Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Rule Of Nobody 20140531

Laws. He says that our government needs to be simplified in a way that allows people the freedom to be practical. This is about an hour, 15 minutes. Well, good afternoon, everybody, and thank you so much for joining us here today. Im very pleased to welcome you to the headquarters of the National Association of manufacturers. Im jay timmons, im the president and ceo here. And for those of you who are not familiar with the nam, we represent manufacturers of all sizes and all sectors from the Worlds Largest multinationals to small and medium size manufacturers all up and down main streets all across america. And were the voice for 12 million men and women who make things in the United States. So today is day two of infrastructure week. It started off very strongly yesterday with a full days worth of programs, and our guest speaker was a speaker at an event i was at last night. So hes been very involved with infrastructure week. Weve seen representatives from the Business Community from organized labor, think tanks and others in this very collaborative effort to demonstrate the urgency of Infrastructure Improvements and how that urgency is really uniting diverse interests. Be so for manufacturers, infrastructure is really a competitiveness issue. It matters in every step of the production process from receiving inputs to shipping our products to our customers not only here, but also to markets overseas. Were also vital suppliers to the transit and construction industries. In other words, investments in infrastructure have a Multiplier Effect across our entire economy. But despite proven benefits of Infrastructure Improvements, efforts to improve our nations infrastructure continue to meet with roadblocks, particularly from the regulatory and permitting framework. Ask thats the topic of the conversation and thats the topic of the conversation here today. So to launch this discussion, were very, very honored to have with us a leader who has grappled with these issues in both the public and the private sectors. Hes made Regulatory Reform a priority from his current Vantage Point in the United States senate. As governor of maine and in the private sector, angus king has developed alternative energy and conservation projects, and today he is maines First Independent United States senator. Now, i once served as a chief of staff to a governor of the commonwealth of virginia, so i saw firsthand what governors face when theyre trying to improve the infrastructure within the borders of their states. Senator king understands the challenges that are associated with infrastructure investments, and i have to say that we really couldnt have asked for a better leader to offer his insights to us here today. So, senator be king, welcome senator king, welcome to the nam. [applause] those of you im delighted to be with you, and those of you who have encountered me before know that i never read speeches. I always just talk. But i wrote something in 1992 that i think you might enjoy. And it sort of sets the context for what were talking about today. So bear with me for a minute. I know its not as its a little boring when youre reading, but god cleared his throat nervously as he rose to address the board of Environmental Protection. His engineers had been working on the plans for the tides project for almost two and a half years, and the Environmental Impact statement three volumes, not counting appendices was complete. He knew that in this case everyone in the world who owned coastal real estate were violently opposed. They had organized a group called c. R. A. P. , coastal residents against pollution. Audubon and the Conservation Law Foundation had intervened, earth first had announced that they were boycotting the process entirely and would sabotage the project even if it was permitted. God felt he had to go forward, however. Something had to be done with the oceans twice a day because of the gravitational effect of the moon. [laughter] having the water rise and fall along the coast seemed to be a reasonable solution. Most people now like the moon, by the way, although there had been some opposition to that project at first. [laughter] the opposition had been based on the grounds of visual pollution of the night sky. You could not see the stars as well as before. Friends of the animals also objected because of the unfair advantage the moon gave to predators. Like foxes and owls that were afro dents. Fortunately, friends of the predators had intervened and helped god out. Finally, god settled the moon case by promising no more than one full moon a month and that it would be phased in at that. [laughter] it had been a close call. The vote was 54, and the board was getting tougher all the time. God also felt some financial pressure to go ahead, although he would never mention this to the board. Hed already spent 2 million on the application, and he figured the only way of recouping any of that was to complete at least some part of the project. We are aware that there might be some unavoidable environmental effects from this project, god said, opening his prepared statement. The several hundred members of c. R. A. P. In the audience most of whom held signs that said things like no bathtub ring for our world, laughed derisively. Some hissed. Their attorney rolled his eyes, but god continued. Some such effect is inevitable if were to maintain the moon in its present location. We tried to mitigate the problem by exaggerating the rise and fall and the extreme northern and southern latitudes and minimizing it around the equator where the water is warmer and more has pitten. Hospitable. But what about the cost of building floating docks in places like maine, someone shouted from the back of the room. And the smell every eight hours when all that mud and good luck is exposed guck is exposed. Another year of monitoring and more millions for consultants. Yes, somebody else said, what about erosion . Whos going to pay to shore up the foundation on my cottage . Some erosion at the edge of any water body is inevitable, god pointed out, trying to stay calm. But his answer was lost in the chorus of other questions from the audience. Had he done a study of the effects on aquatic organisms . What about the wetlands . How would people figure out who owned the intertidal zone . Where was his noise study . Those waves coming in all night would make it impossible to sleep. What about possible saltwater effects on adjacent wells or impacts on sea bird nesting patterns . Quietly, god tolded his files and started to leave folded his files and started to leave. Looking back at the board, he saw whether they were arguing about whether the public hearing schedule should be extended to include a few days in the Southern Hemisphere and whether a solid waste review was necessary because of the driftwood problem. On his way out, god bent down and whispered something to his administrative assistant. Noah, he said, i think i have another idea. [laughter] so thats from a littleknown book called the castco bay scrolls. But i wrote those words in 1992, and at that time i had not yet served in public office, but ive had a variety of backgrounds that are relevant somewhat to the discussion of this question. An environmental attorney, i represented i was the lobbyist for all the environmental groups in maine in the 1970s, helped draft our bottle bill, helped draft our billboard bill that took billboards off our highways. I can say that with some pride because the draftsmanship consisted of joining a young attorney general. He and i took the vermont billboard bill and everywhere it said vermont, we crossed out out and wrote maine. That was the drafting. I then went to work in the alternative energy field, hydro, biomass. Then did work in conservation, started my own business. Did 48 major Energy Conservation projects around maine, each one of which, by the way, required local permits from a building permit, electrical permits. Then served as governor for eight years, then did some work in the wind Bangor Savings Bank or any of the other Small Community banks in maine. Did not cause the crash in 2008. And yet theyre getting a lot of the burden with from the doddfrank bill. And ive, every time i see maine bankers, thats all they want to talk about is the mountain of new applications. I think its now up to 39 forms that a borrower has to sign in order to get a simple home mortgage. And the burden is high, the is high. Small finish the cost is high. Small banks are now laying off loan officers. Because they have to do all this work on the Regulatory Compliance that isnt necessarily contributing to the solution of any discernible problem. Youve seen these studies, im sure. There are a bunch of them out there where people have calculated the cost of a regulation per life saved, health ask safety Regulations Health and safety regulations. Unvented space heater ban, i think most of us would say thats a pretty good buy. Thats reasonable, its straight farmed, and its saving lived straight farther, and its saving lives. Asbestos, about 9. 9 million per life safed. Thats a saved. Thats a lot of money, but, okay, if it was your brother or you, youd say thats a pretty good buy. But how about the Drinking Water regulation which costs 109 billion per life saved . At some point its a cost benefit, and i think we have to make those kind of calculations and really understand and say, okay, this sounds like an important regulation, but whats the cost, whats the burden, and what are the unintended consequences . Principle number three, time is money. Cape wind has been in permitting for, what, 12 years now . 14 . Ive lost track. Spent about 65 million. Thats just unacceptable. For any, anything we were talking earlier, wheres my friend from csx . Here. I asked the question, could you build the Intercontinental Railroad today . [laughter] ask yourself that question. You all are laughing. Thats, that tells you something. If you could not build the Intercontinental Railroad today in less than, you know, 40 years, thats a problem for america. Thats a competitiveness problem. The Intercontinental Railroad is one, you know, was one of the great infrastructure principles and great Infrastructure Projects of the 19th century. If essentially our infrastructure that we have today is a snapshot that we cant modify and large develop, were sunk. Were not going to be able to compete. Infrastructure, as jay said at the beginning, is the basic Building Block of competitiveness. And this has been true throughout our history. I ran across it was really interesting. A young guy was running for the legislature in illinois in 1832, and he wrote up his platform, and his platform was about navigable streams, improvement of canals and roadways. Abraham lincoln at the age of 23. And all his life infrastructure was one of the most important and basic principles that he followed. Remarkably, the Land Grant University system was invented in the middle of the civil war, 1864. During lincolns administration. And so this is absolutely part of our competitiveness, and time is money. Not only is it a question of cost, but its a question of how long does it take. And a sort of corollary of time is money is that you have to have some certainty. You all know that if youre going to get permits, in many cases its roulette. And you dont know whether youre going to get your permits or not. And so you essentially dont do the project. And we all know, we hear about these great cases like cape wind that take forever and cost all in this money. What we dont know about is the projects that never go forward where people say im not going to put my arm into that meat grinder. I mentioned that i was in the Wind Development business. We did a project in maine that took from the first meetings to the First Construction work was four years and 5 million of upfront, hightest, unsubsidized dollars. And aye often looked back ive often looked back on that and said if id have known, you know, if wed have known what we were in for, would we have done this . And a major Energy Project that certainly is controversial, some people dont like it, but its producing a lot of energy and a lot of tax revenues for the town that its in wouldnt have happened. So, you know, one question is how many its hard to measure projects that dont happen, but i think thats clearly part of this time is money principle. Principle number four is attitude is everything. Regulators in the regulation and the regulation process doesnt necessarily have to be time consuming, expensive and impossible. If the Regulatory Community has an attitude of problem solving, you can still have your strong regulation, but you dont have to have a lot of the disadvantages. National semiconductor, which is now part of Texas Instruments when i was governor in maine, was looking for a place to build a 500 Million Manufacturing facility. And one of the questions was permitting time. So we had a big meeting in maine with the people from National Semiconductor from california, and i had all my cabinet and, you know, the political people there, and the guy got up and said, well, what about permitting time, governor . I had the chairman of, or the head of the department of Environmental Protection sitting there, and i said, commissioner solomon, how long will it take to permit this plant . He said 60 days. Wed rehearsed, you see. [laughter] but it actually took 29 days. The reason it took 29 days was that the attitude of the agency was to help solve problems and anticipate problems, not find problems. Its the difference between how can we help and gotcha. Now, we didnt waive any rules, we didnt bend any rules, we didnt, you know, avoid any environmental requirements, but it was a question of how do you what is your attitude, what is the attitude of the regulator toward the regulated community . And that is principle number five, abuse of the process, and inappropriate regulatory technique. The process itself should not be a regulatory technique. Two problems and to solutions barack couple of solutions. Problem number one, permitting is too costly in the process to link the. I dont have to give you examples. You know them. You have heard of them. You probably live them. How do we solve this problem, this quandary where we could not build the intercontinental will work . Part of it is that we want to have the public involved. Its very easy to say, okay can get the power to the governor. He can wave a wand and have it happen. We need the public involved, but we need the right balance between the publics right to be involved and raise questions and have those questions answered and the right of the developer or the business entity to get a timely response. One thing we did to things that we did that i commend to u. S. Bonds, which i suspect you have heard of and have done in other states. One is onestop shopping. I think one of the most serious problems, and certainly with federal permitting, serial permitting where you have to get four or five different permits for the same project from different agencies so that you can spend no lanes of dollars in the first four. If you dont get the fifth year out of luck. And we inaugurated a system of onestop shopping where we give that jurisdiction to department of Environmental Protection, but the other agencies that had an interest had an opportunity to comment and be engaged, but a ultimately there was one decisionmaker, and i really and i think that is something that the federal government has to think about. I am interested in offshore energy development, particularly wind power. Right now you have and have to be and are working together, but i think that is something that we have to work on, onestop shopping. The other thing we had Great Success with and i think the federal government ought to think about is permit by rule. In other words, instead of having an entirely new permitting process for each project, lets take certain typical projects, lets say a highway project or a bridge project and say these the things we bill the times. In other characteristics. Here are the standards which the roads have to meet in terms of runoff, absorption, with, buffer, all of those. Lets define those standard. Then you build your room. You can have a permit to build the road according to those standards. If he did not you are in trouble, subject to enforcement, fines, tearing it down. But you see what i mean, the difference is that you set the standards upfront and let the people engineered to the standard rather than all fresh, oh, this is the first time we ever build a highway before. And that is something that we did, for example, in maine we built lots of talks. And the Environmental Protection, at least when i was there, have a permit by rule on docks. People know what the standards jobs. Hallett has to be done and how many feet above and how many feet out. But you do not have to go in and go through the process just to do something that is done, you know, somewhat on a somewhat common basis. Senator portman and some other mechanical have a bill, the federal permitting improvement act that is an idea, this onestop shopping establishes a lead agency to coordinate processes for major capital projects. I am a cosponsor. It would also reform litigation for suits. The current statute of limitations is six years. People who are involved in these cases no whether or not they want to appeal. Lets get it over with. I heard of one case or a major applicant for a huge project actually sued themselves after they got the permit just to get the process going on the lawsuit and get it over with. And i dont know whether 150 days is right or 200 days of something, but some reasonable time. Time can be a killer on projects like this. Okay. Problem number two is what i call regulatory accumulation. And i thought all lot about this i know phil has, too. This is where i went around my book. A friend of mine, a fellow i just met where is my professor friend from yale . There he is. He was at a place where recommended this book. He bought it, liked it. Was written in 1972 by a washington lawyer called the institutional imperatives, how to understand the United States government and of the bulky objects. It is the most brilliant description of institutional behavior i have the red. Is very well written, but basically the premise of the book is that if you create a Regulatory Office they will regulate. He articulates it as what he calls the iron law of the Security Office. If you create a Security Office dressed security will be found. That is a profound observation. If you think about it, if you create a Regulatory Agency that will regulate, even if we are in nirvana. You will walk in the morning and say, well, i guess we have done everything. I dont have anything to do today. There is always going to be this secretion of regulation, and it never goes away. Senator blunt and direct more roy blunt of missouri, have put in a bill of want to the be sure i get the name right. Basically a braque commission for regulation. Or regulations would have to go through a review by an independent commission saying they are either useful, not useful, ought to be modified, goes to the congress with an up or down vote and a certain number of days. Is a way of trying to cut through. There have been all sorts of efforts to try to control regular jet regulation, regulatory accumulation, but this is one that roy and i came up with. We are serious about it. And i think maybe the moment might come. The bill is going to be introduced in the house some time, i hope, and the reason the near future. So those are just some thoughts. I feel some sense of urgency about this. I mean, in many ways the United States has been lulled into a sense of complacency by the fact that we on the world for about 30 years after world war two. We were the only person left standing. And it became it became easy to do lots of things and incur a lot of cost. We have also since we are talking about infrastructure, an unrelated note of about regulation but support for infrastructure, went to the meeting last night. Mark warner presented a program on infrastructure. John delaney in the house, berlin proposals, good ideas, but you know what the fundamental problem with infrastructure in this country is . We have educated our public to the idea that they dont have to pay for things. I mean, we have not raised a gas tax since 1993. People have a feeling that they can have the roads fixed but do not have to pay for it or can have the garbage picked up at the curb or can have destroyers or low tuition at the state university. By the way, this winter was so bad in maine, the pot holes were so terrible we decided to lower the roads instead of filling the bottles. But seriously, i told the group last night, we have to talk about standing up, like grownups , and say we have to pay for abuse. Right now you all know the Highway Trust Fund goes under this august. There is no new federal money. We have spent it, and it is one more bill that our generation is leaving to our children. I just dont think that is right. I, as governor, raised the gas tax. I am here to tell about it. I survived. Actually, it was after i was reelected, i have good night. But, you know, we are kidding people if they think, you know, we can have great highways and bridges and airports and somehow they will be free. I think that you will have to give the politicians cover. You all need to raise a hue and cry about this so that people like me are not out there by ourselves, you know, advocating for paying these bills because that is just not going to work. That is where there has to be those of you who are engaged in these issues, no how important this is, no how important it is competitively for the country have to help us by helping us to educate the public that this is what we that we this is what we need to do. When i proposed an increase in the gas tax of a nickel and people were writing editorials that i was going to keep people from getting to work and it was going to be the end of the economy and the gas was 0. 90 a gallon. You know, opec imposed a 3 tax that just happened. It was you know, as you know, the highway fund is basically got. We are in real trouble, whether it is airports, railroads. Two pieces of a problem. Funding in regulatory, but those are the those are some thoughts from capitol hill, but you have to help us. You have to talk to your senators and representatives and sake, you can be an environmentalist. I just came from a Climate Task Force meeting. I am a cardcarrying environmentalist, but i also think we have got to have a process that does not strangle our economy in the meantime. So those are some spots. Thank you for tolerating the reading. I think it kind of puts it into perspective. I do not think god would have gotten the permits. Thank you very much. [applause] i can take a couple of questions. We have time for one question. Before you ask a question wait for the microphone. I answered all the questions. Sir. I am with the railroads as well. I am with the trade association. And i was just wondering about the portman the council will the mentioned. The house has already passed a similar bill. I note that there are four or five democratic cosponsors the Portman Mccaskill b ill the on the senate bill. A couple of republican cosponsors. An independent cosponsor. What are the prospects of that bill moving in the senate . I think it is possible. I dont know. Have not talked to the majority leader. If clemens gaskell is on it i think that helps. I think that there is a reasonable opportunity that we might be allowed to move, particularly if it is already passed the house and we can move forward on it. I do not know whether the Environmental Community is lining up against it or lobbying against it. I have not heard from them, but it is possible. I think there is an opportunity there. I can take one more. Thank you all. Great to see you. [applause] i have to go to the Intelligence Committee meeting. Chairman feinstein does not like it if you are late. Think you. Thank you very much for being with us, senator. We deeply appreciate your time. We will now hear from our next three speakers and then take questions at the conclusion of their presentations. My name is rosario perry, Vice President here at the National Association of manufacturers. Were pleased to have built a power with us here today to talk about his new book, the rule of nobody. A wellknown leader on government and legal reform in america and the author of the bestseller the death of common sense. The founder of common good the nl nonpartisan national coalition. Prominent civic leader in new york city, advised political leaders on legal and Regulatory Reform the last 15 years including former Vice President al gore and a number of state governors, a partner in the law firm, a graduate of yale college and university of virginia law school. [applause] thank you. I love the senators talk, especially the beginning. The infrastructure story is a bad story. That is why we are here with a d plus rating by the American Society of civil engineers. One hundred year old pipes. But rather than dwell on the negative, i think it is important to start the stock by seeing this as an opportunity. This is the lowest in fruit for the u. S. Economy and probably for the environment. No legitimate opposition to the rebuilding of it. It will improve competition, as the senator suggested. It will create 2 million jobs over the next four years if we can get a significant Infrastructure Project going. It is a good investment. Studies suggest it will repay a dollar 509 on each dollar invested. Best of all, perhaps, it will create a greater footprint for american antiquated power grid is the waste 7 of the electricity, the equivalent of 200 coalburning power plants. Rebuilding the power grid. We can eliminate the carbon, that much carbon every year by having an efficient power grid. What does it take . It takes investment. My focus is, it also takes the government actually has a capacity to say yes. We dont want anybody to build whatever they want. We need government approvals, but they ought to be delivered, balancing all interest, and be timely. Other countries do this. Germany has an average of one to two years for the largest and most and are mentally interests of projects for the approval process. Canada has a new process in place that takes two years, and america, as you know, is a multiple of that. And in my book i suggest that an aging democracy has some structural problems that must be addressed to deal with this and other issues. What happened is that wall and deregulation have piled up, mainly of the last 15 years for all sorts of wellintentioned reasons, but has become like sediment in the harbor where at this point it is impossible to make the decisions needed to move our society forward. Environmental review in the 1970s when it first started took an average of one to two years for a major road project. Now the averages over eight years. Permitting use to be something that was relatively straightforward and know its like getting lost in the amazon jungle. I tell the story of race in the roadway of the bayonne bridge cannot project with virtually no Environmental Impact of the same foundation and right away, just raising the roadway required 47 permits for 19 different agencies. Imagine what would happen if one it took them years to do this one of the societies that unlike the project. Theres something wrong with this thats more than disagreeable regulators. There are problems in the structure. Two problems. Theres a macro problem. Congress passes laws of ivanovs never goes back to see how theyre working and almost never a doubt the loss. The Environmental Review process was never intended to take a decade. Bell install interest but no one has gone back and asked if it was working as intended, bomb laws passed in 1975, we needed a special of law. Now consumers are 25 percent of the total budget. No money, virtually no money for gifted children, precare or Early Education programs so we have laws that get past with no one in congress and having the end is that theyre responsible nafta create not just a Better Process but a hundred times more board as a look back process him. The second problem is a micro problem. We have a philosophy of public law designed to avoid any official making a choice. Loss of gotten ever more detailed just to prevent anyone from ever using the judgment. We have procedures that kill on forever because no official has the authority to draw the line on when enough is enough. In 1956 the interstate highway act of the act that created the Highway Trust Fund totaled 29 pages. In 2012584 pages, and my favorite part of his the interstate highway act read the detailed procedures for the deceleration of project to every home finally at the end the president can decide. But never along the way is there an authorized Decision Maker. Theres a sense of polarization is the blind. I argue in the book of it is more a symptom infrastructures a perfect example who. In 2009 president obama with bipartisan support created 800 billion in stimulus and been it would forth with great fanfare. They have their fiveyear report issued in february. I want to look. They dont calibrate about this number appear to. Barely 3 was spent on transportation infrastructure elect the a 40. We could never build the interstate, never build a transcontinental rail system. The reason were here today is because we cannot even repair the interstate highways. We have a structural problem. First, why didnt put up with it . There is one thing the system have some. Who is responsible nobody. Who is responsible for the fact we have a budget deficit . Nobody. Of these procedures are imbedded in legal concrete and but institutional design och that is going to require a shift to fix. It proposal american with a number of you about knobs him both here and in, one idea is to give an official, probably epa, the authority to decide when has been in a free film. Not unlike examiners and of the security and Exchange Commission to make sure everything is in order, but theres somebody who can actually draw the line. Yes, no Environmental Review and edentulous someone at the epa, given other officials the authority to secondguess. You can have as many Decision Makers as you want. What you cant have is a process without a Decision Maker been. A second problem is we have to dramatically limit litigation. The reason this process works is everyone is terrified and it will get sued him. It becomes this process of what we might be able to study and. Pretty soon we have ten years from. Who will get rid of the risk of limiting the need not to vent his efforts from when. Maybe it involves the reducing the remedies available, but somehow on an obligation not to be the hidden. It should not be a power who to block projects have. The second problem is the idea of a onestop shopping and and and and three other countries have a point agency hadnt behalf an interagency mechanism to deal with internal disputes and but the process ought to be driven toward final decision been cannot and and the snake around and between our country has to restore our capacity. We are paralyzed structurally had the. Rebuilding american and destruction kaufhof. And a speaker is darren lobov and an. The focus of this were an has been improving alignment danang and been prior to his services he spent ten years working in several conservation groups in new wont be warm. Thank you. Im sick. He insists some degree and reinforces my frustration the hidden been this area is ripe for that. One into Horror Stories and a drive the debate one. I could trot out Success Stories and a and prevented them from moving forward and billion there were redesigned and. All told millions of dollars. There are Success Stories. The question for me is always, anecdotes aside and then there is a good and csx Success Story hidden him newhall long been some Success Stories some from obama what is happening with the data and the report, titled an blue in commissioning this is in the. Give me a break in in manhattan the first title says simply is the continuing policy hidden and to cooperate. Use of Organization Austin in a manner calculated to foster and promote general welfare hidden bonds nine home when us remind him the principal business regulation and hot who a very simple statute and billion and an simply an action for some tools and four agencies and and and spending federal dollars and the and teachers who with implementing. That was supposed to be the Decision Maker has come one lane been beaten when the hon half went into a look at whats happening henry the figure at hand when we can improve the process. We should probably look in in in some existing guidance and him some of which is not so bad and buried my surprise some in this run that and the ash to be no more than 150 pages long to read and incredibly complicated project it could stand him 300 pages, but that is the absolute limit. Totally ignored, of course the yen, which makes them and scroll to the average public or the average member of the public. The whole point was not to have this become the statute empowers attorneys. Would i have come to see as the Industrial Consultant complexes that profits from timeconsuming and expensive the hyacinths and. An immediate them down to manageable sizes. I heard a consultants suggest there should be required to summarize in a short video and an. If they cant and i have made a mistake. The whole idea is to make this transparent. We should also include an include the length. Better software, hardware, best practices, becoming more sophisticated. Scenario planning is becoming more the norm, especially among large metropolitan areas. Should be easier to improve project selection today reduce delays at the tail and. I still think its part of the stigma with the transportation program. We should enhance early legal hot sufficiency reviews. To be clear, there may be fear of litigation, but about. 2 of the 50,000 or so federal actions subject to review are actually litigated. There are not allowed a loss of their law litigating on this. The number as allow lower than you might think. The fear of litigation is real. There should be some sort of earlier legal sufficiency review which currently is required to do some sort of sufficiency review in order to ease the process of putting together these and reduce the chance that they end up spending thousands of pages and being totally inscrutable. And then we need to encourage the use of existing regulatory flexibility. The last transportation law have those 30 pages, but those rules are still being promulgated. And now there are new proposals that have come forward. One of the proposals actually, i think, this is in the administration bill. A onestop shopping place which is, i think, what you have talked about. Certainly when i worked for regulatory agencies in maryland in the 90s establishing an environmental permit Service Center it was really helpful to industries which wanted to locate in the state of maryland. So there is at least one proposal to set up a onestop shop and i think that makes a lot of sense. So to sum up, there is problem here. I want to make sure that we dont become fixated on how much time it takes to do the reviews. Instead we look at the quality of the reviews and the readability and just how much they are available in plain english and, frankly, how inexpensive they are the british should not be as inexpensive as it is and as timeconsuming as it is to do a eis. I would submit to you that that is not because of actual litigation that because of fear of litigation and, frankly, again there is an entire Consulting Agency that has grown up around it and profits mightily. So thanks. [applause] our final speaker before some discussion, the director of federal affairs for csx worry is responsible for energy, labor, the veterans, and highspeed rail issues previously serving at progress in energy Duke University and former u. S. Senator. A board member of washington d. C. And holds the degrees from the university of pennsylvania and Duke University. [applause] thank you. Its an honor to be here to talk with you today and to speak with these other gentlemen. I would like to take a moment to step back and tell you why i think were here. Earlier today we heard how senator king say things like time is money. Certainty that we understand. Attitude is everything. The process should not be the regulatory technique. The talk a little bit about balance i think the as we look at it, congress and revisiting regulation, the dodgers revisit, but how about rewriting those regulations. What if in the Business Community those of us around here never revisited or rewrote our standard operating procedures. My guys will still be driving steam locomotives. We would be on different gauge railroad havent stopped at memphis and cincinnati and chicago to switch out boxcars. We always have to be willing to go back henry looked at the things that we have done to see if theres a better way to do it. Rings me to talking about why think dark. We have 21,000 miles of track in 23 states and 7,000 counties, cities, towns, villages, and at any given time we have regulations that layer upon layer upon layer in each one of those jurisdictions. Some may be federal, state, some we deal with maybe canadian. We have to make sure that our business which is seamless runs across all of those platforms. We have been doing this now for a boy on 180 years. We have grown up with this Regulatory Environment that we live in. As i kind of my thinkpad anecdotes, in this case they can be to tell us why we need to go back and revisit what we have done. In our case i will give you one that i think is illustrative of good and bad in a sense, and its right here in the nations capital. We have a project we call the national gateway. North the baltimore all the way to our facility in northwest ohio. Sixtyone significant projects, major tunnel projects, some deal with the harbor is very tunnel. One is a project in d. C. That deals with virginia. All private capitol, no federal dollars. Its pretty near here. No 100yearold tunnel that needs desperately to be rehabilitated. The project a we propose several years ago would be to go in and to create a tall structure that allows us to double stack which gives trucks off the road, reduces emissions significantly by about nine and a half million times, they said hundred and 60 million gallons of diesel fuel reduction and takes about 7 billiontruckload miles. This seems like a pretty good process. There are those who would argue maybe on the other side. And thats a legitimate discussion. One of the things we run into is when we did get into the process we have been in that process now for five years. I dont think and i think that our folks agree that is not a productive time frame. There are things that can be done to shorten that, to help those projects that have good benefits move along. As we look at it, permitting this freeforall of federal, state, local, and court layer upon layer upon layer is trapping our business capitol on the sideline and diverting it into this process that tries to stop projects. That is will we have seen to be you might ask me what triggered the process. That is one of the things we have discussed. What triggered it was an exit ramp to 295 the will of the clothes were to three days to get this project going. That triggered this whole process. So its frustrating to know that we would like to be in to the occasion with the community to read it has been frustrating for us to deal with the process that we thing because that process is not been revisited. As our other panelists said, we believe that this regulatory review process should be focused on keeping people safe, opening up lines of communication and transparency and accountability and providing authority for people to be a will to make the decision as that of one in which we have seen layer upon layer upon layer of these regulations, each with their own little good benefit. I mean, when people make these regulations and i think you pointed out that they dont do it out of wellintentioned. When people began the believe that the time that they were making a regulation or rule or legal dictates that had ag could entity, that was focused to do good, but over time those things changed. We need to be able to take a look back. And so i think one of the things that struck me as i looked of the book, every law does have the unintended consequences. They generally represent this, but times change and technology changes. Some of the rules we run into or obviously written before the internet, written before we were blog and emailing and tweeting and all of these different things, and they dont recognize the communication between our company and the neighborhood that we impact is immediate. In the regulations themselves actually prevents us from opening a transparent dialogue with the communities from time to time. There are regulations in place now we have to take ten different steps before we can do some of these interactions and meetings. And so this gulf that is created by the regulations themselves then builds a sense of distrust between the communities that we actually want to be in discussions with, that we want to be able to mitigate damages with and discuss the Public Benefits with him and discuss the options on the table. Whod think that there are significant ways or you can reform beaufort time and technology some of these various rules and regulations because they have become obsolete and destructive. And it is not the actual basis of the rule or regulation in the beginning with the way that they are now being used as a tool to prevent these types of activities from going forward. And also, i found it interesting in the book, you said and others have said that the centralized legal dictate disempowers citizens of every level. I think we found that to be true in a project. The citizenry that we would like to be communicating with and talking to them those who we talked to of our Public Meetings dont have the authority. They dont have a collective ability to be able to make this decision for their neighborhood or for their Senior Center because it is so tied up in the halls of government. Even if the neighborhood in some sense as we believe one to deal to come to the table, there are walls and goals, and these regulations have sprouted between us that makes it difficult for us to move forward on our project. And so as we look forward to we would like to see, we believe there are ways within the new transportation bill, always within the legal structure to come up with some efforts to revisit these regulations, whether that is some setting will whether there is some statutory, you know, builds and review process that goes back and looks set the regulations, whether its a the iraqstyle commissioner something, i think in is to be a recognition, but then the government of community, the Business Community, the we are harming ourselves because our regulations are not keeping up with our times, technology, and tensions. Again, if we look at what is in the best interest of csx, if elected what is in the best interest of those of us in the Business Community, for asset is a vibrant economy where folks are buying things and moving goods and wanting to build factories and wanting to go to work every day and one in to manufacture things because the far folks dont make it we cant move it. Its very simple for us. Our best interest is served when we can have all these various components moving to gather. The worst thing for us is a stagnant Regulatory Environment that stops business in its tracks. And so we want to see these things working concurrently, as we have said before. The review process should not be sequential. We believe that there can be some builtin mechanisms to make some of these reviews concurrence. And we are not faced, again, with of 5year process which should not have taken half as long. Again, i come back finally to say we do believe that if we allow these ideas of responsibilities and authorities and accountabilities and transparency to come back into the process, if you dont believe that regulation once written are written in stone, that if you believe that these regulations should be adjusted with the time in the business and the environment and have some flexibility, then we have a way forward. If you believe, instead and that these regulations once written should never be revisited and we have a problem. And that is going to cut off all dialogue. We applaud the efforts of those within whether it is a state legislature or in the halls of congress to try and come back to this regulatory maze and to look at it and say if indeed these are regulations that are getting in the way of both creating Business Opportunities and jobs and, we believe, getting in the way or creating a better environment for all of our business and children then we will act on it, and we will act on it now. Again, thank you for allowing us to be a part of this panel and this discussion. [applause] i have dealt so much with communities and politicians, principally in montgomery county, md. , and a lot of the environmental issues, not really in our mental issue the land use issue, people petrified of change, petrified of social change, and you have politicians who and i work with them, very understanding of the issues we talk about, but they have hundreds of people coming up in front of them loring greek. We have a land use tradition of recourse. I am just wondering, also we have the press. The press come three hours from now. They have to do an article. What do they want to do . They want to make a controversy out of it. They dont want to talk about the benefits. They want to talk about the negatives. The next issue is an editorial against the project. So are we talking about another even deeper paradigm shift . Well, one of the things that i think is really missing in America Today is the people with moral authority. Everyone is so used to adjust to advancing their own costs that people who should have moral authority are seen as special Interest Groups now. It is hard to find somebody who people will believe. So senator king, for example, i think he is a person who in his jurisdiction has moral authority he stood up and said to my know people are upset about this, it is incredibly important overall for the citizens of the state of maine. So that sacrifice is something. It is small compared to the benefits. We have to move forward. People would accept it. Is a decision, but it is said by someone who is not just trying to do the bidding of one person or another. We need to build a rebuild a tradition of the howard bakers and bill bradleys and senator king that when they stand up they say something. Instead, we have a culture today in washington which seems to be calculated to avoid moral authority at all costs. Public statements, by people that are just serving their selfinterest, whenever it happens to be. While. That sounds terrible. Did you write a book . No. Okay. There is and marilyn their wrote about. That is what, i think, you are talking about. You are talking about citizens who dont want anything in their backyard. And this is difficult. This is one of the stickier, more difficult things we will have to grapple with, particularly in metropolitan areas becoming more belts out, we will have to do more in phil and redevelopment, and it is going to be tough. This is one place i was not sure about your book where you talked about who you trust more values wise i was reminded. If we are nervous about peoples discretion the whole idea is to inform their discretion. When it comes to things like that, that is where planning and project Development Needs to become much more sophisticated about communication, about making sure that people know exactly what is going to come, and we have people, as you said, public officials, who do go out and take a stand and say this is for the public good and help trump people who have much more parochial concerns. This is a big concern, at least for nrdc in increasingly for environmentalists. It is becoming clear that superior and our mental performance is going to require more info and redevelopment as opposed to sprawl development. And it is going to be tough. When i was a young lawyer i was the chair of the equivalent to the zoning board for midtown manhattan. It was all development. I chaired Public Meetings every month. People would come in and say this project should be blocked because it interferes of my few. Things like that. And then sometimes people show up and say some of this is destructive of the culture of this neighborhood and for a variety of reasons. And i believe strongly in community input, but i also believe that community is not necessarily the last source of wisdom. So you meet, and that is one of the reasons Environmental Review is so great because it is selfdestructive. It gets facts on the table and allows the debate to happen, but the community should not make the final decision because then the common good gets killed. Someone has to be looking at both the Community Interest and the common good to make a final decision. Youre talking about someone who represents the Community Needs to have the guts. Well, in the case of new york city, lets say, the mayor. Not just the community. A community, if you have communitybased Decision Making then you have the articles of confederation and nothing ever happens. I think, you know, from a business perspective we often say that there has got to be a room between yes and no. Those cant be the only two options. Yes if has to be an option. In a sense, we have become benefit as opposed to risk averse. And as senator king says to my attitude is everything. Aptitude is as well. Sometimes we have these layers of regulation and expect officials to come and having been elected or appointed to automatically become experts on these things, and it is virtually impossible to expect them to do that. So i think we have to think about the Regulatory Framework where we, if we are going to allow people and have an educated discussion about these things tend to be able to, you know, have some authority and transparency i think we do have to come back again to have created a sense of where the Regulatory Environment is preventing us from being able to sit down and have that conversation and to be almost afraid of moving so paralyzed have moving forward that we are forgoing the benefits that we could get out of projects if only we could find somewhere between yes and no. And although this is the end of our panel, it is certainly not the end of this conversation please join me in thanking all of our panelists today. Thank you for joining us. [applause]. Jill ker conway appeared on booknotes to talk about her book when memory speaks reflections on