to isaf because i'm not aware of the specific incident, but i was just trying to give you a general sense of policy. >> is an internal crisis at this moment in spain based on a situation that we do not address much here, the piracy in somalia. the spanish governor was involved with some of their forces, and finally, they paid $4 million to the pirates in somalia for rescue. i want to know if there are specific actions with the u.s., with the state department and other countries to try to improve the situation there in somalia. >> i think you know very well we have been working in the u.n. to try to come up with an appropriate framework for dealing with piracy. with regard to the spanish government policy, i have to refer you to them. >> i'm talking about the crisis in the opposition and the government because of what happened there. >> again, i do not want to get involved in internal spend as policies, so i can just tell you that spain is an important partner as well as other countries in terms of trying to fight piracy of the coast of somalia. but there is good cooperation in trying to counter piracy, and we will continue to work on this issue. because piracy has to be stamped out. somalia, as you know, has been without damaging the transitional government there has had some real difficulties, and the instability in somalia, i think, is breeding a lot of the piracy, so we are going to redouble our efforts in the international community. >> do you expect there'll be a meeting or a council in africa to review the situation? is there a way to help these communities because they are attacking all these ships in the region? >> i do not know if there is a meeting coming up. there could very well be at some point, but there are a lot of ongoing consultations focused on dealing with the problem. we are just trying to come up with a framework, good measures to take in order to try to eliminate it, but this goes all the way back to the days of thomas jefferson, the issue of piracy. >> the money was used, and some part of the money was divided in some groups, and one couple married using this money, was the news. >> i do not know anything about that. >> are you working on the united nations level? >> on the issue of piracy? absolutely. >> one day edmonton on the civil nuclear cooperation deal, if i understood correctly, it -- he said it brings them into the nonproliferation mainstream -- is that what you said? there are many people who would argue the opposite viewpoint, that it gives them a free pass. i know we will get into this next week because he will be here on tuesday, but just as a general statement of principle, how do you make that argument? what do you say to the people who say that they did get a free pass, that they're very much not in the mainstream? >> for one, india is irresponsible player on the global scene, and that is something that one cannot deny. india feels very strongly about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. it has cooperated with us in a number of 4 -- fora. if you look at what we said at that time, that the agreement was finally signed, i think you agree that this is a good thing and will help us in our efforts to try to stem the surge of non- proliferation. >> why are they an exception to everybody else? >> i do not know who "everybody else" is we're talking about. >> any other country that has any nuclear -- >> i can just reiterate that we think this agreement is a good one. we think it will contribute to our nonproliferation efforts are around the world, and that is all i can do for you at this point. >> [inaudible] armed group, which has demanded the release of some may be part of al qaeda. has this department consulted with the yen in government regarding this issue, and how do you see this? >> i'm not familiar with the case. we obviously would condemn anyone who has been taken hostage, but i just have to refer you to the japanese in the many government on this. i just have not heard about this case. thank you. happy friday. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> tonight, a senate finance committee hearing on assistant treasury secretary nominees, followed by senate republicans addressing the health care debate, and a little bit later, senators lieberman and 11 staff the on services committee's investigation of the fort hood shooting. -- senators lieberman and levin. >> in 1989, judy shelton wrote about the coming soviet crash. in 1984, the international monetary system. now, she is talking about the u.s. economy. >> this is unprecedented spending, and what i consider an unconscionable accumulation of debt. >> economists and "wall street journal" contributed to the sultan -- judy shelton. >> coming this thanksgiving, american icons. three nights of a documentary on the iconic homes of the three branches of american government. beginning thursday night and o'clock eastern, the supreme court, home to americans highest court, reveals the building in an exquisite detail through the eyes of supreme court justices. then, friday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, the white house -- inside america's most famous home. beyond the velvet ropes a public course, our visit shows the grand public places as well as those rarely seen spaces, and saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, the capitol -- the history, art, and architecture of one of america's most symbolic structures. now, a senate confirmation hearing for two treasury department nominees. committee members get a chance to question the administration's choices for a deputy under secretary and assistant treasury secretary. senator max baucus of montana state -- chairs the finance committee. just under an hour. >> the hearing will come to order. let me begin by saying chairman baucus could not be with us this morning because he is with his mother who is ill in montana, and we want to send our best from all the members of the committee to senator baucus and his mother, and we are hoping for hearse with recovery -- for her swift recovery. we're looking for to the time that senator baucus comes back to resume the chairmanship of this committee. we have a hearing this morning for a number of nominees, and we will get to that momentarily. i am going to make a brief opening statement, and then, senator grassley will have an opening statement. at some point, i want to alert people who are here and people who are perhaps listening that if we are able to achieve a quorum, we will break from this proceeding in order to approve nominees that had previously been heard. so no one take offense if we interrupt this proceeding once we achieve a quorum if we are able to do that so that we are able to take action on previous nominees. i would like to just began with a brief opening statement. we have today experienced the worst global economic crisis most of us can remember. it has had a profound effect on this country's fiscal house, both long-term and short-term. i want to remind everyone of the dramatic deterioration we have seen in our nation's budget picture. the final deficit total in 2009 was $1.40 trillion -- not million, not billion, but trillion. that should sober us all. $1.4 trillion. looking over the next 10 years, we see a sea of red ink. the deficits have led to an explosion of debt. under the 10-year outlook i just described, gross federal debt would rise to more than 114% of gross domestic product by 2019. that is approaching a record 121% of gdp that was reached at the end of world war ii. we need to remember that to finance these deficits and debt, we are becoming increasingly indebted to foreign nations. last year, 68% of our debt was financed by foreign entities. here is the latest tally of the top 10 foreign holders of our national debt. we now owe china almost $800 billion. we of japan $731 billion. and on and on a goes. we also have an outdated and inefficient tax system that is in desperate need of reform. it is hurting u.s. competitiveness because it was designed at a time when a global business focus was the exception, not the rule. we have merge revenue through the tax gap -- we have emerged -- we hemmorage revenue. the alternative tax begins to threaten -- continues to threaten middle-income tax and is. our long-term fiscal imbalance must be addressed. simplification and reform will keep rates low. we have before us 3 treasury nominees, whom president obama has chosen to serve this country. each of you will have the opportunity to help remedy the dire situation i have just outlined. your success will be crucial to all americans. as you approach your tasks, you have to take into consideration all that has gone wrong with the american economy, and in doing so, you can help us work together to find ways to strengthen our economic recovery. i know all of you understand what a challenging task this will be. doctor, you have been nominated to the treasury undersecretary. you were the deputy national economic adviser during the clinton administration. where you work on a global economic issues such as the asian financial crisis and china's wto entry. your experience will be an enormous asset as you work with r g-20 and other international partners to address the global financial crisis. you will be coordinating with ustr and other agencies to open key asian and other markets for u.s. exporters. the senate will expect you to keep in mind the competitiveness of american businesses and american workers. i must take a moment to comment on this committee's rigorous vetting process. it's troubling that the staff found some discrepancies in the information that you submitted. no one disputes your talents on economic and financial issues, and you have a reputation for honesty and integrity. in fact, i have heard from people all across the country attesting to your honesty and integrity. so it is unfortunate that it took some time to get full and complete information on these relatively minor tax problems. i know the ranking member and the chairman share that view. the chairman, the ranking member, and all of us on this committee takes seriously the duty to pay taxes in full. from this review, is clear that there were a number of late payments on your state and local taxes. with that said, however, all taxes were paid in full with interest and penalties, and this is a matter that each member has to make a judgment on. dr. collins, you have been nominated to be the assistant secretary of the treasury for international finance. you spent close to 30 years at the international monetary fund in a variety of roles. you have examined monetary and economic policies in key regions of the world, including asia and the western hemisphere, and you have examined exchange and trade relations among nations. your experience will serve the american people well as you do with monetary and economic issues are around the world, and i might add, and especially challenging time. you will work with our international economic partners to address key economic issues, and you will guide and adviser dr. braynard as she discharges for important duties. ms. miller, you have been nominated to be assistant secretary of the treasury for financial markets. for almost 30 years, you worked in various capacities at the t. rowe price group in baltimore. this experience gave you key insights into fixed income, asset allocation, and other key finance and investment issues. your experience will be very valuable as you take responsibility for treasury matters relating to domestic finance. again, at a very challenging time. congress and the administration will need expertise like yours to find ways to address the federal debt, and as american businesses and families continue to navigate the economic recovery, you can make a significant contribution in developing responsible federal credit policies. we look forward to meeting you and your families and hearing your statements. at this time, i will turn to the distinguished ranking member of this committee, senator grassley, for his comments. >> thank you, senator chairman, and congratulations to all of you have have been nominated. nominees we hear from today deal with different areas within treasury. as assistant secretary for this -- for, financial for this would include federal credit policies. it is important that we get a handle on the deficit. charles collyns, if confirmed, would report to the undersecretary for international affairs. these positions are crucial for advising the treasury secretary and assisting to develop international policy. and other policy areas. the undersecretary will have an eye for detail and personal integrity to represent our nation well in dealing around the world. and what seems to be a frequent occurrence, the finance committee will also be examining issues discovered during the committee that in process. staff has been examining issues pertaining to lael brainard. on wednesday of this week a memo with attachments was released that details those issues that the chairman thought obligated to disclose to the whole committee and public. i do not intend to examine each of those issues at this time, but i ask consent that the memo be printed in the record. >> without objection. >> the investigation was consistent with long standing committee practices. every nominee who passes through this committee undergoes a tax vetting, but it is not a tax audit. the purpose of the bidding process is not to slow down the nomination process, and it is not to deliberately look for problems. although the process for getting nominees has remained the same for the nine years i have been chairman or ranking member in, the bar has been lowered in regard to tax compliance starting with timothy diapers problem -- starting with timothy date there -- timothy geithner's tax problems. prior to this ministration we have never seen nominees with over $100,000 tax problems. -- prior to this administration. what most people don't understand is that there were a number of bush nominees with less tax related problems and some of the ones we have seen this year who never made it out of this committee. most of them never even got a hearing, but you did not hear about them because we were obligated not to talk about it. and because that information is confidential and we play by the rules. at times we offered to let the nominees go forward if they were willing to make the facts public, but in each of those cases i told the bush administration i would not defend their actions, and not one of them moved forward. there was one instance where i was willing to move forward but i said i was not going to defend the nomination on the floor. the other side was not willing to go forward, so that nominee did not move. we have seen what i believe to be political operatives from outside the senate leak what was confidential information in the past. it is almost as if some of these nominations have taken on a political campaign. what has gotten ugly is the fact that these political operatives are targeting staff and putting this information out. i saw one of the lawyers -- putting disinformation out. one of the lawyers said this is the process out of control. that person is not in a position to know all the facts associated with the nominee is -- with the nominees. he cannot have access to those files, and has no history with this process in the last decade. he just does not know what he is talking about. the fact is i am concerned about what has been going on this year. anyone watching this process closely knows that i nominee can get away with not paying taxes, or not follow normal procedures. all they have to do is blame it on their in competent accountant or computer software. compliance with tax law should not be a political issue, but it seems as if the law applies to different people. i am shocked at the attitude that has been shown by some when these issues come to light. the nominated to a powerful position is not an award. -- being nominated to a powerful position is not an award. i would hope nominees would feel some sense of honor and would see themselves bound by the same obligations as fellow citizens who are not as powerful. we don't need anyone so badly that we allow them to live by their own set of rules. i am laying this out on the table because i am not sure if it is worth our time to even be asking these questions anymore. it has not mattered except in one case where a nominee withdrew even after all the majority said all was forgiven and should be confirmed. one member was critical of the bipartisan staff's vetting work. i say do you think getting nominees for public policy positions dealing the taxpayer money should be superficial? or should we simply say, ole, and not examine tax returns? is that the appropriate way to go? the chairman is not here right now due to the sad situation regarding his mother that has already been referred to, but i intend to discuss the whole process with him. thank you. >> thank you, senator grassley. we will proceed to the nominees. we will start with dr. lael brainard. i understand you have family members with the of. maybe we could ask your family members to stand -- you have family members with you. maybe you could introduce them to the committee. >> like you very much. i would like to introduce today my husband, two of my three daughters. my baby girl is at home. my mother joanne and my father al. thank you. >> why don't you proceed with your statement and then we will go to our other nominees. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman and distinguished members of the committee. i am honored and appreciate the opportunity to appear before you as you consider my nomination for treasury secretary of international affairs. i am glad i got a chance to introduce my family. these are tough jobs that requires the entire family see -- requires the entire family to support. i am grateful to my family throughout this process. i agree with the chairman that we are facing the greatest economic test of our generation. it is one that i would be very honored to have a chance to make a small contribution to in terms of the way america positions itself to compete in the international economy. this is something that goes back to my own distaste. i grew up overseas living mostly behind a long iron curtain. many children are told to mind their manners. in my house i was told, don't forget you are representing america. i don't think it improves my manners but it is something i take great pride in. i have worked my entire career on america's competitiveness and america's position in the global economy. i worked years ago for mckenzie, consulting with clients for one of the big car companies that was looking for a strategy to reposition itself. i was looking for -- i was working for banks trying to reposition themselves. then i went on to spend time teaching students at mit. i wanted to teach them to compete effectively and the policies that would require. this would be my third time in public service. a is a very proud tradition in my family. my father served in the army and for many years as a diplomat. my husband is currently serving in the administration. i served 20 years ago at the time of the fall of the berlin wall on the transition in eastern europe. i served working with the structural impediments with japan. i served as a white house fellow and in the white house for many years during the mexican financial crisis and working along with china on its trading relationship. since i left public service the world has changed. it is a moment of great challenge. we have to navigate a greatly changed economic landscape. the economy is coming back slowly from the most severe crisis we have seen probably in this generation. financial markets had stabilized and we have seen the first signs of growth, but unemployment is on high. to many americans wake up without a paycheck. that is the challenge we all face. my job would be to focus on how the global environment can contribute to good jobs at home. it is critical that we get this economy on a more sustainable path and more balanced path. that will mean selling into asian markets. that will mean convincing asian economies in dollar -- they no longer can rely on u.s. demand for their growth, but have to generate demand in the welcome our services. i hope to have a chance to advance president obama's agenda of restarting the great american engine of growth and reasserting leadership in the economy. i would be honored to work with members of this committee engaging in those priorities which i know are central to you. thank you senator grassley and distinguished members. >> thank you. >> thank you. next is mary john miller. she has family members with her. we would ask them to stand and be recognized by the committee. welcome. if you could introduce your family members. >> thank you very much, chairman. i realize our time is short, i would like to briefly mention my father, a professor of history at cornell university for over 40 years. a husband of nearly 30 years, and my oldest son, thomas marshall miller, who is now a graduate student in classics at princeton. my younger son could not be here today, as he is performing in the production of "romeo and juliet" this evening at cornell. i would also like to mention my brother, james dunn, who has worked at the treasury and not the imf. my nephew, paul, who also works in washington, and last, michael, harry john, research in world war ii and for many years worked at the national archives in washington. i thank all of them for the support they have provided me. >> welcome to the finance committee. why don't you proceed with your statement? >> thank you so much, chairman konrad, ranking member grassley, and members of the finance committee for giving me the opportunity to be here today. i am honored that president obama and secretary gunnar have asked me to serve in the treasury department at this critical time for our economy and our country. 32 years ago, i arrived in washington a cornell university graduate with a degree in government. our work as a legislative aide in the house of representatives before i went to graduate school at the university of north carolina chapel hill. i then spent four years in a research associate in public finance at the urban institute here in washington. about the fiscal needs of state and local governments. i am proud for the last five years i have served as a trustee of the urban institute. in 1983 i took a job as a credit analyst in an investment management company. today i am the director of global fixed income investments. in preparing this opening statement i recalled that when i started, our country was recovering from august depression since the great depression. the unemployment rate was where it was today. interest rates were much higher than today's. the federal funds rate was above 8.5%. looking back at 1983, many people were pessimistic about our future. we were on the brink of two decades of strong growth. there were recessions during those decades but the economy performed better than expected. today we face similar challenges my work over the last 26 years has been in the bond market. i do share responsibility for an entire range of investments. i have participated in the evolution of the financial products as well as looking -- working through times of turmoil. this included the invasion of kuwait, the currency problems ignited by the collapse of capital management in 1998, the dotcom bubble, the tragedy of 9/11, and the unprecedented crisis of the past two years. the opportunity is to help with the recovery of confidence and capital and our markets. we need to ensure our institutions are well capitalized and built to withstand downturns without creating undue stress. it is my hope the recovery this year in financial markets can lay the foundation for broader recovery as we adopt the reforms. if this committee confirms president obama's nomination of me to be assistant secretary for financial markets, i would welcome the opportunity. i promise that i will work hard and do my best to carry out the oath of office. thank you very much. >> thank you for your statements. now we will go to charles collyns who has been nominated to be the deputy undersecretary of the treasury. i know you have family members here as well. we would be pleased to have them introduced. >> thank you, chairman conrad. i am delighted to recognize my family members who could be with us today. my wife came to this country from bolivia as a young student and has raised a family with me and pursued a successful career as a translator and editor. by two daughters, carmen, who is a senior at harvard university. and they are both studying economics. i would also like to thank my brother edward from new york for bringing his family to be with us. he works in the movie business in york city -- movie business in new york city. my sister is a health-care worker in new york city, and my two nieces are in high school. >> welcome to the committee. it is wonderful for you to be here to support your family members. why don't you proceed with your statements? >> thank you distinguished members of this committee for the opportunity to appear before you as nominee to the assistant secretary for international finance. i would like to thank staff for meeting with me last week to discuss some major issues facing america. i am honored president obama's nomination and for timothy geithner for recommending me. i am grateful to my family for the strong support for encouraging me to apply myself to public-service. my parents are not able to be with me today but i would like a recognize them -- i would like to recognize them. they came to this country many years ago. they went as far as to name each of their sons after great american leaders. i proudly carried the middle name after an earlier leader from illinois. i welcome the opportunity to serve our country and to join a talented team at the treasury department. i have worked over 25 years in the imf. i have gained experience in dealing with the full range of international issues during the 1980's. i was involved in the efforts to deal with the latin american crisis. during the 1990's , i worked with asian countries grappling with their own crisis. i have returned to latin america at another difficult time. most recently i led the team preparing the imf's economic outlook report. i have been involved in trying to respond to the recent crisis. if confirmed, i would be honored to serve my country at this challenging time. the strong response by policymakers working closely with counterparts in major countries around the world has helped stabilize the global i economy. recovery is now under way, but it is essential to build on progress to in short future balanced growth -- to ensure future balanced growth. this will require concerted policy-making by the u.s. with its main partners. the treasury department will play a big part in leading these efforts. i want to insure success for this task. i promise to apply myself to justify your trust. thank you for allowing me to appear before you today. i would be pleased to respond to any questions. >> thank you for your statement. i had a series of questions i need to ask each of you before we go to policy questions that relate to the positions for which you have been nominated. i would ask each of you the following question, is there anything you are aware of in your background that might present a conflict of interest with the duties to which you have been nominated? >> no, there has not. >> no, senator. >>no, senator. >> do you know of any reason that would prevent you from honorably discharged and the responsibilities of the office to which you have been nominated? >> no, senator. >> no. >> no. >> the third question is, do you agree to respond to any reasonable summons to testify before any committee of congress if you are confirmed? >> i do. >> i do. >> i do. >> we are like to have those questions out of the way. let me ask each of you, lael brainard, what is the key challenge facing you if you are confirmed for the position you have been nominated? what are the challenges you would confront? >> i think the environment that confronts us here at home and abroad is one that is challenging. the responsibilities the under secretary has at the treasury department is very focused on our place in the global economy. the challenge is to work with the tools we have, whether they be diplomatic or international agreements, to have the most favorable environment to generate the jobs, ensure strong growth, to ensure americans are able to have good standards of living at home. that will be quite challenging as we move forward, coming out of the greatest crisis any of us have witnessed. it will require persuading and working with many nations that they are on the wrong course in terms of their own growth strategies. they will have to stop relying on the american consumers and to finally take their economies and put them on a path sustained by domestic demand, one that welcomes goods from the u.s. >> how would you see the most significant challenges you would confront in this position? >> i think the chief challenge is to maintain confidence of investors in our markets. >> what would be that things that you would bring to the table to deal with those? >> i bring the experience of 30 years of working in the financial markets. i have often said that three different cycles we are never handed the same script. you need to be pragmatic in thinking about a range of choices and carefully construct the reform in ways that will benefit the markets. >> how would you assess the key challenges you would face? >> i believe there has been an initial success in dealing with the impact of prices. the economy is beginning to emerge, but looking ahead, i believe there are fundamental changes to the pattern of growth that will be required to ensure future prosperity's and future robust job growth in this country. we need to work closely with partner countries to ensure they are making the adjustments that need to made in order to insure we are able to achieve sustained global growth that is essential for prosperity. >> thank you for those responses. senator grassley. >> thank you for answering our questions and being willing to serve. i have a question to start with charles collyns. i'd better ask a question of all of you. we do a lot of oversight in congress. one of the frustrations i have in the executive branch as -- in the executive branch is getting and complete answers -- is getting incomplete answers. would you try your hardest to respond to our questions, and if you consider it an obligation to respond to questions even from individual members like me. >> senator grassley, i would consider it an obligation, and i would want to work very hard to earn your trust and confidence going forward, working with this committee. -- going forward, working with this committee will be an essential part of success in the set of responsibilities i would consume is confirmed as part of the treasury department. >> i absolutely believe that is my responsibility, and i look forward to a strong dialogue and exchange with your staff. >> i also certainly regarded as an obligation to respond in a timely manner and in full to any inquiries from this committee if i am confirmed. >> let me start with you, mr. collyns, on a question. you know i was frustrated with the failure of the treasury department in the previous administration to name china a currency manipulator. now, it seems to me we are continuing down the same trend with this administration, twice failing to name china a currency manipulator. i am left frustrated. this is not a partisan issue for me. i believe we should be calling a spade a spade. china is manipulating its currency in order to maintain export advantage. we should state that publicly and then engage china. their actions along with the falling dollar is troubling given the potential to disrupt economic recovery. europe and other economies will end up bearing the costs of chinese actions. how would you address this issue? >> i share your concern in the way china is managing its exchange rate. i had looked carefully at currency it reports. i understand they have found china does not meet the standards set in the 1998 trade act to justify the label of currency manipulation. but the reports have identified issues with china's management of the exchange rate. there are issues with the continued heavy intervention by the chinese authorities, accumulation of reserves and resistance of pressure. this is a major concern going forward. if the chinese maintain this policy it will block the adjustment needed for the economy to shift away from export-led growth. i agree with you we need to find effective ways to persuade the chinese to modify their policies. the u.s. administration is acting across a range of fronts to express these concerns with the chinese authorities to persuade them that the changes needed. i believe some progress has been made pierre -- i believe some progress has been made. much more needs to be accomplished. i would be doing my hardest to make sure that china does shift its policies in this area. >> lael brainard, i want to refer to a peterson institute releaseding a study concluding china's currency needs to appreciate by 22%. they criticized the rigidity of china's currency and accumulating reserves. referring to testimony you gave last year on trade enforcement, you argued we needed to prioritize and target compliance gaps that have been identified to have the greatest cost. do china's currency practices fall in this category? >> this issue of china's economic strategy and -- this is of central importance to our broader economic goals in this country. i think the set of tools and and mechanisms available are being used by this administration. my understanding is this was the topic raised at the highest levels by president obama throughout his discussions in asia. i know timothy geithner has worked hard on this using economic dialogue. they have built support for this position in aipac and is part of the rationale for the work that the president undertook in the g-20 to create an agreement that they would work together to take policies to adjust their economic strategies to have a greater emphasis on demand-led growth and stop relying on exports as the primary driver. the chinese exchange rate policy is something that was a stabilizing force at the height of the crisis at a time when some of the surrounding currencies or weakening. the concern now is it is getting in the way of global recovery, that it no longer is a positive contribution, and it is leading other countries to be intervening more. i think this is a top priority. this is something i would expect to spend a large part of my time working to address. >> you have not made clear -- you talked about compliance gaps. to their practices fall into that category? -- do their practices fall into that category? >> it is in more complicated question. some of the jurisdiction lies with the commerce department, but i would be using the tools available at the treasury to try to push that agenda for and support my colleagues. in consultation with this committee and others. >> i want to associate myself with the comments of senator grassley with respect to the currency issues with china. it is as clear as it can be. they are manipulating their currency to have the advantage on their economy. i don't know what could be much more clear. it is an application -- it is an obligation to press back. i am pleased by the answers of you in recognition of that issue. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your willingness to serve. lael brainard, could you talk about why it is important to keep the dollar strong, and how you would go about doing that? >> i will start by the usual caveat. it is this administration's policy that only the secretary of treasury speak to the dollar. i would honor that as a good policy, but it is very much in our interests and in our power to undertake a strong set of policies that strengthens the foundation of the u.s. economy, put it on a sustained, sustained and in the medium term in shores we are on a path towards fiscal sustainability. -- in the medium-term ensures we are on a path towards sustainability. >> energy prices are so tied to our strength in the dollar, or confidence overall, or buying back debt. there are a variety of tools we can be focusing on. are there things you think are more important than others? >> there is a set of interlinking policy decisions that will be important to strengthening the foundations of the economy. the most immediate is getting people back to work and getting the economy back at full strength. president obama has put a set of policies on the table promoting different sources of energy, more renewable energy, health care is a central focus, and a fiscal framework that will get us back on a sustainable path that will be critical to our economic health. >> given the situation with china, the economic dialogue's ability to foster an environment of more economic opportunity? we may look at this differently. we look at china as the market because we already sell them coffee and software and agricultural products. do you think the recent announcement by the administration on energy could pave way for more opportunities for us to collaborate? >> i think we are aware of the work you have done in this area. the economic dialogue is one important mechanism for engaging with china. in the first meeting highest it by timothy geithner a-- in the first meeting hosted by timothy geithner. that dialogue will continue to be at peace of our engagement strategy. the clean energy agreements just signed by the president point towards a future of greater cooperation. hopefully they will help to put china on a path to lower carbon emissions and will create greater opportunities for producers to be selling into the chinese markets. the u.s. trade representative and commerce department are working through the wto mechanism to get china to put additional commitments to open its markets. all of those things will have to be part of the solution. i look forward to being part of that effort. >> i think this is important. if we think about part of this strong dollar is rebalancing. look at states like washington who are basically trade-neutral. if the whole country would be doing that, particularly with the opportunity of a $6 trillion market globally, it has great -- we have to get people to lower tariffs. the community ought to get together on that. we have 35% tariffs on clean energy solutions. we should all be interested in reducing tariffs on clean energy products. i hope the administration will focus on that as well. >> i know that is a focus. >> we are informed we will not achieve a quorum. we came very close but schedules did not match up, so i regret that those nominees awaiting action, that action will have to be deferred. i am sure the chairman will find a way to get us together to have a quorum to appoint those nominees, because there is no controversy associated with any of them. do you wish to ask questions of the nominees? >> no questions, i have others waiting for me in my office. i want to thank you for joining us and your willingness to serve. i must say i admire how well- behavior your daughters are back there. i am not sure if my voice would have been quite as well behaved. good work, mom andd dad. >> let me indicate we will accept chairman baucus' statement as part of this record. senators have indicated they have no additional questions for this panel. i want to congratulate you for superb performance before the committee, especially impressive are your family's. maybe we could have some of them in the future before this committee as they are nominated for high office. thanks to each of you for your willingness to serve this country. lael brainard, for your impressive background. mary john miller, same for you. we appreciate people with your talent and energy being willing to serve in public service. charles collyns, i was very interested in your answer to the questions put to you. we are delighted to have you both for the finance committee. we will amend every effort to move your nominations expeditiously. thank you, and have a happy holiday. the committee will stand and adjourn. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] . . >> senate majority leader harry reid presented an $848 billion health-care overhaul package this past wednesday. the congressional budget office determined that the bill would cut the federal deficit over time by $130 billion. now, reactions from some republican leaders. this is a little over 25 minutes. >> good morning everyone. we are here to talk about this massive 2007-2007 before page bill -- this 200 -- this 2074 page bill. this is not different from bills that we have seen before. it is a quarter of a trillion dollars in medicare cuts. it has higher insurance premiums for 85% of americans already have health insurance. that is the core of the bill. we also know that the majority has engaged in significant gimmickry in order to suggest, and i am hard pressed to see how they can do this with a straight face, that this costs between $800,000,000,000.-1918718098 dollars. a ceo would tell you that if you look at 18 year time frame, it is a 2.5 trillion dollar package. the gimmick that the deployed was to delay benefits. with that, let me turn to the center. >> by virtually every opinion poll, opposition to this plan is roughly 60%-4%. -- 40% opposition runs > 2-1 against this plan. in view of that, it would be our hope that or more moderate colleagues with respect the wishes of their constituents rather than do the bidding of harry reid. at the end of the day, this health care legislation will impact every american in extraordinary ways. our hope is that the views of the american people will be respected. >> yesterday, the california border regions raised tuition -- board of regents raised tuition 32% for the state of california. there is finger-pointing going on about whose fault that is, and they're mostly putting at each other in california, but the thing should be pointed directly and washington, d.c., because the last 30 years, medicaid's standing has grown at a rate of 7, 8, 9% per year, and forced states to take money that they would rather be spending on quality higher education and keeping tuition low, and spending it instead on medicaid. medicaid is one more hidden tax in this bill. the harry reid bill, like the other democratic bills, expands medicaid and spends a big part of the bill -- cents a big part of the bill to the states. in the state of tennessee, it will seriously damage highridge addition or cause the position of a new state -- damage higher education or cause the imposition of a new state income tax, or both. >> in the words of the great yogi berra, it is deja vu all over again. tax increases, medicare cuts, premium increases for the american people. what is striking about this proposal is that was marketed as being different and going to drive costs down, and according to the congressional budget office, it increases the overall cost of health care but $160 billion. they say they will reduce the deficit over 10 years but $130 billion, but as has already been pointed out, implementation is delayed. the savings from the class act, which senator conrad has described as a ponzi scheme of the first order, something that bernie madoff would be proud of, and the back of the -- they back out of the fee that would take another quarter-trillion dollars to address. all of the stuff about cost control will not be found in this legislation. the american people understand that and that is why they are so heavily against this and why we need to defeat it. >> the leader has mentioned use of gimmickry or lack of transparency. this bill -- [unintelligible] is -- when we go to the motion to proceed tomorrow -- a little bit of bait and switch their. the actual bill we will be voting on is actually about three pages. about 20.5 pounced -- when we get our thanksgiving turkey, it is about a 20-pound turkey. one of the real dangers that we're talking about with this health care proposal that the democrats have put before us is the concern about rationing, rationing of our health care. we are seeing that play out a little bit with the recommendations that came out from the preventive services task force and the recommendations on when women should receive mammograms. the real concern and the focus here is that we in this legislation to give it to the secretary of the health and social services a great deal of control, a great deal of authority, and also to medical kelso's that are not elected, not appointed -- medical council that and not elected, not a point, to allow them to make decisions about when we will be covered. it is a peek under the clinton of what we can anticipate with the government--- run ---peak under the curtain of what we can anticipate with a government-run program. >> let's see, the bill as a public option in it, a government takeover of health care, raises insurance premiums for those people who have insurance, raises taxes on small businesses and individuals, middle-class americans, and cuts about half a trillion dollars in medicare benefits, a program that is already scheduled to become insolvent in 2017. you might ask the question, why would anyone take the position that you could vote tomorrow night at 8:00 to get on this bill, as bad as it is, and what expectations do you have that you will ever be able to change anything in the bill? in the senate, it takes 60 votes to get cloture and cut off debate so that you can have the up or down vote for 51 to make a modification. no senator who votes for cloture tomorrow can with a straight face contend that their thoughts about embraced the bad policy in this bill. -- contend that they have somehow embarrassed about policy and this bill. we need to do is kill this bill and do about common sense bipartisan bill building of a step-by-step reforms that we know are important to do what is in the best interests of the american people. >> i sat through the markup on the health and educational and labor and pension bill, where virtually nothing was taken from republican ideas, and what was was changed without consulting a single senator. i was part of a group of six that ended with phony deadlines, tight timeline, that kept us from getting the job done. this is so immense, to take all of health care for all of america and at 100 percent -- to change all of health care for all of america and 100% of the people. nobody can understand the 2000- page bill, especially if it is filled with a practice -- filled with directives for the secretary of health and human services to fill in the details. my wife and i owned three shoe stores, and if you are selling some of the shoe and their company, you better show them something else -- if you sell somebody a shoe and they are complaining, you better show them something else. this is not the issue they wanted to buy. -- the shoe they want to buy. this is for somebody else. but they are going to have to pay for it, and i don't like it. >> i want you to look at the chart on the right, which is death, at the chart on the left, which is taxes. we want to point out about the democrats' budget, tripling the national debt -- this bill adds to that and is not accounted for. it spends too much, taxes too much, and obviously, it adds to that debt. when you spend this $2.50 trillion over 10 years, adding to the debt, even with all those taxes, it still is going to be more debt. there is $500 trillion -- $500 billion of new taxes in here. it creates too much debt, because even with all the new taxes, spending still exceeds the taxes. over here you have taxes raised on the majority of middle-class taxpayers, contrary to the fact -- this is 2/3 of the taxpayers -- contrary to what the president promised, that nobody under $250,000-a-year in, what of the taxes raised -- nobody under eight to order to the thousand dollars-a-year income will have taxes raced -- under a $250,000 income would have taxes race. seniors will pay their taxes and medical bills. we're opening the door and through this legislation to the irs becoming more intrusive in the taxpayers from the standpoint of the new insurance credits, and new taxes, and it is just going to create more have for americans prepared -- more havoc for americans. >> ok, well, we will take the question. >> the recommendations that came out this week about mammograms -- do you think that the obama administration had any input on those recommendations or was it independent? >> i am not going to speculate on that. but i will speculate is that recommendations like this for a task force, a panel put together by the administration and house to review this, that those recommendations will be used by the insurance companies as they make a determination as to what they are going to cover. as a bowman, i want to be able to consult with my doctor -- as a woman, i want to be able to consult with my doctor and based on my family history figure out when i get a mammogram. we follow guidelines we look to. if it is the insurance companies, it will say, "sorry, you are now over 50 and it is every other year," as opposed to what my coverage was before. that causes me a great deal of concern. >> senator kyl -- [unintelligible] does that pressure -- does that give your party leverage to pressure c-span.org [unintelligible] >> it certainly compels the following observation -- why are we trying to pass this 2000- page bill that several senators have indicated that the american people oppose it, when we ought to be addressing the matters that are clearly needed and urgent? look at items out there for the rest of the year -- provisions of the patriot act are expiring, we've not finished the appropriation bills, the majority wants to extend -- probably left something out. you get the drift. your question raises the issue of what we are not doing the things that we need to do instead of spending time passing a bill that the american people are literally crying out, "please don't do it"? i have people coming to me at the airport from other states saying, "you have got to stop this thing." you might say that is an anecdotal observation, but we have polls on top of that, unanimous expression saying, "please don't pass this bill." you raise the issue. that is what we ought to be doing it it would take from now until christmas to deal with all the measures that we should be dealing with. instead, we are spending time trying to do something that the american people clearly don't want. how many manufactured deadlines have we had on this? first it was going to be before the august recess started. then it was going to be but a first of october. then it was going to be by thanksgiving. now it is going to be by christmas. how many manufactured deadlines will come up with to try to convince us to do something that the american people are saying to us in about voices that they don't want done -- in loud voices that they don't want done? >> with the guidelines for breast cancer and cervical cancer, do you see this as a rationing of care? >> we have had a lot of discussions about rationing, and one of the people who has discussed this a lot is senator akaka. -- is the senator kyl. >> this is how rationing starts, and that is the point i don't think you will find the word "rationing" an adult, but we have things that will create the opportunity for rationing. inevitably, as it has in other systems like great britain, rationing will result delay of care, the denial of care. as senator kerlikowske said, -- senator murkowski said, it would adopt those guidelines, and the comparative effectiveness research would be used for coverage determinations. that is one of the ways and in which rationing could occur. there is a great country and western song by brad paisley called "welcome to the future," and this reminds me of that song. >> [unintelligible] >> and others may want to address this as well. the fundamental point is that, fortunately, in america, having insurance is not the only thing that affects your ability to get health care. nobody believes, however, the people who are uninsured get the best or most efficient -- that the care can be most efficiently provided to them. sometimes it costs more. especially with regard to prevented the screening -- prevented it screening, examinations of the kind we're talking about here, that is not the kind of thing for going to the emergency room. the republican ideas for dealing with people who are uninsured are to try to target the solutions to these specific problems rather than having to change the entire health-care system to provide the coverage. i won't go into all the provisions. we can recite them ad nauseam. but just to provide greater competition so that you have more of an ability to negotiate with the insurance companies that you can get coverage at reduced cost that is best for everyone. last point -- the question of mandated coverage is very large in this bill. you have to make sure that you don't provide everything for everybody as a mandate and therefore drive up the premiums, which is what cbo says will happen with this legislation. you need to enable people to buy the kind of insurance that is best for their needs and their families. >> to follow on that, i think we recognize for the women, the lower-income women, there are some good, solid programs but, certainly in my state, where we reach out and provide free mammograms for them and cervical screening. the safety nets, if you will, are in place. but if you are a woman who was employed -- is employed, and you have a little bit insurance there to help you, but we are working under these guidelines that as adjusting -- that are suggesting that you do not need the first mammogram until you are 50 years old, what happens to the bowman -- the woman who has insurance and is 40 years old, has a family history, and doctors say, "you should be getting that mammogram," but is not going to be covered by your insurance, because, as jon said, we started the rationing, taken the first step, and a woman decides not to do that, not to have a mammogram. it is a situation where -- whether it is the secretary of health and human services, or the advisory panels that makes these determinations as to your particular health care, and makes that directive, it is the government telling you, "sorry, until you are 50, we don't think that you needed, or if you do, you will pay for it on your own." >> in addition to everything and just said, we recognize that most of the costs in the health-care system are in the end-of-life with chronic diseases. to me, the disturbing thing about what you're seeing with regard to mammograms and the possibility that medicare will not pay for procedures with cost-benefit analysis is such that we may lose some people, they may die from lack of care, but the government says, "we are concerned with costs more than anything else and we will not pay for it." cervical cancer, prostate cancer, all sorts of cancers, but primarily the to-of-life. at what point of -- will the government but primarily -- but primarily end-of-life. at what point will the government step in and say, "we are not paying for that"? >> [unintelligible] >> there has been an accommodation in the congress for years now among the abortion and pro-life communities, neither of which are going to convince each other that they are right, to call a truce and sit there will not be federal funding of a portion. -- say there will not be federal funding of abortion. most taxpayers say that is a fair way to resolve the issue. we will not decide the substantive issue. unfortunately, but this legislation does is move the fulcrum to the left and said that under certain circumstances there will be funding of abortion. that is what has the pro-life community very concerned. we should go back to the uneasy truce were every bit aggr -- everybody agreed that this would be result in a simple way, that no federal money would be used in funding of abortions. >> [unintelligible] >> thank you, everybody. >> can you tell me why it died? >> i guess it would be one of those things that could sell to the public. there were possibly coming up short with trying to accomplish what they wanted to accomplish. [inaudible] what do you think it is wrong? what i think you should basically leave it to individuals, between them and their insurance companies, them and their doctors. those who have that kind of insurance will pay a little more money for it. there are three weeks. that should be sometime in january. because i do not know exactly how something that took three weeks to put together in the secrecy of the leader's office, how could you expect 100 senators to digest that in three weeks? >> any comments on the investigation [unintelligible] sir, you will have to get back with me. >> as the focus on health care continues, sees bands health care hub is a key resource. -- c-span's care hub is a key resource. the c-span health care hub at the address on your screen one ad criticizes christopher murphy . another ad defends the decision. >> washington is thinking chris murphy for his point on health care. what does it mean to you? >> yes to a government run health care plan and skyrocketing health-care costs. yesterday regulations on new businesses that could wipe out connecticut jobs. call congressman chris murphy. tell him, on health care, he should have said no to washington and yes to connecticut. >> the insurance lobby is one happy when congressman murphy voted for health insurance reform. no wonder he is being attacked with tv ads. insurance companies know that the reform bill would stop them from raising premiums and stop them from denying coverage when you are sick. the reform bill will strengthen medicare, that is why is it is endorsed by the aarp -- that is why it is endorsed by the aarp. >> saturday, the senate returns to session at 9:45 p.m. -- 9:45 a.m. eastern to resume debate. then, at 8:00 p.m. eastern, they will begin a procedural vote. 60 votes are required to move forward with the health care bill watch live coverage on c- span2. >> coming up, a look at the fort hood shooting. also, a discuss and on the military's court-martial system that the shooter will go through. >> next, a briefing on the fort hood shooting investigation with remarks from senator joe lieberman and senator carl levin. this is 15 minutes. >> senator 11 will come out. i will just say this. -- senator levin will come out. i will just say this. this is the third classified briefing i have been in this week. one on tuesday, one this morning and now this one on the armed services committee. this one was with personnel of the department of defense and the earlier meetings included representatives from the department of justice. there is not much more that i can say at this point. the part of this was for us to understand what the regulations of the military are regarding extremist behavior by members of the military and the obligation of fellow soldiers to repeat such behavior is whether it is expressions of opinion or in the extreme, membership in an organization. we are trying to build an understanding of what the rules of the military are regarding their relationship of members in the military to extremist beliefs and extremist organizations as the tired the general tkeene says , 1st the mineral rights do not apply to the u.s. military. the 1/2 to support military cohesion -- you have to support military cohesion. i think it was a good in informational session. >> do you think the military needs latitude to restrict their expressions of free-speech? >> we're getting deep into it. some of the existing regulations regarding extremism come out of other circumstances. there was a time in the 1990's were there was some evidence of white supremacist enlisted personnel being members of white supremacist organizations. in one case, i think there were two enlisted soldiers that were actually involved in the racist murder of two african american people in that vicinity. but i think it is a question of the wording that we are dealing with today, which is a different kind of threat, which is the threat of his lost extremism -- islamist extremism. it is too soon to reach a conclusion about that. another thing that came out during the hearing and validated today is to give enlisted soldiers a sense of obligation, so that if they hear statements made by fellow soldiers that they think is inconsistent with the purpose of the military and the security of the united states, they have an obligation to report that. they will be protected if they did. >> [unintelligible] >> i don't. the army itself has begun the review of this case and the department of defense, i thank all of us are going after the same -- criminal investigations are to find out whether the soldier committed these murders that he is accused of. congress is interested in this from a preventive point of view. was something missing in the behavior of people that work for the federal government and the rules that guide that behavior, whether in the justice department or in the military that will help us prevent a soldier from leakinreeking the n and havoc that the soldier did. this is more from a public plea of available evidence -- from publicly available evidence. these are judgment calls. this is not a clear case of anyone's negligence. i worry -- part of this is now coming out. individuals that the soldier, i am not sure they said this about their chain of command. here is what i worry. there was information in different places so that it had been put on one desk, people would have said that this soldier is potentially dangerous. >>i am departalking about both departments. >> we are at war right now. when a young soldier sees somebody killed, does that make soldiers' lives more difficult? >> i had a very important conversation. general keane said that this is not about muslim american soldiers, this is the question of jihadism. the best thing that we could do to protect an honor muslim american soldiers, if there is an occasion that somebody goes extremist, that we catch the sign and stop that person from acting. i have to run three and. -- i have to run. >> i'm not going to give you much. i will give you one sentence, and that is it. >>we just had a long hearing wih the department of defense representatives, talking about the procedures that are in effect relative to reporting suspicious statements or activities and whether they are adequate. where the army is in terms of those procedures, we're in the middle of a series of briefings which will lead to hearings. i cannot say anything which could undermine the prosecution, which is now under way because we want the prosecution to take place without being negatively affected by anything we say or do. we have a responsibility. these -- the armed services committee will focus on any actions or activities which should have signaled something to them which did not lead to their taking steps to protect against this action not for good. that is basically where we are at. >> are you satisfied that they did everything in their power? >> it is way too early to reach any conclusion like that. >> he made a call that was not followed through. the defense department said it did not receive e-mail. is that something you will look into what some are >> that is one of the many things we will look into. that is whether or not the representative of the department of defense on the joint terrorism task force acted appropriately and effectively. whether or not other alleged emails that existed were properly handled as well. there are 100 questions we're looking into and that is one of them. >> that is all i can say. that is all i am able to say. >> is this when addressing? >> i think this is an extraordinarily serious event and that gates would be handling it with the thoroughness that it requires. >> i am not troubled by designating it that way. there are some that are reluctant to call it a terrorist act. i am not uneasy about saying that it looks like that. >> you do not have to have foreign influence for it to be a terrorist act. >> was it a proper -- is it proper to do trials against terrorists in the u.s.? that is a different question. >> i was asking you if you think it is proper for him to be tried in new york? >> i do. he will be tried for the crimes he has committed. >> i have to find out who you were talking about. >> i am talking about the trial in new york. if people called that a terrorist action, i was wondering what your feeling is. >> about the mohammad trial? >> about the mohammad trial, yes. >> i view what he did as a major crime. he wants to be treated as a warrior. he is not. he is criminal. he should be treated as a criminal and not as a warrior. warriors have ethics and ethical kurds. borders have standards. -- warriors have standards. he is not in uniform. i would not give him what he wants to just to be treated in any way as a warrior i do not think we should give him that at all. secondly, we should not be intimidated by terrorists. we should try them and imprison them or execute them according to our laws and not be afraid to do any of the above. to try them, put them in prison or to execute them. we should not be fearful of that. thank you. >> thank you, very much. >> now, more on the four could shooting with a look at the military's court-martial system. from american universities national institute of military justice, this is one hour 20 minutes. i and the co-director of the national journalism initiative. this is a major effort by medill to help future journalists and current journalists to explain to the public of the very important national security issues in the country today. as part of that initiative, we are creating a series of graduate and undergraduate class is culminating for graduate students in a three month, in- depth reporting opportunity. we are also developing a development seminar and we're be delighted to be a part of this seminar. today's panel will be really fabulous in addition, we will be funding the research fellows to provide original research on the nexus between national security and citizen engagement in that issue, how the media can better create that opportunity. finally, we will be sharing all of our research and reporting on the website medilmsj.org. today, we have a lot of expertise -- medillmsj.org. we are glad to be joined by this panel. starting at my far left, an associate in the washington office of gibson dunn and crutcher. he has extensive trial experience in defense and national security issues. in iraq, he was part of the team that worked to restore the iraqi judicial system and he also instrumental in bringing the first trial before the central criminal court in iraq. he is a member of the national institute of missed -- military justice. he graduated from west point and learned his j.d. from the connecticut school law next is eugene friedell, who is president of the national institute of military justice and senior research scholar at yale law school. he is the co-author of military justice, a member of the aba task force on the treatment of ethnic combatants, and has served as a captain in the coast guard from 1969-1972. he regularly represents members of the military and members of the media in military justice matters. mashal mcclure is the director of the national institute of justice, which is based at american university in washington. she has served as judge advocate in the air force from 1997 until last year. she served as prosecutor, based defense counsel and a senior defense council in courts martial. she has represented the united states as an appellate counsel and has argued such high-profile cases as the air force academy rape case. i am going to ask each of our panelists to talk briefly about the really complicated complex and ever-changing issues relating to the fort hood shootings and how that will be played out in the legal proceedings. also, what are the big issues that reporters might want to look out for? would you like to start? >> i would like to also welcome everybody who is here today and has taken the time to come to our media roundtable. we have done this several times in the past. i think it is important to recognize that we are obviously here as a result of the case surrounding the fort hood shootings. it is important to recognize that this is the beginning of what i anticipate will be a long engagement with these issues. that has some implications. first, from the standpoint of journalism, i am not a journalist, but i fall the field. -- i follow the field. in a time of revenue concerns, particularly in the print media, it will be a challenge for personnel managers, editorial management, to commit the kinds of resources that this story is corn to require -- is going to require. even the most stable and potentially healthy media outlets are going to be challenged by this story. i hope that they will rise to the occasion. i have some confidence that whawill happen. in this path that we are embarking on a will involve all three branches of government. obviously, the executive branch has responsibility for the conduct of investigations and the handling of prosecutions. it would certainly seem that there will be judicial proceedings within the military justice system and it would not surprise me if those proceedings spilled over into the normal article three federal courts. finally, congress has already gone into the act. there was a hearing yesterday before the senate home when security committee chaired by senator lieberman of connecticut, concerned about whether the facts, as they have already begun to unfold, suggest witnesses in our internal security or national security apparatus. -- weaknesses in our internal security or national security apparatus. these will be challenges for journalists. the other point i would like to make, and i am anxious to respond to questions, but this may present the rare occasion when a case of profound public interest provides the fulcrum for legislative action with respect to the administration of military justice. it is very rare that we look for congress to intervene. legislation -- sweeping legislative reforms have come very and weekly -- in frequently --in frequently. some tell me that it takes a case of high public interest and trauma to galvanize congress into action. i do not know where the path leads in that regard. we do not know what the lessons learned will be. it does seem to mean that smart observers will be looking to see whether this is a case that suggests some areas that are ripe for reform. i might add that the national institute of military justice issued a report on the talks commission on military justice, suggested reforms in this area and, perhaps the combination of a synergistic effect that may provide the occasion for some other reforms in the military justice system. >> >> i guess, adding on to what his comments were, i would give a few comments on the modern military. there is moderate jurist prudence in the area. from that time friend, until 1983, the military sent -- sentenced 70 people to death. in 1983, when the court of appeals invalidated the military death penalty and dismissed all the cases pending on death row. president reagan published an order and let out the career rules for capital punishment. there are basically three factors that have to be played out. there needs to be an accused found of offense that calls for the death penalty. a jury needs to find aggravating circumstances and they need to find that any mitigationg circumstances are now done by other circumstances. there has to be a unanimous vote by a jury for the death penalty. they would start voting on the lesser sentences first and then go upwards. if someone boats against the death penalty or for a lesser sentence, then that sentence is [inaudible] a couple peculiarities is that a typical court-martial process does not involve the unanimous jury. you only need a two-thirds jury for capital offenses. there are 15 offenses under the uniform of justice. many are more related offenses. most folks that have been charged have been charged with premeditated murder or a felonious murder. there has been roughly 49 or 50 capital chiles. of those, roughly one-third of them resulted in actually a sentence of death. of that small a percentage, there is currently five of folks remaining on death row in the military. nobody has been executed since 1960. there are five currently serving on death row and three others are awaiting recent incident. hopefully, that will give you a look at the broader process. we can walk through the trial process and the appellate process because there are some differences from the civilian courts. i will stop there to get some over the. >> -- get some overview. >> a couple of things that i left out at the beginning. you can find at our web page. for those who have not been able to find it, it is now at wcl.american.edu/nimj. since we're in the process of making changes, there will be additional documents and hopefully will find it useful. certainly, we appreciate feedback if you find things on there that you have questions about or if you don't find things that you would expect to see. if everyone could, before you leave, we have some of our publications as well as a sign in sheets so that you can become part of our lip service. if you could leave your contact information, that would be great and we could invite she to future events. to kind of did you a first taste of what we can expect in this case, the hearings will be public. those of you who have covered military trials in the past understand that access can be to different things. the preliminary hearing which is an article 32 hearing, and i expect that to occur in the next several months. it is the equivalent or attend to a grand jury proceeding in the civilian world -- or i caako a grand jury proceeding in the civilian world. it will be made available to the public. it is not going to be business as usual for military justice. this is a highly unusual circumstance. you do not get a time of murder cases in the military. especially ones that involve officers. it is fairly unusual to have multiple victims, especially the number of victim's that we have here. not in any case. but military prosecutors and defense counsel really are not used to prosecuting or defending these types of cases. they do not happen on a routine basis. it will probably be interesting to see how the process works out as the golan because this is not the normal military justice case. it certainly -- in the case of this nature would take quite some time, but this one, in particular, the military will want to make sure that they are doing everything they can to make this prosecution appeal prove-proof. >> if i may add a couple of footnotes, it is difficult to think of a time in which an officer in the pay grade of major or above has been accused of a crime of violence. i can think of one case involving a graduate of your home water -- a alma tmater. it is hard to think of other cases like that. . . >> -- there may be times when these proceedings will be closed for reasons of national security, there will be problems getting access to some of the legal papers related to the case. because of courgets martial, there's no court staff that members of the public are used to in dealing with civilian, federal and state courts. this has been a problem in the past, where important aspects of the prosecution or the case may be conducted on paper. there's certainly going to be a lot of motion practice in what is unfolding at fort hood. and i think it's going to be frustrating to try to do a professional job, without regular, easy access to the motions and responses and so forth. i can mention that i in fact currently represent a woman who is a widow of an officer who was killed, and a capital court-martial ensued, and we had enormous difficulty gaining access to the legal papers in the case. and the government's position is that you had to request the legal papers, the motions, by using the freedom of information act, which is deeply frustrating, and frankly, silly. and i would hope that the media -- and i'm thinking now not only of your organizations, but also the reporters committee for freedom of the press, would exert themselves now, rather than months from now when the problem really comes to roost. to insist on "rules of engagement," so to speak, so that you will and the american people and people around the world will be able to know in real time what the legal skirmishing is in this case. that's a foretaste of things to come, but i think that's a very real issue that's going to come up. we assume in this day and age that we're going to have essentially immediate access to the governing documents, and that is going to be a challenge, unless something changes in terms of army policy. >> i think we should open it up to your questions. >> don north, i'm a member of m.r.e. thanks for sharing your expertise with us this morning. there was a case that i was involved in reporting in 1983, just a week before the invasion of iraq. it took place at camp pennsylvania, the 101st airborne base for the operation into iraq. about midnight we heard a couple of tremendous blasts, and it turned out a staff sergeant of 20 years experience in the 101st airborne and a muslim lobbed a couple of grenades into officers' tents. he killed -- it was two or perhaps three officers and wounded two or three others. i've forgotten his name. but since that time i've read and not been aware of what happened with this, and it could well be a precedent for judicial proceedings in the fort hood case. i'm wondering if you followed this or are up-to-date on what happened with this case. >> you said 1983, i assume you meant 2003. i want to make sure we're talking about the same case. it was the akbar case. it's a personal case to me, actually, a personal friend of mine and a current judge advocate in the army, was one of those folks in that tent who was injured by those grenades. his life was saved because he was sleeping with his flak vest on, so he was one of the fortunate folks who survived that. but as you point out, that case happened in 2003. it went through this exact process. went to trial, and he was found guilty and he's currently one of those five folks that are identified on death row. now, the appeals process is still ongoing for him. and the typical time for appeal for a capital case in the military for completion of appeals is around eight years, and that's kinds of the standard time. so he's somewhere in that process, but he has been convicted at court-martial and his appeal has gone forward and he's currently at fort leavenworth in disciplinary barracks on death row. >> you can't plead guilty to a capital offense under the uniform code of military justice. so let's assume he pleaded not guilty. but this may be as good a time as any to take a second and scribe describe the appellate process -- describe the appellate process. michelle, do you want to run through that briefly? >> sure. and we can use the akbar case as an example and we can build on the other four individuals who are currently sitting on the military's death row. the first level of appeals that happens after a court-martial finds an individual guilty of capital murder is actually a process called clemency in which the convening authority or the commander who initiated the court-martial has the opportunity to wipe out the entire conviction, to mitigate the sentence. the military justice system is, as we've all heard, it's commander-driven. it's really the commander who is in charge of the court-martial. so the commander has the opportunity to say that the charges should be dismissed or dismiss the charges himself, actually. now, certainly that's very rare that that happens. the court-martial process is started for a reason, because the commander this is that the individual has committed -- thinks that the individual has committed a crime. but after the clemency process, assuming the commander does not decide to mitigate the sentence or the conviction, then it goes to the first level of appeals, the service court. and in the akbar case, it is currently pending at the army court of criminal appeals, which is the same court, the first level appellate court, that the hasan case would go to, assuming that he gets convicted. and then from there -- and anyone who gets a sentence of a year in confinement or punitive discharge, dishonorable discharge, bad conduct discharge, or in, the case of an officer, a dismissal, gets the opportunity to appeal to that first level of court. the second level of appeals is the court of appeals for the armed forces. it's the highest military court, presided over by five civilian judges, and not every case is automatically appealable to the court of appeals for the armed forces. but i assume in a case of the charges that we're looking at here in the fort hood tragedy, that it would get to the court of appeals for the armed forces. >> so it's mandatory for capital cases. >> exactly. >> if it's a capital case, it's mandatory review. >> and assuming that that is the case here, which all indications are that that would be the case, then the court of appeals for the armed forces would hear the case. and then there's the opportunity to go to the supreme court, which is not always afforded to military members, and even now one of the things that was a recommendation from the recent koch commission and also a movement that has been afoot in congress is to expand jurisdiction, so that military members who -- whose cases are not heard by the court of appeals for the armed forces can still make it to the united states supreme court, because civilian defendants are afforded that right and believe that the military should get there as well. so that's the -- the supreme court is the last court in the direct appeal, and then if gene or brian wants to jump in for the next step after that. >> just a couple of things i would add to that. maybe it would have been more helpful to walk through the trial process, so you can see how the appellate process builds off of it. so maybe we'll just step a second back to see that. the very first step of the process, the one that's been initiated now is the preefrl of charges. in this case major hasan has been charged with counts. and what happens from there, those initial charges, the preferal of charges -- in a civilian world there's a grand jury proceeding which is closed, secret and private and only the prosecutor takes part in it. in the military, it's very much a -- it's a more open hearing, and as gene pointed out, the press would be allowed to go to it and it's a public hearing. at that point basically there's a mini-administrative hearing where evidence is presented by the government and the defense to make a recommendation to that commanding general are whether or not a criminal trial should go forward. so after that article 32 hearing takes place, a recommendation will go to the commanding general of what he should do with that case. and what i would point out here is along this step, what you can probably expect to see as a point of interest from the media, i would expect at some point here somebody will raise the issue of the sanity of major hasan. so there is a process in the military, under rule 706, for a sanity hearing, for lack of a better word. it's basically an opportunity to assess the competency of someone, whether he's competent and fit to stand trial. and that process will take place sometime along in this process. and we can go into more depth than that, if questioners are interested in it. >> brian, can i ask a question to follow up on that? >> sure. >> the sanity issue is different in the military, or the definition is different, isn't it, than in a civilian court? i understood it was a higher bar. >> each state has different versions of insanity. so on the spectrum there are some states that are higher, and the most famous case is on a bit higher bar, but not so differently -- not that much that would be different from civil as well. to differentiate, that's different from the insanity defense which might be raised at trial. so kind of the threshold question here is, is somebody fit to stand trial? and that would go into the convening authority's and the commander's recommendation, if he is going to refer this matter to a trial, because none of that would have happened at these early stages. in other words, there will probably be a sanity hearing, which is between a board of civilians, including at least one psychiatrist, where they basically answer several questions of the they look and say does this person suffer from a mental illness, and if so, what is the clinical diagnosis of that illness? and then they ask, at the time he committed this act, what was his mental capacity? did he have the ability to understand and appreciate what he did? and then at the present time now, what is his current mental capacity? does he have the capacity to understand the proceedings against him and what is going on? >> i think, brian, you may have said a board of civilians. i think you meant board of physicians. >> physicians, yes, i'm sorry. >> there might be a civilian civilian on there, but they're physicians. >> absolutely. >> maybe this would be a good time to open up the floor for questions. >> well, this is relevant to this part of the process. can the defendant request a change of venue, and how does that work? >> yes, you can request a change of venue. it's highly discretionary as to whether the venue would be changed. remember, the uniform code of military justice applies, quote, in all places. that's what the statute says. so you could have a change of venue to anywhere in the world. whether a change of venue would be granted will be a function in the first instance of dismaking by the convening authority -- decision-making by the convening authority. and a military judge can order it. i think it's a little hard to handicap that right now, because it may be some considerable time before the trial process cranks up. i suppose -- i suppose i would have to say that it's more likely than not. that's my own intuition. that this trial, if there is one, will be held someplace other than fort hood. i think the alternatives would be one of the other large army installations, whether it's fort lewis or -- one of the others around the country. my bet is that it will be someplace other than fort hood. >> whose decision is it as to which post it will be held at? >> well, i don't know the answer to that. >> i mean, i think the starting point would be -- the commanding general at fort hood is the one with authority over this case right now. he can go to his higher general, who can either pull that case from him, or he could request and it could be granted to be dispensed with somewhere else. so kind of anyone higher in the chain of command -- this is, again, at the early stage, before it goes to a military judge, before it's referred. the military themselves could make the decision that we choose to move this. and the higher general from there could decide it. with fort hood, it could be a three corps commander who could decide to send it somewhere else. so that's kind of where it starts from. >> since this is such a high-profile case and because of the complexity of it, do you have any idea how long before we get to the plgs? should we expect a year, should we expect an extended period of time, more than a normal court-martial case? >> i think it would easily be six weeks before we see that. we're really still at the beginning stages. it's only been a couple of weeks since the tragedy, and we're not sure exactly where the investigation is going to go. depending what the investigation comes up with, i could easily see six months to -- if the investigation gets very complex, even up to a year, because he's going to be held in confinement during that time. and the supposition is going to be even though there are speedy trial protections in place, that his ultimate sentence is going to be something longer than six months to a year, and so the harm of delaying a trial would be minimizeed compared to, say, some other lesser case. >> let me say that i think it is unlikely that any significant legal proceedings are going to happen until dr. hasan's medical condition fully stabilizes, because questions could be raised about his ability to participate intelligently in his own defense if he is on significant medications. >> but i do think -- there are speedy trial issues, and if he is kept in pretrial confinement, you're not talking years before things happen on this case. medical condition notwithstanding, i think three to six months there should be some of these steps taking place. perhaps first the sanity hearing, if someone requests that, or if not, an alternative, the article 32 hearing, which is kind of the preliminary hearing to make a recommendation to go forward. i would expect that you'd see one of those two steps in the next matter of months, depending on the medical condition. that will be sorted out first. >> did you say earlier the appeals process in a couple of cases took eight years or longer? >> i think that's a statistical average for the case that's have gone through the military court process. that's exactly right. >> it's clear that between the trial process and the command review process and then the appellate process that michelle described, the military system does not hurry to bring people to completion of the capital process. and then the collateral review process begins. this is habeas corpus in the federal district courts and the whole -- you know, the appellate process kicks in. so just as we're familiar in the civilian community of capital litigation lasting a very long time, the he can act same thing is true. -- exact same thing is true. and, of course, one of the major speed bumps -- it's more than a speed bum -- unique to the military system, you have to have the affirmative approval of the president of the united states. and the fact is that presidents have not been quick to act on capital cases. i think they're the type of business that outgoing presidents are perfectly happy to leave on the president's desk in the oval office on inauguration days and let their successor worry about it. interestingly, i think brian mentioned the case from 1961, the case of private bennett, who was the last person to be executed under the ucmj. president eisenhower had approved his sentence and approved the execution in the late 1950's, and by the time inauguration day came around in 1961, bennett was still alive. and so the question was presented a second time, this time to president kennedy, as to whether the execution should go forward, and president kennedy obviously did not stop it. >> and just for context in that, recently, since that execution, of the five folks that have been on death row, there's only one whose sentence has been approved, that was done in 2008 by president bush. so that's the most recent time that a president has in fact approved a court-martial's death sentence and that it happened. that is the gray case, and that is -- as a result, he's approved that sentence and now it's going forward with federal civil habeas review. so that's the one that's farthest along the line toward a possible death sentence of the five folks that are on death row. only one has been approved by the president. >> have there been five since 1961? >> no, no, it's much more than that. >> one of the issues that you see is that several of these cases have been appealed. they've been appealed and overturned and several things have happened much the most recent, a sergeant's case, he had a death sentence and it was commuted to life without parole and that case went off the death row docket, if you will. so there's been several capital cases. five have gone through the appellate process and remain in some phases of the appellate process. the one farthest along has had his sentence approved by the president and now it's collaterally challenged and is in habeas review. and if you think of the akbar example being the other one in 2004, that case was brought to trial. he's been convicted. it's now at the first level of mandatory appeal. >> for clarification, we usually look at -- for numbers, we look back to 1984 when the rules were significantly changed, as brian talked about, by president reagan. that's usually our starting point for counting cases. since then, as brian said, there have been approximately 50 cases in which the death penalty was sought, but some of those cases -- gene talked about one case that -- no, actually, in at least two cases, the individuals have been acquitted, two cases quite recently, actually. and in most -- the vast majority of those cases, they received something other than a death sentence. only 15 of those 50 or so cases actually resulted in a death sentence. in two of the 15, the commanding general, the convening authority, commuted the sentence to something less than death. and then in eight other cases, the appellate courts have overturned the death sentence, and three of those are currently pending, awaiting resentencing. >> let me mention that in addition to being slow to impose the death penalty as a sentence, the military justice system is slow to approve it on review. and the best research on this has been done by colonel dwight sullivan, who has written extensively about the military death penalty. in addition, professor gary so last, a member of the advisory board and teaches at west point did a study during vietnam of the war crimes cases, basically , and the result were quite remarkable about sentences being reduced materially as they progressed through the command review process and through the appellate review process under the ucmj. really draconian sentences tended to be reduced dramatically. i'm not saying that's going to happen here. there's a lot of steps along the way. i think brian mentioned life without parole. as this case unfolds, -- the military is great at acronyms. the acronym that you may hear is lwop, which is life without parole, l-w-o-p. and i guess the only other thing that i wanted to mention right now is more broadly, going past the army record, the other services also are not what i would call blood-thirsty in terms of administration of the death sentence. and indeed, the united states marine corps, i believe, has not had an execution since before the war between the states. so it's a system that is quite slow to impose the death sentence. >> and one example of that -- and then we'll take some more questions -- just the gray case alone, which is one of the five death penalty cases, his death warrant was signed by president bush last year. but my understanding is that it's been sitting on the president's desk for basically his entire term. it was something like seven years. so just from the time it got to the president's desk to the president signing it was an additional eight years after all the other appeals we talked about. so it's a very slow process. [inaudible question] i don't know. i can't say exactly why that is. >> i know some of the speculation is it's not a popular move to be the first president to issue a death sentence for a military person. certainly that could have been a factor. but i think everyone is kind of speculating. in some ways, i think president bush was a good candidate to let one go forward, as he, as the governor of texas, was pro death penalty. even he took seven years to do it. previous presidents didn't act on it at all. so it's hard to know why he chose that one to go forward, and just that one. >> president clinton did not have scrupe els about approving death sentences. there was a notorious case in which he returned to arkansas, i think, to expressly approve a death sentence under quite controversial circumstances. so, again, that was an eight-year presidency in which there were no military executions. >> i have two questions. the first one is could hasan remain at fort hood, once he's healthy enough to go into confinement? could they move him somewhere else, or will they leave him there? the second question in his the big scheme of things, looking at from preliminary hearings through trial, how long are you thinking that process could take? could it be years before we see everything finish up, or do you have a guess? >> if i were to guess, i would say -- this is mid november. i would say a trial might well be over a year from now. >> the military -- you know, we, in the washington area, are familiar with something called the rocket docket, which is the u.s. district court for the east and district of virginia. the military does not function as a rocket docket particularly in these cases. even though it is sometimes said that purpose of the military justice system is to dispense prompt, lichty split type justice. it doesn't function that way. it's quite a deliberate process. >> your first question, my understanding is actually that he right now, if i'm not mistaken, is not at fort hood anymore. he's in san antonio, if i'm not mistaken. so the expectation of where he would be following that -- i mean, he will most likely be kept in pretrial confinement. i don't know that he'll go back to fort hood. he may very well stay down in san antonio, and it also may function -- the answer is the ability is there to put him wherever. the jurisdictions -- while there's not a legal impediment to where he goes, there's probably a practical constraint. and my guess is i don't know why they would bring him back to fort hood unless they were going to have the trial there. >> in terms of the venue question, obviously, this case has generated a lot of national and international attention already. so one of the challenges is going to be finding jurors in the military justice system -- they're called members -- who are impartial and who have not prejudged the case. that happens in the civilian community as well. the military justice system, like the civilian justice system, has a process for screening jurors, or members. it's called voyeur dear examination, and it a-- voir dire compassion examination, and it affords the military attorneys to pose questions to the potential jurors, just to make sure they haven't been exposed to overwhelming prejudicial publicity or that they don't come to the process with fixed views one way or the other that would preclude them from proper service as members of the court-martial. so that is certainly going to be an issue. it's going to be a challenge wherever this case is held. and the same is true, by the way -- just to switch gears a little bit -- to the prosecutions that have just been moved from guantanamo to the southern district of new york. there are going to be issues with finding jurors that are fit to sit. >> one unique thing about it is because major hasan is higher ranking, he has the pool of jurors, if you will, which is much, much smaller, because he's entitled to a jury or panel members of officers. so, again, within the military structure, there are many enlisted folks and many less officers. and so how the panel is picked is typically by that convening authority. he picks soldiers from within his jurisdiction. and so when you're dealing with a commanding general at fort hood, the number of soldiers he has there is quite great, 20,000 or so, but the number of officers is a much, much smaller subset of that 10% or so. so the pool of folks that you can pick from for a jury of officers, that will be an added wrinkle because of major hasan's rank. >> right. and remember, the members of the jury, the members of the court-martial, have to be senior to the accused. so these officers would presumably be either like colonels or above. i wouldn't be surprised if there were one or more generals on this panel. some of them might be majors, but who are simply higher than dr. hasan on the active duty list and their date of rank. >> it's a requirement. he couldn't request having enlisted. >> he wouldn't get it. enlisted personnel who are accused under the ucmj have a right to request enlisted membership, and if they make such a request, at least 1/3 of the panel would have to be enlisted personnel from another unit, by the way. that doesn't apply in this case. that's a privilege enjoyed only by enlisted personnel. >> is it seven or nine? >> it has to be 12 for a capital case now. >> that's a relatively recent reform, by the way. >> and that's for a capital case, it will be 12. >> and it has to be at least 12. so that's unlike -- we've come from having to have at least five, which was the old rule, until the recent changes. you had to have at least five for a general court-martial panel, and that was used even in capital cases. now -- and i think it was partially in response to the first cox commission, it has to be at least 12. so you could potentially have 15 people sit on the case. and that's something that's a little bit different from the civilian system. we're looking for a fairly large member pool, because they do have -- you have to have quite a few more than a normal general court-martial. you've got to have all the officers, an they all have to be seniors. so it most likely will be, even if it's moved, a large army base to get that population. >> we probably should take a second and talk about the lawyering in this case. obviously, there are trained attorneys prosecuting the case, or there will be. and there will be attorneys on the defense side. dr. hasan has employed a retired army colonel as his civilian defense counsel. that's at his own expense. that person is called the civilian counsel. there will be detailed counsel who are uniformed lawyers made available by the government at no expense to dr. hasan, and he can also request individual military counsel, which would be an officer dn one or more officers requested by name, and they have to be made available if they are reasonably available. the interesting thing about this aspect of the military justice system is even if you were able to afford an attorney -- and as a major, dr. hasan would presumably be in a position to pay an attorney -- you get them for free under the military justice system. that's unlike the civilian justice system, where only people who are paupers are entitled -- or indigent are entitled to free defense counsel in criminal cases. >> could you talk about voir dire again for a moment? is it different than in civilian courts, and how does it work? are there a certain number of strikes that counsel get to remove members? >> do you want to take that one, brian? >> it is very similar to civilian court, i guess i would say, in that regard. also, there is some discretion in it. some particular judges choose to do voir dire themselves. each counsel will submit questions to the judge and the judge will ask the questions. some judges allow, just like in civilian courts, the individual attorneys to ask the questions. there are both challenges for cause and a set number of preelm torres. i don't remember, i think it was just one preelm tore. i don't know if that's different for capital cases. i don't think it is. so it is a very similar process, and typically what happens is it starts off with kinds of either questionnaires that either side can commit to the court to try to get specific questions -- have you ever had family members involved in certain incidents like this? do you have anyone in your family with mental health issues? those kinds of questions to probe in advance and then more specific to the whole group of panelists, and more specific questions that can be addressed to individual members of the panel or the jury if concerns arise, if someone had someone who was killed in an incident similar to this. >> the jurisprudence on this, by the way, it's called the liberal grant rule. so that military judges are under very -- an injunction, basically, to be generous in granting challenges for cause. so if the defense or the government can come up with a plausible basis for releasing a potential court-martial member, the judge is supposed to grant it. now, the process is not all to dissimilar from the civilian criminal justice process in that the doctrines relating to exclusion, for example, of racial minorities are applied, the so-called batson issue, b-a-t-s-o-n. that's familiar territory in the military justice system. the military is alert. military judges are alert to the potential for abuse in the exercise of challenges, and that's been a fruitful field, actually, for litigation. and i'm sure that that will have been thought through very carefully by all the players, prosecution, defense and military judge. incidentally, the prosecutor in a court-martial is called the trial counsel, rather than the prosecutor or district attorney. so if you see references to the trial counsel, that's -- that means the prosecutor. >> interestingly, along those lines, one thing you'd want to think about and an issue that might raise itself is the issue of religion. i think that will be an issue when you think of the panel. i think you can expect to see discussions on that, unlike race and gender, which is a very clear grounds. the case of batson versus kentucky makes very clear that you can't strike somebody because of their gender or their race. religion is not quite as clearly resolved. and i expect it to be an issue in this case in terms of, you know, an issue of whether someone is either a strong christian or a strong muslim, would they be an appropriate person to strike from the panel based on their views. the same is true on issues of whether somebody is a firm believer or not a believer in the beth penalty. those are the tines of questions that will be interesting questions that you can expect to see some skirmishes on. >> we should go back and take one second. i know there was a hands or two in the back of the room, but we should go back and talk for another second about the pretrial investigation, the so-called article 32 investigation. even though this plays a role somewhat comparable, a sort of screening role comparable to a grand jury, it's important -- it's different in important ways. for one thing, it produces only a recommendation to the commanding officer, the convening authority. the convening authority can accept or reject the recommendation. the other thing is the dissent can play a very active role in an article 32 investigation. the defense gets to sit there, cross-examine the government's witnesses, put on its own witness. sometimes the accused, he or she, may take the stand. i would be skeptical if that's going to happen here, but, you know, we'll find out. but it's one of those aspects of the military justice system that's commonly pointed to as more generous to the accused than the civilian justice system is. >> there were some hands up in the back. >> you had mentioned that the prosecution was going to be looking very carefully with an eye toward making this appeal-proof. what are the kinds of concerns will you have in terms of potential appeals? what are they going to be looking to in terms of potential appeals? >> michelle, why don't you -- you can start on that. we could all probably comment on that one. >> well, there are any number of pitfalls. obviously, all the appellate issues that could possibly be raised in a shoplifting case or a dorm and barracks theft, there are all of those, but there are ones that would be specific to -- and again, assuming that this would be a capital case -- ones that are specific to capital cases. we often hear death is different, and there are certainly some very important pitfalls that this case will want to avoid, things like making sure initially that he's got counsel who are what you term death qualified, and making sure that these are individuals who haven't just tried one shoplifting case or one failure to go to work case, an awol case. we want to make sure that you've got individuals assigned to this case who understand the ramifications of trying a capital case, who -- and in the military system, the convening authority has control over the purse strings when it comes to hiring expert witnesses, and that's something, in this case, that's going to be particularly important, because in a capital case mitigation experts, individuals who specialize in looking at the background of the accused, the defendant in this case, are critical to providing a fair trial and to having a case that will be upheld on appeal. so those are a couple of the things, and i'm sure that gene and brian have some additional kind of pitfalls -- classical pitfalls for this type of case. >> i mean, following up on what was just said, truthfully mitigation experts -- the most recent military court-martial death case, sgt. kreutzer was the case. he had his sentence commuted from -- you may recall a bit of a time ago. he was the individual sergeant down at fort bragg in 1995 who laid in the woods and opened up and shot a bunch of folks, killing one and injuring 17 others, while laying in the woods. his case -- and the main issues dealt with this mitigation specialist and the government's refusal to provide them with a mitigation expert. and so that kind of is a significant issue, because, again, as we laid out kind of early on, one of the factors that goes into whether a death sentence can be approved is whether or not any mitigating factors are substantially outweighed by the aggravating factors. so this case will focus a lot on dr. hasan trying to show whatever problems that he has or certain mitigating circumstances, religious, mental or otherwise. so you can expect that. i think we also mentioned about 80% of the cases, the death penalty cases, that had been overturned for some reason or another, every those, 1/3 of them were from ineffective assistance of counsel, if you will. so counsel kind of failing to raise right issues. another, i think, almost 1/4 had to do with bad instructions by the judge or rulings by the judge, so denying someone's request for an expert, or perhaps it could be a change of venue. so issues like that. so one of the things that you will see is the defense pushing for different issues. and i think the government is going to want to be wary of that and make sure they err on the side of -- whether it's giving additional time to do things or additional resources, those are the types of issues you'll see. and there's a challenge on that, because the military is interested in trying the case and bringing it forward promptly with these concerns that they want the case to stay, and the recent history in these cases is it's very difficult to get a capital case all the way through successfully through appeal. >> there's been so much attention to this case so far that you could almost already make up a shopping list of issues that might well wind up on the table, if there is a trial. evidence may be excluded by the military judge or admitted by the military judge. those are areas that are fruitful sources of appellate litigation. obviously, peedy trial is an issue. we've all -- speedy trial is an issue. we've all heard about unlawful command influence, which comes up in a variety of different ways. was the deck loaded, you know, were the dice loaded when the members were selected by the convening authority, issues like that. we've mentioned venue questions . the insanity defense may come into play. pretrial publicity we've already talked about. leakage of confidential information may turn out to be an issue. wouldn't surprise me. access to experts has been mentioned. the principle there is there has to be equality of arms between the prosecution and the defense, and what you will probably see is request for experts, both investigative assistants and technical advisors, such as physicians and psychotherapists and the like. are there qualifications comparable? is there a significant difference? another issue -- and this, i guess, has to do with the exclusion or inclusion of evidence -- will have to do with the claim that aila akbar was heard -- that dr. hasan was heard to say that, whether that is so prejudicial that a judge should exclude that. let's see how the evidence unfolds there. but there are other aspects that might be really highly controversial, for example. dr. hasan's religious involvement and views, does that come in as a matter in mitigation, or does it come in as a matter of aggravation or both? and the final thing that i wanted to mention is whatever issues the parties bring up or the judges inject. if this case ever gets to the u.s. court of appeals for the armed forces, which is, by the way -- all civilians, five civilian judges, presidential appointees confirmed by the u.s. senate, those judges have a practice over many years of identifying errors on their own. they have a central legal staff and they posterior over records at trial and regularly -- pore over records at trial and regularly brief issues that they specify. so they may well go beyond and say we'd like you to brief right to counsel issues, for example. we see this problem or we see some other problem. in that respect, by the way, it's quite a paternalistic system. that's been a matter of controversy. but the court historically has been proactive in ensuring that there is meaningful civilian review and that g.i.'s get a fair shake. >> it goes beyond the convening authority. >> yes, that's a very good point. and, by the way, for shorthand, we're all used to the phrase "command influence." military justice mavens are particular about this. we say unlawful command influence, another acronym, u.c.i., and the other one is ineffective assistance of counsel, i.a.c. but u.c.i. comes in a variety of shapes and colors. people have at times said -- statements by presidents and other senior officials have gummed up the jury pool, polluted the jury pool and so forth. those allegations are regularly made, but they very rarely get anywhere. and even when charges of unlawful command influence gain some traction in theory, it's quite, quite rare that anybody gets any actual benefit at the end of the day in terms of having a conviction overturned on that basis. why is that? because our political leaders -- and here i mean the civilian political leadership, the political a-point tease who are in charge of the -- appointees who are in charge of the service departments -- were not born yesterday. they are advised to be circumspect in their comments. they typically are pretty good at that. and i would be surprised if anything said to date were the cause of any really wrinkles in the investigative or prosecution process. what happens tomorrow, i can't say. but so far, i think they're probably on safe ground. >> just so people understand that issue a bit, if you will, obviously, if the military hierarchy, and so everyone who is going to serve on that panel or that jury reports up a chain of commands all the way up to the president, so usually what happens, how these issues can get raised at the more abstract level, is some high-level official, whether it's a general or otherwise, comments on how he thinks the case should be hands. that guy should get the death sentence or something like that. so the issue then becomes raised, if you're a superior officer in a higher organization has some indication of how things should go, does that influence you in how you'll decide the case and how you act. and that's one way that it's raised at the higher levels. there other ways that unlawful command influence can come in as well. >> well, just one example is suppose you had a commander who said, gee, i just don't see how, if you put somebody on report, your company commander can then turn around and say joe is a good guy and should be permitted to serve out his enlistment, you know, serve as a character witness. you can't chill -- you can't lawfully chill people from coming forward as witnesses either on the merits or on sentencing. and by the way, let's be very clear about one other thing, and we're sort of doing this in bits and pieces. but remember that a court-martial is divided in two stages. one is what's called the merits or guilt or innocence stage, and the other is the sentencing stage. and so the jury would get -- the members would get to vote twice, first guilt or innocence of what, and then the sentencing. so they'll be out, if it gets that far, for two sets of deliberations. one might be very short, one might be very long, you don't know. but it's a two-stage process. other questions? >> on the documents issue, is there an established policy on that, or is that sort of made up as it goes by the commanding general? >> on access to the legal papers? all i can say is that this is -- we talked about this in the case that i was describing, it was u.s. against martinez and we were told that we had to proceed under the freedom of information act. i think eventually, had we prepped it, we might have gotten traction with the military judge. i think the judge ultimately entered some kind of order, but there is no general rule on this, and i think this is a ground rule for cases that are, let's say, high-profile cases that ought to be resolved once and for all, instead of not having to do it in real time. real time determination of an issue like this is, as i understand the journalism business, is really unacceptable, because for daily journalism, you don't want to have a long conversation with lawyers and getting the legal department into a discussion when 5:00 or 6:00 or 7:00, whatever the deadline is, is fast approaching. so i think that is something that people may want to be proactive on. >> talk about the judge who will preside over this. it's usually from an outside command. talk about the selection of judge. >> different services do it a little bit differently. some of the judges are stationed at a particular base and they're responsible for that base. in others, they're responsible for a region. there may be five or six, depending how large their judge corps is that are responsible for that part of the country or part of the world. and it's generally either the chief judge for that region or that base who selects the one who would sit. in this case i would say that -- and actually, going back to the preliminary hearing, the preliminary hearing -- the article 32 hearing is not usually presided over by a judge. it's usually just, for lack of a better term, random, unaffiliated judge advocate. but in this case, i foresee a judge being assigned to the preliminary hearing and a very senior judge being assigned, if not the chief trial judge in the army, being assigned as the trial judge. i can certainly foresee him detailing himself to this case. because, again, if it's referred as a capital case, there aren't that many defense counsel or prosecutors who have the wherewithal and the experience to do those types of cases. and there aren't very many judges who would be mindful of all of the things that you all have asked about as far as appellate pitfalls. so i foresee it being a very senior judge, if not, the senior trial judge in the army. >> one point about the military judiciary -- and by the way, we talked about the uniform code of military justice and we talked about the pentagon and the military sort of in gross. in fact, the military justice system is quite decentralized. the different branches have their own systems. they come together at the second stage of appeal. but in important respects, these are serviced by service arrangements. now, talking about the military judiciary, one difference between the military justice system and the civilian federal justice system is the terms of office for judges. we're all familiar with the fact that under the u.s. constitution federal district judges enjoy life tenure. and in fact, their salaries can't even be reduced. those don't apply to military judges. in fact, the supreme court said the due process clause doesn't require a military judge to have any term of office. to its credit, the army, even after that case, imposed or created terms of office for its military judges. that's the good news. the bad news is that the terms they created are only three years long, which is as judicial terms of office go, very, very short. that is a difference. speaking personally, i think that's unfortunate. i think the military and congress ought to do better in terms of protecting the independence of military judges and a three-year term of office is something we would never tolerate in a felony case in the civilian community. we'll see if those kinds of concerns about judicial independence play out here. i'm an optimist. but i do think the structure could be improved and military judges could be given longer terms of office and terms of office that were prescribed not by regulation, but by an act of congress. ma'am. >> you're talking about it being referred as a capital case, so is it not already a capital case? >> it's merely a potential capital case. >> so when does that -- >> it's in the process. initially these charges have been brought against major hasan. as we talked about, there's going to be an article 32 hearing, which will happen -- who knows when? perhaps in the next six months or the next few months, where both sides get to go forward and present some evidence, and the officer, whoever is in charge of convening that hearing will make a recommendation to the commanding general of go forward with charges, go forward with these specific charges, make a recommendation that either he be charged capitally or not capital. at that point, after the article 32 hearing is complete, they'll go with a recommendation to the convening authority, who will make the decision whether or not to convene it capitally or not. so that's kind of where the big step will take place. now, the expectation is that because of the crime and the fact that they're charging him with multiple counts of premeditated murder, they're setting it up for that route, so the convening authority would have the ability to recommend capital. but that's kind of -- that will be the step in the sequence. >> you mentioned congress earlier and the congressional investigations that are already being discussed or begun. how will that affect, or, you know, what does that mean in terms of this trial? what are the concerns, or are there no concerns? but clearly, this isn't going on in a vacuum. all three branches are involved in this. what does that mean? >> well, i do think that there is a danger that congress, in the pursuit of its constitutional powers, may create stumbling blocks or potential stumbling blocks for the administration of justice in the case at hand. and i would -- i'm sure i'm preaching to the choir, but i would hope that senator levin, chair of the armed services committee, and his opposite numbers would be -- would err on the side of caution as they decide whether and how to explore some of the sort of institutional issues that are already obviously presented by the facts as they've started to unfold. . . >> if there is a way to avoid public erring these issues in legislative form, i would certainly hope that the senators and representatives give careful consideration to holding the phone and allowing the military justice system to function without having to bump into the legislative process to record second be a very long wait. quacks-process. clucks that could be very long wait. >> if it goes into going to public hearings, in a way that could deprive the doctor and the prosecution of a level playing field, that would be unfortunate. >> a relationship issue -- a related issue is whether this case can be tried in the military or under some kind of terrorism. i do not think that is an issue. those of the type of issues you can look at it the attorney general felt that these crimes were crimes of terrorism and felt there was a different venue. that is another potential. of conflict. but that is all in the executive branch. the status of other potential type of conflict. but that is all in the executive branch. >> one point worth making is that we're talking about a traditional product line that led to the founding of the military justice system, there have been issued for the last eight years. some of these issues may intersect. one of them is the willingness of the board to come forward and represent individuals who were deeply unpopular. the defense of misconduct may be viewed with this may by the american public. -- dismay by the american public. since the time the john adams defended the redcoats involved in the boston massacre, members of the bar had been willing to come forward. in civilian and uniformed the judge advocate's to represent people whose conduct is deeply baffling and a stir in to the american public. >> are there any other questions, comments? at the start of this morning, i think that promised you an enlightening discussion and i think, thanks to our panel, we are all leaving this morning's discussion with a much clearer idea of a very complex question that is about to unfold. i want to thank all of you. [applause] thank you, and we are adjourned. >> if you have individual questions, our panel will be willing to stay late. >> in 1989, judy shelton wrote about a crash and then the in a -- the monetary system. now she is talking about the economy. >> this is unprecedented spending and and ending deficits and what i consider an unconscionable accumulation of debt. >> judy shelton, sunday night on sues -- on c-span's q&a. now, a discussion on national policy regarding renewable energy. this is hosted by the american council on renewable energy. it is 1 hour 10 minutes. >> good morning. good morning, everyone. welcome to the ai8th , yes it is the eighth. we are at the eight global energy in america of national policy conference, the sixth time in this room. what an honor it is to hold this annual review and think about where we are going in renewable energy in america. thank you for coming and i hope you enjoyed this day. believe it or not, that is a symbol of the danish embassy, the embassy of denmark, where we will have a reception this evening. it is a great place to go from here to think about where we are going next in copenhagen. all the other sponsors, lockheed martin is in our space. all of these companies helped produce this and we thank them. me remind us that the theory of this conference is called phase two. what does that mean? in 2004, we define this phase one/phase two idea. we started someplace in the '70s and now we're commercializing. we realized that that is not the way that it is. there was actually an r&d phase and then a deployment phase. we defined phase one has a time frame between 1975. -- 1975-2000, we had a great fund are in the program. during that timeframe, $100 billion was invested. 50 billion in nuclear, 25 billion in fossil, 14 billion in renewable energy and $11 billion in efficiency. i will speak about the $25 billion and renewals, and this was a successful government program. look at the technologies it has come from this program. it has now swept the world and is being deployed everywhere. a rare, and declared success. sunday, they will declare it a success. phase two is putting these technologies and to use at scale and it is not going to happen in a year. it is one to happen in 25 years. that is the scale of. y'all know what an s curve looks like. this is the upscale of the es curve -- the s curve. this is the upscale. this is the tough part. this is the lift that we have to do. this is what we have to do in this congress. to think about how we will do that. each year, we have had bigger and bolder ideas to see beyond this year's urgency and look ahead to what it will take to scale this up. so, today's topics, and i want to thank the cochairs of this conference, who, since august, have been meeting in conference calls to plan the topic of this year. we went through phases, thinking it was copenhagen. it must be the steppingstone to copenhagen, but then we thought no, it is a steppingstone to copenhagen, but renewable energy scale is still its own task. bacto the issues of today, that will be discussed on this stage today, it is the framework of policy. we have different perspectives from technology, industry, labour, finance, all different perspectives to be brought to bear in setting up a framework for the policy's going forward. -- the policies going forward. we already saw this in denmark and germany and spain and now we have china coming. this is competition and we are up to full speed. this is full speed competition. is the west or to win this? -- is the u.s. going to win this? i have been asked, so many times, by the export import bank what we need to do to increase exports of renewable energy from this country and my answer has been to build factories. that is what we need it. that is this part of phase two. next is how to finance the scale oup. they have estimated that it will take $30 -- $30 billion-$50 billion every year going forward to reach 20% by 2020. not a 3-5, 30-50. the task ahead is to double what we have ever done and do it every year. >> can the government do that alone? >> absolutely not. and wall street do that alone? >> absolutely not. -- ken wall street that a long? absolutely not. -- ken wall street do that alone -- can wall street do that alone? absolutely not. investors with 18 trillion dollars, the second is the middle east funds and the third is china. we have to link u.s. institutional investors with their 18 trillion dollars to invest. and we need government policy to create that. there is a partnership. lastly, constructing a policy solution that is truly bipartisan. we must mobilize 30-$50 billion and we cannot do that unless everyone agrees that this is where our country is going. that will be the closing session, today. lastly, i want to have a sense of purpose in this magnificent room that is so motivating to all of us, to remind ourselves of the greatness of the founding fathers that imagined the kind of place exemplified by this room, and compare that with the knowledge of our earth's sensitivity and our desire is seat -- our desire for a sustained society. and they need to work together towards the solutions. our goal today is to have good and gain changing ideas that will become the policies of the united states tomorrow. with that, thank you for being here. i hope you get a lot out of today. it is my pleasure to introduce the first of two co-chairmen on renewable energy. he was the director of the california renewable energy commission and came back as commissioner as the california energy commission and was given credit for much of the policies for the state of california. [applause] i bring you greetings from the west coast. as historians look across the last several decades of our national energy policy, they are likely to find common pads, no matter which party is in power. had exceeded responsibilities, squandered opportunities, willful avoidance of unpleasant realities. it recently, that has started to change. whether we recognize it or not, there is a race under way. most of the major economies of the world are striving to radically expand the size of their domestic renewable energy markets in order to gain competitive advantage in the great growth industry of the 21st century. the president made a solemn commitment. in sacramento, they would say that that is no gold bottomed early man gold -- no burly man -- and nogirly man goal. we should all be held so accountable. the president set a very clear context by which to evaluate the various standards being proposed to we are all a nation of scorekeepers. as a country, we do not have a track record of sticking with our commitments. some of you will remember and be unnerving plea in which solar collectors were yelling of the white house roof -- against off the black house rules. -- yanked off the white house rosof. there is no question that energy-efficient c should be the priority of irrational energy policy, but ever since the story in the old testament where abraham was asked to kill his son to show his spiritual devotion, something in the human psyche rejects the concept of these choices. in energy efficiency standards should live with a renewable energy standard, but they should live separately and not be pitted against each other. the pragmatism necessary to get a renewable energy standard through the senate energy committee has been a disappointment. it demands to be corrected as the process moves forward. it looked at what we have accomplished this year. we have a lot of lenders that act as if they are on a holiday, but the rest of us are moving pretty hard. i know what many of your thinking, where does this lead? we have a lot of work to do to fill in that gap. the instruments that we rely on , tax incentives, budget appropriations, not a very appetizing mix when you think about scale ability we have a problem to the extent that we are successful going forward. this will cost more and more money in our federal budget. we need to start thinking about how to get some of them off budget of off of the taxpayer and onto the shoulders of the ratepayer, where roughly belongs. i do not think we are ready. i suspect we're too stubborn. i have to say, we should familiarize ourselves with the stack of reports coming out of the european commission and now -- they come to one single compelling conclusion, and that is that the terrance instrument has created more renewable energy at lower costs than any other single policy initiative tried anywhere else in all world and we should go through the federal power act and take away those burdens and barriers that some utilities say that those who desire to go forward should be able to do so. our balkanized way of planting and permitting licensing of our transmission system is not suitable. they are met with the predictable knee-jerk resistance from local authorities and we have a proud tradition of local control of land use decisions in our country. i would ask each of my former colleagues which one of you has been unfairly diminished by the decision made by congress several decades ago to create a national licensing system for our natural gas pipelines? as a result of that decision, our gas distribution system is the envy of the world. our economy is immeasurably more prosperous and our environment is infinitely cleaner. we should do the same thing with the electric transmission grid. it is a new day and a new approach is needed. you are not want to get adams smith out of the car, but the hands on the wheel should be steering in the national interest. the european union, china, brazil, even india, they are always in the bar on what it takes to be a leading market in renewable energy. historically, quite often, the united states has been a little late to the party. but after we get there, we have a way of making everyone know that we have arrived. this is our time. we need to make the best use of it. thank you, very much. [applause] >> i think the words that i asked for this morning were honest and bold. thank you, that was honest and bold. >> we will hear honest and bold thoughts from someone who has been on the firing line. please welcome dan walker. >> that was a spectacular opening. i really appreciated. welcome to the newest secretary for renewable energy. we look forward to your remarks. thank you to our sponsors. this is a wonderful event. let me move from pashtun to the paper and pomp of washington d.c. -- lebanon from passion to the paper and paul -- let me move from pashtuion sion to ther and pulp washington dc. few took notice of these moments and we just pushed on. now that we are in the big leagues, are highs are higher and i am afraid our lows are lower. in this moment of an economic security, we're seeing this in full. the future is not what it used to be. the question is, what comes next? the best way to predict the future is to invent it. we have so many ideas and i think that this is what this conference is about, that is, how do we invent the future where we truly realize the potential of renewable energy? i had the opportunity to testify on the senate environment committee, and that is not where i got the black ani. my message was that the critical need to adjust the climate crisis provides us with an unprecedented and opportunity to rebuild our energy system -- unprecedented opportunity to rebuild our energy system. this is the key point, to adopt t policies and we can create new jobs. we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil and we can protect ourselves from a global climate crisis. last year, at google, we outlined one potential path to clean energy futures. some reduces co2 emissions by 50%. there were a net savings of $800 billion. it will bulls, especially when the solar and geothermal. built on a base of inefficiency are the real winners. between 2007 and 2003, the world will need to invest 26.3 trillion dollars in energy infrastructure to meet currently projected demand. as one has said, calling technology could be the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century. the ability of the u.s. to seize this opportunity will be in actions taken by government to put a significant price on carbon emissions. while this is necessary, it is not sufficient to address the climate problem. it will not put the u.s. in a position to seize the extraordinary opportunities that will come with rebuilding our global energy economy. a significant price will definitely send a strong signal, but it will not, by itself, insure that the technology that the technologies are invented and deployed here in the united states. i told the environment committee that there are four complementary energy policy mechanisms that will be critical for our nation to take advantage of these opportunities. we must increase public funding of research and development of advanced energy technologies. in 1980, 10% of the government are in the was an energy. today, it is only 2%. there is a serious risk of falling off a finding cliff when these investments run out. we were encouraged when president obama called for investing $15 billion per year over the next decade in clean energy technologies and took note when energy secretary -- the energy secretary said we must move closer to levels in the high-tech industry which is generally around 10% of sales. in contrast, all five of the world's leading internet technologies are from the u.s. and the internet itself was the product of federal funding r&d in the 1970's. let me stress that the private sector cannot completely fill -- beverly -- let me stress that the private sector cannot completely fill the serious gap in energy r&d funding. the high risk research funded by government that has brought us major breakthroughs in information technology and energy is not the province of venture capital investment for corporate research. second, we must increase the capital available to deploy these advanced technology is a commercial scale. moving from a nation that derives 7% of its -- it will require trillions of dollars in investment. the challenge is not easy. the problematics step of moving a technology from a small pilot project, often funded by venture capital investment to full commercial scale projects financed by the banks is where many technologies died. we call a development that -- we call it bad that -- we call a development death. -- we call it development death. we will drive private investment. there would be an independent administration with a board directors. we must build a smarter and bigger electric britain to better harness' efficiency. a smarter grid will let us see our energy use, measure it, price it, and manage it we're looking to advance this on several fronts. engineers have developed a simple, secure in free software tool that gives consumers an easy means to see their home electricity use on their computer or cellular phone. we're looking at how large numbers of vehicles could actually help stabilize the grid and provide massive storage capacity to support a vastly greater share of renewable generation. a specially bred where the air does not always blow and the sun is not always shine. citing new transmission capacity may be the most vexing peace of the renewable energy puzzle and one where new federal policy is critical if we're going to build thousands of miles of new transmission lines across multiple state borders. fourth and finally, we must set national standards to accelerate cleaner and more efficient technologies. congress should adopt a strong energy standards. this has sparked new industries and created thousands of jobs. renewable energy and energy efficiency are highly complementary. that is why we may be facing increasing competition, but our best friends in the energy efficiency business stand ready to help was lower the effect of green electrons by pairing them with improvements. just think what it 3% son -- a 3 cent per kilowatt hour could do for our homes. let me give three examples of complementary energy policies. one is solar thermal power. proving the technology and where state standards are driving demand and government-backed finance is helping get plants built. looking ahead, and hands geothermal systems present another opportunity for a strong finish a policy and the price of carbon could drive a new industry that could produce cheap, renewable power 24 hours a day nationwide. wind is also another technology that could be driven by strong policy actions taken here in this very chamber. when it comes to renewable energy, we can predict the future by inventing it. this covers an array of disciplines. what are we waiting for? thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, dan. our watchwords for today are honest and bold. i think it continues. our next speaker is here to share his view of where we are and where this is all going. [applause] thank you very much for including me in your program. let me start by thanking danaher weicker for the leadership he is provided on this -- dan riker. i appreciate that. as all of you know, the senate is focused on health care reform and i assume that is what you are here to talk about. i think that once we get past health care reform, and successfully, i believe, we will be in a position to consider what can be done on energy and climate change and that will be in the new year as far as the senate schedule is laid out. i think, at that time, we could make significant steps towards this transition. clearly, the market, as it currently operates, fails to properly factor in the cost of the environment. this is a danger to our economic security and our environmental future as well. putting a price on carbon is essential and we are committed to doing that. even with the market, the scale of clean energy investments needed to set a course that is sustainable for the future is daunting. well there are immense -- while there is immense promise in the new energy technologies being developed, we clearly have to have, paired with that technology, policies to allow those technologies to achieve their potential and to help us deal with the challenges that we face. if we succeed in putting those policies into place, that i think that we can very effectively address the energy challenges and create new jobs and deal with climate change challenges. in june, the energy committee referred to this. in june, the resource committee reported a comprehensive energy bill. it is the energy act of 2009. we forwarded that bill with a vote of 15-8. it contains a series of policies needed to unlocked our energy future and let me talk about three of these that debt also referred to first is the renewable electricity standard, to set a baseline for renewable energies. second his streamlined and more effective policies and procedures for an electric transmission lines and third is the clean energy deployment administration to insure that investment materializes. starting with the renewable elektra's the standard, this is a policy that i have advocated we adopt at the national level -- starting with the national rouble electricity standard, this is a policy that i have advocated we adopt the national level. i think that everyone in this room probably agrees with that. there are state renewable electricity standards and there is inconsistency in coverage and application. i believe that the most effective policy would be to have this at a national level. in this congress, we have the opportunity to go-ahead and establish a national were no electricity standard that will provide a more consistent savings to the market, this is also part of this bill that we have reported out of our sit here to committee. if enacted, it would accomplish two goals. first, it would enhance the diversity and second, it would position the united states to regain the world technology lead in these areas. these are both important goals for. -- both important goals. this makes sense to have the electricity sector that is diversified into important dimensions. diversified between centralized and distributed generation and diversified among the various sources of electricity generation. in my view, a renewable electricity standard encourages both kinds of diversification. new technologies could be readily implemented. many of you could cite examples. a renewable electricity standard helps option is that more closely resemble enhanced geothermal systems and concentrated solar power. our current system of tax incentives does not provide the kind of certainty that is needed intends to only provide incentives to those forms of renewable power that can be built quickly, in particular to wind power. i strongly support all forms of renewable energy, but i would like to see more incentives for a wider range of technologies. and national were noble electricity standard will also help the united states to regain leadership in the development and manufacturing of renewable technologies. the reason is simple. technologies tend to be located close to their principal markets and that is why germany, which does not have much in the way of sunlight, is a worldwide center for the manufacturers of solar panels. there is a vibrant market for solar technologies. the united states has had a strong intellectual leadership in creating these new technologies, but time and again, we have seen how our work has resulted in the manufacturing occurring elsewhere. we need to try to head that off. >the second issue i want to talk about his transmission. it is closely connected to having an effective, reliable electricity standard. it ensures that we have a transmission system that can connect to renewal resources and that can handle the challenges of intermittent see that are associated with summer no electricity sources. we have seen a lot of revolution in electricity markets over the past few decades. but our system of serving those markets and customers has not kept pace. we are now in a position where developers are substantially impede from making economic investments by a fractured system for identifying in meeting those transmission needs. the major focus of the bill has been to address the three most difficult transmissions. secondly, we cite a 44 the cost of new transmission. i believe that we have a successful starting point for a bipartisan debate on this issue. there may be additional improvements that are offered so that we can adopt, but we have a solid basis for going forward with that debate. again, having a transparent and effective way of deciding where the new electric transmission points may be built, and ensuring that the cost of the lines are spread across all of the beneficiaries. despite the importance of electricity transmission policy , the politics surrounding this issue will be intense. when we do get to a full senate debate, i am sure that we will see some of the politics in this play. the third item i would talk about is the need for support for clean energy technology deployment. new renewable energy technologies that counter major barriers when it comes to obtaining the kind of support in the private financial sector that helps them to make the transition for commercially proven products. i refer to the valley of death where good ideas whether for lack of sufficient capital. i was in silicon valley last week where cutting edge venture- capital firms are turning their attention to clean energy technologies, the kind of projects they are pursuing our not surprisingly renewable energy technologies. others are technologies that are needed in order for renewable energy to be fully integrated into our systems. as attractive as these technologies are, we need to find ways to insure that the capital is there to develop and deploy them. the federal government can make a big difference by using its ability to make focused, patient investments to leverage and unlock private capital markets where there are many billions of dollars to bring these new technologies to where they can be deployed on the scale that will be necessary. the first title to our bill is the clean energy deployment administration. it is designed to make the key investments to accelerate the technology that we need. this was a bipartisan achievement. we will move a wide range of technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace by combining the technological expertise of the department of energy with a new and independently overseen cabinet of business professionals to get through this valley of death. we will be empowered to aggregate smaller projects that might have trouble attracting capital investment because of their size. an example of this problem of balance. they need to be aggregated into larger initiatives that can be more readily financed. i believe that the investments that we need cannot wait. most of the energy infrastructure that we build today will still be operating in the year 2015. the investment choices that we make now will dramatically shape the world in which our children and grandchildren will live and the longer that we wait to address our clean energy challenges, the higher the hill will be that they have to climb so, i am very hopeful that our proposal will be seen as the kind of response that is needed for this serious problem. again, we want to make this happen without a strong push from experts who know the power and possibility of an information technology best. many of you in this room are in that group. congress will need encouragement. i hope that you will all advocate for that enactment of this provision. i have briefly outlined three of the key areas that are most important. strong grenoble energy standards, and a mechanism for providing strong financial support for these projects. all three areas have a strong set of bipartisan provisions that need and deserve the support of the private sector. i hope that all of you will continue to advocate for these necessary steps. i look forward to working with you in this venture that we are all on to see this transition of our economy. again, thank you for including me in today's program. i wish you well. i hope it is a constructive session. >>[applause] >> it was suggested that someone might have a question. i will be glad to respond if anyone does. i am sure i have answered most of them. >> yes? >> [inaudible] >> i do not know. that is the honest answer. i hope so. but i do not know. >> all lot of the policy development is affected by regional differences. could you address that and how we deal with that? how can we do better in that area? >> in the time that i have been on the energy committee, i have noticed that many of the issues that we deal with divide along regional lines rather than partisan lines. that causes difficulties. it also breaks down partisan divide. i think that it allows us to develop alliances across the political aisle with signatures from our region of the country. i do not know that it is a bad thing. the truth is, all of these issues have a dynamic of their own. your allies on one issue are going to be your sworn opponents on the next issue and that is the nature of the congress and the legislative process. i think that is clearly true in the case of energy. >> my question is, what have you thought about implementing that would fund it on a short-term basis? >> i think we are in a time where there is a shortage of lyndon for well demonstrated renewable energy projects and we clearly need to find ways to assist that. myself, i would not want to see them try to solve the problem. that is a short-term problem. i see them solving the longer term problem of how to use the help technologies become commercialized? i would see the bill in the first two-four of a particular plant that we would need, but i would not see the building hundreds. i would think that the private markets have to be dependent upon been to do that. i think they have demonstrated that they are willing to. >> it is the honor to have you. thank you, very much. -- it is an honor to have you. thank you, very much. >> thank you. [applause] thank you centre. it is now my great pleasure to introduce carol browner. she has a distinguished record in the community. she was the administrator of the environmental protection agency under president clinton and went on to have a distinguished role in the policy world. it is my great pleasure to introduce carol browner. [applause] >> thank you for that introduction. it is a pleasure to be here with all of you and to follow chairman bingaman. i have the pleasure of working for a president who believes and is working hard to change the energy future of our country and the world. with the support of many of you here, today, one of the first things he was able to do was sign the recovery act and as many of you know, dan was an instrumental part of creating that recovery act. $80 billion in clean energy investments, sometimes called the recovery act, the largest energy bill to ever pass the united states congress and i think we would all agree. we are proud of what is happening with the recovery act. many of you were part of making it a success. the money is rolling out the door. we are seeing mothballed plants reopening and there is a factory in pennsylvania and because of a tax credit, it has been retired people to make energy-efficient windows so families can take advantage of other tax credits. the state weather is asian programs are expanding. just a couple of weeks ago, the vice president laid out plans for a national retro said of the programs in this country. the list goes on and on. one of the greatest pieces of news that we have had is the number of larger programs that are over prescribed. there are more people prepared to put private dollars on the table with a tax credit or a match or a grant from the federal government that we had money to honor. that is an example of what is happening in this industry. we are starting to rebuild the clean energy industry in this country and we believe that this is laying the groundwork for making sure but it -- that we have all that we need in order to lead the global demand in clean energy technologies. we have taken seriously, from day one, our existing authorities. for example, early on, we saw something happen between the secretary and administrator jackson that had never happened before. they came -- the came together -- they came together and said that what we want are more efficient cars. the company said that they could not have to different regulatory regimes. the could not have to different regulatory shoot -- regulation enforcement policies. congress had said to detroit and to the auto manufacturers that you're going to have to make cars that are 35 miles a gallon by 200020. by 2016, the standard will be 35.5. we were able to achieve more than even congress thought was possible. i want to recognize all of kathy's leadership. there was a backlog in she has been moving through. she has been putting in place the standards that will give consumers choices so that they can not only get the appliances that they want, but the savings. we are excited about all of that. we have also been doing work at our other agencies.

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