Federal prisons. Thats live tuesday at 10 00 eastern here on c span 3. Millennials and their role in todays economy was the topic of a republican policy meeting on capitol hill. The task force is chaired by Elise Stefanik who at the age of 31 is the youngest member of congress. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. The House Republican policy meeting task force on millennials will now come to order. The committee is meeting today to discuss the essential role of mill epials in todays economy. And though were meeting on that important topic, couldnt start todays hearing without mentioning that our hearts and minds are with the people of paris today as they deal with the horrible tragedy over the weekend. We want them to know that we hurt as they hurt. And we all understand together that we have to be united in standing up to these terrorist thugs threatening our waive rife and ultimately douefeating them. I will recognize myself for an opening statement. I want to thank everyone for coming today. Its an exciting day as we host the second Millennial Task force to discuss how the millennial generation is shaping our economy. Today millennials are the largest generation in the workforce, and by 2020, just five years from now, they will represent 50 of it. Now think about that for a second. In just five short years, millennials will make up half of the american workforce. Thats exciting througnews, but also creates a number of challenges. The writing is already on the wall for many p millennials. Student loan debt has risen]iui 1. 2 million. Increasing over 50 . Wages have stagnated. Young people are being poursed to live at home longer. And the president S Health Care law has shifted the cost from the old to the young. Millennials arent asking us to give them a prepass. Theyre just asking us to give them a fair shot. And weve got a long way to go. But the good news is that even though government pea hamay hav helped create this mess, it can also help fix it. As Ronald Reagan said, there are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We just have to have the courage to do what we know is morally right. The first praise lace we can st getting out of the ways of businesses that are fighting to give millennials a chance. There are companies that are rewriting the rule book. These businesses have taken an uncommon approach to fixing common problems, and by doing so, they have truly changed the world. For instance, when was the last time that you opened an encyclopedia or had to walk miles to find a cab . These businesses are changing the way our economy works, and for the future of the millennial generation, we can no longer allow government to get in if the way. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, the youngest woman ever elected to congress has been a tireless advocate in the halls of congress for millennials, and we are pleased to have her leading this task force today. For those of you in the audience or watching online who pea have questions for our witnesses, you can tweet your question using the , gopfuture. And we may ask your question, time permitting, during this hearing. I now recognize the gentle lady from new york, the chair of the policy committees Millennial Task force, congresswoman stefanik. Thank you chairman messer, and i would like to take the opportunity to thank our distinguished panel of witnesses for taking the time to testify and share your knowledge and expertise with us. It is a distinct honor to chair the task force and lead todays hearing as we continue our discussion on how i would as legislators can greatly empower the millennial generation. Id like to take the opportunity to revisit our previous hearings. This is the third in an ongoing series where we have explored and discussed the millennial generation. In june we held our first hearing and we had the Manhattan Institute laying out the demographic break down of americans between the ages of 1834. We reviewed Current Trends and polling data that showed this generation is different in many ways from their parents and grand parents. For example, millennials are the most highly educated generation in american history, yet they also feel the most politically disengaged. In august i held a field hearing in my distribute where i heard from millennial constituents representing a diverse set of backgrounds, they shared real world examples facing a john racial that will soon comprise half of the american workforce, problems such as regulatory issues that hold back farmers. Things that prevent the next Small Business from opening and a government that is slow to adapt have left these Young Americans feeling stifled. As we come together once again we have the privilege of hearing from Industry Leaders who represent the cutting edge of fresh thinking and adaptive policies when it comes to the modern workplace and economy. We will hear how companies are attracting and retaping millennials to their workforces and gain a better understanding how technology is empowering our constituents to support themselves and giving them the flexibility they desire. Millennials have now surpassed generation xors as the largest generation in the labor pours. One in three American Workers today is a millennial, and this percentage will rapidly increase in the coming years. For companies to stay competitive, they will need to be able to harness the talents, experiences and energy of a generation that currently includes 80 million americans. With this new generation, as with all generations come new ways of doing things and fresh outlooks on the world around us. Past generations have looked for stability and certainty, whereas millennials look for flexibility and fulfillment. I brief these shifts will make the United States stronger and more competitive. I look forward to a pro ducktive dialog. Other members of the task force may be recognized in the future when they come in to share statements, but i will move on to introducing the witnesses. I will start with maisie clark who is a Government Affairs analyst at google, working on their advocacy efforts on a wide range of technologies. She has worked at google since 2010 in the people operations, sales and Governmental Affairs divisions. Prior to google, she worked at kiva. Org. She graduated from Harvard College in 2009 with a degree in history. Terry mcclemens is the washington metro managing partner for Price Waterhouse cooper. She leads a practice comprised of over 4,000 professionals serving public, private and government clients and is responsible for all Client Services in the washington metro area. She previously served as oust Human Capital leader and global tal. Leader. During her tenure as oust Human Capital leader, her strategies were recognized and she was recognized by the womens Business Journal as one of the most powerful people in the greater dc. Area. She was also recognized by the National Council for research on women as a trail blazer. One of those who contributed to significant change in the lives of women and girls. Our last is the policy leader for uber. He is responsible for advocating ubers progrowth, marketdriven Business Model to all stakeholders and interested parties. Prior to uber, he served for kevin mccarthy. In this role, he was responsible for coordinating outreach to key organizations that were interested in legislation being considered by the u. S. House of representatives of brian began his career in washington, working for congressman dave hobson and served as a political appointee at the u. S. Small Business Administration and as a Vice President of affairs for independent electrical contractors. He is a graduate and lives in arlington, virginia. The chair recognizes maisie clark for five minutes for an opening statement. Hello. Im going to start over. Thanks. Hi, everyone. My name is maze eye clark with google. Its an honor and pleasure to be here with yall today. I worked at google in a variety of different roles in the past five and a half years. As you poe, the recession has disproportionately affected millennials. I graduated from Harvard College in 2009 at the height of the recession and i did not have a job lined up on graduation day. I took an unpaid internship for five months as i searched for aen gaua engaging and salaried position. Recruiting wasnt exactly the career path i imagined i would pursue when i was in college, but i really mighted needed to money and move out of my parents house. I couldnt ask for a more rigorous and engaging experience. This is because of the way google focuses on its people. It positions itself in many ways to hire and retain millennials, but four themes unite them all. A culture of flexibility, trust in our employees and a constant pursuit to have an inclusive workplace. Countless surveys about what motivates millennials, including deloittes 2015 Millennial Survey show that a mission they believe in is the most important factor for millennials. Googles mission is to organize information. Our mission is distinctive in its simplicity and scope. Many focus on Customer Experience and improved operations and shareholder value, google is focussed on purpose rather than business goal. Mill epials also care a great deal about having flexibility in their careers, both in their day to day work but also in their career trajectories. Work hours at google are flexible. And as long as you get your work done the company is happy. We also allow 20 projects where they can spend 20 of their time working on projects which they think can benefit the company or delight customers. Gmail launched in 2004 and is now one of googles most beloved products. Google always encourages us to keep learning. Googlers can receive an Educational Reimbursement for courses they take outside of work. If a Software Engineer wants to take a course in medieval literature, google will pay for one third of the cost of that course. If its like learning a new code language, google will pay for twothirds of the cost. They offer yearlong rotations to experience what its like to work in another department or another part of the world. My colleague is in south africa and is gaining meaningful experience and cultural exposure as a result of it. Trust in our employees is also an enormous cultural pillar at google. The code base, which contains all the source code that make our products work is almost 100 available to newlyhired engineers on their first day of work. By trusting our employees with confidential information we are treating all people including millennials like the valued, mature people they are. They hold a company wide meeting where they take questions from any employee about products, leadership decisions and the direction of the company. It allows each employee to make his or her voice heard and have access to the top of the company who are making important decisions for the business. This creates a meaningful connection that has a positive motivation for their loyalty to the company. They place an emphasis on bringing our whole selves to work and respect the differences of others. Our lack of dress code is a large appeal but it goes far beyond that. Google has invested a great deal of resources of combating unconscious bias, which is the capacity to give preference to others. They work to brake down the bias to make sure were assessing in the most objective way possible. We also have a number of employee resource and advocacy groups. Mission, transparency, trust and inclusion have paved the way for google to be considered a top employer by mill epials, and we strife each day to retain this incredibly talented john racial of technologists. Thank you, ms. Clark. The chair now recognizes mrs. Mcclemens for an opening statement. Thank you, congress stefanik, congressman messer and other distinguished members of the congress for inviting us to talk to the task force hearing. We are delighted to share some of the Innovative Strategies weve implemented to talent attraction, development and retention of a group of people often misunderstood, millennials. Our workforce is streakingly young. By next year, mill epials will account for approximately 80 of our peep. So the issue of how we attract, engage and develop the youngest members of our organization is something weve spent a lot of time thinking about. They are often stereotyped as being selfabsorbed, lauzy or quick to shift loyalties. Weve found that to be unfounded. And when we started paying attention to the Millennial Workforce motivations and interests, we ended up with a fresh perspective on the Work Experience for our entire firm of in 2012, pdbc collaborated with researchers from Southern California and rlondon business school, what motivates them and how to keep them engaged. What we found were real generational differences among older and younger hires. One of the main take aways from our study was understanding how much millennials and even our experienced people valued flexibility in their schedules and their careers. In many cases, millennials are willing to give up the opportunity to make more money or climb the corporate ladder to find a role that offers them the flexibility to work from home or time to follow their passions. We use this information to rethink what kinds of flexibility we are offering all of our people. In january 2013, we launched a contest, which we called plan to flex, where we asked our managers to work with their teams to find a way to achieve flexibility by supporting each other during one of the busiest times in our Business Cycle january through march. The goal was to focus on clients and have time for things that matter to the individual. We had more than half of our people participating. In early 2014, we took it one step further and rolled out yearround flexibility for the entierp organization. Were finding more unique ways to offer flexibility and balance. We recently launched our flexibility scare tquare talent network. Weve had professionals enroll in medical school during most of the year and come back to us for the busy season. Another professional started their passion and started a bakery. Millennials are also reminding us about how to engage in communication. Its a myth that younger people only want to communicate through electronics. This insight pushed us to take a fresh look at our Performance Management practices, which, at the time, were largely paperdriven, process driven, back ended and often focussed on assignment of compensation as opposed to career development. In 2014, we replaced our old process with a new Leadership Development experience, grounded by our pdbc framework which emphasizes the competencies necessary to solve important problems in an everincreasingly complex world. We are creating a real Time Development culture, emphasizing frequent, informal, in the moment feedback to help our people every day. We developed an app that charts progress to facilitate morrow bust career conversations. Millennials also want to know that theyre valued and appreciated for the contributions theyre making. It can come in the form of real time rewards or for finishing a project. It can also be expressed more subtly in the way we talk with each other and express appreciation. Have you use just one of your seconds to say thank you . Thats appreciation. It takes about a second, but the value of giving that feedback can be impactful and longer lasting. It used to be that the promise of one day becoming a partner of pbdc was the reward for slogging away at the office to matter of the other demands one may have outside of the work. But today, pbdcs goals honor purpose, our reason for being, our millennials take that purpose to heart. Theyre even willing to leave if what were doing as an organization doesnt align with their core values. Weve invested time in teaching people about our purpose, how we build trust in society and solve important problems. We have spent time looking at pdbcs commitment to social issues and sew sigh tal trends to make an impact. Weve taken an active role to promote literacy and support the needs of our veterans and be involved in our own communities to take time away to engage in something meaningful to them. This issue of purpose and meaning has led to one of ou newest projects. Wife looked at the recent debt, there are currently 1. 3 trillion in outstanding loan debt in this country. Most of that debt is owed by millennials. We saw this as a sew sigh tal issue that we could have impact on by helping employees at pwdb. Some in our firm will be able to receive 7600 over six years to repay student loans. In closing, one of the biggest Lessons Learned is to embrace the opportunity to learn from anyone offering a fresh perspective. Our research into millennials has breathed new life into a number of policies. We are not afraid of millennials. Of a and were getting results with higher overall Employee Satisfaction and retention rates. Lastly, i would add that our job is never done. We need to constantly think about its rating our talent practices. Thank you for having me today. Id be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, mrs. Mcclements. I appreciate your giving me an opportunity to be here today. I want to talk about this a little differently if i can. I dont want to talk about uber does for fulltime employees like me, because its just as good as what youve heard so i dont get fired its better than what youve heard from the other two companies. Weve heard a lot about flexibility and what a value millennials place on nextbility. I think we all do. And what uber does, and what that means for people as consumers and people who are drivers on our platform as well. When i have this conversation about uber, its somewhat ubiquito ubiquitous. But five years ago the company just got started. Six years ago the technology didnt exist of the phone battery would drain when it was plugged into the drivers car. Now the technology exists, and we take this for granted. Who knows what the next year would bring or what the next technology is or the next app on our phone saying i cant remember what it was like not to have that on my phone or not to be able to do that. So thats where technology is moving and its changing the way people interact. Its empowering individuals to not have to go through a big chain store to deal with, were dealing with the person were having the transaction with. When youre a uber ride, youre dealing directly with the person whos paying you or providing you with the service and you get to rate them afterwards. Its a very empowering thing. There are a lot of appbased companies that provide this kind of interaction and cut out the middleman. To give you a smap shot, id like to give the committee a snapshot of what were talking about and how this impacts and what it means economically. Right now on uber platform, we are in more than 300 cities around the world. Pour tan 70 countries. United states, we are in more than 200 cities here. We have 400,000 plus active uber drivers in the United States, people on the platform driving, these are people who do more than four trips a month. Globely, that numbers excess of 1 million. 23 of the drivers on the uber platform in the United States are 29 or younger. 49 of the riders on the uber platform are 49 and younger. And this is something i want to talk a little more about. The way this is changing the way the millennials get around and the way they move aroundsd ci or move in cities now as opposed to living out in the suburbs. Its changing the way cities are shaped and the way people move. If i can give you a couple more numbers that speak to the flexibility of this platform and the flexibility of the technology allowing peep. More than half of the uber drivers drive fewer than ten hours a week. More than 40 are below eight hours a week. Theyre picking up, whether its a weekend. The first uber ride i took i went to headquarters, go to the joint giants game. My driver stays home during her day with her child. She says if my kids sick, i dont get fired. If my husband works late i dont have to go out. If i can, i go out and make a little extra money. For a lot of people, thats a big deal. Thats a make or break thing or the difference between going on vacation or paying down your student debt. So providing people with that flexibility without locking them in to what we traditionally whe consider fulltime jobs is empowering for individuals. And these Technological Developments are allowing. This wasnt possible ten years ago. This wasnt possible when i was in the mill epial cohort, which im no longer in now. Its a real tunes that technologys provided to people. The other number i want to throw out, so far in 2015, drivers on the uber platform in the United States have brought home 3. 5 billion in earnings. Thats an exciting thing as well. As the product arts starts to g and expand, and this isnt just new york city or boston or San Francisco, this is going to be upstate new york soon. Theres more potential there for people to take advantage of this flexibility to fit into their own schedules. So the next thing i want to talk about if i could is the way this changes how people move. And this is the other thing about when you talk about the 49 of the riders on our platform, people who take rides are in this millennial cohort and 29 and younger. This is the way theyre moving around their cities of it talks about how a story about urban revitalization but economic opportunity. We compared yelp, we use yelp data with our own trip data and showed that 31 of our trips begin or end at an independent business. It wouldnt be a chain store or chain restaurant. You go to china town, all the things around are big box, big chain because thats expensive real estate. Its the guy five blocks away, bar, own boutique, whatever it is. Ubers making it easier to get to those businesses. We presume and hope when they get to those businesses they spend money. We know those independent businesses are the drivers of our economy. Thats an exciting data point we like to throw out there. That will bare more fruit and well be able to show you more data like that for the cheecono impact on our cities. Something else that people like to do at bars is drink. Weve seen dui reduction, incident related reductions. Weve got data to back this up. We work with local Law Enforcement in certain places. We have breathalyzers set up so you can take a test and decide its best to take a uber home, but that has an impact as well. You have a large sew sigh tal benefit. There is no excuse to say i can have one more and drive. You dont need to do that anymore. You have a convenient, easy way to get yourself home or heave your c leave your car if you need to. People get around their cities, people are more yaapt to go out. Another thing id like to talk about is a trnd that baffles me, but this is the idea that people dont want to own cars anymore. I dont understand thacht im old enough to remember how old i was when i got pmy first car an the makes and models of my friends cars. People i work with at uber, some of them dont even have a valid drivers license anymore. They carry their passport. They dont want a car. Its a generational thing. I dont understand it, but i accept it. If youre not going to have a car, youve got to have a means of getting around. That brings you to uber. A lot of this is that first mile, last mile. I live five miles from the metro. I take a uber. Some of it is debtigetting stra from a to b. This is uber pool, a carpooling function. And, again, talk about something i dont understand how they make it work, but the app now can determine whether multiple people are going along the same route to generally the same direction. We both volunteer, we both ask for a ride on uber pool. It picks me up, picks the next person up, plsplits the fare automatically. Instead of having two cars take wou two of us somewhere, you have one car do the same thing. You look at whether its a large at this or small area, sitting in rush hour traffic, congestion downtown. Youre talking serious mitigation of traffic, which obviously has infrastructure benefits of but then youre also talking about, again, youre making it easier for people to get around. Theyre more apt to be out, spending money. This is the kind of thing its okay for me to work from home i can get in there quickly and conveniently. Maybe it is something im allowed to work from home. And i think thats a benefit more and more companies are seeing for employees. Were chaping the way people move around their cities. And with that, the thing id like to caution folks about or encourage them, i go back to the fact this being a five year old company. Who knows what well be talking about a year from now or two years from now. I think the positive impact this is having is Something Congress should look at as something they should nurture and encourage and not something they should try to hug so hard that they strangle it. So with that appreciate the committee having me here and happy to take any questions. Thank you, mr. Worth. I now recognize myself to ask questions, and my first question, i will ask of ms. Cras clark. So you mentioned google 20 plan which allows employees and members of the workforce to folk on e focus on the company. Can you give us an idea on how that could work in a more traditional setting. How might the government be able to implement a system to our processes which seem woefully out of date . I would say just being flexible enough to allow people to come up with these ideas and perhaps having an interm system for people to sure those ideas, you could use crowd source, people could vote on whether or not they think the idea is something that the group of people could pursue. And then its really just about empowerment at the end of the day. The technologies exist to allow this to happen. But i think, you know, having staffers come up with great ideas and having all the different offices support allowing them to have time on these ideas to update older processes i think would be wonderful, and its been amazing at google. I, myself, got a wonderful trip to london out of a to p20 proi did on journalists how to use a google tool to expose Money Laundering around the world. It was very impactful. And i thinksourcing those ideas would be wonderful. Thank you. Mrs. Mcclements, you referenced how pwc is constantly reaching out to get feedback. Can you talk about how that has impacted the Office Culture and does this create a sense of motivation and ownership as youve noticed the difference as you started this program. Thank you. Wonderful question. So we have a culture whereby we are constantly seeking feedback. So theres two things a we do. Weve moved from an annual survey process from our people to get feedback on the environment to more quarterly surveys on the work environment. That is something that we call real time feedback. So each and every day, with every major interaction, were seeking and asking for feedback. Both upwards and downwards, so that with every new assignment, every new client, every new conversation, the next time that we have it we will be better equipped to have a more strategic conversation with our clients, with our stakeholders and the community. So weve got this concept of real time, in the moment paid back, supported by periodic surveys that we call listening, learning and adapting so that were constantly getting feedback to adapt our processes. My next question is for mr. Worth. You talked a lot about millennials moving to urban areas and the increased ridership in underserved neighborhoods. Do you think an increase in types of Services Like uber could help attract millennials to more rural areas across this country in. Sure. As this becomes more common, weve seen this in the difference between large cities and midsized urban areas, it does become do you want to be that city, do you want to be that area that attracts, and its not just about uber. Its about access for people. And i definitely think this is something as the technology, papds and becomes pour widely used, this is absolutely something uber will be in more places than it is now. It will be much more commonplace. It will attract people. It will be something people look towards. If youre used to having that and that convenience, thats what this is about, flexibility. Youre not going to want to give that up if you go somewhere else, its going to be something you factor into that. Thank you. I now recognize chairman messer. Great. Thank you. Can i have maybe a more direction questidirect question about policy. You know, maisie, i have to talk about when you talked about being an intern at google, i cant help but think about the internship where they were defeating unconscious bias. Those who dont know the movie, vince vaughn and owen wilson were a couple of washedup 40 somethings who had an internship at google and became fairly successful. For those of you closer to my age, think revenge of the nerds for this decade, but really kind of a fascinating movie. But could you talk a little bit more about this principle of unconscious bias and the way its out rit utilized in the . I will note that i was an extra in the movie. We do have an Employee Resource Group for older googlers. They call themselves graiglers. Older is what, 45 in. I would have to look it up, but its probably woefully low. Theres been a big push specifically about magoinabout everybody recognizes the differences of others in a way that doesnt hinder them to have the best dialog and to review employees, you know, for performance and promotion, making sure that everyones evaluated equally. And theres, we have a bunch of reinings, we have inperson trainings that weigh have. We times do them externally as well for people. So we have trainers who, thats either part time or pulltime job for them. And then we have an Online Training thats available to all employees, and ive taken that myself and found it really informative. So weedd love to bring that to the government, make it more widely accessible so we can follow up on that later. Now carrie, sort of fascinated to hear this number that 80 of the workforce at pwc is millennials. Could you, one, expand a little on how that happens . And then maybe talk a little bit about some of the opportunities and some of the challenges that come from that makeup of your workforce. Sure, great. I think part of the why we get to 80 so quickly, when the workforce is literally going to be at about 50 is our Business Model in terms of how we promote and develop people. With the add developmevent of o leadership experience, we want to be the developer of talent. So whether people decide to stay with our firm long term or whether they decide to go to pursue a ua career in another , we want to be the company where they want to come to grow and develop. And i would love to share the fact that we are second behind google in terms of recognition from campus, in terms of the brand where business students see their destination to go, which is fantastic. So then, as to the second part of the question, looking at the opportunities and the challenges that perhaps exist, we see it as opportunities. We saw the fact that many areas im a boomer with the influx of the generation helping us see that there were different ways to do what we were doing, delivering our services internally and externally from a talent perspective. So we took advantage and through Innovation Challenges several years ago to get ideas from our people for ideas on how we deliver our products, we see all upside. And brian, real quick, its amazing to hear that ubers only in year five. When i think of the story of uber, im reamedy f z that the s quo is a fierce fighter, and you have been through regulatory challenges, as those that are vested in the preexisting structure sort of push back against the Disruptive Technology that uber represents, could you tell a little bit of that story . Some of the challenges that ubers faced or in dealing with sure. Absolutely. And a lot of this comes from, you know, uber being something so new. Were not a transportation provider in the typical sense. The app connects someowith some wanting a ride. We were going city by city, duking it out with the taxing industry. And now its expanded so much. I mentioned more than 200 cities in the unit, we do something that frankly for myself as a republican and for most business seems odd, we should go and ask to be regulated. Dont let us be crammed into this old box, theres something new out there. You need to treat it as something new. You need to have some floor of regulation to allow a company to operate with stable. From a business standpoint, it makes total sense. You need that kind of stability and structure out there to operate your business, but its been fascinating. Weve watched from the inside from this fight were having, whether we should even exist, whether we should be allowed to operate to now uber can operate, but how do we treat it . How do we tax it if how do we regulate it, how do we do all these other things. Its something where i think we might be starting to grow up as a company and getting away from the startup phase. When i talk about the nature of how it connects with the person youre riding with, whether youre the rider or the driver, it has allowed uber to win these regulatory fights at the state and local level. The constituents, whether its the state legislators, the constituents want it. They say yes, i know exactly what its like to not have that, and i want to have it and you as my lawmaker need to figure out how to make it work. It has been fascinating to see that from a grassroots standpoint. Its one of the most tra significanceal pdiggsal products that we boy. Its amazing to see the grassroots of this product. I want to start with you, ma maze eye. Why do you think millennials find having an Engaging Mission so important to their careers . Its a really interesting question. I think it has a rot to do with being raised predominantly by the baby boomer generation. That was a very idealistic, strongwilled generation in its own right, and we were instilled with those values by our parents of certainly the case for me. And i think at thats true pour for a lot of millennials, and incorporated into education that it wasnt quite 60 years ago. I think thats the predominant reason and a great thing. So just to follow up. In terms of googles mission, its very unique in that it can never truly be complete, as you mentioned. It constantly needs to innovate. And many occupations and businesses aim to accomplish a very known and clear task, whether its providing a ride from point a or point b or what pwc does on an annual basis. How do you think companies in professions such as the trades or outside the technology, i would ask you to start. Its just about wording. I think companies such as pwc and uber are constantly innovating and could frame their missions and probably do to a certain extent frame their missions in ways that are very forwardlooking, long term, and i think that thats something very special about googles mission that i think it is really helpful, and its a big hallmark of the Tech Industry in general. So, if i think about our purpose, right, and is to build trust in society and solve important problems. And you can think about that broadly and say what is that . What does that mean . And our millennials care about that. So if i think about that, whether its Building Trust in society and solving problems from the work that we do to Financial Statement audits or the reports that we produce so that investors are making good decisions. Whether we turn to other sew sigh tal issues where people are working on better ways to analyze data, that might help reduce suicide rates for example, those are the real kind of projects that were working on for society, for businesses, for our government. And so our people look at that and say thats real impact. So our people have been pleased to have the opportunity to spend a lot of time visiting our Public Sector practice in the kind of work theyre doing, supporting the United States and our people know the mission. They know the mission theyre working on. And theyre excited about deliverings really how we brint to life and giving understanding and feedback on that purpose as well. Uber, i think the onus is pretty clear. Were change the way cities move and the way people move. Most of my colleagues who are doing the really great stuff, weve got uber eats, uber pools, different areas of the uber product that perform different functions. Thats the exciting part, thats the mission that what were doing is scratching the surface. This is being a better option than a cab is the easy part of that. That was the lowhanging fruit. Thats what keeps driving people. The mission of this company is literally to change the way people move all over the world. Ms. Stefanik can talk about your district. The town front in western ohio with 20,000 people, that could have uber and i think it will at some point. Thats the mission to continue to build on this great thing weve got on this Great Foundation and keep building it up. I yield to chairman messer. I have to admit im a dead square gen xo eorxor. What other products have been developed by googlers during their 20 time in put me on the hot seat. I know they are wide ranging. Ad sense. Thats one of our advertising projects thats a very big moneymaker for google. So its a big revenue generator for us on the advertising side, and that was something that was an it 20 project very early in the companys history, so not only are they things like gmail for free, but things that are revenue generating. And the next one, can you talk about how it has incentivized drivers to drive during surge hours . Surge pricing. Its what it is. Everyone keeps calling it surge pricing. Were sticking with surge pricing, and ill get punished when i get back to the office. Surge pricing is basically flexible pricing for the rate of your uber ride. Theres a base fair but the rate will float up as demand rises. Y committee on the role of millennials in the economy. Next, the president s nominee to be the next leader of the food and Drug Administration testifies at his confirmation hearing. Dr. Robert califf took questions on the topic of the cost of drugs. This hearing is about two hours. Good morning. Today, the Health Committee will come to order. Today, were reviewing the nomination of dr. Robert califf to serve as commissioner of food and drugs. Congratulations on your nominee. Welcome to you and your family members. Were glad that some of them were able to come up, some of them from columbia, South Carolina. If youre confirmed to lead the food and Drug Administration as its commissioner youll be charge of the agency thats responsible for the safety of our nations medical products and protecting our countrys food supply. This is a huge job. The fda affects nearly every single american all every day and regulates over 4 trillion in spending annually. As in charge of products as diverse as drugs, cosmetics, overthecounter medications, and food and tobacco. The president has nominated you to do that job. Youve been through an exhaustive process to make sure you dont have any conflicts of interest or any problems in your background. I had the privilege of coming before this committee 25 years ago and sitting in the chair where you sat. Its not always a pleasant experience. One of the Democratic Senators said to me my family was sitting where yours is. Governor alexander, ive heard some very disturbing things about you, but i dont think ill bring them up this morning. A senator leaned over and said, howard, i think you just did. Then he held me up for three months. I dont expect that would be happening with you because like every fulltime nominee youve been through an exhaustive process to make sure of the conflicts of interest as i said before the president announced your nomination. There was an extensive vetting process by the white house and the fbi. You submitted paperwork to the office of government ethics. Thats been reviewed including your financial information. Theyve found several recusals. The form you submitted is public. It includes every source of income over 200 and every asset worth more than 1,000 and every potential conflict that the office of government ethics determined would require a r recusal. Im going through this so people know that nominees go through this. Youve responded to written followup questions. Your responses included over 3,000 pages of articles and lectures that my staff reviewed and that any member of the committee may review. You were nominated on september 17. Our Committee Staff has spent two months carefully reviewing everything you submitted and my staff tells me they havent found anything that would call into doubt your ability to lead the fda fairly and impartially. You come here with impressive qualifications. A leading cardiologist. Youre an expert on Clinical Research and youve been recognized as an author of medical publications. Youve had some experience managing large organizations, and youve been the founding director of dukes Clinical Research institute. Youve conducted a score of important Clinical Trials. Thats important to me because i think it helps to have people in government that actually know what theyre talking about because of the experience that theyve had before. So you understand how Research Gets done in the real world. Im eager to hear your priorities about how you intend to manage such a large and diverse organization. Id like to hear what youd be able to do to ensure that Affordable Drugs are available to american patients. I hope youll agree that drugs are your job is to see that drugs are safe and effective, but the fda can help market lower drug prices by approving jgeneric drugs as soon as possible so there is more choice in the market. Approval times have gotten worse. Ill be asking you about that and what you intend to do about it. We know more about biology and medicine than ever before. Thats not likely to stop anytime soon. Your job, if confirmed, will be to make sure that the fdas regulation is appropriate. Too much regulation could reduce investments. Too little could make it difficult for drugs to be safe and effective. Theres much work to be done. Sometimes it takes a decade to develop a drug. Sometimes it takes billions of dollars literally. In this committee, were working together in a bipartisan way to help get safe, cuttingedge drug, medical devices, and treatments into american medicine cabinets and doctors offices more quickly and we hope to move that soon. Were looking forward to hearing what you believe needs to be done to build the fdas capacity and to fix the impact of its regulations so that the fda is a partner in innovation and not a barrier. Thank you. I look forward to hearing your testimony on these important issues. Senator murray . Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Thank you to all our colleagues for being here today. Dr. Califf thank you to you and your multigenerational family thats with you here today. As the chairman said, the fda commissioner has a Critical Role to play in supporting health and wellbeing in our country whether youre in a Grocery Store or the medicine cabinet or the emergency room. Families depend on the fda to maintain the highest standards of product safety. As we talk about the future of the fda, i think it is important to note that valuable efforts have been made in recent years to strengthen the fda and improve services for its patients and families. Last year the fda approved 51 drugs and by logid biologics. The fda has also made strides towards implementing the food safety modernization act, helping to bring our nations food Safety System into the 21st century. Despite these gains, the fda faces significant challenges Going Forward. As someone who has seen personally the challenges that patients and families face socalled super bugs are another growing threat. As we have seen in my state and across the country where medical devices have been linked to tragic outbreaks of antibiotic resistant infection, we have to find ways to prevent these infections and respond more quickly and effectively when any risk arises, especially as technology continues to evolve. We need to do more to make sure that after products reach the market the fda has effective tools it needs to monitor safety taking full advantage of Information Technology. We need to ensure fda continues to strengthen its drug and biosimilar programs. In addition, our country faces Urgent Public Health challenges that deserve our attention. We need to move forward in making sure families have access to nutritional information and making sure our food supply is both safe and healthy. We must do more to tackle widespread illnesses such as Heart Disease and diabetes that threaten so many people in our country. Ive heard time and again from families that the cost of prescription drugs is a significant financial burden. I believe the next fda commissioner has an Important Role to play in ensuring all patients and families have access to the prescription drugs they need. Another critical priority is ensuring the fda always puts science over politics. As some here will remember, several of my colleagues and i fought a very long and hard to ensure that medical expertise, not ideology, governed Decision Making over the sales of plan b over the counter. As congress and the Administration Work together to address these and many other Health Challenges in which the fda plays a significant role, we need to recognize our efforts will not be successful without Additional Support for the fda. We must make sure the fda has the resources and authority it needs to hire top experts in a highly competitive field and manage its growing workload as it navigating our increasingly Global Supply chain. Many of these are issues that our committee is currently debating. After careful consideration and review, i am confident dr. Califf would contribute leadership and expertise as we work to find new ways to advance medical innovation for patients and families and improve health and wellbeing across the country. He is a strong nominee for the fda commissioner. Dr. Califf has an impressive resume in leadership. Our review of his record demonstrates a long standing commitment to transparency in relationships with industry and working to ensure academic integrity. The doctor will continue to uphold these values and prioritize a strong, independent fda commissioner. From drug and device approval to ensuring that a childs Peanut Butter sandwich is safe to eat. I believe dr. Califf would be a powerful partner. I look forward to working with all of you to strengthen health and wellbeing for the families and communities that we serve. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator murray. Senator burr will introduce dr. Califf. Dr. Califf, welcome. Thank you for sharing your family with us. Your bride is here, your children are here, and your granddaughter is here. Welcome, brooke. Hope youre getting extra credit at school for being here. The doctor is a north carolinian whose career has been distinguished by his unwavering commitment to patients. As a respected clinician, researcher, and adviser. Hes been nominated to serve as the next commissioner of the food and Drug Administration, and my colleagues and i look forward to hearing from you today. It is the he is responsible for overseeing and directing the centers for drug evaluation and research, the centers for b biologics and research, the centers for Tobacco Products, the office of special medical programs within the agency. Prior to his work at the fda, the doctor was a professor of medicine and vice chancellor. During his time at duke, the doctor held a number of positions, including the director of translational medicine institute, the director of the Clinical Research institute. He worked to move the promising field of translational science forward as the director of Clinical Trials transformation nish initiative. The doctor is distinguish eed aa researcher and author with over 200 publications. He is a graduate of Duke University school of medicine. He received his Residency Training at the university of california San Francisco and completed a residency in cardiology at Duke University. Dr. Califf is a great father, a great husband, a great grand dad. Hes a great doctor. Hes a great man. I think that stands out the most in his qualifications. How well the fda fulfills its mission touches the lives of americans each and every day from the lifesaving treatments patients receive to the safety of the food we feed our families. The challenges facing the next commissioner are great, but also the opportunities are as well. Dr. Califf, congratulations on your nomination to serve as the commissioner of the food and Drug Administration. I urge my colleagues to thoroughly get your questions answered and expeditiously move this nomination so you can get to work on some very Serious Problems within our system. I thank the chair. Thank you, senator burr. Senator scott has a point of clarification. Thank you, chairman 2 y1t alexander. Senator burr referred to dr. Ca califf as if he were from North Carolina. While he could not get into the medical university of South Carolina, he got into duke. Hes actually from South Carolina. You realize that his parents were also from South Carolina. Therefore we know hes a southern, but hes from South Carolina. The north is a yankee, North Carolina. I want to make sure that point was made clear that you didnt insult his parents on the front row from st. George, South Carolina. I welcome his parents and congratulate him on his ability to outperform the academic requirements in South Carolina. Those guys are still exchanging words, i want to welcome dr. Califf because fda is in my state. Youre from South Carolina who lived in North Carolina, but youre our guy too. I ask that my statement be in the record. It will be. Dr. Califf, you can see the interest the committee has in the work youre about to do. Virtually every member is here. Each will have five minutes to have a conversation with you. Ill try to give you time to answer the questions, but we want to stick pretty closely to the five minutes so everyone be involved. You have answered a number of questions to the Committee Staff. In any senator has additional questions, there will be a few days after the hearing that they can ask them and we hope youll respond promptly to them. Well begin a period of a round of questions of five minutes in length. Dr. Califf, around the country and here in congress, people are talking about the high cost of pharmaceutical drugs and what can be done to make these drugs affordable. Do you excuse me. I got so excited i didnt give you a chance to make your comments. Dr. Califf, we look forward to your comments. Thank you for your kind comments. I want to thank you and the members of the committee for inviting me here today to discuss my nomination to be commissioner of the food and Drug Administration. Im honored to be accompanied by my family today as you have noted. Sitting behind me are my dad, a world war ii veteran, and were going to visit the monument later this afternoon, my mom an activist teacher, and my wife of 42 years and High School Sweetheart lydia. My three children and my granddaughter brooke are also here with us. The support of my family and their feedback have been essential to my career success and sustaining my moral compass. Im honored to have been nominated by president obama. My primary goals if confirmed will be to work with you to build on the excellent work force, relentless focus on the completion of priority projects, and continue to develop the science base that we need to give consumers confidence that their food and medical products are safe, and give patients a and amid ongoing revolutions in biological science and Information Technology we must continue to strengthen the fdas vital work. If confirmed, it would be an honor to lead the work force in this remarkable time. Ive dedicated my career to advancing the Public Health. But like each of you my understanding of our Health System was shaped by more than just my professional life. Our daughter was born with serious congenital Heart Disease. I still vividly remember the inspirational work of her doctors, nurses, and health care team. We experienced firsthand as a family how important it is to find a critical balance between innovation and safe guarding patients. When i started in cardiology, heart attack was the leading cause of death in america and our understanding of it was limited. It was agonized that one of six patients that i saw in our intensive care unit died during the first hospitalization. It drove us to relentlessly invent and develop effective treatments. I had the privilege to serve as the leader of Global Networks of doctors, nurses, researchers, computer scientists who joined forces to evaluate drugs and lifesaving technologies, kl including stints and defib r rillatoril l rillators. Indeed its not enough to develop new treatments. We must prove they are safe and effective. Our initial quality registration for bypass surgery have become Global Standards, including adoption by cms to improve the Public Health by reducing medical errors. A successful fda is a critical factor for better Public Health in the changing world. The fda must be prepared to set policies that channel policies for safe and effective use. The best way to make this progress is for different sectors to collaborate. More recently, ive had the pleasure of jointly leading a number of projects with patients, consumers, and Community Leaders to the benefit of Public Health. While fda scientists make decisions every single day about hundreds of products, as Technology Advances these decisions are becoming more complex. It is essential that we keep pace. My next priority as commissioner is working with you to fulfill the ambitious agenda that we set together. The food safety modernization act will help ensure americans their food is safe. And of course, the user fee programs are entering a period of renegotiation. My third and final priority as commissioner would be to further develop science by taking advantage of extraordinary advances in biomedicine and information sciences, we can unlock evidence about food, tobacco, and medical projects that would dramatically lower costs. In concert with our global colleagues, we must continue to develop sophisticated systems for monitoring the safety and quality of products produced outside our borders. The fda is poised to move to a new era of enhanced safety and new treatments. I would be honored to lead the agency in this exciting time. Thank you for lallowing me to testify before you today. Dr. Califf, around the country and the congress, theres lots of talk about the high cost of drugs. Do you think its accurate to say that the fdas Statutory Mission is to promptly and efficiently make sure that drugs are safe and effective . As you know, senator alexander, that is our primary mission, but we can have an impact on the cost of drugs by performing that function effectively. Let me talk about that just a little bit. Do you agree it is not your job so set the price of drugs. It is not our job to set the price of drugs. If generic treatments can move more rapidly through the fda process in a safe and effective way, that would be one way to create more competition and presumably lower the cost of drugs. Despite getting about a billion dollars in new funds over the last three years, generic manufacturers estimate the fdas median approval time has increased. Is that accurate or based on your knowledge or can you explain how the fda with availability of a billion new dollars could have actually presided over a situation where the approval of generic drugs has gone from 30 months in 2011 to 48 months in 2014, especially since a more rapid approval if safe and effective might have had some effect of lowering drug prices . Senator alexander, bear with me. Bear with me for just a second. 88 of american prescriptions now are generic. We have made tremendous progress, but we can do even better. You also know were well ahead of the generic drug user fee act goals that were set, but we can still do better and im all in favor of that. We started with a huge backlog. Thousands of applications that were waiting into the user fees came in. The ones that were good went through quickly. The new ones, the ones that are pertinent to getting the first generic on the market, are put in a fast line. We have this backlog because we want generic drugs to be just as safe and effective as the innovator drugs. Im confident youll see over the next several years as that backlog is cleared the new applications are going through very quickly. Thank you, dr. Califf. This question will require just a short answer. Will you take a look, if youre confirmed, at the fdas policy of issuing documents instead of rule making . Ive talked to the director of the budget. It has some pretty strong policies and firm views on the difference between rule making, which involves consultation and is legally behinding, and guidances which are not legally binding. There is a bipartisan concern that agencies of the federal government, including fda, are issuing guidances as if they were legally binding. Senator, i will commit to working with you on that and taking a careful look at that. I want you to comment on a management issue at fda. We hear even when products are similar, experiences of applicants varies quite a bit. Regulated parties ought to be treated in consistent and predictable ways. Why do you think that even with similar products the experience of some applicants is so different, and what could you do to make sure regulated parties are treated in consistent ways . I have spent several decades on the other side of the fence working on new therapies. I can appreciate peoples concerns, but the primary reason is that each individual medical product is different. The Clinical Trials that need to be done, even if theyre similar, can have nuances that are critical, but we are committed at the fda. Dr. Wo were going to do everything we can to produce a more even template across the fda so the standards are the same. Youve got to treat each one differently. Thank you. Senator murray. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Doctor, in contrast to some of our previous fda nominees that have come from the Public Health sector you are a physician and a researcher. As a result throughout your career, you have partnered extensive with pharmaceutical and other industry companies. I want to ask you some questions about that. During your past Clinical Trial how have you ensured industry views have not biassed your work and what do you plan to do to ensure you will lead the fda without any undue influence . The Clinical Trials we do that were done at duke during my tenure and still being done there, if funded by industry, remembering that many of our Clinical Trials were funded by foundations, we were one of the largest nih grantees, but we have an ironclad contract, which i believe your staff as a copy of, that guarantees the independent right to publish, guarantees access to the database, and in the majority of cases we have the database. Were running the trial. We publish the papers with input from the companies, but they have absolutely no right to change what we say. We have the final right of publication. These trials are also done usually with International Steering committees. Yes, industry funds the trials because they need to have their products evaluated, but we have an independent voice guaranteed by contract. 100 of the studies ive been involved in have been published, so they are in the Public Record for people to view. What do you see as the appropriate role of industry in working with the agency on key challenges like trials and surveillance . I think its critical here to separate the role of industry for individual applications first as what we call the precompetitive space. How do we streamline the Clinical Trial process . How do we share information to make sure we understand the risks that may only be seen in the postmarket phase . In the individual applications, there is no role for industry other than to present its case that it has a product that meets the criteria for safety and effectiveness. I think the American Public completely depends on having confidence that the fda is independent and those reviews and judgments about individual produc products. But in that space, we have to Work Together. Nih is a minority funder. Im pleased to say were working closely with the nih now. Well bring industry into what i think will be a dramatically lower cost, but much more effective Clinical Research system. Very much appreciate that. I do want to turn to an issue that i have raised a number of times this year. We know that patients across the country, including in my home state in seattle, got serious antibiotic resistant infections from scopes. As i have investigated this issue further, it seems to me we need to make significant improvements in how fda monitors medical devices on the market to identify safety issues more quickly and prevent the tragedies that we have seen with this. What steps would you take to improve the postmarket Surveillance System for devices and better protect patients . Thank you for bringing that up. Personally, let me say as a cardiologist and someone with administrative responsibilities at duke hospital, when the procedure youre referring to was first developed, i was in the United Kingdom. Those doctors came over to duke and we were one of the first places to do it. I have firsthand experience on the importance of that procedure, particularly in people that are critically ill. I think we really need to work on our postmarket surveillance on devices. I hope that youll really help us with this. Industry has to, but develop by the fda is a model in drugs. We have 170 million americans claims data so when there is a problem with a drug, we can look almost in realtime. We need the system on the device side. We have to figure out how toget figure out with you how to fund this. Industry could contribute to that, but we could it independently of industry and act on it much more rapidly. This is something im very concerned about as we move forward, so i appreciate your response. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Murray. The next four senators or burr, whitehouse, isakson, and warren. Thank you, mr. Chairman. As you know the animal rule was finalized on october 27th this year after significant and in my opinion inexcusable delay given the importance of the rule. Im pleased that the rule has been finalized as it will provide more certainty for those developing countermeasures to protect the American People in the event of a Public Health emergency whether it is natural or the result of a manmade attack. How would medical countermeasures be prioritized within the agency and how would you ensure the fda is advancing the development and review of these products towards the goal of a timely approval . Thank you for that question. Im amazed at the attention and intensity you all have today given the fact were all worried about the issue that bringing up. It can be manmade or something thats totally unanticipated, for example with an infection. I was pleased to be able to get the guidance out from the animal rule, which you had requested, but its going to take a concerted effort not just by the fda. But as happens with the ebola crisis, when the federal agencies Work Together, a lot can be done to quell a crisis and deal with things. I do want to refer to the really brilliant work thats been done in the outside community, but also within the fda. The animal rule says in cases where we cant do human studies, when theres an emergency, whats a way in which we can extrapolate in Animal Studies to human situations in these studies . Were committed. Were going to be there 24 7, if needed. Thank you for getting that rule out. There have been reports that the tobacco deeming rule did not change the date for newly regulated Tobacco Products. Many noncombustible Tobacco Products which may have a Public Health benefit compared to traditional tobacco, would not be available to consumers despite their potential benefits to a more traditional tobacco product. As commissioner, how would you improve the performance of the fdas center of Tobacco Products . As you know, senator burr, there was a new creation just a few years ago. It started with zero employees. Its now up in the multihundreds. There were no rules by which the tobacco applications could come in, so those have had to be developed. First of all, let me say that you bring up a general issue of weighing the Overall Health risks of Tobacco Products graded from most serious to less serious. There is a pathway for doing that. Were committed to reviewing them in the time frames that have been agreed to, and we have funding to carry out that activity. So were committed to get it done. I thank you for that commitment. I often hear from constituents in North Carolina about the importance of Laboratory Developed tests. For researchers, it means the next step in creating precise therapies for providers, ldts help to determine accurate diagno diagnosis and the means for more targeted therapies. Under your leadership, how would the agency collaborate with labs, other existing government structures, and the full range of stakeholders in this space to ensure that regulation of Laboratory Developed tests is carried out in a workable way that moves these promising tests forward without inappropriate regulatory burdens or delays for patients . Im well aware of the importance of Laboratory Developed tests. It is sort of the place where home brews are made to make the tests better. Its an important activity. On the other hand, this has become a big industry with major implications for patients, especially with Precision Medicine where you have a test and it tells you what therapy to give that can be either really good or really bad, depending on whether its right. Were committed to work the whole ecosystem so there is a standard for tests, so theyll have analytical validity and clinical validity. Theres a hearing going on in the house right now about this issue that involves jeff sheeran from fda. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i do have additional questions. I would ask that those questions be allowed to be sent in writing to dr. Califf. I would conclude by saying this, not a question, the fda has over 150 guidance documents at the agency in limbo. Some of these guidances remain in draft form, and others have yet to be issued. My hope is you will take that very seriously because without guidance, i dont know how the downstream effects are ever going to be felt of investment and development if they dont have the guidance as to how to move forward. Senator whitehouse . Good morning. There are increasingly products emerging on the market that combine a pharmaceutical component, a drug, and a delivery component, a device. The fda has basically broken into one path for pharmaceuticals, the drug path, and another path for devices. Ive spoken to the people who lead both the drug side and the device side about this question of the drug device combined products. Both have said the same thing, which is that my pathway is not suitable for that. If were going to do that, we need to create a new pathway for that drug device combination. Could you let me know, a, what your thoughts are about that pathway for the drug device combination products, and what you think a reasonable time frame would be for fda to have such a proposal ready for us to consider . As a cardiologist, i sort of live and breathe this kind of work because often we give livesaving drugs systemically in acute situations. If you could deliver them through a catheter, you could deliver a much lower dose and do better. Maybe thats the best example to think about here. When you have a drug thats given in full dose systemically, you dont want to go through the whole thing as if it were a totally new dose. But you cant assume that you know the risks and benefits of the lower dose. And so we do need theres a strong view at the fda that we need another pathway that will give the fda the flexibility to acquire the data thats needed to assure the public that the proposed treatment is safe and effective. Do you agree that we need the other pathway . Yes. What is the time frame for pathway . I feel like within the next year the fdas opinion can be adjudicated back and forth. We have opinions on this now. Great. I think there is probably going to be legislative action thats going to be required to do this. Both sides of the house think it cant be done under the existing Regulatory Authority, that it would require congress to act. Do you agree with that . I think we need some help to get the right balance here. Great. The last thing ill mention is that i hope as you go forward with your responsibilities in the space of apps and Communications Technology that are adapted to measuring Health Effects that youll recognize that in many respects this is a very valuable and robust industry that could well be overregulated if the fdas authority over those sorts of devices extended too far. What do you see as the boundary between informational apps that the fda should and should not regulate . Well, i had the privilege of going back to my old home Heart Association meeting just last week, and we had a whole session on this issue. Im wearing my own device here that has a number of apps on it that is like a whole different world than what existed six months ago. Theres a good Statement Last year that came out from the fda and the office of the National Coordinator to states the full intention to regulate based on risk. You know where to draw that boundary. For example, a Health Related app monitoring my heart rate. Im healthy and i want to exercise more. Thats not something we want to be bothering with. If this was attached to my internal defibrillator, that would be something we want to deal with. We have to find that middle ground where there will be adjudication as we find out how these things work. Youd be along the lines of regulating technologies that could have a direct physical effect on the human body as opposed to getting information that causes you this think, oh my heart is much better, now i can run more . Thats correct. I would just like to add were going to learn as we go through this because there may be cases where, for example, Heart Failure patients using the same app may be more life and death decisions. Theres so many of us. I dont want to trespass on other peoples time. Thank you. Very courteous, senator whitehouse. Following up on the senators statement regarding guidance letters. Fda has two opportunities. Theres substantial differences. Under rule making, you have to do a costbenefit analysis. Yet fda continues over and over again to try to implement policy through guidance letters. Youre going to talk about regulating laboratories and bringing them under the fda. Fda continues to try to regulate parties more often through guidance letters than rule making. I have really two questions to ask. One why is fda grown so reliant on nonguidance documents for rule making and do you think thats a problem . Senator isakson, i appreciate your concern with this. One thing thats been really evident to me in my time at the fda so far is that everybody wants to know what the fda is thinking. So i think theres a tremendous value in guidance documents to let people know what the fda is thinking and the demand for these is actually quite high. But there are other situations where you need to full force of rule making. I understand there is a difference. I will have to work with you and look forward to doing it when things come up so we can discuss it and work through it. Well, specifically to that offer, let me ask you the following question. Will you commit to require fda staff to go through rule making when it intends to legally bind regulate partied or change their behavior in a burdensome way . I believe the statement about guidance documents says they are not legally binding. Theyre a statement about fdas thinking. People would be wise when they see a guidance to consider that thinking. Ive often taken a different path from the fda, but im committed to work with you to try to deal with this tension that youre feeling. Their thinking is a subjective thing. Rule making is an objective thing. You ought to have the rule making procedure in my judgment rather than just a guidance letter that could effect some and not others. On sunscreen, november 26th is the First Anniversary of the sunscreen innovation act which this committee passed, which was designed to expedite the approval of ingredients in sunscreen. As you probably know, there are sunscreens that have been available in europe for years, in some cases decades, that are still not available in the United States because the fda has refused to make decisions on some of those ingredients. Will you commit to work with us to try to bring those ingredients forward and do the proper Due Diligence to get the products to the market . I do look forward to working with you on this. As we discussed earlier, i have a Family History of melanoma myself and a number of moles that should be looked at more frequently than they are. Let me also say part of what we need to work on is actually developing the evidence. Weve asked the Companies Involved for specific information, which i believe they can develop, and were very open to moving as quickly as we can if we have the right evidence. I would point to whatsmelanoma. The patients who have melanoma is a death sentence for which there is no cure. I had melanoma and survived two of them. Next march, april, spring break. The kids are going to hit the beaches of america, and a lot of georgias beaches getting sun and having fun. Hope they will have the best sunscreen available. My last comment, make it quickly, a long question. I know my time will be up. The fda sent mixed signals to pregnant women with regard to seafood. Youre in the process of determination on seafood to make recommendati recommendations. Using results from your net effects report. That steams abeems abandoned. Will you expedite the recommendations the fda makes. Yes, sir. Thank you, senator. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Doctor califf, at Duke University to received significant Financial Support for you personally and for your research. I know it is common practice for principal investigators on Clinical Trials. It naturally raises questions about your relationship with the drug industry. And one particular concern with industry funding of Academic Work is that Drug Companies may be able to exert influence over the conduct of those studies. So, let me ask for the Clinical Trials. Can you detail what input sponsors had, did not have, in the design of the trials, analysis of data. Glad to do so. Whether it is devices or drugs done through our institute, the design of the trial is something done jint ointly and publicly tt an indication from the fda. It actually involves industry, academia, now patients involved in the design of the trial. And the fda. Very public process. The protocol is developed. Has to be submitted. Both to irbs but to the fda, before the trial starts. So the design is something that is done joint me. The final say comes from the Steering Committee of course. Which is the academic leadership. The database is the critical factor here. All of our contracts are required, that we either have access off to the database or we actually have the data bass onsite. Thats been ironclad. I would say 70 of the studies i wanted to do we couldnt do. The company was unwilling to grant the right. We had to walk away if that was not done. So that lead to publications. Publications are in the purview of the Steering Committee. And the authors from the Steering Committee. Industry has a right to make suggestions no right to censor or no right to change any of the writing done unlisa gress it isd to by the authors. Same hold for public presentations which are in the field that i work in are very important because evidence moves very quickly. And it has a large input. So, keeping that academic independence we think is a critical part of the effort. Good. If i can, i just want to underline this. So important. Want to make sure i got this right from your question. I hear you to be saying there is no instance during your career or any instance involving duke researchers at the duke Clinical Research institute during the time that you were supervising it. In which a Pharmaceutical Company provided any input into the analysis or the publication of the Clinical Trial that they paid to conduct. Is that its that right . Let me clarify one more time. By input, you know they can, could make suggestions. Thats perfectly allowable in our contract. On analysis and publication. On the publication. And on the analysis. This is another, sorry to get into details here. Its all right. The way we do analyses, the company has to submit the data to the fda. It is typically will have an analysis done by the company. Analysis done by our statisticians. Then we compare results to see if they match and resolve discrepancies. In no case did we allow the scum pan to do Analysis Company to do analysis and we were resip yen yents. I know we are pressed on time. I will follow up with questions for the record on this. So we can get a detailed written account of any such instances. I have also requested copies of the contracts that the pharmaceutical industry sponsors signed. With the duke Clinical Research institute. In order to get a better understanding of what is happening here. And i look forward to reviewing them before this Committee Moves forward with your nomination. These agreements typically spell out in detail the relationship between the researchers and funders. So i think it will help us better understand what is happening here. In the little bit of time i have left. Can i make one other point. That is your financial relationship with the industry also raises questions about what your priorities will be. If youre confrirmed for this job. Many in the pharmaceutical, Device Industry spent tile and money arguing the fd after is just too tough. We should lower the fda standard on safety and effectiveness. Unfortunately they have a lot of friends in congress. Doctor, do you agree with the arguments and recent efforts by some lawmakers to lower the standards for fda approval of drugs and devices . I think if you look at my record. You will find i have never been a proponent of lowering standard. I have are gaud fgued for raisi standards for the time a treatment might be used. That doesnt mean we couldnt be quicker or something else. In no case would we are gu to lower the standard. Americans depend on safe drugs and devices and that are effective. Device or drug that is safe not effective, actually can harm someone then they dont use what is effective. I think i have been staunch in that regard. Thank you, doctor. We can abolish the fda tomorrow. We see new products on the market. If theyre not safe and effective, no one its better off. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The next four senators, roberts, cassidy, mikulski, senator roberts. Thank you, mr. Chairman. One of the committees in the first place, thank you for coming by to my office. Made a very nice visit. My wife is from South Carolina. I learned a long time ago you can take the girl out of the south but not the south out of the girl. One of your responsibilities is to make sure the fda is committing resources to most important work. For example the fda has been in some cases a little hesitant to implement key food safety goals while putting resources toward proposals for regulating sugar, salt, caffeine. I would refer you to the new dietary guidelines. That indicate now that salt intake and in place of salt intake. Caffeine is six cups of coffee. My third one. So i think i have throw to go. Sugar, however, no. They have proposed to expanned your your, the fda proposed to expand jurisdiction by regulating Laboratory Developed tests and ecigarettes and cigars for the first time. I just want to make sure that the fda used resources to make sure the agency stays focused on accomplishing core objectives as directed by congress. Just a comment. You didnt have to respond. Food safety modernization act, the acronym for that, fsma, a wonderful acronym. I wear two hats. Chairman of the committee. And the requirements that farmers, ranchers with which they have to comply. We need to make sure the fda working with the department of agriculture to ensure these new regulations and requirements are harmonized with those on the books. Will you work to that end if confirmed . Yes. I want to follow up on the senators comments with regard to draft gad ansuidances. I am apprehensive of the guidances. What are your thoughts about setting a maximum period for which draft gad ans can be left outstanding without finalized or revised. Secondly when commentators expressed concerns shouldnt the agency be required to publicly respond to the concerns or at least how the concern has been addressed when a guidance is finalized or the agency rejected the concern. Senator roberts, i am kind of a big advocate of transparency. I do appreciate what you are bringing up. It has been noticeable to me. The issues you raised. And noticeable as i mentioned every time we give people an opportunity to interact with the fda they seem to want to do it more. Our user fee situations for example. The number of meetings requested always greatly exceeds the number that we have. So, the critical thing to me is getting whatever the the correct format is moved along as quickly as we possibly can through the process. So that people understand what the fda is really thinking. In the case where it really needs to be a role they understand what the rule is and how to implement it. So to get to the details. I ned to come by and spend more time with you to completely understand how you see it. Would be glad to do so. Appreciate that. My final question. Where is duke ranked now with regards to the basketball situation. Im just glad you didnt ask about football. But i think duke is some where around 4 or 5. Think theyre number 5. Would you be interested in knowing who is number four . I think that might be that school in the midwest that we often beat up on when it comes to tournament time. The university of kansas. I just want to point that out. I might add South Carolina is number one. But well take care of that. You mean North Carolina is number one. Yes. Awe all. Nc. I would rather have kansas number one than unc. Thats a different story. I have no further questions, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator roberts for your illuminating inquiry there. Senator baldwin. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ranking member. So, pleased to have you here today and was pleased to have an opportunity to meet with you prior to this. We all agree that it is critical for the for the products that are approved by the fda to be of the highest safety and efficacy standards. And that the public must also have meaningful access to Accurate Information about treatments so they can make the best health care decisions. I share some of my colleagues concerns with the everincreasing drug prices, there has been a little bit of dialogue about that already. And i think that we can do more and should do more to to improve drug accessibility, affordability and transparency. So i want to start with transparency. Doctor, the public still lacks comprehensive access to information about medical products. For example, come pans do not consistently report Clinical Trial outcomes for drugs in the public databases as a number of recent studies have noted. And generics are not yet able to initiate a change in their patient labelling. If they learn of Safety Information because the fda has not finalized the generic labelling rule. So in your new role, should you receive, when you receive confirmation, how would you improve access to Accurate Information on drugs for patients, doctors, researchers. How would you ensure that the fda maintains patient safeties once these medicines actually reach patients . Well, i will try to be as quick as i can with this. Thats a very important question that you are asking. First i will point out again. Every study that i was involved in has been published. I think that is a mandate. When you ask some one to participate in a human experiment. Informed consent says you are doing it to create generalizable knowledge. If we dent like the study, result was lousy, we need to publish it. Secondly, beavfore i left duke, was part of a paper pointing out the track record of the clinicaltrials. Gov reporting. One side issue. Industries are doing better than nih funded investigators. Working with the nih. They have a policy. You wont get your next grant. So it has been very good working with kathy hudson and Francis Collins on, on making this happen. The third element the Surveillance System that we about. Sentinel. Equivalent on the divide side. This is needed. Dealing with generic drugs on the market. 30 years. Still learning about them. We cant have a system where it depend on the Innovator Company to figure all this out. Somehow make it public. Give them a lot of credit. We have an approach. Just had a meeting two weeks ago with federal agencies. There is general agreement that we need to have a National Evaluation system. Which is publicly really a public good. And the companies can develop the best products thats fine. But we need to work toward this. I want to switch gear. Given the role of the fda in in food labelling. You and i had a chance to speak about one of wisconsins products where the number one grower of cranberries. And i know that a couple of other members of the Health Committee represent states that have a robust cranberry industry also. Now i am concerned that recent fda proposals to update food nutrition labels with added sugar information. May cause confusion for customers and others by categorizing cranberry products which are clearly highly nutritio nutritious nutrient dense fruits. That need added sugar for palatability. As some how comparable to, to foods that they shouldnt necessarily compared with. For example, should you be comparing cranberry juice to other fruit juices or to soda pop . Should you be comparing dried cranberries, craisins to raisins or candy. So as commissioner how would you ensure that these and other fda food policies appropriately account for the unique Health Benefits of food like cranberries and ensure that consumers are going to have the type of information comprehensive and accurate that will allow them to make healthy and nutritious decisions. Senator, i appreciate that. I noticed cranberry juice has been in our refridge rj refrige home. May have to do with Health Benefits. Good example of the balancing act. We have the epidemic, obesity, diabetes, huge amounts of sugar are not good for you. Dont think there is disagreement. We have to preserve nutritious foods, with sugar that make it better. Talked with senator warren and you about the fact that we need to work on the cognitive psychology of labelling so that when we do take actions, and, put information out there it is interpretable and helps people make good decisions. Ultimately, up to people to make their own decisions. But if we dont present in a way that is clear to them. It could lead to the wrong decision. Thank you. Thank you, senator baldwin. The next senators are senators cassidy, franken, kirk, bennett. Senator cassidy. Enjoyed your meeting. Thank you for coming by. Several questions. First. Going back to the drug pricing. Clearly we have seen companies kind of abuse the social contract which gives youve a reasonable rate of of return for a drug marketing. And they have gone way beyond reasonable. Now i have been told in the case of turing that an approval of a generic would take several years because Clinical Trials will be required. To prove the generic competitor was the equivalent to that which turing has a sole source provider. Now this is a, you know, we know this is a 60yearold drug. So it comes to mind because im reading now on premise, on a compounding component would make the same drug available, of course, compounding, a doc has write the prescription. In a sense compounding is doing what generic cant do. So i guess my question is if we know that the, presume that we know the compounded drug, being sold for 1 a pill. As opposed to 750 from turing. Take that as an advertisement for anybody who wants a reasonably cost drug. If it is a dollar why cant we do this in the compounding space but not in the generic space. Why does it take so long to work this through the generic when we get, you see what i am saying . This is cognitive dissonance. I know you are a doc. You have understanding of all this. Let me point out. Every drug is different. The whole goal of generics in most cases is not to have to do major Clinical Trials. It is showing that you have something that is equivalent. I believe you spent a lot of time with the doctor on this recently. Yes. A lot we can tell about molecular structure. We are working on the compounding. We had disasters infection control. Fungi entering an injectable. Obviously an oral drug. Liability involved. Would not be selling it if it were not bioequivalent. I will have to get back to you. Ive dont know the details on that drug. Glad to do that. Just because i see now that folks established the Business Model works. Again, something a fellow paying 55 a prescription, now 5500 a prescription. Exploitation of a because of these folks frankly, greed. If we are going to somehow circumvent that. We have to come up with a way to do generics. Looking again to make the editorial comment. So clearly is working with compounding. That, it seems almost like it should work as well with generic. Well, i have to get back with you on the specifics. I did have a pharmacy compounding operation that, at duke hospital required for some medicines. I am very aware of the complexity of compounding. Not as simple as it may sound. I would have to look at specifics. Get back to you. Thats fair. Secondly. Which is related. Going, going to the chinese, the drugs manufactured in india and china. I gather that the fda sent out a warning that said investigators went, looked, observed holes in the walls and roof which allowed pigeons access near production equipment. In multiple manufacturing areas. There is evidence, or at least suspicion that somebody was hiding audit trails, et cetera. And on the cognitive dissonance. On one hand allowing folks to import even when good manufacturing procedures are obviously not being followed. Yet it seems look we are putting roadblocks up for those producing domestically. Who could give us some relief from the exploitive practices. Yes, i understand what you are saying. I did have the privileges in academia to do work in india, china, over the last decade. It is going to be a focus. It will have to pay a lot of attention, to a large part of our food and our drugs and device supplies are coming from india and china. So, we do not want to disadvantage americans in that regard. If we find they theyre not being followed will be shut down that component of the sa ply chain. We cant shut down something in india or china. We can shut down importation. The ability of that to be used . We do that. Yes. Got you. I yield back. Thank you, senator. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I note that you and senator baldwin and, and now senator cassidy have all talked about what we are hearing when we go back to our states. About pharmaceutical costs. I think thats something that we really have to deal with. And the exply tags of positions that that come pans have gotten. Want to talk about probably, the bas basic the basic question you face which is the delicate balance that the fda plays in in making sure that products get to people. Who need them quickly. At the same time, making sure that theyre safe. That is thats what you deal with every, every day. I have tried to promote this balance in in legislation that i have introduced with senator burr, the accountability act of 2015, given your experience as an outside adviser and now as an internal leader at fda, how can fda use the tools at its disposal to strike the balance . Well when it comes to cost we do have some tools we can use to help out. The first we have discussed. Doing everything we can to do a good job with generic drugs situation. We are at 88 now. And thats a good thing. But we now also have biologics which, biosimilars are now coming up. We have got over 50 applications in the works. We need to do a good job with that too. That is a big s xeexpense the w want to make sure people have access when it is appropriate, safe, effective. Criteria are stringent there. One other that is very important to me which people wouldnt normally think about that much. But i think it is going to come up more and more. Is that if we really fix our evidence generation system. Streamline Clinical Trials. Get the data that we need. People wouldnt spend money on expensive drugs when theyre not needed. We need to have better information for people. Several senators have brought that up today. I think we can do that. In a fairly dramatic way. And then finally, we do keep track of of shortages. We prevented 100 shortages every year for four years. One year up over 200. Constant surveillance that goes on. Requirement that people notify us when there is going to be a shortage problem. But the new area that we have got to work on is when some one gets a monopoly. Which is what aefseveral of you have referred to. Understanding who the competi r competitors are making sure theyre doing the right things to be able to compete and get their products on the market. Those are things we have gone through that we can do in the fda. Quickly i want to turn to the different issue which is making sure that products continue to be safe. Once they have hit the market. Once they have been approved for the market. This is, you mentioned postmark it surveillance. The fda have adequate authorities here to do what you need how to, to do to do this adequately or you need additional ones from congress . I would have to, i would have to get back to you on the specifics of what you might be thinking. The thing we clearly need is a better system for postmark itting. On the drug side, revolutionary. And fantastic. On the device side, we are doing better and better. But we have a plan that i hope we can really enact. Because i believe when we fiend a problem for the most part we can deal with it. But we have got to have good data in order to, and quickly to identify the problems. I want to talk about generic drug labelling, and the generic drug labelling rule. This, this this has to do with, the rule making that you are that, that you are doing. On a generic drug manufacturer and requiring them to to update. Their warning labels. And provide Safety Information. This came out of the Supreme Court. The decision. What is the current plan for finalizing the generic drug labelling rule . Thank you for asking. That is a very important issue. We need to make sure there are problems with generic drugs that come up later and they dupe with better Surveillance Systems. There is a way of making sure the labels are up to date and consistent across similar products. So as you know we got a lot of comments on the proposed rule. Theyre under consideration. I cant talk about Decision Making. Were in the middle of it. It is a very high priority to get this finished. Thank you. Thank you senator franken. The next senators are senator hatch, senator bennett, senator scott, if he returns, and then senator sanders. Senator hatch. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Im very please to support your nomination. Very impressed with what you have been able to do. Let me say this. I am concerned about data exclusivity. As you know when we did hatchwaxman. We made sure there was data exclusivity time so that they could rekucoup the money and costs. Average cost what i have been told for pharmaceutical drug is 1 billion. Up to 15 years or more because of the pace at fda. Biological drug about the same. Average cost is 2 billion to come up with biological therapy that is approved by fda. I am very concerned. If we reduce the data exclusivity time with regard to bio. You are talking about having to charge a lot more. You are talking about our industries. Subs digs subsidizing countries all over the world. And paying really so they could have the therapies, biotherapies, really at our expense. At the same time to recoup the amount of money across it costs to go through fda, they, they the cost of of these therapies, it is continually rising. I just want to know if you, if you feel that we can move ahead quicker. Make it so come pans have a chance to recoup their monies that they invested. Senator hatch, i do understand your concern that we want to make sure that if someone invests in the development of the drug there is a return on investment. Otherwise people wont invest in our kind of society. You also understand that, that the more it costs, the more difficult, difficult it is to recoup the funds. And the longer length it takes to recoup them as well. Without, you know, charging even more than than we do now. Well as you know, the fda doesnt set the length of data exclusivity. But, what we can do that you bring up is the cost of development is largely driven these days now by the cost of Clinical Trials. And we think we can do trials that are actually bigger and include more patients and more representative for a much lower cost. Hope you work with us on that. I will work with you on it. It is an important issue. Even become is a major issue with regard to our to our trade Promotion Authority bill. And also the transpacific partnership. If we dont allow enough data exclusivity time. We will not develop these therapies. Especially in bio. Because bio is one of four or five places, four or five techniques, where we can actually find treatments and cures. If we find the cures that over time will save us trillions of dollars. So i am very concerned about this system working very well. I have been fortunate to be a leader in the devel development of several biological therapies that have made a difference. Appreciate what you are saying. Also, hatchwaxman made a real difference as far as getting, remember we did hatchwaxman. It was like 1 years 8 years a a jen generic through. Today, and it was very, very difficult. Now it is kind of automatic. We are doing better. 88 of prescriptions are generic. It has been a tremendous success. One issue that affects many n entities in my home state. The guidance on the regulation of ldts. Developed tests. There has been rope bust conversation between stake holders. Members of congress and the fda ever since the announcement. Does the fta plan toer to guidance or allow for further comments and feedbacks on the next steps proposed . As you may know this is an eco system issue. We want university to continue to in nnovate and patients are getting test results for analytical and collateral. And we are collecting feedback. We just had two days at the fda. Talking next generation sequencing. Advanced form of the testing. We are still collecting feedback. We want to find something that stimulates innovation and assures patients. May i ask one other question that would not, just requires a yes or no answer. Sure. Thank you. Do you believe as prior commissioners have, one of told me this. That the dietary supplement, health and safety act, provide authority to regulate the dietary supplement industry and protect consumers from unsafe products . We are fully aware of our authorities. And you will see action where the authorities are pertinent in future. Do you agree you have enough authority . Well are well aware of our authorities. Plan to use them as congress has directed. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Senator bennett. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And doctor, for your willingness to serve. Delighted you are here today. In my view, the fda has been successful implementing the breakthrough therapy pathway which led to the approval of 32 lifesaving drugs and 100 in the pipeline. When first working on the bill with senator hatch and startups were sag to me, that all of the Venture Capital in the country was moving to asia and europe because of the regulatory uns uncertainty at the fda. I think all of us want to keep jobs here. We want to give patients, safe effective drugs as soon as possible. Looks to me like the break through pathway may be achieving both. Wonder if you could talk about it a little bit. What have we learned about regulation. And can this approach be modeled in other places, the fda, including the device. Thank you for the comment. My two sons from colorado are listening carefully to your thoughts on this. But breakthrough. Barbara mukulski is not here. We gladly well move the fda to colorado. That would make the family closer together. The concept of breakthrough is where things look valley promising early on. Going to make a dramatic difference. There is an unmet need for life threatening condition. Fda works closely with the industry to move things along as quickly as possible. A whole series of cancerer use in particular that have just delighted the Cancer Community. And people who other wise would die. My mom back here has multiple my low ma. On third, fourth chemotherapy treatment. Its been a tremendous success to have the Community Working with the fda and with industry and academia in a concerted effort. We dont need this for chronic common problems where there is already effective treatment. We want to make sure we dont rush things to the market that arent safe. So the real key is having the criteria to identify where, where this kind of activity is needed. Well, want to say from my perspective. It is fashionable to criticize the agencies. This is a place where i think the fda has gotten it right. How about on the medical device side of the equation . As you know, there have been issues with medical devices moving to other parts of the world. Theyre beginning to come back. One of the reasons is the early Device Research program developed by crh together with the community. That is working with the big centers that can do the early device work bringing those things back. There is also an issue with devices that you have, you know a lot about. Which often a device is useful in a very unusual disease. It is a very niche activity. Not an adequate market. We do have a program for that successful. A topic we need to think about and discuss more to define ongoing criteria. I should also say that the Cancer Community was vitally important in getting that piece of legislation passed to begin with. So it is into is to see some of the early drugs drugs have, drugs that fight answer. I wonder if you could switching gears wonder whether you take a few minutes to discuss with the committee how we should think about invest. In life science and innovation. Not just domestic priority but Global Economic priority to keep us competitive with nations. We are seeing resources in this country amrid to basic science. Wonder if you could help us understand why that is important or whether it is. It its the case everyone is c conconcerned about. Living longer and mr. Functional in their lives. The way we do that. Public health. Medical products. Case of tobacco, reducing it hopfully. As we the development of medical products does require investment. It is appropriate that there is a law that says you have to show you are safe and effective before you come on the market. This requires time to do the development. And it requires that you really show that you are not producing an inferior product before you come on the market. Really a critical issue. So we have got to invest. On this note in our, i work with the nih. We are focused on the use of biomarkers. Surrogate imputs. Not using them inappropriately when theyre not going to work. This is really hard work to set the conditions that would excite investors to put money into biomedical science. Ultimately the United States is saving the world through investment in the nih. Want to put in a plug for continuing with the nih investment if not for the science funded. We wouldnt have science to translate into effective medical products. Thank you, thank you for your testimony. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator bennett. I want to thank senator mikulski, senator casey for allowing senator sanders to go next. He has been waiting patiently he has extra couric lar activities he is attending to. Senator sanders. Thank you, senator. Doctor, as you know, you and i chat aid while back. I told you that i would not support your nomination. Because i believed you are not Strong Enough on the most important issue American People are concerned about with regard to prescription drugs. That is, as you know, in our country we pay by far the i aq 9 drugs. One out of five americans cannot afford to fill the prescription that their doctors are writing for them. Mr. Chairman, with your permission. I would put into the record. A comparison of drug prices. In the United Nations and canada. And would show that on major and important drugs. The prices in canada are far, far less expensive than they are in the United States. Thats true all over the world. My concern, mr. Chairman is that while last year the top four Drug Companies in this country, pfizer, johnson johnson, and two others they made 50 billion in profit one year. I heard concern Drug Companies are not doing well. Theyre doing quite well. You have millions of americans who cannot afford the high cost of prescription drugs. While all agree that clearly we want great new products out on the market to save lives. For millions of people doesnt matter what the products are they just cannot afford them. We needen my view, fda commissioner who is going to be aggressive. And understands that very simple principle. Im not clear, what i heard today confirms that i dont think you get that. Here are some of the questions i would lack to ask and make out the point. I think it is not a coincidence that that last year the pharmaceutical industry spent 250 million on lobbying and Campaign Contributions and employs some 1400 lobbyists. Do you think, doctor, that type of expenditure has any impact on the fact that we pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs . Senator sanders the ideal would be if money to the picture of adequate risks and benefits of treatment. That was made available. Why do we pay the highest prices in the world by far for prescription drugs . Im not an expert on the price of drugs, senator sanders, i am sensitive, in a field of cardy vascular medicine, we need drugs available. Doctors have writ in to us. Doesnt matter the drugs are available. Their patients cant afford them. Let me ask you this. Very simple question. As head of the fda, you will oversee importation of food products, vegetables, fish from all over the world. We can import lettuce and tomato, vegetables from farms all over the world. Somehow we cannot reimport from canada brand name prescription drugs manufactured by the largest Drug Companies in the world. Can you explain to me and do you support the reimportation of brand name prescription drugs from Major Companies from canada and other main your industrialized countries, yes . No . Senator, as you are aware do . We have capability. It would add additional cost and systems would have to be put in place. This is why the American People are paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. It is beyond my comprehension you are saying we can bring in vegetables fish from all over the world, but we cannot bring in brand name drugs, manufactured by the Largest Pharmaceutical Companies in the world from a country look canada. I just do not accept that. Let me ask you another question. The reason, one of the reasons we pay the highest prices in the world, today as you know, i could walk into a drugstore and tell me the medicine i use the price is double because we have no regulations do. You believe, will you support the right of medicare to neg gesha negotiate drug prices, currently not allowed by law, should medicare negotiate drug prices so we can lower the cost of medicine. It is the administration position, spelled out in the president s budget that negotiation on medicare prices should be done. Its not the fdas to set the prices as we have discussed. The issue of affordability is within your jurisdiction. Let me just conclude, mr. Chairman and thank again senator casey for jumping over him here. That we all want great medicine to come on to the market. And i respect the work that you have done. But at the end of the day, people are dying, people are not buying the food they need because they have to pay outrageous prices for medicine. Because we have been extraordinarily weak in taking on the pharmaceutical industry that is ripping off the American People. I believe that we need a commissioner and i know thats not the only responsibility of the fda. I believe we need a commissioner who is going to stand up to the pharmaceutical industry and protect the american consumers. And i have to say to you, with regret that i think you are not that person. Thank you very much. Thank you senator sanders. Senator stepped aside. Senator, thank you for being here. Thank you, senator alexander. Doctor, welcome. Senator sanders, broached the issue of fish. Bring in fish around the world. I want to suggest to you that perhaps bringing in fish from all around when it is mislabeled, misnamed is not something that we want to do. And i would ask you, again, to look at the issue that we have raised repeatedly before the fda regarding the pollack know man clay tuman nomanclature. We contend you have the Regulatory Authority to change the acceptable market name. Its been a privilege to knowing mike. Hes been doing this for years. A dream of his to get it put together. Were now moving to implementation phase. I think the key, its a massive food, its just a lot of things. High quality analytics what were implementing to target insprekzs to where the high risk is. Using genomics, as you know, for bacteria to figure out where they come from by doing complete gene flotyping with people. Its moving science along. Realigning workforce to preempt problems before they occur rather than reacting. Ill submit for the record a question about issue raised about independence. Pressure what you said about the contract as well as your own steps since being at fda on recusa recusal. Ill develop a broader question. Appreciate it. In light of senator warrens questions, Duke University agreed to make contracts available. I think either in the staffs hands or on the way. It will be good for you to look at those. Also to know consulting money abided by principles but made a personal decision to donate to not for profit charities, its just a sign work is something i thought important, not money in this case. Thanks for the extra time. Thank you, senator casey. Thank you for willingness to serve. Its great to be here with a fellow south carolinian. Thank you, especially since senator byrds gone. Doctor, im the cofounder of the sickle sell caucus, we focus on making sure people appreciate the devastating impact sickle cell has particularly within in african communities. While rare, devastating to communities and families. One of the most expensive diseases to treat given high incidents of hospital readmissi readmission. We havent had new treatments introduced in the market for 20, 30 years. How can we address this and create an environment incentivizes investment, research and development and diseases that affects smaller segments of the population. Thank you for that question. One of the regrets about the wonderful opportunity at the fda, i was glad to do it but left behind things i was working on. One is the issue of diseases that affect minority, particularly poor minority people differentially. We had a project looking at population base using Electronic Health records. One thing that pops out, sickle cell disease, while people are children, well covered by the medicaid system. Yes. With firstrate care. When people become adults, theyre on their own, frequently live in rule cases can get to big centers and this creates disintentidi disdi disincentive. I work working with him and i think theres a comprehensive plan including designations for moving therapeutics more quickly. Im aware of new things in development and they look good. If i wasnt here, id be working with new things. Excellent. Two diseases affect my state at a rate higher than National Average Heart Disease and diabetes. 2013 Heart Disease was the leading cause of death in South Carolina and accounted for 3. 1 billion in hospitalization costs. 2013 as well, 11. 3 of south carolinians had diabetes. We are in desperate need for cures for two chronic conditions. However the high risk and cost of trials, particularly phase iii trials, seem to create an incentive for researchers and investors to avoid working on medications that could help Many Americans and south carolinians suffering with chronic diseases. What ideas do you have for reforming the Clinical Trial process to incentivize researchers and investors. Im tempted to ask how many hours you have. First in the studies with the innovation grant in North Carolina, not South Carolina, west virginia, mississippi, what its really devastating. This is focus on diabetes. We need to get it under control. In addition to cures, we need to deliver Good Health Care to people close to where they live. That is what our project was doing, using electron exhealth records to set up systems in make ithoo hoohoin neighborhoods. Its a problem related to something we discussed earlier, for disease like Heart Disease, we have effective treatments we dont want to let something on the market thats not safe and effective. We have do adequate Clinical Trials. Were committed, as are all federal agencies, to work with industry and academia to develop a National System that delivers better trial results with larger populations at a lower cost. I would say dramatically loyer cost. Key using Electronic Health records. We have to over come terminology. We can do this. And that would enable people to develop new therapies at a lower cost but with better information about safety and efficacy. In september i had an opportunity to ask about labelling of vial similars. She stated tradeoffs in various labeling decisions but did not provide clarify what industry, physicians, patients to expect, when they can expect, primary part of the question is the when. I continue to feel theres a serious risk and not providing notice a product is a vial similar considering small differences between vial similars and branded counter parts unlike with gone nairics. Can you provide any update where things stand with labeling of vial similars. Were working hard on it. It is a very tough, complicated issue. Much of my career in cardiology developing biological products highly effective. Molecules are complicated, difficult to work with. You have to understand them, dr. Woodcock one of the worlds authorities oop i ha authority. The labels have to both encourage use of biosimilars where theyre as good and enable providers and patients to understand when there are differences. Were working hard to come up with and fit in with Global Standards nomenclature that exists as these are on the market they can be tracked. If theres a safety problem we can keep up with it. Those are all of the factors. I cant tell you went well be done. Everybodys interested in this. Its a very high priority. Record will remain open for statements for ten days. I ask senators submit written questions by 5 00 p. M. November 24th. Thank you for being here today. Next hearing on Mental Health wednesday december 2. Committee will stand adjourned. Next washington jumwashin, how congress is reacting to the syrian refugee crisis. Then the paris attacks and u. S. Strategy against isis. A discussion about treatment for ptsd. Washington journal live with phone calls, tweets, facebook 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. 6 house and Senate Transportation negotiators meet wednesday to discuss highway and mass transit funding, work out differences between the two bills. You can see that live 10 a. M. Eastern on cspan3. Sunday, on q a. Im the first woman to reach rank of four stars in the United States navy. I had only been a threestar, gosh, maybe 10, 11 months when the cno was traveling through town, i was in norfolk, he asked to see me. I presumed about the next job i was guying to. Thats when he talked to me about were looking at you for being a fourstar and heres a couple of different opportunities we think you would do well and benefit the navy. Reporter vice chief of Naval Operations michelle howard, first female fourstar admiral. The navys mission to rescue captain phillips in 2009. I became head of the counterpiracy task force. Few days on the job, captain phillips was kidnapped. So it was our responsibility as a task force to go him back, back safely. That was a surprise kind of mission and a challenge, we got him back. Sunday night 8 00 eastern and pacific q a. Next, two federal judges debate criminal justice issues, mandatory minimum sentences and overcriminalization. Hosted by the cato institute. 1 40. I think were ready to get started. Good after noon, im timlin. Director of catos project on criminal justice. Glad you could be with us. Today were going to be hosting a debate on the question of whether or not american criminal Justice System needs an overhaul. We have two distinguished judges from our federal Appellate Courts that are here to share their point of view with us. Whats interesting is that both guests were appointed to the bench by president reagan. This is not your typical left right debate here in washington. It seems to me judges are in a unique position to contribute to improvement of our law and improvement of the administration of justice by writing articles, giving lectures and debating ideas that have an impact on our legal system. I between thank both guests for taking time out of their busy schedules to give us benefit of their experiences from the bench and suggesting ideas that might improve our legal system. Before i introduce our speakers i want to lay a foundation. Before i do that, let me ask those who came with cell phones, doubleche doublecheck, make sure theyre silenced as a courtesy to our speakers. Thank you. I should note we could hold a threeday conference and still not adequately cover all of the important issues that pertain to the american criminal Justice System. But i would like to take put a few questions on the table. If our debaters want it address questions, fine. If they do not want to, if they want to use their allotted time to focus attention on other issues they think are important, thats fine. Maybe we can get to questions when we open up the floor and take your questions and comments after the debate. Here are four questions to consider. First, do we have a problem with overcriminalization . Do we have too many criminal statutes criminalizing too much activity . Second, is our sentencing system too severe . Are we incarcerating people longer than is just or necessary . This is Something Congress is debating, both in the house and senate. Third question, do we have a problem with police and prosecutorial abus . We do hear from time to time innocent people getting released from prison because of dna testing. Are these mistakes inevitable in any criminal system, or are they indications of deeper problems concerning misconduct by government officials . Fourth, what about the level of crime in our society . Over the weekend the Washington Post reported that baltimore recordsi its 300th homicide ofe year. What, if anything, can be done to minimize violence so well have fewer crime victims . Going first today judge alex kaczynski, serving on the 9th circuit of appeals for 30 years. As a matter of fact, last week he marked his 30th year on the 9th circuit. Congratulations for that milesto milestone. Judge kozinski known for many thing, magic tricks, strong romanian accent, humor, wellreasoned and sharply worded opinions and articles. Over the summer he wrote a scathing critique of the criminal Justice System for the georgetown law journal criminal law 2. 0 arguments have caused quite a stir in legal circles. Over the past 10 or 12 weeks talking with either public defender or prosecutor, i start telling them about this interesting article that they should check out and they stop me and say, were aware of that article. So it is definitely has been making rounds. George will wrote a column on it last month. Give a warm welcome to judge alex kozinski. Going second today will be judge jay harvey wilkinson, serving on the court of appeals for the 4th circuit more than 30 years. Engaged in debating our legal system especially big cases that have been handed down by the Supreme Court over the years. Judge wilkinson has been widely published in all major newspapers and also written several books on the law. We had a book for him forum at cato. Most relevant work is an article he published last year in vanderbilt law review in defense of the american criminal Justice System he responds to various critics and makes the point our system has virtues not always acknowledged as much as they should be. Hes spoken here several times. Glad to have him back. Welcome judge wilkinson. Format is simple, each judge is going to give presentation of 15 to 20 minutes. After that, a brief second round, each speaker will be given five minutes to respond to what the other person has said. After that, open it up, take your questions and comments. And then adjourn for a reception upstairs. The floor is yours. Does our criminal Justice System need an overhaul . Thank you, tim. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I have been observing this process for 30 years, the same time as jay, and the conclusion ive come to is troubling signs on the horizon. We have had weve been doing the same thing, doing criminal trials for quite a long time for basically hundreds of years but the way we do them now for a couple 0 hundred years and we make certain assumptions about the way the system operates. It turns out many assumptions are based on guesswork, what we think is experience. And what much of what we see has been undermined recently by science and common sense. Theres trouble signs on the horizon. Let me point out, i dont think a lot of people focus on, and that is that the United States is an outlier, outlier, in the number of people it has in prison. Look at numbers above, the United States with 319 Million People has over 2. 2 Million People behind bars. Thats a rate, number on right hand column of 69 8, almost 700 population. Compare to china, next country that has a large prison population. They have about four times number of people we do but have fewer people in prison. So theyre rate is 119 per 100,000. Only one thats close to ours is russia. But then you get india, brazil, mexico, United Kingdom canada. Take a look at this, china 90 of the global population, 16 of prison population india 17 of population, 4 . United states 5 of population, a quarter of the worlds prison population. That means that here in the home of the brave and land of the free resides one out of every four prisoners in the world. One out of every four prisoner. Now we must ask ourselves, is our country that much more lawless than other neighboring countries, more lawless than canada or mexico . Are we do we get better policing . Are we safer than, say, canada or United Kingdom . In some places in the United States, take a look at bottom figure, there is louisiana, state of louisiana with 5 Million People has far more prisoners than canada with 36 million. Rate there is 1,000 per 11 100,000 more than one ut of every 100 louisianans is in prison. I find that surprising and shocking. Now trying figure out why the case, we impose much harsher sentences for the same crime as a lot of other countries. The question is, is it justified in terms of the cost to the human beings and to families. To the fact longer people stay in prison, less likely to be integrated glo back into soc . In terms of running prisons its 8 billion running federal, 80 billion for running a state prison. This is it doesnt it puts things in perspective there may be something wrong. We have quoot a bit of Scientific Research that cast doubt on various aspects of the trial process, things that we always took for granted, perception, memory of witnesses. Variety of other processes we use during trials. I dont have time for everything but let me focus on Scientific Evidence. We have we attack for granted somebody in lab coat comes and gives a report and says this is the case, that is the truth, that is the reality. But much of what science goes in the courtroom is not tested by dalbert standard, should be employed when deciding whether to admit Scientific Evidence in sever civil indicates. Much in criminal cases done get put to the test. We assume its valid. In fact, when various kinds of Scientific Evidence is put to the test, actually is a flown sample and unknown sample and test how often the experts are right, there are tremendous error rates. You see numbers up above. Spec toe graphic vice identification 63 . Hand writing identification, bite marks. Fingerprints, you get the fingerprint, theyve got you. Turns out fingerprint, rolled prints when they test not latent prints left at the scene but ones where they roll them and make sure theyre perfect samples, theres a significant, nontrivial error rate shown that shows up. Poster child case of this is when the fbi a few years back announced 100 match to fingerprint found on a bag linked to 2004 madrid bombings and said guy whose fingerprint it was was brandon mayfield, oregon attorney. Well, it turns out that two weeks later the spanish investigator identified a different person with 100 match of fingerprints. The fbi had to go back and apologize to mayfield for having branded him an international criminal. Some of the stuff at least mayfield got an apology. Not everybody gets an apology. Some of the stuff that gets admitted in criminal trials, because again it doesnt have to pass dalberts standard, no validation necessary, somebody gets up, says im an expert in how fires spread. Well Cameron Todd Willingham charged with setting fire in texas, to his house and his three children were killed and they had expert, socalled expert, come and testify that the fire had to have had a accelerant, gasoline or kerosene, to would have burned in a different way. Turns out its nonsense. Turns out that that technique, then widely used by people who are not experts, people who were firefighters and drew certain conclusions based on their experience, not on Scientific Research, many cases where testimony was given. In mayfields case, he lost the race to try debunk evidence. He was executed in 2004. Almost certainly wrongfully executed. Studies done afterwards have unanimously said testimony in his case stuff that hung him was just complete voodoo science. Now that is deals with an area of simply mistaken or confused forensic science. One of the big problems many Forensic Office that do work for police view themselves as part of the prosecution team. Theyre not out there to determine in their minds, determine a justice result or correct result. They are there to help build the prosecutions case. Thats just a very bad structure having Forensic Offices supposedly who are objective really being part of the prosecution team. There are lots of examples. A few of them on the slide, cases where people in those offices either falsified reports, simply been careless, or just not bothered to do the work, and come up with a report pointing the finger at somebody. Meloncar from montana, at least three people stoent prison based on what he turned out to have done that was not seen tifrically sound. And dookhan, look at two things, yeah, those are the same without testing them that implicated 34,000, i think number has gone up closer to 40,000 people whose criminal convicts implicated because Annie Dookhan said, yes, those were the same substances. You say, what about dna . Were safe with dna . My word if we get a dna match we know that is safe. Well its only as safe as the people who handle the dna, as safe as they are honest, competent and willing to be objective. Lots of examples. I have a list of the latest San Francisco Police Department facing accusation dna crime technicians were filling gaps for poor quality, incomplete genetic evidence and passing them off as definitive test results in the database. Right now its an accusation but theres quite a bit of substance to it. But lots of instances including fbi where dna, they muffed the dna analysis because nobody either didnt Pay Attention or favored the prosecution. Theres Inspector General report involving the fbi where they looked at hair sample matches. Once thought to be they said, hair came from somebodys head. That must be it. Turns out that they admit, fbi, supposed to set standard for the country, in 95 of 268 trials they have reviewed so far, they overstated the match, either lied or overstated the match including 32 in Death Penalty cases. Theyre not done looking. 95 of the cases they took the side of the prosecution rather than coming up with an objective standard. Specifically focused on examiner michael malone, whose conduct was set to be problematic and they admit, but for malones testimony, one defendant would not have been death eligible, not convicted of a death eligible offense and three other prisoners who depended on malones convict already exonerated, and they served, each spent more than 20 years in prison. Now that is dealing with the evidence. Let me tell you about talking about prosecutors. I had this opinion, it caused an up roar. There was an epidemic of brady violations in the land. Most people are lawyers and understand what brady is. For those who might not be lawyers and plight not know brady, brady Supreme Court opinion, simply if the prosecution has evidence that helps the defendant, theyre supposed to turn it over, required to turn it over. And the in case after indicate i saw this was not being done. And it is must have hit a chord because the phrase i use in this little opinion way out in the east coast, other side of the horizon, quoted in new york times, la. Times, the Washington Post, forbes, it must have struck a chord, and its with good reason. Now i should say, and im going to repeat at the end, im not accusing all prosecutors. Ive known, i know many prosecutors who are terrifically scrupulous, civil servants. They do their job honestly, fairly, try to get a conviction only where there is proof overwhelming proof of guilt and they live by ethical standards. But it doesnt take very many who due to ambition, sloppiness or just being misguided wind up breaking rules to create a real problem. Not only for defendants but also creates a problem for the office. If one guys getting ahead because he lies it makes it harder for everybody else to be honest. This is directed at the few bad apples. Remember what happens with a few bad apples. I was challenged, both by colleagues, i said how do you know there is an epidemic of brady violations . I cant be sure because by their nature most brady violations dont get find out, the prosecution has exculpatory evidence and dont reveal to the defense in most cases it never comes out. But we have most cases it comes out ought to cause us to worry. A case of senator ted stephens tried here in washington, d. C. , you know what happened there. The prosecution failed to provide exculpatory evidence and he got convicted, convicted a week before the election, lost the election, longest member serving member of the senate, lost the election because conviction came in before election. Eventually fbi agent blew the whistle and evidence was discovered and conviction was set aside. Whole episode is detailed in Sidney Powells license to lie excellent book with superb forward. If you read nothing else, buy the book, if you read nothing else, forward will mesmerize you. I guarantee it. But she talks about, sidney talks about the stevens case and also about some other case including one of the enron prosecution, u. S. Versus brown and Arthur Andersen prosecution. Various aspects in which theres overreaching. I dont want to brush with the broad brush, too broad of a brush, because there are many, many, honest and fair prosecutors in state and federal court, but there are enough to worry about. There is another one high profile case, duke lacrosse case where the attorney of the duke lacrosse case. Dna tests taken. They found dna of four people, none of whom lacrosse player. The District Attorney hid evidence leaving the defendants hanging to be vilified and to be stand accused and having lives wrecked, the d. A. Did other terrible things, eventually nifong got disbarred. Plik t Michael Morton case convicted and served 25 years killing his wife, in texas, and the reason this happened, one of the reasons it happened the ken anderson, prosecutor, hid evidence, it was evidence of another man lurking out there, came from the victims son. The prosecution hid the evidence. Now this was before dna came along and when dna came along, morton said, look i would like to have some of the evidence tested because of blood splatter and semen, some dna evidence that could be tested, and said i would like to be tested because i know im innocent, i will be cleared. Ken anderson, by that time a state judge, importuned the current dna not allow testing go forward. He did not want to have Michael Morton exonerated because he knew it would reflect badly onp him and he would be revealed. It took six years of the court of texas to get the evidence that exonerated michael mortgage. What happened at that point discovered dna pointed to norwood. Norwood was tried and convicted. The tragedy is while Michael Morton is in prison convicted of killing his wife, another murder happens in the neighborhood. Now Norton Norwood has been charged with that crime. Case is pending, i dont want to say anything more about it because its a pending prosecution. Let me just say, theres now very strong suspicion that norwood committed this other murder and the police and the prosecutor had not hidden the evidence and had not focused on Michael Morton to exclusion of anybody else, it is entirely possible that woman would still be alive today. Lets talk about the Scooter Libby case here. Its another way in which prosecutors can overreach. Scooter libby convicted based on information of a phone call that happened four years earlier, disputes, woman on the other end of the phone line was Judith Miller, she talked to the prosecutor and, fitzgerald, he persuaded her that Scooter Libby has was the one who gave her the information about Valerie Plame being with cia. Now how did we know he did this . Just this year, just this year, Judith Miller published a memoir in which she goes back and rethinks the event and she raises a horrifying possibility, horrifying to herself, read the book, where she says, was i manipulated . Was this really facts i remembered or did the prosecutor put them in my mind . Chilling stuff, folks, because that was only evidence. Im going to have to go quickly for my time is running out. Overcriminalization, tim has talked about that. I will skip over that. Too many crimes, cases brought on very thin evidence or things that turn out not to be crimes at all. It happens all the time. I want to talk particularly about the case of steinberg. Steinberg was one of the newman chi alt son defendant. You needed to get an instruction. Turns out that newman and chiason were convicted and they brought indictment against steinberg, who was another defendant in the case. Now they could have brought the prosecution by filing it in separate case. Instead, and this is a quote from the Second Circuit opinion, Second Circuit knows instead of doing that, they filed superseding indictment in the Newman Chiasson case, after the case tried and no longer any possibility of trying the cases together. Normally you file a superseding indictment to bring cases together for trial. The reason they did it because other judges in the Southern District would give the distributed instruction, one that Second Circuit said was required but judge sullivan did not. They found themselves a judge they liked, found a judge that they thought would give the law which turns out incorrectly. Instead of filing the case in the normal course, they file this superseding indictment to bring it before the judge. Now that manipulation is sort of sleazy, sort of low. Im surprised that the judges in the district have not brought discipline against lawyer whose do this. Arrested a portfolio manager. Looking at raw footage the wall street journals Jenny Strasburg shot. She was there. Quickly put into a car and he was had his hands cuffed and you know, all pretty quick as far as i could see. They were in the building before that, obviously. So Michael Steinberg knew they were coming for him and through his lawyers offered to surrender. Offered to go some place in terms. The prosecutors refused. Instead. Come out at 5 00 in morning and haul him from where hes living and how do they happen to be cameras and reporters on the scene to film this . It was because Michael Steinberg called and said, hey, im going to be arrested, come and see me . No, prosecutors did it because they relish the perp walk. Why . It infects the jury pool, because it punishes people who have yet to be found guilty of anything. And because it gives them leverage, because people are intimidated and more likely to plead guilty. Federal bureau of investigation other they use other charges. Read the 5th circuit opinion, bowen, federal prosecutors blogging about cases, making defendants out to be dirt. Look at duke lacrosse case where the prosecutor is Holding Forth hold be press conferences before interviewed the defendant. Sorry, the victim rather. What is the point of all of this . Well, this is the lawyer who is nonprivate practice who was a prosecutor in the studentburg case. If you go online from this morning, she proudly lists having convicted Michael Steinberg on her resume. No doubt this was not considered when her law firm hired her. Seems she needs to do to show convicted Michael Steinberg of something that is not a crime. Glenn ford served 30 years in prison. 30 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. We know for sure he did not commit. And he did it because his prosecutor and the police did not look deep enough, did not search for evidence and withheld expu exculpatory evidence. Here is the prosecutor after released. Marty straud says, quote, in 1984 i was 33 years old. I was arrogant, judgmental. I was not as interested in justice as i was in winning. He says the physical evidence was, quote, pure junk science at its evil worst. Quote, i apologize to glenn ford for all of the misery ive caused him and his family. And in an extraordinary interview with a local paper, stroud said the entire criminal Justice System was broken. Out to win, do whatever the cost. They dont really care about the victim. They dont care about this or that. They care about their record. And back then i was in my early 30s i was caught up in that insanity. That the end justified the means and we didnt try people who were innocent. I submit to you that the answer to the question presented is yes. Thank you. [ applause ] judge wilkinson. I want to say what a pleasure it is to be here, to be with my friends at cato, once again. Tim, thank you for everything youve done to arrange this discussion. And i dont many times agrees with what cato say everybody sometimes i dont. But im appreciative of the wonderful contribution that this institute makes to National Policy dialogue. I want to thank my friend judge kozinski for his presentation and stimulating article which i read with the greatest interest. Its a wonderful thing to have a jurist of legal ac accumen o the bench and his commentary and questions are helpful to us all. I dime position of seeking and writing in defense of people of the american criminal Justice System because it occurred i might be the only one who was going to do so. And i read with greatest interest Academic Studies and discussions from this quarter and that quarter and there was a Relentless Assault on the criminal Justice System and nobody had anything much good to say about it. Alexs presentation was on the criminal Justice System was very interesting, but i didnt notice that it was overflowing with compliments. So someone has got to speak and write on behalf of the system. But dont get me wrong. I dont think for a minute i would never try to persuade you, this is a perfect system without its flaws. Its run by human beings and a system that is human and depend enon human judgment, is going to produce, unfortunately, some examples of behavior that no decent person would ever condone. Its not perfect, but the question i kept coming back to is, what do we replace it with. What would you do instead . And thats where i think some of the critics fall short, is what is the al tternative. Im overpowered by power point presentations. I dont bring them to talk myself. I can throw statistics around at you, just in the past couple of weeks we have heard some very sad and sobering news about the number of homicides in baltimore for this year, reaching 300, which is a great many more than that the fine city has enjoyed, has had been flicked with fo to many years, a recent article in the the Washington Post indicating 2014 the Violent Crime in adams morgan increased 32 over the Previous Year on capitol hill. Had increased 26 . But these are sobering statistics. But i dont mean to make my case on them. I would simply say when people say we suffer, that were an outlier and suffer from race of overincarceration, advance the modest proposition that some individuals thoroughly deserve to be incarcerated. So many criticisms levelled last year by esteemed academics that im hard pressed to answer them all. One of the most frequent is that the system is overly dependent on human memory. That may be so, but again, how are we going to get around that . How do we how could it be otherwise . We cant simply impanel a jury outside the yellow tape on a crime scene. It takes time to appoint counsel. It takes time to interview witnesses. And so inevitably, in the time that it takes to do a thorough and decent job at trial, its going to be done after the criminal event itself, and we inescapable and unavoidably are going to rely upon human memory as imperfect as it may be. My friend, judge kozinski says the prosecution enjoys unfair advantage because it gets to present its case first. And thats the case that sticks in the jurys mind. Im not sure thats because the word you hear last is the word most influential with you. How else, again, could we do it. You cant have a defendant defending himself in trial before accused of anything. Having the defendant go first is so inconsistent with presumption of innocent we would never accept it. This is unfair knock. My opponent says the system is unfair because the police have the ability to widely investigate a crime. And of course in the course of their investigation they acquire a familiarity with evidence that the defendant doesnt have its right because the party bringing suit almost always or enjoys investigative advantage. And so they do investigate because they are charged with initiating. Its not an unfair advantage or something that we can get around. Believe it or not, i feel more comfortable that they are investigating. I would not want them to cut corners and not investigate. I would not want the police and prosecution to go forward with a halfbaked case. Sometimes the investigation here decried as unfair advantage actually turns up exculpatory evidence and officers who may have first thought somebody who did it think, no, further investigation proved that not to be the case at all. Judge kozinski envisions a different role for criminal juries, perhaps than theyve played so far. He suggests they go into the jury room with written instructions to accompany them. This is an argument that i think has two sides. One on the one hand you might written instructs can serve as a good reference point. On the other hand we dont want jurors acting like a bunch of amateur lawyers and poring over written instructs rather than asking themselves basic commonsensical question, is soandso guilty of a crime . But this that question has two sides. What i dont think has two sides is, as alexs suggestion, the jurors, member of the jury, discuss a case among themselves while its going on. I think thats dangerous simply on a practical matter. It lengthens the trial, its going to lengthen a trial a great deal. And we have to remember that when we asked jurors to serve, we are asking them to cut out time from their day and to give of their time and things that lengthen and elongate that service are a further imposition upon them. But even more fundamentally, do you really want jurors talking with each other about their impressions before all of the evidence is . I think its much better that jurors, in order to be fair minded, wait until each side has a full chance to present its evidence. Alex suggests, we ought to bring juries in to sentencing. Lets have jurors sentence. Again, i disagree. Sentencing is fundamentally different from trial because presumption of innocence has faded away. And if you have juror sentencing, i dont think that they possess the day by say familiarity with a wide variety of cases that a sentencing judge has and it having jurors as sentencing is going to make it more and more like the trial itself and in that situation were going to have more evidentiary objections, more assignments of error, more assignments of error on appeal. What is happening in cumulatively we are trying to move closer and closer to a trial model on everything. Were saying, grand juries are handmadens of prosecutions we aut ought to have grand juries become a more adversary proceeding, lets not have secrecy, lets have juries getting into sentencing act. On collateral attack lets have evidentiary hearings that rehash in many instances trial evidence. And if we keep going in this direction in fake of amake of t proceedings, grand juries, collateral attacks, sentencing, events that more and more resemble the plain event of a trial, were going to have the democrat of ours collapsing of its own weight. There have been so many accusations at the criminal Justice System. You know how sometimes when somebody disagrees with you they throw so many arguments at you and you really say, gosh, i dont know where to begin . Some of these things that are under fire, these days, are actually defendantfriendly practices, in my view. Were pursuing a counterproductive path in trying to do away with them take the question of preemptory challenges, i think most of you are familiar with those, it gives a criminal defendant and a prosecution a right to strike jurors from the jury for practicely any reason they want the case was made by Justice Thurgood marshall a long time back that preemptory challenges ought to be done away with, that they ought to be abolished, and that particular position has been taken up, i dont think by my friend here, but by other critics. Lets just do away with preemptory challenges to jurors altogether because theres too much of a chance that theyre going to be used racially in order to disqualify africanamerican jurors that has some validity to it. Theres a case before the Supreme Court where the race of the juror was actually marked down by the prosecution, used as a basis for preemptory challenges, and that seemed that case is not before my court but it seems to me that practice goes way beyond what we should be prepared to accept. But do we really want to abolish presemptory challenges altogether . In most jurisdictions the defendant gets more of the preemptory challenges than the prosecution does. And the defendants exercise of the challenges, exercise of the challenges is rarely challenged. But preemptory challenges fill in an important gap in the criminal Justice System because challenges for cause are never likely to eliminate allbiased jurors from the system, a challenge for cause is when you have somebody and you say, well, hes a prosecutors first cousin, we can have him or her sitting on the jury, as indeed we cant. But challenges for cause are simply the tip of the iceberg. You have to have preemptory challenges to fill them out. And a defendant certainly should be able to say, i cant really put my finger on it but i think this juror has it out for me, has it in for me. I dont want this person sitting on my jury. And a defendant should be able, no questions asked, to strike that individual. So i part company, and again im not sure alec has made this point, i dont think he has, but i part company with a large number of critics who say that because they can be misused, as they can, that we shouldnt really use them at all. I want to deal with so much of what alex had to say dealt with prosecutorial abuse. And there are undoubtedly instances about where prosecutors have behaved in a shameful way. Alex has highlighted some of those. Ted stevens trial outrageous. My friend is correct on that in every way. But alex, tell us you really didnt mean it when you said that you were you were going to, abolish absolute immunity for prosecution, for prosecutors. Does your, does your position really take you that far . Your article seems to suggest that we should do away with absolute immunity for prosecutions. And i disagree on that. I think its very damaging to have a civil damages action brought against a prosecutor every time there is an acquittal. Sometimes when you, and thats what would happen if we abrogated this community, this immunity. And sometimes you can create, when you create a cause of action for civil damages, you run the risk of having five substantial suits for every one that might conceivably have merit. But you say, well, if we did away with the absolute immunity for prosecutors, what would we replace it with . And the answer i get most often, well, you dont have to have full absolute immunity. You can have qualified immunity, but qualified immunity really does turn out to be no immunity at all. Because qualified immunity runs up against the Summary Judgment standard. And a Summary Judgment standard says that all inferences have to be given to the nonprevailing party, which we would never be prosecutor in the event the prosecutor moved for Summary Judgment. And so the Summary Judgment standard would draw these cases into trial. And it, it, in the Supreme Court has said many times that an immunity is essentially lost if someone has to go through a trial to, to prevail on it. You can tie up prosecutorial resources in this way to an extent that more and more, were going to have prosecutors doing everything but prosecuting. And the defendant, i mean, the Supreme Court has been absolutely firm on this question that we not overdeter prosecutors from bringing prosecutions that do need to be brought. Sometimes prosecutors decline, for various reasons, to prosecute cases that should be brought. Sometimes its easier to simply pick the lowhanging fruit. Some case are easier and less risky to work up than others. And so you run the risk of going from one end of the pend lum to another, which i think would be the case of if we did what my esteemed colleague is suggesting. Theres an attack on plea bargaining. Leveled by some very sophisticated and thoughtful people. And the idea is that its nothing but an assembly line, and because of the huge volume, people are just run through without any sensitivity to their rights. And we have guilty people actually pleading guilty because of the risk that they might face a more serious punishment at trial. This picture of plea bargaining, which is at the heart of so much of the attack on the criminal Justice System needs to be qualified. Certainly, public defenders are correct when they say that they, that theyre in need of more resources and that they have too many cases on their docket. But you cant deny somebody the right to cop what may be a very advantageous plea, because nowhere in the criminal justice process, nowhere does a defendant have more leverage than at the plea stage. Prosecutor doesnt want to go to trial. He doesnt want to expend those resources. Hes willing to plead. And rule 11 in the plea bargaining process provides the criminal defendants with all kinds of options, having charges dismissed, having charges not be brought, having a judge accept the recommended sentence if the judge agrees to the plea bargain. After trial, those options are generally off the table of the defendant just doesnt have the leverage anymore. And the prosecutors already spent those resources in trial, and he says, well, you have nothing to offer me now. Ive already done this, ive already gone to trial. Maybe they shouldnt be thinking that way, but thats the way it plays out sometimes, and a defendant, by going to trial, risks forfeiting a threelevel reduction for acceptance of responsibility or, if hes patently lying, hes going to get a twolevel increase for obstruction of justice. I dont want to be misunderstood, because trial is a crucial right. People have every right in our country to exercise it. It would be wrong, incredibly wrong to pressure people to do away with it. But heres the thing. I talk to criminal defense attorneys, and they say, you know . I do have some regrets in my career. And some of those regrets center around plea bargaining. I should have encouraged my client to take a plea. Instead, he went to trial and got clobbered. And they say, you know, trial is fun for me. Its fun for me as a criminal defense attorney. But im not the one doing the time. Its my client thats doing the time. And i just, if i had encouraged my client to take this plea, he would have got and much better deal than he eventually did. Prosecutors, we can go on for many, many more minutes, but i dont want to do that. I want to just, if i may have the time, summarize here something that is frankly very close to my heart. I commend the innocence project. Talking about the horrible wrong that is done to an innocent individual. Its just horrible. And we cant really sugar coat that. Its wrong, also, in a lesser sense to society, because it leaves the true offender at large. So you do a double injustice. And i dont want you to get the idea you might say judge wilkinson, you are a real stickinthemud. Thats what my wife and my friends tell me, so [ laughter ] you wouldnt be alone. Join the crowd. Is there anything youre for . Yeah. A lot. In terms of reform of the criminal Justice System. I think suggestions of body cameras on police are a good ideal. I think its absolutely crucial that police and prosecutors who are conducting a lineup or a photo id, they should not know who the suspect is. Because if they foe wknow who t suspect is, theyre going to nudge and push them toward that individual. So we need to have blind photo i. D. S which are much less, in my view, subject to manipulation of the suggestion that we have open files. We should move in the direction of prosecutorial open files, and i think the idea of video interrogations is something that should be discussed as well. I dont think these are constitutional values, but theyre the kind of values at that ought to be brought up in the states and discussed among individual trial judges and theyre the kind of things that may lead to some useful reforms. Once we see how they work out. And different jurisdictions. So i dont want to constitutionalize them that introduces too much rigidity in the system, but i do want there to be dialog about these things and experimentation. And theres one last little thing, and this wont take me long. I think it is sad today that the criminal Justice System has become a scapegoat for all the different ways in which we have failed our disadvantaged communities. We have failed to provide opportunity, educational opportunities, opportunities in jobs and occupations and school. Opportunities for a decent chance in life. And so many, so much of what we find to criticize in our criminal Justice System is simply a reflection of this larger difficulty in not providing our disadvantaged communities what theyre due. Without the criminal Justice System, though, it would make a bad situation even worse. We would not have, we would not have safe treats without a police presence. Drug lords and gang leaders would rule the inner city more than we already do. People would prey on the most vulnerable, and addiction would destroy more lives. After 9 11, people flocked to the criminal justice as a far better alternative than military tribunals. And when i talk to people who have come back here from abroad, they tend to respect the american criminal Justice System more than any other with which theyve been acquainted. So i urge you not to move from one extreme to the other, but lets recover this sense of balance as we view our criminal Justice System. What im asking you to do is please give american institutions and this one in particular a fair trial. Thank you. [ applause ] queewere going to have a ve brief second round, five minutes each. Judge kaczynski . Well, im grad to see judge wilkinsons come along to my point of view. I wont suggest that we need to tear down the Justice System and start from scratch. He says well, theres nothing to do about the fact that trials take time and memories fade. But there are things we can do to preserve memories, and there are things we can do to keep memories from mischapin. And the judge has offered one thing, if you have a lineup, they shouldnt know who the lineup is. If they know who they are, they can communicate that to the defendants, to the victim. Stuff like that, that kind of change, that kind of incremental change can happen in all these areas. Having to do with memory, having to do with conception, investigation, so on. Judge wilkinson says we should move towards open file discovery. Im with him. I think this is wonderful, and i think he and i agree on this point. That is an incremental change that really needs serious consideration. And im so glad to hear that hes on board. I mean, not at all ironically, im very pleased, and i thank k cato for bringing us together. Judge wilkinson has spent some time talking about reforms i do not endorse. I do not think we should do away with peremptory challenges, and i certainly dont think we should do away with plea bargaining, everything he said on that subject i agree with. And there are critics who make those suggestions, but im not with them. I will come out and disappoint judge wilkinson on absolute immunity. Yes, it needs to go. Just to make sure you understand what it means, absolute immunity means if you are a prosecutor and you manufacture evidence and you put it on trial, you went home, you create a document, you then go to court and present it as a document that has been, you do it on your photo shop machine or whatever it is, to make it look like its in defendants handwriting, introduce it at trial, you can, and defendant gets convicted because of that, you cannot be sued. You are absolutely immune. You do perjury, you are absolutely immune. You do anything to threaten witnesses, you are absolutely immune. And the reason the Supreme Court said dont worry about it, dont worry about it, because you give absolute immunity to prosecutors, they will get prosecuted. Because those things are crimes. Well, for all those defendants and all those instances we have seen where prosecutors have misbehaved and have done far worse than ive suggested, when they manufactured, they intimidated, they have provided hidden evidence, they have concealed evidence of expullen tory, knowingly kept it out, that resulted in 10, 15, 20, 30 years of people, sometimes people going to their execution, the total time that the prosecutor spent behind days has been six days. Two prosecutors. Ken anderson got nine days, nine days for the years that Michael Moore spent in prison. He spent four or five of them. Five of them. And theres one prosecutor i cant remember his name who spent one day. Prosecutors dont prosecute other prosecutors. It doesnt happen. I just dont think its a possibility. Qualified immunity . I dont know. Im glad, im so surprised to hear in the fourth second its so easy to survive a motion for Summary Judgment in a qualified immunity case. We are firm, we are firm Summary Judgment for defendants in qualified immunity cases all the time. And whats more, and as judge wilkerson knows, if you file, if you see qualified imfunity, and you seek Summary Judgment on it and dont get it, you get an immediate appeal. Nobody else in the federal system gets an appeal. But if you are subject to qualified immunity like a policeman or other officer you get an immediate appeal. So its not like you have to wait to the end of trial to see whether that is done. So i think qualified imnunity is personally fine, and if prosecutors thought that being actually held personally liable, even if its paid for by the employer, by personal liability, maybe they wouldnt worry so much about coming off prosecutions where the only purpose is to put it on their resume so they can shop for a fat job afterwards. Thank you. [ applause ] judge wilkinson, five minutes. We could go back on absolute prosecutorial immunity for a very long time. One of the things that troubles me about my good friends presentation is that we, we do, when we talk about forensic evidence and when we talk about prosecutal, prosecutions that have never been brought, we always talk about things that misfired. But what you never, ever hear about are the prosecutions where a prosecutor, in the exercise of good judgment sim briply says, the evidence here is too ambiguous to go forward with the cake or there are mitigating circumstances that should not, we should not go forward with the case. In other words, there are many, many, many cases where prosecutors decline to prosecute. And not one of them makes for the kind of vivid anecdote that the cases of illfounded prosecutions do. But when you read these stacte statistical studies, please understand, that cases where theres decline to take action or inaction, they dont make the statistical studies, and they dont make the highlight reels and power point presentations, but theyre real, and they save many, many individuals who should not be in the toils of the criminal Justice System from being swept up in it. And its the same thing with forensic evidence. There are many times when that evidence is not introduced, because its too iffy. And yet, when a lab doesnt introduce those things, are you ever going to hear about it . No. Youre never going to hear about it. So im saying that those instances where evidence is not put forward because its tainted or situations where prosecutions dont go forward, those are the great silences, but they often work in the defendants favor. If i have just a minute or two, id like to talk briefly about sentencing, because its a huge issue, and its on everybodys mind. Yeah, weve overdone mandatory minimums, but there were Reasons Congress put in mandatory minimums, and that was congress was very distrustful of judges granting such things as probation for very serious crimes. If there was some judges who seem very intuitively incapable of imposing punishments. They do serve their purpose in some instances. Mandatory minimums. Because its the fear of the mandatory minimum that encourages someone to turn states evidence. Now, do we always need a mandatory minimum to encourage someone to turn states evidence and cooperate with the prosecution . No, we do not, but the prosecution has to have some sort of stick in this situation. Why . Because the small fry who are going to testify against larger drug lords and drug leaders, that takes guts. That takes courage. And theres likely to be retaliation when the, those higher up the chain of a Drug Organization hear that youre cooperating with the state. And so without that, without a stiff sentence to balance the equation, youre h are not goin get cooperation and move up the chain in these gangs and Drug Organizations. Why do we go after the small fry sometimes in why not just head to the top . Well, because the leaders of an organization are far more skilled sometimes in covering their tracks and minimizing their risk. And pushing the smaller fry who get paid the least and bear the greatest risk. And you just, theres no practical alternative than to begin at the bottom sometimes when youre trying to crack a large organization, a very violence and ruthless one. And move up. I want to Say Something about whether sentences are too severe and talk about sentencing guidelines. We moved from a wholly discretionary system, which is what we had. I want to tell you one little story back before 1987 when the sentencing guidelines werent in effect. There were two wonderful judges in charleston, west virginia. And they were both friends of mine, and they were both honest and hardworking judges who wanted to do the right thing. They were at the opposite ends of the hall of the courthouse. And one judge, one judge is very often gave probation and a nice, sweet avuncular lecture. And another judge brought down the hammer, and it was perfectly clear that the lawyers one task, paramount goal was to get the client before the right judge. That was what needed to be done. And that is why the sentencing guidelines came into effect. We now have, we went too far and curbed District Court discretion too much, but now what we have is gaul v. United states is a system which calls for guided discretion. At the same time, it gives district judges the ability to take the human individual before them into account. So this is an example of where the criminal Justice System, after swinging from one extreme to another, the pendulum, god bless the pendulum that finally arrives in the right place and strikes the right balance. And this is what happened here. And maybe, alex, maybe alex and i can close on a truly harmonious note. Maybe you agree with me, here, alex. Youre not nodding. [ laughter ] it depends on what it is. We still have mandatory minimums. If we do away with those im not for doing away with all of them. I guess the answers no. [ laughter ] okay. [ applause ] were going to open it up and take your questions now. Die have three requests. When i call on you, please wait for the microphone so everyone can hear your question, please make your questions brief. And identify yourself. Thank you, my name is steven keat, im speaking for myself. Judge kaczynski, i found your presentation very convincing. Thank you. Two slides in particular at the very beginning i found impressive. The one on prison population and the number of people in the world, the great number here in the United States, but i was wondering, two countries in particular, iran and china. Only china was on the slide. They have a tendency to go into execute People Fairly quickly. Is that, you know, factored into your statistics at all . Im not trying to discount your statistics. Im just wondering. I dont know. Those are statistics i didnt consider. I do know they have executions in china. I dons thit think theyre in t millions or hundreds of thousands that would affect the figure significantly, but i dont know. Yes, down here. Thank you, wonderful presentation, clark nealy from the institute of justice. Sydney documents in her book that the debacle in d. O. J. , systematic misconduct by the attorneys involved. I brief the worse punishment handed down was a transfer. Ken anderson cost a man 25 years in jail with contempt of court he got less than a week in jail. Should americans have confidence in a system where prosecutors regulate themselves and show such lenience in the face of such indefensible conduct . You want to start . I am not trying to create contempt for our criminal Justice System. I do agree with much of what judge wilkinson says. Its a good system. Its a system that is made up, largely, of people who try to do a good job and try to do it fairly and scrupulously. What ive pointed to is the fact that there are enough glitches, enough problems with the system that we as a society, ought to be worried. So when you say lack confidence, we should have confidence in our system, but i dont think its inconsistent to have trust and doubt. Trust but verify. Our system in which we do have confidence and a long track record has problems with it, has issues raised that challenge that confidence, i think what we do is not develop contempt for the system but what we are to do is find solutions, be flexible enough to take the criticisms into account and make the system better. I should warn you, i have a hearing impairment. And the harder your questions get, the worse my hearing becomes. [ laughter ] i was only making the point about hoping i could bring alex along, but i seem not to have succeeded. Keep working at it. But we shouldnt abrogate absolute immunity for prosecutors, because what were talking about here is a private civil action for damages. With probably very few restraints on it. And those will very quickly multiply and tie down resources to a great extent. Now alex makes the point in rebuttal that well, the prosecutors arent going to prosecute prosecutors. But that seems to me to fall short, because it doesnt answer the question of why a private civil action for damages against a prosecutor is the remedy we want to choose. There are many other options on the table. And one of those options would lie within the department of justice. And you can have some sort of an integrity unit within the department of justice. Is that infallible . No. But there are sanctions sought, short of prosecution. Thats one idea. Another thing is that the prosecutors who brought the ted stevens case which is just one of several examples of where they way overreached. There are sanctions such as they should lose their jobs. That, that is quite a blot on your resume if you are kicked out of your job by superiors or others within the department of justice. All im saying is that there are a range of remedies that congress can consider every time it enacts a law. And it doesnt always have to be a private civil action for damages. That action will be abused and used every time theres an acquittal, whether the prosecutor proceeded in good faith or whether he didnt. Well, what you see is actual promotions of prosecutors, not sanctions. Remember, what were talking about here is constitutional violations. Were not taking about making an error. Were talking about some prosecutor doing something that is known to be contrary to the constitution, like failing, concealing evidence. Now the poor schmuck cop on the beat who didnt go to law school may not even have graduated college is expected to know the constitution. And god knows if that cop does something that is established in the law to be a constitutional violation, he can be sued. Now why should a prosecutor who went to law school presumably and presumably nows the criminal law much better, why should that prosecutor get better protection than the cop on the beat . I dont get it. Its only elitism. It is because prosecutors are like judges, and prosecutors sometimes were judges, in that just like us, were out to protect ourselves. Theres judicial immunity too. If a judge does something, qualified immunity, why . Because judges write opinions. What do you expect . [ laughter ] yes, sir, gentleman in the blue shirt. Ian moses, my question is about the institution of plea bargaining. Both of you said that you dont think it should be done away with, but now i dont know the statistics of how many of the people in prison are there for plea bargain, but i know its a pretty large percent and, and theres certainly a lot of room for abuse in the process of plea bargaining and having to prosecutors pressure a defendant into giving up his right to a trial. So since you dont want to do away with it, i was wondering, can either of you make suggestions about how you think the system could be reformed to make it less prone to abuse . Jay, you take it, since youre so well, start with the supposition that everybody should be able to waive a constitutional right. And we allow people to waive their right to a jury trial. And thats just a fundamental right of choice in our system. So i think a person should have a right to strike a deal thats advantageous it ouous to him o. Now theres some things that can be done. And one is to provide public de defenders with resources so they dont have too many clients. They say we simply cant give people the punishment they deserve because we dont have the prosecutorial resources, and we have to bargain way down beyond what we think is necessary for public, public protection. Now the question is, does plea bargaining induce someone, is there some sort of unfair pressure on somebody to plea bargain. And here i can only say that, yes, there is pressure. But more often than not, that pressure is exerted by the fact that the states evidence against an individual is very, very strong. And we see the same thing in contract negotiations that one side may be pressured in a sichl contract by the fact that another side may be holding all the cards. And we see this, you know, in a criminal trial, too. Maybe somebody doesnt want to take the stand, but the state puts on a strong case, and then the criminal defendant says, wow, i better get on the stand and respond to what the state has put on. Now, is that, is that pressure to take the stand . Yes. Is it a violation of the fifth amendme amendment . I dont think so. Because someone has the right to take the stand or not. And the fact that the state has assembled a strong case may put pressure on you to plea bargain, but thats not, thats whats present in a great, great many cases, and its not an illegitimate pressure. What i do think your question points toward is if we can possibly provide more resources so that a public defender has not so many cases to deal with, that might help. Okay. I have one lets move on i think this is important. There are two things that need to be done for plea bargaining. A lot of time prosecutors insist on bargaining before they provide exculpatory evidence. I would personally say that no bargaining be allowed until the pros security comes up with the materials so that the of defendant will not be bamboozled, will not give away evidence when in fact the prosecutor has exculpatory evidence. Oftentimes, defendants get charged with something that may not be a crime, and they have no way of testing it, because the judges in the federal system will not dismiss indictments for insufficientsy. Now my law clerk, james berman has writ and piece suggesting that district judges take close look at indictments, force efficiency and that be apeaable so that the defendant will know in fact whether hes facing a crime. So i would make those two changes. And at that point, the defendant can know in fact what he is being charged with is in fact a crime and second that he has exculpatory evidence. Okay, i see paul larken in the back. Wait for the microphone, paul. Paul larkin from the heritage foundation. I want to ask judge wilkinson a question, because i think a lot of the arguments youre making go to blue collar crimes where there is clearly a question that the defendant may or may not be the one who committed it, but theres no question a crime occurred. In the white collar area, there probably is no doubt that everybody agrees what happened, but it may not be a crime. The rules that youre talking about may work very differently in the two systems, because if youre talking about the reasonable doubt standard helping the defendant, it doesnt help him if the question is whether what everybody admits happened is a crime. No judge decides whether this is a crime by beyond a reasonable doubt. They decide whether this is or is not a crime based on a more likely than not standard. What seems more persuasive so them. And when you have crimes defined by regulations issued by administrative agencies, you hardly have judgments that reflect deepseated norms and retribution. Thats what you wrote in your article. Anytime youre talking about the white collar area, i think you have to look at this very differently, and i dont think your arguments always work in that area. I think you raise a very interesting point. I really do. They are, theyre different, theyre different species to be sure. And one of the main differences, of course, is that the, what you referred to as blue collar crime, the vast majority of defendants are, are indigent. And theyre going to be represented by appointed counsel or by public defender organizations. When you get to a white collar criminal situation, you have a different scheme of representation, which is that youre dealing in the main, very often, with retained counsel. Whom the criminal defendant has, has chosen. Now the problem with the blue collar crime was a public defender may have too many cases. The problem with the White Collar Crime area, just because the lawyers have been retained and had chosen that doesnt necessarily eliminate the resource disparity. And the difficulty, often, it seems to me in the white collar area is that the agency, for example, and this relates to civil infracks as well as to criminal prosecutions. But the agency, because its working on the public trust or the public fisk may have the resources to simply outlast you. And youre paying, youre paying for your counsel in that case. And the state can drag the investigation out. It can drag it on. It can drag it on. It can drag it on and bleed you. And thats, it seems to me a problem both civilly and criminally that you have public agencies with large amounts of appropriations and resources and private defendants with limited ones. So i think its, its really a different paradigm, and i think its something that really needs to be addressed, because there is a good amount of agency abuse. Ive seen so many cases where theyve kept people on the string for years and years and years. And im glad you raised that question, sir, because it does indicate that not all these situations are the same. Yes, sir. No, no. Down here. First row. Stewart doerson. Id like you to comment on overcriminalization, both at the blue collar level where oftentimes plea bargaining is fueled by multiple charges, very lengthy indictments that oftentimes have mandatory minimums or would subject a convicted defendant to substantial sentences under the guidelines, and on the white collar side, paul mentioned the myriad of regulations that have criminal overtones. But more and more in the environmental crimes area, in the health care area, were seeing Congress Pass laws or attempts made by prosecutors to charge crimes where mens rea yeah is either not required or is virtually absent. Can either or both of you comment on that . You wrote an article on this subject of overcriminal for cat ofte tchcato. And the article is you, too, may be a federal criminal, yes, you, too. The reality is its very easy to criminalize and to write very broad statutes, and even easier than implementing for federal agencies so that a lot of stuff that happens, that people take for granted, winds up being criminal or arguably criminal. And you add to that that very often the for whatever reason they want to go after somebody they can stretch the terms of the law, or they can refuse, you know, as they did in various cases in arthur anderson, so on, argue whether or not theres an intent requirement. If you stretch these things far enough, theres really nobody you cant get. And nobody you cant put behind the eight ball and then force to the grim choice of going to trial and risking huge penalties or taking a settlement. And lest you be too worried that oh, the rich do better because they get big lawyers, theyre taking care of that now because the federal government is going in and pretrial seizing the money you were going to use to hire a lawyer. So they not only want you fighting a crime where the risks are huge to you, where the terms are illdefined, where they refuse an instruction to, they take a position that you dont get instruction as to scienta, but think want a lawyer whos willing to do it for nothing. This is the kind of abuse i think, this is the kind of stuff that worries me. Im a little surprised at my friend Jay Wilkerson is so complacent about me. Me, it gives me the willies. You want to comment . Its, the word overcriminalization is one of those thats thrown around. Its a very broad kind of phenomenon. I think part of, some part of it has been brought about by the fact that we have different species of crime, such as cybercrime. And we have the internet, which is made possible all kinds of different crimes. And made more serious different crimes that probably didnt exist or didnt exist as a federal question beforehand. So i think when youre looking at the proliferation in criminal laws, you have to, you cant divorce it from some of the underlying changes in society that are taking place. Criminal organizations for example are becoming more sophisticated. And many of their operations are cross state lines. And they do. And so thats an invitation for the federal government to criminalize those things if they cross state lines. So part of it is a response to electronic crimes. Part of it is a response to interstate crimes. Thats part of it. Another part of it is that also laters legislators like to take credit for enacting crimes. So that seems to be a lively political question. They feel they would answer this is horrible behavior, were responding to the wishes of our constituents. People dont feel safe, well, that may or may not be true. And the point is, i think that what you raise is a good question, but i think its more of a question for a legislative hearing and the political system to work itself out. As to whether prosecutors stack crimes and stack charges, yes, to some extent, they do. But can, can we, can we really fault a prosecutor from enforcing laws that are on the books in and a lot of times they bring multiple charges because they dont know which ones the jury is going, the, a judge is going to dismiss. And they dont know which ones a jury is going to acquit on, and so its a matter of hedging bets. All im trying to suggest to you is youre on to something, but i think theres a reason for the phenomenon. And i think that the fault may lie more with the impulse to criminalize for political credit, at the political level, but im not sure that can you go after prosecutors, because im not sure they can predict the fate of all the different crimes they charge. I am afraid we have run out of time. But would you please thank both of our speakers. [ applause ] everybody heres invited to a reception that well be having in the winte garden, and we can continue the discussion there. Thank you. On the next washington journal, we look at how congress is reacting to the syrian refugee crisis with congressman earl blumen hour. And then lou berletta. Washington journal is live at 7 00 eastern on cspan. Automaker executives and federal Transportation Safety officials testify witness on the future of connected cars. The joint hearing of two House Oversight committees will be live at 2 00 eastern here on cspan 3. A signature feature of cspan 2s book tv is our feature of book fairs and festivals across the country with Nonfiction Author talks, interviews and callin segments. They will be live from the Miami Book Fair starting on saturday. Authors include peggy noonan. Judith miller joins us to discuss her book. And newsman ted koppel on lights out, surviving the aftermath. On sunday, speak with the authors live. First, p. J. Orourke takes your calls on thrown under the omnibus. Join us live from miami on cspan 2s book tv. Be sure to follow and tweet us your questions book tv. Louisiana governor bobby jindal suspended his campaign on tuesday. The governor released a statement that says in part, now is the time for all those americans who still believe in freedom and american exceptionalism to stand up and defend it. Mr. Jindals term as louisiana governor ends this year. The number of major republican candidates in the raice is now 14. Next, Ohio Governor and republican candidate john kasich on his agenda. He took questions for about an hour. Good afternoon, and welcome to the National Press club. My name is thomas burr. Our guest today is Ohio Governor john kasich who is seeking the republican nomination and he hopes, eventually, the white house. I would like to welcome jerry zeremski. Thank you, gentlemen. [ applause ] id also like to welcome our cspan and public radio audiences. Can you follow the action on twitter using npc live. Thats npc live. Last weekend when the world learned of the attacks on paris, john kasich was the first to call on nato to invoke the article v clause. We need to stand shoulder to shoulder with the french people. This is a moment to stand together. Today kasich comes to the National Press club to outline his National Security strategy which includes rebuilding the u. S. Military, revitalizing diplomatic alliances and recommitting to fundamental western values. The paris attacks have quickly turned the focus of the president ial campaign that had largely been concentrated on Domestic Affairs to questions surrounding u. S. Foreign policy, especially the approach being taken towards the middle east. A week ago in the republican debate, governor kasich forcefully inserted himself into the dialog on a few occasions. Today at the press club, the secondterm Ohio Governor has the stage to himself. [ laughter ] you can still interrupt if youd like to. [ laughter ] kasich last month achieved an alltime high Approval Rating of 62 among ohioans. The state of ohio has turned an 8 billion budget deficit into a 2 billion surplus. His budgetcutting enthusiasm was demonstrated during 18 years in congress where he served as chairman of the house budget committee. Prior to coming to washington, he was an ohio state senator, a native of pennsylvania, he moved to ohio to attend Ohio State University where he graduated in 1974. At a time when polls show americans have a disdain for public officeholders, kasich has tried to turn the long experience into a positive by asserting that can he fix washington. We will see over the next few weeks whether the paris attacks will put a higher premium on the experience or increase frustration with voters. Please welcome john kasich. [ applause ] you did such a good job that maybe you can stand in for me at the next debate, what do you think . Ill give it a shot. Okay. Last friday in paris, it was made obvious to the world yet again, that there is an enormous chasm between the world view of civilized people and the world view of those who committed these acts of horror. We believe that life has value and meaning. They see no value, even in their own lives, let alone others. We believe the different views and ideas should be respected and these make us stronger. They believe the answer to disagreement is death. We believe men and women are equal. They believe women are property. We live in the light of gods love for all creation. They pervert and hijack one of the worldsworlds principal re. We live in a world of respect for liberties, they live in a world of darkness, devoid of even the basic understanding of humanity. We forget these differences. Its at our peril. Unless we want to see the bloodshed of paris visited here in america and in the streets of our allies capitals, we need to get serious, immediately, about dealing with this threat. There can be no negotiating and no delay with this darkness, we must simply defeat it. We cannot wait on a resolution to the Syrian Crisis to deal with isis. Im not convinced that the talks a few days ago will be implemented on any schedule. And i doubt it will lead to any certainty over syrias future leadership. A ceasefire is supposed to occur within six months. And elections within 18, paving the way for a potential political transition in syria. I believe these are empty promises. What is more, with isis having directly threatened the u. S. Homeland, we cant afford to wait. We must act now. We must invoke article v, the mutual defense clause of the north american treaty and bring nato together to assist our ally, france, in its defense. I agree with president hollande that fridays attacks were an act of war by isis on france. And therefore, they were an attack on america and every other nato member state. Nato came to our aid after 9 11. Nato must now do so for france. We must be swift. We must be decisive, and we must be absolute. [ applause ] we must intensify International Intelligence cooperation by identifying exchanging information on, tracking and if necessary arresting the thousands of foreign volunteers currently fighting with isis who then later return to their home countries. End to end communications, incrypting technology is leaving us in the dark. We need to illuminate these technologically and we must invest more in human intelligence assets with which to terminate and neutralize these groups. Our signals intelligence do not exist separate from one another. They accent and compliment one another and every effort should be made to leverage each for the others benefit. We also need to reassess our domestic Counter Terrorism resources to ensure that our joint fbi, cia, Counter Terrorism task forces have the personnel they need to track potential domestic terrorists. We need to provide far more support to the kurds, both in syria and iraq. The kurds, who are fighting to defend their homeland fight like tigers. And they are one of the few groups friendly to the United States who really have shown that they know how to take the fight to isis. We must arm them much more, much more generously than we have done so far. Turkey has legitimate concerns about arming the kurdish ypk in syria. We must work to address their concerns, as we insist on addressing a threat to the Vital National interests of america and the rest of the world. We must create safe havens, protected by nofly zones, i first called for nofly zones early last month in order to relieve the suffering of Syrian Refugees and reduce their need to travel to europe. These sanctuaries should be located on the turkish and on the jordanian borders. Our jordanian and kurdish allies should provide protection for them on the ground, while the United States provides protection from the air. We must arrest human traffickers, prosecute them. Put them in jail and confiscate their illgotten gains. We must create an international could i ligs to defeat isis in syria and iraq. We must join with our nato allies, and importantly, with allies in the region as well. That would be the turks. The jordanians, the egyptians, the gulf states, the saudis to organize an International Coalition to defeat isis on the ground in its heartland, experience, of course, has shown that an air campaign on its own is not enough. We must be more forceful in the battle of ideas. U. S. Public diplomacy and International Broadcasting have lost their focus on the case for western values and ideals and effectively countering our opponents propaganda and disinformation. I will consolidate them into a new agency that has a clear mandates to promote the core Judeo Christian values that wian our friends and allies share, the values of human rights, democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of association. And it should focus on four critical targets, the middle east, china, iran, and russia. Sophisticated strategies will be developed to communicate with each of these hard target countries. The challenge posed by isis in syria and iraq is a symptom of a broader weakness in americas National Security policy. Failing to advance our values in the battle of ideas, not doing so against the threat such as isis or if plan places such as and iraq is interpreted by others around the world as weakness. The administrations desire for an Iran Nuclear Deal at any cost is another example. In weakness invites challenges, and attacks of the kind that we have seen from nations that do not share our values, such as china and russia. By invading georgia, annexing crim crimea, fomenting a proxy war in ukraine, building out its base structure in belarus, russia has once again become a threat to European Security. Russias Leadership Today does not respect the basic tenets of the international order. Namely, territorial integrity and the rule of law. Those are basic values of International Relations and russias failure to respect them is simply not compatible with constructive relations with the west. We must Work Together with our european allies to defend a free ukraine. That includes training and Arming Ukrainian forces with the weapons that they have asked for and which congress has already approved. It also means focusing on the defense of new nato member state the on the front lines with russia, such as poland, lats via, lithuania and estonia. Nato must be vigilant and protective of its easternmost states who live every day in russias shadow. We must focus on supplying and equipping them in achieving interoperabili interoperability. Increasing cooperation with finland and sweden and building a new, strong, integrated air Defense System on natos eastern border. We must also learn the lessons of crimea and develop an exercise contingency plans for dealing with future russian provocations. You know, there are no such t n things as little green men or volunteers. If they reappear, i will take u. S. Forces in europe and around the world to heighten combat readiness in order to be able to intervene in support of our friends and our allies. While russias actions are forcing us to take tough measures to achieve peace through strength and safeguard our friends and our allies, i will make it claear that the dor to negotiations remains open. I am confident that by sitting and talking together with our allies, russia and america, that we can forge a new European Security architecture that accommodates their interests without damaging those of nato member states. The same is true for our relationship with china. The weakness we have shown toward russia is really no different than that we have shown towards china. Its efforts to control the South China Sea and seabed resources to which it is not entitled are blatant violations of International Rules and norms. These are boldfaced efforts to do nothing more than bully its neighbors. Because of those efforts, we must now stand by our western pacific allies who rightfully feel threatened by chinas blinl rinse. That means working with our regional allies to significantly increase our military presence in the region, to ensure freedom of navigation for the 5. 3 trillion in annual trade that passes through the western pacific. We must forward deploy our Pacific Combat commander to guam and station additional marine force and marine corps units in the west pacific. We should increase pacific navigation and submarine patrols. We should conduct regular Amphibious Landing exercises. We should help our japanese allies defend their territorial waters by installing seabed acoustic systems, rocket launch torpedos. To deal with the Nuclear Threat posed by north korea, i will work with south korea and our other regional allies to revitalize counter proliferation activities and to build Ballistic Missile defenses. The u. S. Does not seek confrontation with china. We should remain open to working responsibly with our allies and with china as an equal stakeholder. Together we should be able to forge Innovative Solutions and institutions that respect and accommodate the National Security interests of all pacific powers. The same mistakes in judgment and strategy that have left terrorism flourish in recent years and wrongly signal weakness to russia and china are found throughout National Security policy right now, and it all comes down to this. We have not led, because leadership has not been a priority. We have been contempt to let the tools of leadership, our military and Alliance Relations become weak and frayed. Weve even hesitated to express and live bit values at the core of who we are. Its time for change before its too late. We must rebuild our nations sorely neglected military from the bottom up. This doesnt mean like some we rush to fund every generals wish list. Instead, we must assess our combined allied capabilities and identify the needs and gaps in dealing with threats that we face in each region of the world. This means being strategic about rebuilding our military, matching it to the threats that we face and complimenting the capabilities of our allies. We must also be more careful in how we spend our military dollars, especially on weapons systems. We can make our dollars go further and get our troops the equipment they need faster by rewarding ontarget cost smipt estimates. Insentivizing contractors and Program Managers to be ahead of schedule and under budget. Using off the Shelf Technology as much as we can and putting in place criteria for design changes. Likewise we must ensure that sc scarce resources reach those who need them most by streamlining the pentagon bureaucracy. We need to provide greater flexibility, both to hire the talent we need and part company with consistent underperformers, and we must recognize that cyberspace is a battlefield as well that deems our attention and resources. We must not shy away from turning to the private sector for muchneeded help to protect ourselves and to take the battle to the enemy. We can and we must take out of the resources that our enemies use to wage war online. Not only do we need strong, decisive, multilateral agreements to respond to anyone who attacks our governments and private sector and allies, but we need an aggressive strategy to go after the cyber resources of our enemies. Federal prisons. Thats live tuesday at 10 00 eastern here on c span 3. Millennials and their role in todays economy was the topic of a republican policy meeting on capitol hill. The task force is chaired by Elise Stefanik who at the age of 31 is the youngest member of congress. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. The House Republican policy meeting task force on millennials will now come to order. The committee is meeting today to discuss the essential role of mill epials in todays economy. And though were meeting on that important topic, couldnt start todays hearing without mentioning that our hearts and minds are with the people of paris today as they deal with the horrible tragedy over the weekend. We want them to know that we hurt as they hurt. And we all understand together that we have to be united in standing up to these terrorist thugs threatening our waive rife and ultimately douefeating them. I will recognize myself for an opening statement. I want to thank everyone for coming today. Its an exciting day as we host the second Millennial Task force to discuss how the millennial generation is shaping our economy. Today millennials are the largest generation in the workforce, and by 2020, just five years from now, they will represent 50 of it. Now think about that for a second. In just five short years, millennials will make up half of the american workforce. Thats exciting througnews, but also creates a number of challenges. The writing is already on the wall for many p millennials. Student loan debt has risen]iui 1. 2 million. Increasing over 50 . Wages have stagnated. Young people are being poursed to live at home longer. And the president S Health Care law has shifted the cost from the old to the young. Millennials arent asking us to give them a prepass. Theyre just asking us to give them a fair shot. And weve got a long way to go. But the good news is that even though government pea hamay hav helped create this mess, it can also help fix it. As Ronald Reagan said, there are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We just have to have the courage to do what we know is morally right. The first praise lace we can st getting out of the ways of businesses that are fighting to give millennials a chance. There are companies that are rewriting the rule book. These businesses have taken an uncommon approach to fixing common problems, and by doing so, they have truly changed the world. For instance, when was the last time that you opened an encyclopedia or had to walk miles to find a cab . These businesses are changing the way our economy works, and for the future of the millennial generation, we can no longer allow government to get in if the way. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, the youngest woman ever elected to congress has been a tireless advocate in the halls of congress for millennials, and we are pleased to have her leading this task force today. For those of you in the audience or watching online who pea have questions for our witnesses, you can tweet your question using the , gopfuture. And we may ask your question, time permitting, during this hearing. I now recognize the gentle lady from new york, the chair of the policy committees Millennial Task force, congresswoman stefanik. Thank you chairman messer, and i would like to take the opportunity to thank our distinguished panel of witnesses for taking the time to testify and share your knowledge and expertise with us. It is a distinct honor to chair the task force and lead todays hearing as we continue our discussion on how i would as legislators can greatly empower the millennial generation. Id like to take the opportunity to revisit our previous hearings. This is the third in an ongoing series where we have explored and discussed the millennial generation. In june we held our first hearing and we had the Manhattan Institute laying out the demographic break down of americans between the ages of 1834. We reviewed Current Trends and polling data that showed this generation is different in many ways from their parents and grand parents. For example, millennials are the most highly educated generation in american history, yet they also feel the most politically disengaged. In august i held a field hearing in my distribute where i heard from millennial constituents representing a diverse set of backgrounds, they shared real world examples facing a john racial that will soon comprise half of the american workforce, problems such as regulatory issues that hold back farmers. Things that prevent the next Small Business from opening and a government that is slow to adapt have left these Young Americans feeling stifled. As we come together once again we have the privilege of hearing from Industry Leaders who represent the cutting edge of fresh thinking and adaptive policies when it comes to the modern workplace and economy. We will hear how companies are attracting and retaping millennials to their workforces and gain a better understanding how technology is empowering our constituents to support themselves and giving them the flexibility they desire. Millennials have now surpassed generation xors as the largest generation in the labor pours. One in three American Workers today is a millennial, and this percentage will rapidly increase in the coming years. For companies to stay competitive, they will need to be able to harness the talents, experiences and energy of a generation that currently includes 80 million americans. With this new generation, as with all generations come new ways of doing things and fresh outlooks on the world around us. Past generations have looked for stability and certainty, whereas millennials look for flexibility and fulfillment. I brief these shifts will make the United States stronger and more competitive. I look forward to a pro ducktive dialog. Other members of the task force may be recognized in the future when they come in to share statements, but i will move on to introducing the witnesses. I will start with maisie clark who is a Government Affairs analyst at google, working on their advocacy efforts on a wide range of technologies. She has worked at google since 2010 in the people operations, sales and Governmental Affairs divisions. Prior to google, she worked at kiva. Org. She graduated from Harvard College in 2009 with a degree in history. Terry mcclemens is the washington metro managing partner for Price Waterhouse cooper. She leads a practice comprised of over 4,000 professionals serving public, private and government clients and is responsible for all Client Services in the washington metro area. She previously served as oust Human Capital leader and global tal. Leader. During her tenure as oust Human Capital leader, her strategies were recognized and she was recognized by the womens Business Journal as one of the most powerful people in the greater dc. Area. She was also recognized by the National Council for research on women as a trail blazer. One of those who contributed to significant change in the lives of women and girls. Our last is the policy leader for uber. He is responsible for advocating ubers progrowth, marketdriven Business Model to all stakeholders and interested parties. Prior to uber, he served for kevin mccarthy. In this role, he was responsible for coordinating outreach to key organizations that were interested in legislation being considered by the u. S. House of representatives of brian began his career in washington, working for congressman dave hobson and served as a political appointee at the u. S. Small Business Administration and as a Vice President of affairs for independent electrical contractors. He is a graduate and lives in arlington, virginia. The chair recognizes maisie clark for five minutes for an opening statement. Hello. Im going to start over. Thanks. Hi, everyone. My name is maze eye clark with google. Its an honor and pleasure to be here with yall today. I worked at google in a variety of different roles in the past five and a half years. As you poe, the recession has disproportionately affected millennials. I graduated from Harvard College in 2009 at the height of the recession and i did not have a job lined up on graduation day. I took an unpaid internship for five months as i searched for aen gaua engaging and salaried position. Recruiting wasnt exactly the career path i imagined i would pursue when i was in college, but i really mighted needed to money and move out of my parents house. I couldnt ask for a more rigorous and engaging experience. This is because of the way google focuses on its people. It positions itself in many ways to hire and retain millennials, but four themes unite them all. A culture of flexibility, trust in our employees and a constant pursuit to have an inclusive workplace. Countless surveys about what motivates millennials, including deloittes 2015 Millennial Survey show that a mission they believe in is the most important factor for millennials. Googles mission is to organize information. Our mission is distinctive in its simplicity and scope. Many focus on Customer Experience and improved operations and shareholder value, google is focussed on purpose rather than business goal. Mill epials also care a great deal about having flexibility in their careers, both in their day to day work but also in their career trajectories. Work hours at google are flexible. And as long as you get your work done the company is happy. We also allow 20 projects where they can spend 20 of their time working on projects which they think can benefit the company or delight customers. Gmail launched in 2004 and is now one of googles most beloved products. Google always encourages us to keep learning. Googlers can receive an Educational Reimbursement for courses they take outside of work. If a Software Engineer wants to take a course in medieval literature, google will pay for one third of the cost of that course. If its like learning a new code language, google will pay for twothirds of the cost. They offer yearlong rotations to experience what its like to work in another department or another part of the world. My colleague is in south africa and is gaining meaningful experience and cultural exposure as a result of it. Trust in our employees is also an enormous cultural pillar at google. The code base, which contains all the source code that make our products work is almost 100 available to newlyhired engineers on their first day of work. By trusting our employees with confidential information we are treating all people including millennials like the valued, mature people they are. They hold a company wide meeting where they take questions from any employee about products, leadership decisions and the direction of the company. It allows each employee to make his or her voice heard and have access to the top of the company who are making important decisions for the business. This creates a meaningful connection that has a positive motivation for their loyalty to the company. They place an emphasis on bringing our whole selves to work and respect the differences of others. Our lack of dress code is a large appeal but it goes far beyond that. Google has invested a great deal of resources of combating unconscious bias, which is the capacity to give preference to others. They work to brake down the bias to make sure were assessing in the most objective way possible. We also have a number of employee resource and advocacy groups. Mission, transparency, trust and inclusion have paved the way for google to be considered a top employer by mill epials, and we strife each day to retain this incredibly talented john racial of technologists. Thank you, ms. Clark. The chair now recognizes mrs. Mcclemens for an opening statement. Thank you, congress stefanik, congressman messer and other distinguished members of the congress for inviting us to talk to the task force hearing. We are delighted to share some of the Innovative Strategies weve implemented to talent attraction, development and retention of a group of people often misunderstood, millennials. Our workforce is streakingly young. By next year, mill epials will account for approximately 80 of our peep. So the issue of how we attract, engage and develop the youngest members of our organization is something weve spent a lot of time thinking about. They are often stereotyped as being selfabsorbed, lauzy or quick to shift loyalties. Weve found that to be unfounded. And when we started paying attention to the Millennial Workforce motivations and interests, we ended up with a fresh perspective on the Work Experience for our entire firm of in 2012, pdbc collaborated with researchers from Southern California and rlondon business school, what motivates them and how to keep them engaged. What we found were real generational differences among older and younger hires. One of the main take aways from our study was understanding how much millennials and even our experienced people valued flexibility in their schedules and their careers. In many cases, millennials are willing to give up the opportunity to make more money or climb the corporate ladder to find a role that offers them the flexibility to work from home or time to follow their passions. We use this information to rethink what kinds of flexibility we are offering all of our people. In january 2013, we launched a contest, which we called plan to flex, where we asked our managers to work with their teams to find a way to achieve flexibility by supporting each other during one of the busiest times in our Business Cycle january through march. The goal was to focus on clients and have time for things that matter to the individual. We had more than half of our people participating. In early 2014, we took it one step further and rolled out yearround flexibility for the entierp organization. Were finding more unique ways to offer flexibility and balance. We recently launched our flexibility scare tquare talent network. Weve had professionals enroll in medical school during most of the year and come back to us for the busy season. Another professional started their passion and started a bakery. Millennials are also reminding us about how to engage in communication. Its a myth that younger people only want to communicate through electronics. This insight pushed us to take a fresh look at our Performance Management practices, which, at the time, were largely paperdriven, process driven, back ended and often focussed on assignment of compensation as opposed to career development. In 2014, we replaced our old process with a new Leadership Development experience, grounded by our pdbc framework which emphasizes the competencies necessary to solve important problems in an everincreasingly complex world. We are creating a real Time Development culture, emphasizing frequent, informal, in the moment feedback to help our people every day. We developed an app that charts progress to facilitate morrow bust career conversations. Millennials also want to know that theyre valued and appreciated for the contributions theyre making. It can come in the form of real time rewards or for finishing a project. It can also be expressed more subtly in the way we talk with each other and express appreciation. Have you use just one of your seconds to say thank you . Thats appreciation. It takes about a second, but the value of giving that feedback can be impactful and longer lasting. It used to be that the promise of one day becoming a partner of pbdc was the reward for slogging away at the office to matter of the other demands one may have outside of the work. But today, pbdcs goals honor purpose, our reason for being, our millennials take that purpose to heart. Theyre even willing to leave if what were doing as an organization doesnt align with their core values. Weve invested time in teaching people about our purpose, how we build trust in society and solve important problems. We have spent time looking at pdbcs commitment to social issues and sew sigh tal trends to make an impact. Weve taken an active role to promote literacy and support the needs of our veterans and be involved in our own communities to take time away to engage in something meaningful to them. This issue of purpose and meaning has led to one of ou newest projects. Wife looked at the recent debt, there are currently 1. 3 trillion in outstanding loan debt in this country. Most of that debt is owed by millennials. We saw this as a sew sigh tal issue that we could have impact on by helping employees at pwdb. Some in our firm will be able to receive 7600 over six years to repay student loans. In closing, one of the biggest Lessons Learned is to embrace the opportunity to learn from anyone offering a fresh perspective. Our research into millennials has breathed new life into a number of policies. We are not afraid of millennials. Of a and were getting results with higher overall Employee Satisfaction and retention rates. Lastly, i would add that our job is never done. We need to constantly think about its rating our talent practices. Thank you for having me today. Id be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, mrs. Mcclements. I appreciate your giving me an opportunity to be here today. I want to talk about this a little differently if i can. I dont want to talk about uber does for fulltime employees like me, because its just as good as what youve heard so i dont get fired its better than what youve heard from the other two companies. Weve heard a lot about flexibility and what a value millennials place on nextbility. I think we all do. And what uber does, and what that means for people as consumers and people who are drivers on our platform as well. When i have this conversation about uber, its somewhat ubiquito ubiquitous. But five years ago the company just got started. Six years ago the technology didnt exist of the phone battery would drain when it was plugged into the drivers car. Now the technology exists, and we take this for granted. Who knows what the next year would bring or what the next technology is or the next app on our phone saying i cant remember what it was like not to have that on my phone or not to be able to do that. So thats where technology is moving and its changing the way people interact. Its empowering individuals to not have to go through a big chain store to deal with, were dealing with the person were having the transaction with. When youre a uber ride, youre dealing directly with the person whos paying you or providing you with the service and you get to rate them afterwards. Its a very empowering thing. There are a lot of appbased companies that provide this kind of interaction and cut out the middleman. To give you a smap shot, id like to give the committee a snapshot of what were talking about and how this impacts and what it means economically. Right now on uber platform, we are in more than 300 cities around the world. Pour tan 70 countries. United states, we are in more than 200 cities here. We have 400,000 plus active uber drivers in the United States, people on the platform driving, these are people who do more than four trips a month. Globely, that numbers excess of 1 million. 23 of the drivers on the uber platform in the United States are 29 or younger. 49 of the riders on the uber platform are 49 and younger. And this is something i want to talk a little more about. The way this is changing the way the millennials get around and the way they move aroundsd ci or move in cities now as opposed to living out in the suburbs. Its changing the way cities are shaped and the way people move. If i can give you a couple more numbers that speak to the flexibility of this platform and the flexibility of the technology allowing peep. More than half of the uber drivers drive fewer than ten hours a week. More than 40 are below eight hours a week. Theyre picking up, whether its a weekend. The first uber ride i took i went to headquarters, go to the joint giants game. My driver stays home during her day with her child. She says if my kids sick, i dont get fired. If my husband works late i dont have to go out. If i can, i go out and make a little extra money. For a lot of people, thats a big deal. Thats a make or break thing or the difference between going on vacation or paying down your student debt. So providing people with that flexibility without locking them in to what we traditionally whe consider fulltime jobs is empowering for individuals. And these Technological Developments are allowing. This wasnt possible ten years ago. This wasnt possible when i was in the mill epial cohort, which im no longer in now. Its a real tunes that technologys provided to people. The other number i want to throw out, so far in 2015, drivers on the uber platform in the United States have brought home 3. 5 billion in earnings. Thats an exciting thing as well. As the product arts starts to g and expand, and this isnt just new york city or boston or San Francisco, this is going to be upstate new york soon. Theres more potential there for people to take advantage of this flexibility to fit into their own schedules. So the next thing i want to talk about if i could is the way this changes how people move. And this is the other thing about when you talk about the 49 of the riders on our platform, people who take rides are in this millennial cohort and 29 and younger. This is the way theyre moving around their cities of it talks about how a story about urban revitalization but economic opportunity. We compared yelp, we use yelp data with our own trip data and showed that 31 of our trips begin or end at an independent business. It wouldnt be a chain store or chain restaurant. You go to china town, all the things around are big box, big chain because thats expensive real estate. Its the guy five blocks away, bar, own boutique, whatever it is. Ubers making it easier to get to those businesses. We presume and hope when they get to those businesses they spend money. We know those independent businesses are the drivers of our economy. Thats an exciting data point we like to throw out there. That will bare more fruit and well be able to show you more data like that for the cheecono impact on our cities. Something else that people like to do at bars is drink. Weve seen dui reduction, incident related reductions. Weve got data to back this up. We work with local Law Enforcement in certain places. We have breathalyzers set up so you can take a test and decide its best to take a uber home, but that has an impact as well. You have a large sew sigh tal benefit. There is no excuse to say i can have one more and drive. You dont need to do that anymore. You have a convenient, easy way to get yourself home or heave your c leave your car if you need to. People get around their cities, people are more yaapt to go out. Another thing id like to talk about is a trnd that baffles me, but this is the idea that people dont want to own cars anymore. I dont understand thacht im old enough to remember how old i was when i got pmy first car an the makes and models of my friends cars. People i work with at uber, some of them dont even have a valid drivers license anymore. They carry their passport. They dont want a car. Its a generational thing. I dont understand it, but i accept it. If youre not going to have a car, youve got to have a means of getting around. That brings you to uber. A lot of this is that first mile, last mile. I live five miles from the metro. I take a uber. Some of it is debtigetting stra from a to b. This is uber pool, a carpooling function. And, again, talk about something i dont understand how they make it work, but the app now can determine whether multiple people are going along the same route to generally the same direction. We both volunteer, we both ask for a ride on uber pool. It picks me up, picks the next person up, plsplits the fare automatically. Instead of having two cars take wou two of us somewhere, you have one car do the same thing. You look at whether its a large at this or small area, sitting in rush hour traffic, congestion downtown. Youre talking serious mitigation of traffic, which obviously has infrastructure benefits of but then youre also talking about, again, youre making it easier for people to get around. Theyre more apt to be out, spending money. This is the kind of thing its okay for me to work from home i can get in there quickly and conveniently. Maybe it is something im allowed to work from home. And i think thats a benefit more and more companies are seeing for employees. Were chaping the way people move around their cities. And with that, the thing id like to caution folks about or encourage them, i go back to the fact this being a five year old company. Who knows what well be talking about a year from now or two years from now. I think the positive impact this is having is Something Congress should look at as something they should nurture and encourage and not something they should try to hug so hard that they strangle it. So with that appreciate the committee having me here and happy to take any questions. Thank you, mr. Worth. I now recognize myself to ask questions, and my first question, i will ask of ms. Cras clark. So you mentioned google 20 plan which allows employees and members of the workforce to folk on e focus on the company. Can you give us an idea on how that could work in a more traditional setting. How might the government be able to implement a system to our processes which seem woefully out of date . I would say just being flexible enough to allow people to come up with these ideas and perhaps having an interm system for people to sure those ideas, you could use crowd source, people could vote on whether or not they think the idea is something that the group of people could pursue. And then its really just about empowerment at the end of the day. The technologies exist to allow this to happen. But i think, you know, having staffers come up with great ideas and having all the different offices support allowing them to have time on these ideas to update older processes i think would be wonderful, and its been amazing at google. I, myself, got a wonderful trip to london out of a to p20 proi did on journalists how to use a google tool to expose Money Laundering around the world. It was very impactful. And i thinksourcing those ideas would be wonderful. Thank you. Mrs. Mcclements, you referenced how pwc is constantly reaching out to get feedback. Can you talk about how that has impacted the Office Culture and does this create a sense of motivation and ownership as youve noticed the difference as you started this program. Thank you. Wonderful question. So we have a culture whereby we are constantly seeking feedback. So theres two things a we do. Weve moved from an annual survey process from our people to get feedback on the environment to more quarterly surveys on the work environment. That is something that we call real time feedback. So each and every day, with every major interaction, were seeking and asking for feedback. Both upwards and downwards, so that with every new assignment, every new client, every new conversation, the next time that we have it we will be better equipped to have a more strategic conversation with our clients, with our stakeholders and the community. So weve got this concept of real time, in the moment paid back, supported by periodic surveys that we call listening, learning and adapting so that were constantly getting feedback to adapt our processes. My next question is for mr. Worth. You talked a lot about millennials moving to urban areas and the increased ridership in underserved neighborhoods. Do you think an increase in types of Services Like uber could help attract millennials to more rural areas across this country in. Sure. As this becomes more common, weve seen this in the difference between large cities and midsized urban areas, it does become do you want to be that city, do you want to be that area that attracts, and its not just about uber. Its about access for people. And i definitely think this is something as the technology, papds and becomes pour widely used, this is absolutely something uber will be in more places than it is now. It will be much more commonplace. It will attract people. It will be something people look towards. If youre used to having that and that convenience, thats what this is about, flexibility. Youre not going to want to give that up if you go somewhere else, its going to be something you factor into that. Thank you. I now recognize chairman messer. Great. Thank you. Can i have maybe a more direction questidirect question about policy. You know, maisie, i have to talk about when you talked about being an intern at google, i cant help but think about the internship where they were defeating unconscious bias. Those who dont know the movie, vince vaughn and owen wilson were a couple of washedup 40 somethings who had an internship at google and became fairly successful. For those of you closer to my age, think revenge of the nerds for this decade, but really kind of a fascinating movie. But could you talk a little bit more about this principle of unconscious bias and the way its out rit utilized in the . I will note that i was an extra in the movie. We do have an Employee Resource Group for older googlers. They call themselves graiglers. Older is what, 45 in. I would have to look it up, but its probably woefully low. Theres been a big push specifically about magoinabout everybody recognizes the differences of others in a way that doesnt hinder them to have the best dialog and to review employees, you know, for performance and promotion, making sure that everyones evaluated equally. And theres, we have a bunch of reinings, we have inperson trainings that weigh have. We times do them externally as well for people. So we have trainers who, thats either part time or pulltime job for them. And then we have an Online Training thats available to all employees, and ive taken that myself and found it really informative. So weedd love to bring that to the government, make it more widely accessible so we can follow up on that later. Now carrie, sort of fascinated to hear this number that 80 of the workforce at pwc is millennials. Could you, one, expand a little on how that happens . And then maybe talk a little bit about some of the opportunities and some of the challenges that come from that makeup of your workforce. Sure, great. I think part of the why we get to 80 so quickly, when the workforce is literally going to be at about 50 is our Business Model in terms of how we promote and develop people. With the add developmevent of o leadership experience, we want to be the developer of talent. So whether people decide to stay with our firm long term or whether they decide to go to pursue a ua career in another , we want to be the company where they want to come to grow and develop. And i would love to share the fact that we are second behind google in terms of recognition from campus, in terms of the brand where business students see their destination to go, which is fantastic. So then, as to the second part of the question, looking at the opportunities and the challenges that perhaps exist, we see it as opportunities. We saw the fact that many areas im a boomer with the influx of the generation helping us see that there were different ways to do what we were doing, delivering our services internally and externally from a talent perspective. So we took advantage and through Innovation Challenges several years ago to get ideas from our people for ideas on how we deliver our products, we see all upside. And brian, real quick, its amazing to hear that ubers only in year five. When i think of the story of uber, im reamedy f z that the s quo is a fierce fighter, and you have been through regulatory challenges, as those that are vested in the preexisting structure sort of push back against the Disruptive Technology that uber represents, could you tell a little bit of that story . Some of the challenges that ubers faced or in dealing with sure. Absolutely. And a lot of this comes from, you know, uber being something so new. Were not a transportation provider in the typical sense. The app connects someowith some wanting a ride. We were going city by city, duking it out with the taxing industry. And now its expanded so much. I mentioned more than 200 cities in the unit, we do something that frankly for myself as a republican and for most business seems odd, we should go and ask to be regulated. Dont let us be crammed into this old box, theres something new out there. You need to treat it as something new. You need to have some floor of regulation to allow a company to operate with stable. From a business standpoint, it makes total sense. You need that kind of stability and structure out there to operate your business, but its been fascinating. Weve watched from the inside from this fight were having, whether we should even exist, whether we should be allowed to operate to now uber can operate, but how do we treat it . How do we tax it if how do we regulate it, how do we do all these other things. Its something where i think we might be starting to grow up as a company and getting away from the startup phase. When i talk about the nature of how it connects with the person youre riding with, whether youre the rider or the driver, it has allowed uber to win these regulatory fights at the state and local level. The constituents, whether its the state legislators, the constituents want it. They say yes, i know exactly what its like to not have that, and i want to have it and you as my lawmaker need to figure out how to make it work. It has been fascinating to see that from a grassroots standpoint. Its one of the most tra significanceal pdiggsal products that we boy. Its amazing to see the grassroots of this product. I want to start with you, ma maze eye. Why do you think millennials find having an Engaging Mission so important to their careers . Its a really interesting question. I think it has a rot to do with being raised predominantly by the baby boomer generation. That was a very idealistic, strongwilled generation in its own right, and we were instilled with those values by our parents of certainly the case for me. And i think at thats true pour for a lot of millennials, and incorporated into education that it wasnt quite 60 years ago. I think thats the predominant reason and a great thing. So just to follow up. In terms of googles mission, its very unique in that it can never truly be complete, as you mentioned. It constantly needs to innovate. And many occupations and businesses aim to accomplish a very known and clear task, whether its providing a ride from point a or point b or what pwc does on an annual basis. How do you think companies in professions such as the trades or outside the technology, i would ask you to start. Its just about wording. I think companies such as pwc and uber are constantly innovating and could frame their missions and probably do to a certain extent frame their missions in ways that are very forwardlooking, long term, and i think that thats something very special about googles mission that i think it is really helpful, and its a big hallmark of the Tech Industry in general. So, if i think about our purpose, right, and is to build trust in society and solve important problems. And you can think about that broadly and say what is that . What does that mean . And our millennials care about that. So if i think about that, whether its Building Trust in society and solving problems from the work that we do to Financial Statement audits or the reports that we produce so that investors are making good decisions. Whether we turn to other sew sigh tal issues where people are working on better ways to analyze data, that might help reduce suicide rates for example, those are the real kind of projects that were working on for society, for businesses, for our government. And so our people look at that and say thats real impact. So our people have been pleased to have the opportunity to spend a lot of time visiting our Public Sector practice in the kind of work theyre doing, supporting the United States and our people know the mission. They know the mission theyre working on. And theyre excited about deliverings really how we brint to life and giving understanding and feedback on that purpose as well. Uber, i think the onus is pretty clear. Were change the way cities move and the way people move. Most of my colleagues who are doing the really great stuff, weve got uber eats, uber pools, different areas of the uber product that perform different functions. Thats the exciting part, thats the mission that what were doing is scratching the surface. This is being a better option than a cab is the easy part of that. That was the lowhanging fruit. Thats what keeps driving people. The mission of this company is literally to change the way people move all over the world. Ms. Stefanik can talk about your district. The town front in western ohio with 20,000 people, that could have uber and i think it will at some point. Thats the mission to continue to build on this great thing weve got on this Great Foundation and keep building it up. I yield to chairman messer. I have to admit im a dead square gen xo eorxor. What other products have been developed by googlers during their 20 time in put me on the hot seat. I know they are wide ranging. Ad sense. Thats one of our advertising projects thats a very big moneymaker for google. So its a big revenue generator for us on the advertising side, and that was something that was an it 20 project very early in the companys history, so not only are they things like gmail for free, but things that are revenue generating. And the next one, can you talk about how it has incentivized drivers to drive during surge hours . Surge pricing. Its what it is. Everyone keeps calling it surge pricing. Were sticking with surge pricing, and ill get punished when i get back to the office. Surge pricing is basically flexible pricing for the rate of your uber ride. Theres a base fair but the rate will float up as demand rises. I would hope that Going Forward you would take this hearing, as you said, as a moment of instruction to fix it. The men and women do a wonderful job and but its about leadership. Its absolutely important. As you know, ive been talk iin to you since the summer. A little, small issue to some. Its relative to the fact that we found out there were 643 employees assigned to duty that required a security clearance, and they were working for the
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