Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics And Public Policy Today 20160503

Would still be meetings at the convention with the leading Party Officials and, you know, the candidate would meet with people and so it was a democratic process in the sense that candidate would meet with people. It was a democratic process in the sense there was consultation, deliberation and so forth, though ultimately the candidates decision. I think as its moved away from the convention beginning 1976, its been a process focused much more on the president ial candidate and the people around the president ial candidate. They still consult with party leaders, talk to capitol hill, talk to governors, solicit input. But ultimately the circle of people in the room when the decision is made tends to be the president ial candidate and a few people close to them. Im going to get our questioners ready, a few more questions and then turn to the audience again. Weve referred to, in terms of the convention, that we might have a different kind of year especially on the republican side. Weve made recommendations, really, that all the candidates should start now, start doing things now. It takes time. You cant wait to the last minute. It takes time to go through the process. That being said, there might be amendments to the candidates and how much they can get going. Could some of you discuss, probably maria on the most part on the republican side were thinking about. What are some of the considerations out there for candidates given we dont have as normal a situation. How can they get going so they are not left with the process at the end. What can we tell them that gets the most out of the recommendations even though its not a normal year. Save the tough one for last. Well, in the fivestep process, do the first three steps. Get the big list, public records research, narrow it down internally in the campaign to the five or so people on your short list. How are you i think it is really challenging for a candidate now if it is not known that person is the nominee to be asking for personal information from some be who may be looked at by other campaigns as well and who, in at least a couple cases, could be rivals down the road for something. So that part of the process, which is the most difficult part of the process is one there may be unique solutions to but i havent heard them yet. I dont have a whole lot to add. Another unique situation were in, you know, if several of the nominees, especially those that may have actual delegates, there may be deals forged and announcements made ahead of time. How far ahead i dont know. It still remains to be seen. I look at that as something i havent experienced before and might be interesting. Whether it matters or not im not sure but several nominees or potential nominees actually come with delegates. I guess, joel, have the last word on this in history. Weve had a lot of contested conventions far back. What can we learn perhaps the most contested convention, 1924 convention, largest number of ballots, went on a couple weeks, 113 ballots, i believe. Strategic college lived temporarily with a 8yearold physics professor, he rent med a room. He used to tell me hu he listened to this on the radio, first on the radio 1924, went on a long time and was great political entertainment. I dont remember and i dont know how the Vice President was picked that year. What happened in these very contested conventions and then Vice President ial anything we learn from deep dark history or thinking about it today. What kind of nominations if we arent going to pick in advance, what does the Vice President ial selection look like. I think we really are in Uncharted Waters because the whole process is so different now. Now you have a long period of selection and public process that didnt exist. You have a media world now that didnt exist back then. One of the important aspects of the preconvention process thats developed is that it gives people time to recalibrate ambitions and look at political aspirati aspiration, do i want to be Vice President or not want to be Vice President. In the convention youre compressing it in a few hours where all this takes place. It really is Uncharted Waters. I dont think theres any precedents i can recall right now. Trying to help you out here. So let us turn to the audience. Mike is here, id like you to identify yourself before the question. Why dont we go in the middle, back. Susan milligan from u. S. News and world report. Weve been talking about a lot about how the Vice President ial pick could influence the voters. Im wondering in the case of Republican Convention whether it could influence the result of president ial nominee, if trump says im going to pick omarosa or paul ryan, will the Vice President ial pick become more important than the president ial candidate. We havent talked about the opportunity somebody would pick in advance before they are the nominee. That could happen before the convention, at the convention. There have been some historical examples. Take whatever youd like. Sitting in the comfort of nothing being with any of the current president ial campaigns. Im not sure youd know who the Vice President ial candidate was. Facing strategical and tactical choice whether you name who your Vice President ial nominee will be or wait until the convention in case theres a second ballot and you do need to bring over delegates, or is it the part of the second ballot, mythical second ballot that you decide the way you get the majority of votes is announcing who your Vice President ial candidate is. So if it actually goes to the contested convention with multiple ballots. I dont think its at all clear what happens. One sort of model 1976 when governor reagan announced three weeks before the Republican Convention that his running mate would be senator richard schweiker, probably the most liberal republican in the senate. It was a time when governor reagan was really out of moves to make to secure the nomination. He was hopeful this would swing some support in the pennsylvania delegation. But the other thing he tried to do is amend the rules. It was rule 16c at the Republican Party and to require that every president ial candidate, ie president ford, indicate who his nominee would be for Vice President in balloting president ial. That was a strategy to smoke out president fords choice, in the thought if he named one person, he would alienate the other 10 people who hoped to be his running mate. One risk of designating one person is you may adversely affect chances with the delegates who hope youll pick somebody else. I wonder if anybody suggests a special episode of the apprentice. One would say thats what were going through now. Okay. Right here in the middle. Linda cooper. I had a question that occurred to me, talking about serious vetting of the Vice President. Can you comment on the personality of the situation we have now with the president ial candidates and how that affects vetting process for presidency. Did you have any candidate in mind . Im sorry. Same as kpatibility is important. No matter which one of the five candidates you want to look at, they will all want somebody they feel comfortable with and they think represents their views. So no matter where those candidates fall in a personality scale in your mind, they are still going to want somebody who is compatible. There in the second row. Ill get you both. I understand nixon chose agnew because he delivered the votes for maryland. Is that correct . I was just wondering if most of the candidates would try to keep their options open. If they got down to the point they needed limited number of folks to put them over the the top, they might be willing to choose almost anyone necessary to do it, regardless whether they had vetted them much or not, if they wanted to sew it up. I think in terms nixon actually chose agnew not because he turned over votes for him but viewed him as the person most acceptable to southern delegates. Strom thurmond had been crucial in nixon ge the nomination. In effect i think nixon was looking for somebody perceived as centrist. He was sort of vetoing people on the right, like governor reagan on the left like senator lindsey mayor lindsey, and he viewed governor agnew as more of a centrist as more acceptable. Started off as rockefeller republican, became allientated with rockefeller and so forth. Maybe i could get you to repeat, dont mention famous incident of someone denigratind, you remember how nixon referred to spiro agnew to denigrate and say he was his insurance policy. I think nixon grew quickly to did he did he test detested agnew, he started out and said he wants to meet with me. Thats not how it works. The Vice President doesnt meet with the president. Thats not part of the job. He should go out and give speeches and so forth. When they were reelected in 1972, agnew saw himself he was the leaders in the polls in 1976, he saw himself as being president ial candidate. Nixon wouldnt give him anything to do. Finally he said, why dont you be the chair of the commission to plan bicentennial celebration. Agnew didnt think that was really what he had in mind. Of course he was forced out of office soon after that. The transformation to the office we have now between 73 when agnew was totally marginalized and 77 when Walter Mondale could walk into the oval office any time he wanted was really remarkable. As were going through the process, i think not knowing or forecasting what the situation was going to be, i think its interesting we were thinking always ahead to the general election. The reality on the republican side, general election second, nomination and delegates, which would perhaps put the candidates in a situation where who they might be looking at for Vice President would be maybe a different situation calculation than who that person would be in a general election for votes anyway. Great. To you next. Good morning, my name is justin. I have a question for the panel, specifically putting on their political lens and looking if they were to be advising both candidates on both sides in their selection of Vice President currently, im looking at it really more how might they be looking at certain states they might be interested in winning. There was a question earlier regarding women. How would you if you were advising both of the candidates on some things to keep in mind and things they might be looking out for in selecting that. I know even private sector experience would be interesting to hear about. Get as specific or general as you want. I think what has already been talked about, if youre going to be a serious president ial candidate and want to win, what you need to talk about is youre going to be a good president. I think there are people out there who on both sides would send the message im really serious about being president. On the democratic side, i think there are several folks that could do that and transcend electroutility. In the last few elections, president obama did not pick joe biden to deliver the state of delaware. He did something useful in terms of governance for doing that. I hope if shes the nominee, secretary clinton would do the same. I think on the republican side there would be people. React to a few things we talked about, maybe others have something to say. The group was unanimous saying the person has to be a president , somebody that can step into the role. Some of the pitfalls in the past have been candidates who think they are behind, throw the long ball, take a shot, do anything to shake up the race. Other states, balancing states, other thing out there, folks with Hillary Clinton, experienced candidates, very experienced ones think maybe i could pick an inexperienced Vice President. Some people think it balances you, a younger person. Well, if that person has experience to be president when they are young, great. But if youre just looking for youth to balance, thats not going for someone that can step into the role. There are pitfalls for all the candidates in their situations and they are different. Let me jump out and be specific. I probably shouldnt but no one is listening to me but you anyhow. I think senator tim kay of virginia would be outstanding Vice President ial pick. Hes the only person around who has been a mayor, a governor. Hes been a senator, a very serious person, chair of the democratic committee. Hes had opportunity. He would be a pick. You want to look for somebody first and foremost president ial, really of the stature that people could perceive him or her sitting in the oval office. You need somebody president ial not because of succession, you need them more now because if you dont have the Vice President who can do the things the last six Vice President s have done, youre giving up a huge governing asset. The focus on governance, in choosing a running mate has political significance. You are sending messages about decisions, when you value, what kind of decisionmaker you are. Somebody Vice President ial. In the first panel, how difficult it is for somebody talking, expressing their own views, to step into a role of subordinate. If you imagine somebody like joe biden, senator for 6 years was his own boss, chairman of two major committees, now all of a sudden hes the number two person and he has to adjust to that role. The person as Vice President has to be a leader but also able to follow and be comfortable in that role. Its an extremely difficult position, both as Vice President ial candidate but also as Vice President. I think we have time for one last question. And we are going to go here. Thanks, Peter Heyward from the australian embassy. Im trying to put myself in the shoes of people had might be asked to be on the short list for Vice President s, looking at what could be a filing president ial campaign. In the history of campaigns, whats been the fate of Vice President ial candidates in campaigns which look like they are losing early on . Has it been a good career move or bad career move . Its a terrific question. There was discussing about 1972 earlier. One of the problems George Mcgovern had, he asked a number of people to be his running mate and they all turned him down. Many of them were Close Friends he served with in the senate. For a variety of reasons they didnt want to be on the ticket. So i mean, if you think about Vice President s and Vice President ial candidates have done, you know pretty well in their later careers, representative ryan is now the speaker of the house. Edmond muskie lost in 68, became isnt of state. So you have able people, have opportunities. I think a calculation about how likely the ticket is to be successful and also how you feel about working with the person at the top of the ticket, the very much of a personal relationship. The last six Vice President s have been able to achieve very good personal relationships with the president. If the personal relationship goes south early on, its not going to be a very fun four years for either principle. So the people have to really work at it as well. I think you have to take that into account in deciding whether or not you want to put your name forward. All right. With that, i think were going to wrap up today. We want to thank members of our group selecting Vice President ial candidates. It really is advice for candidates out this now, as well as information for the media who is covering it. We thank the group, thank you in the audience and close the session here. [ applause ] at 1 30 eastern time on cspan3, discussion head of pipeline and Hazardous Materials safety at center for strategic and international studies. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is campaign in ohio today. Cspan will have live coverage at her stop in athens where shell be giving a speech on jobs and economy. President ial candidate Bernie Sanders is in kentucky today. Cspan will have live coverage of his Campaign Rally in louisville at 7 30 eastern. Indiana voters are going to the polls today. 57 candidates at stake. Cspan live with results, candidate speeches and viewer reaction. Madam secretary, we proudly give 72 of our delegate votes to the next president of the United States in iraq and afghanistan i helped both being a facilitator on key issues among iraquis or afghans. Influence is considerable, heads of state or government very anxious to meet with you when you ask for a meeting. Former ambassador to iraq, afghanistan discusses his memoir the envoy, from kabul to the white house, my journey in a turbulent world. We corrected towards the end of the period i was there by the surge, by reaching out to the sunnis, by building up iraqi forces, by establishing a unity government, killing zawahiri, by bringing violence way down. Unfortunately when we left the vacuum filled by regional powers pulling iraq part, violence escalated and we have isis now. Sunday 8 00 a. M. On cspans q a. A look now at mineral production and the Obama Administration policy mining on to do land. Kato institute hosted a discussion with former Petroleum Geologist who talked about technological improvements that have been made in exploration. This is about 1 10. One hour and ten minutes. Good afternoon. Im pat michaels, director of the center for science at the cato institute. One of the things we look at are influences of Government Support and government policy on the United States and global science. One of the areas we are interested in, of course, are the areas of energy and Natural Resources. When the center started up, people asked, well, who are you going to get to work in this Interdisciplinary Center . I said, this is such an unusual idea that we have that if we build it, people will come. And ned mamula is an example o that. He had been reading cato science for years. One day he said, can i come and talk to you. Then i realized we had just found a remarkable person to essentially volunteer to start working with us. Hes a scientist, 30 Years Experience in minerals. Hes been with several very prestigious federal agencies including u. S. Geological survey, department of energy and most recent Central Intelligence agency. He wont tell me what he did. Hes really highly trained at the best institutions for geology and minerals with bachelors in economic geology from slippery rock, masters in geo science from penn state university. Thats about as big as it gets unless youre going into petroleum and geology unless you go to a m where he has a phd, masters in study on John Hopkins School of advanced studies down the street. Aside from that hes not qualified to speak on these subjects. Marc humphries is going to follow ned, congressional resource service. Hes been there about 28 careers or so. Hes highly experienced. He works extensively with members of congress, congressional committees and staff and author of several reports when you ask about Critical Minerals and government policy, hes the go to guy. Ned was able to find him an get him here to comment on subject matters. His areas of sfw rare earth, critical and Strategic Minerals, Energy Development on public lands, offshore Energy Mining reform, Mineral Development in asia and africa. Hell be commenting on neds talk. Need for critical mineral federal Land Management. You can tell it going to be an interesting talk. All i can say, a lot of people think what comes out of the wall just some think they are strategic and critical for science and technology. Ned. All right. Very good. Thank you dr. Michaels for those kind comments. I appreciate that thank you for visiting cato institute. Today my colleague Marc Humphries and i are eager to speak on Critical Minerals. We look forward to a lively q a session afterwards. I wanted to start out and let you know that basically as you probably know, much has been said about Critical Minerals, beginning with 2008 landmark study that came out from the National Academy of sciences Natural Resource council. That book, im sure youve seen it before, the study director was elizabeth ede, a colleague of mine. She couldnt be here today, shes traveling. This is a serious book for minerals. You can copy down the title, author, whatever. Beginning in 2008 with the publication of that, has to do with Critical Minerals. Involved u. S. Briefings on the hill, involved Natural Academy briefings. Its involved Mineral Industry, Environmental Group congressional testimony and also think tank briefings and the like. Then all of a sudden, most of you have probably experienced these things, or some of them. Then something changed in 2010. That was the huge boost the idea of Critical Minerals received when china decided to embargo Critical Minerals from the country of Japan Bringing their Electronics Industry virtually to its knees in very short order. With that wakeup call people began again to look at Critical Minerals. Mineral reported on going articles, stories, exposes. All of those culminated with a boost we received at the end of last year with the publication of a book entitled the elements of power by david abraham. Ill leave it up here for folks to look at. I dont know what it is, early may, i asked mr. Abraham to be here, and he wanted to be here as well but he was on travel as well. Well go without the authors. Clearly a growing interest in minerals. Today we want to build on that interest, marc and i. Our challenge is to provide you with clear understandings around broader topics. We want to share concepts of understanding mineral wealth, resources versus reserves. Often people dont understand the difference, so were going to try to set you straight on that. Critical versus strategic. Thats another one to sort out as beth you can. Idea of geologic distribution in the world for Critical Minerals as well as supply and demand. Are there shortages now and what kind of shortages. Also, impacts that impact domestic operation and Mining Industry. Im going to include a case study entitled bear lodge wyoming. Im assuming a mid level understanding here. Some of you may have heard about some of these things but i dont think anyone has heard the latest on bear lodge, so im anxious to share that with you. Finally wrap up how to better secure our mineral future. So thats our agenda. Now, let me tell you about a great quote i found here in elements of power. Let me read it with you. I like it. Mr. Abrams has said, rare earths from everywhere bridges to ear phone buds. They are rarely used alone, rather they fill the same role as yeast in pizza. Only used in small amounts but absolutely essential. Goes on to say, without yeast theres no pizza. Without Critical Minerals and rare earth derivatives, theres no hightech world. Thats from his book, elements of power, gadgets, guns, struggle for Sustainable Future in rare metals. I commend that book to you. Again, we can talk about it later. Im going beyond that book, and im going to show you the Broad Spectrum of what it is were talking about as far as kmomts, the world of geology and mineral economics. These are different classes of minerals. This is more than i have here. Some could be combined in one class. Consider the following. You have Industrial Minerals subset of that construction materials. Those are important in different areas of the country, different areas of the world, poly metallic, what it says, deposits that have more than one mineral associated with them. Nonfa nonf nonferrous. Rare metals, subject of this book along with Critical Minerals, precious metals, many of which are critical. And then, of course, Critical Minerals and when does critical mineral become strategic. These are concepts we want to talk about as well. The concept is understand Savannah Guthrie mineral wealth. We can see how much minerals have boosted nations. Look what they have done for computer chips, for example. 80s, 12 elements. Then in the 90s 16. Today a computer chip has anywhere between 60 and 70 elements in it. Every single year thats increasing. Same with communications. You have the clunky cell phone. When those things come out, clunky as they were coming back, they still have 30 or 35 elements in them. Todays new iphone 6 from apple, 70 elements and they are all necessary. Take one for example, indium. Without that mineral you cant slide or scroll. Its going to require critical elements, going to require them to sustain newer and newer technologies, even the Green Technologies were looking forward to such as solar, wind, and batteries and lighting and the like. They are married. As we have more and more green technology, were going to require more and more minerals. What id like to remind you up front, no matter which side of the argument you come down on, whether you favor no mining or some mining or total mining, whatever, that is not nearly as important as two immutable facts regarding minerals about which most people agree totally. Number one, hightech and green revolutions create a demand for Critical Minerals that is absolutely exploding. There is on top of that an absolute miss match which demand for Critical Minerals and their availability in the United States and other developed countries who are producers of the gadgets that we like to buy. And of course, again, in abrahams book he goes over that more carefully. That is sort of the crux where we are now. The more gadgets, the more mining. In the end today when we wrap up, well show you other alternatives to mining. Im an alumni of the usgs. Its probably one of the greatest taxpayer returns on investment ever. I love the agency. It done a lot of good work. The director sat down and pretty much pulled together on his own the idea of mineral classification. It really hasnt been put out there as succinctly as vince put it out, as you see here posted behind me. He said, look, we have two classes of minerals, reserves and resources. Reserves i can identify, map them, drill them, assaye that. I can tell you their measured or inferred value. Versus resources i havent discovered yet but they are hypothetical or speculative. He made that distinction and further divided resources measured and indicated. In the upper lefthand corner youll see the box reserved. Thats what reserves are. They are indicated they are actually bankable in the oil industry. You can book reserves, take it to the bank. Its collateral, same in the Mining Industry. So theres a difference now between reserve and resources. The media sometimes will mix them up. We immediate to keep them straight in our mind. If i tell you we need more critical mineral resources, okay, they arent anymore. Resources are what they are. What we need to do is identify critical reserves and map those and identify those and value those. In addition to fixed and geologic time and space, economics will govern whether a Mineral Deposit is mineable or not. Okay. If you look down the column, deposits either economic, marriageally economic, subeconomic or no one is interested in it, depending how easy it is to get to. The harder it is to get to, the more money its going to take. As price for commodity goes up, more money available to get it. This whole chart here can be summarized as an analogy in the oil and gas industry. The oil and gas now is called unconventional. That is able to be pulled out of the ground because the price for it will allow companies to go in and make unconventional discovery and production, so it all ties together that way. Lets move on and look at the difference between critical and strategic. Here are two brief definitions. Critical is essential to the economy and strategic is a subset of that. Okay. The implications are listed below. The terms are often used interchangeably, sometimes confused. Dont worry about it. Its not that big a deal. Theres really no official government definition. The list of minerals in strategic and critical, they differ from time to time and because of economic conditions. They do in fer a supply chain which mark is going to get into in a little while. They also in fer theres foreign imports, either partial or total. Thats of interest to us. There could be severe economic repercussions minerals, National Security concerns tells you that mineral is strategic. This, as i said, probably one of the best public sources on the topic and, again, the definitions are a little squishy but they say there are minerals that actually dictate the Economic Health of the nation or Strategic Minerals will always be critical but Critical Minerals will not always be strategic. Okay . Now, here the different metals and elements involved in both classes, and you could read that, again, the books get into it in detail. I dont want to belabor. Strategic Minerals Include rare earths. Fissionable materials for platinum displays in the military especially. Speaking of which National Security is urgent. When we need a mineral, we need it. Basically if you look right here at what is required for two jet engines for a fighter aircraft, its surprising how much and what even more of a surprise is the fact how much of that we have to import, and is really something that gives us pause as far as our military requirements. I want to go through now a series of maps and just to show you the geology behind Critical Minerals. You know, this is a generalization of poly metallic deposits worldwide. Mine locations, trading partners are fixed in space and time depending what country. The geology is fixed. They are there, and whoever is in four, whatever. The deposits are there. If we bore down and look at strategic and Critical Minerals, platinum and rare earths, there are much fewer deposits and they are scattered. Compare that on this image to copper, you see it on almost every continent. Or as critical platinum, rare earth are black squares and dots. Much more restrictive. Part of the reason were concerned, over the last years, this is what happened. In the 50s we were hardly reliant at all. If you see here in the lower left corner, the number of minerals from other countries, many of them friendly. Thirty years later in the 80s, we had more and more imports beginning with russia and even china. By the year 2014, 60 years later were importing dozens and dozen and dozens of minerals, a lot from china, many canada, our partner, some places in the world where we wish we didnt have to be. The countries who are most stable in the world are the best trading partners. The white house has come out, office of science and Technology Come out with a report in this they give a stability indecks or Governance Index involving stability, economics, political, what have you. Basically the best countries are in green, the most stable. The ones in red are to be avoided if possible. Yet if thats the only source of a mineral, like cobalt from africa, central africa, theres not much you can do about it. Closer to home, poly Metallic Minerals in the United States. Notice they are mainly in the western states. Those locations are fixed by geology. We look at a critical mineral like rare Earth Elements, theres a lot of them. Main artesianal. One operating in California Mountain pass, and the company that ran it declared bankruptcy. Right now the United States has zero commercial rare earth production. Bear lodge, wyoming, situation, ill get to that in a bit. Thats our next best hope for rare earths right now. Ill end with this, since there are no commercial mines in operation now, if i go to this slide, you can see, yes, there arent any from the United States but look at the big 800 pound gorilla down there. We have a 95 plus percent production from china. They are basically cornered the market on rare earths. Japan knows it, we know it, Everybody Knows it. This is something that although the price came way, way down, still, they have the market and its something to be reckoned with. I know will bring up Marc Humphries. Hes going to talk about supply and demand of Critical Minerals. Thank you, ned. Thank you, pat, for the intro. I work for Congressional Research service, which is a research arm of congress. We do nonpartisan objective policy analysis for members, staff, members and committee staff. Ive been working on mineral issues for the past 28 years there. This is a little repetitive, taken from National Research council book, they try to separate out the difference between critical and strategic. Strategic may be more military focus where we know they have a National Strategic stockpile of the Critical Minerals may focus more on the economic and civilian needs so a little competitive. Main thing National Research Council Report talked about, established framework widely used around the world to define what is criticality, what is the criticality of different minerals. Try to use this matrix to show supply risk and importance of use, lack of substitute on the other axis, further right you go, more critical the material might be. This is just an example of some of the minerals they have looked at to kind of classify. One of the key things that came out of this, this is a fluid or dynamic type of assessment. This was done around 2008, 7 or so, redone by the department of energy. They are using the same matrix to try to classify where the minerals would fit on this matrix, whether critical, near critical, not critical. But its fluid so this can change at any time. It can change year to year. What ive done is also highlighted import reliance charge. There are 19 minerals the u. S. Is 100 import reliant on at this point. If you go all the way down, many more import reliant on but not 100 . Ive taken several minerals and looked at them a little more closely to try to highlight the minerals that are being used in the hightech world, the clean energy world, and to show where the supply and demand, what it looks like over the past 20 years. The key thing here, though, is not so much that were 100 or 90 or 70 import dependent but the key thing is to know where the minerals are coming from, what countries are supplying them and who are the countries involved in production. 100 import dependent on boxite is not the same as 100 import import as niobium. For boxite, most countries are friendly. Theres less Political Risk and perhaps financial risk involved in some of the minerals were 100 dependent on. The United States has a framework, they have a policy framework. This just kind of spells it out here. Theres interest in domestic exploration and production when its possible. But theres also interest in developing reliable trade partners, reliable supplies of these minerals. So not just the emphasis on Domestic Production but also on securing supplies from around the world and get the most reliable access as possible. Here are some of the minerals im looking at. These are not classified Strategic Minerals necessarily. This is just a list thats been looked at. These minerals have been looked at by the National Research council, department of energy. They have been looked at by European Union because of their importance, as i mentioned earlier, hightech and clean world, National Security. These are vitally important and they have been looked at more in the last eight or nine years, just as in the past weve looked at supplies of platinum, cobalt, chromium, led, zinc, where alternative supplier might have been africa or soviet union. These kind of analysis and assessments have been taking place for deb aids but the list of minerals has changed recently. This indicates the United States is a Pretty Healthy consumer of these materials. They have gone up in most categories. Niobium, rare earth, but the real story with consumption is not the United States. Its really china. I dont have a slide to show but chinas appear tour of utah for these minerals has gone through the roof since early 2,000s. This is what drives the concern china is producing most of these. They have supply chains where they are refining, making metal alloys and end products. These are materials the United States is heavily dependent on as well. This is where folks are looking for generally minerals overall. Most of the money is involved in go gold. Gives you an idea where the money is spend. United states is still a destination point even so it had 7 in 2014. Thats 7 of 10. 7 billion or 750 million. So the amount of exploration money has gone up in the United States. Its been consistent where in 1996 it was about 350 million, now its up 750 million. So you can see where folks have been looking. In many cases these hightech metals are either not found, not found in economic quantities here. They are better or lower cost production elsewhere in the world. We have trade relationsw okay . Here is a snapshot of world reserves materials. This chart and the next chart really just lets you know the conservation of where these minerals are located, where you can see almost half of the cobalt reserves are in the congo, lithium. Two suppliers have well over half of the reserves of lyth yam. South africa and ukraine have more than half nanganese. China is main producer, you know, even though 42 of known reserves, they still are producing 85 of rare earth materials. Tantinum is odd, most of the reserves in australia and brazil but half the production is taking place in rwanda. They really dont know whats going on with tantalum. Most coming out of rwanda and congress okay, where are the rve numbers. A lot of the information is not available. We really dont know. So here is the production picture here. You can tell where production side has really changed dramatically in 20 years. Its gone up tremendously. This is where production has taken place. Again, its concentration of production. When the United States is 100 dependent on nirobium, 95 coming from one country, 95 reserves in one country. Thats a concern to assess vulnerability. Were talking about vulnerability of supplies more than how much were importing. How vulnerable is the United States to disruptions, whether it be political instability or labor strikes. Catastrophic disasters. If this one source of supply and theres no capacity or little capacity elsey, that can be a concern. Lets look down the chart here where we see tantalum again. 50 from rwanda but no real assessment of reserves. China, 85 , lithium between two countries have well over 50 here. Cobalt, manganese. And bonadium in china and south africa. So this is the production side is only one side of it. Cost and concern with vulnerability. Assessing vulnerability of supply. Thats only part of the picture. I put this slide up to show the rest of the picture has to be looked at. When you assess each mineral on its own, take each one and look at the entire supply chain to see where the vulnerabilities might be along the way. Not just in production. Production may be bad enough when it comes to rare earth supplies, but then what about the separating reduction to metal, forming alloys, magnets, to manufacture Permanent Magnets. Where is the supply chain for each of these minerals that we might consider possible Critical Minerals. And that, i think, needs to be an area that needs to be drilled down on a little deeper. Looking at each material is possibly critical. And where the supply chain is. And theres a lot of concern about building our supply chain in the United States. A lot of ventures on capitol hill and elsewhere. And you know, the thing is, what has to happen is to be able to have a reliable supply chain, wherever it is, so if in fact a complete supply chain is not developed on domestic soil, it may be that with partnerships, with collaborations, between countries and companies, reliable supply chains can be built out around the world. As long as its reliable. Thats the key. And i think the concern here is that with rare Earth Elements, this may not be a reliable supply chain for the United States that depends on the Permanent Magnets for both the hightech clean energy and National Security needs of the country. I think thats think thats about it. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay, and the final leg of the talk, i would like to get into some issues that place pressure on our u. S. Mining industry such as it is right now. And im going through four slides, and well talk about them, and youll see, i think, four different types of pressure being experienced by the Mining Industry. And then well get into what theyre going to do about it, because they do provide us Critical Minerals and if theyre pressured and they cant declare bankruptcy, then we have a bigger issue on our hands. First, i want to spotlight legal pressure. There are lawsuits, singleissue, sometimes environmental issue lawsuits that can stop a companys progress in its tracks. Land use limitations fall under that. The cost for litigation are increasing. Thats for sure. And we see more and more of it here in the center for the study of science, where companies are having to litigate their way toward the permit application that they by law should have had a right to file for, and it didnt happen. The case of the pebble mine in alaska comes to the fore there. Certain lands legally are off limits, but as i said earlier, the geology is fixed. You cant do anything about it, so you have to work around that problem. Some of these deposits could probably be will never be acce accessed. And that is also an issue and ill get to that in a minute. Lets look at access now. Federal land withdrawals are one of the probably worst ways to stymie access to federal minerals. Withdrawal from federal lands often happens without proper accounting for the inventory of the minerals and depending on whos in charge, the minerals may not be a priority to them. But deposits once withdrawn can never be accessed, and thats something that maybe could be turned around, but you could go back into the legal bin. The new exploration programs have to be initiated, and have to be relocated once youre going to withdraw lands. And without the exploration, as marc pointed out here, we cant really fully assess the balance of our Mineral Deposit checkbook, so to speak. We need to explore for even if were not going to mine, we ned to know what it is that is in the ground. Time is another pressure felt by the Mining Industry because if you look at these stats, in the last 16 years, including this year, only 14 major metal mines, the metallic mines i showed you, 14, less than one a year, were started. And the time to obtain a permit to start those mines is increasing more and more each year. Now, a minimum is six years. Maximum can be over two decades. This is all documented, well documented. The average is about ten years. And ill show you that. But basically, those times dont even include the premining exploration and the Environmental Baseline studies that have to be done as well as feasibility studies. The fourth type of pressure is financial, because when a company has a deposit and the permit is not forthcoming, every month, year of delay the value of the deposit goes down, down, and down more. Okay. That is very critical to companies. The other thing is that the price of the commodity over long periods of time is shifting. Its like a moving target, and its hard for them to plan. The declining value of the mine can be as much as a third. Maybe even a half if the time delay is significant. And although marc showed pretty robust exploration dollars spent in the United States, the decreasing investment interest is waning with the increasing permit application time thats required. That is a fact. Now, this isnt numbers, the gao did a report that came out earlier this year, and everything you have seen in the slides is pretty much documented in the report. Let me highlight some of the things that they have come up with. First of all, three key findings. And i think its important. First, the quality of mine plans submitted to the federal Land Management agency in charge is sometimes very substandard. You may have a junior mining partner submit a plan, they dont have any experience. Maybe its on the back of an envelope type thing. No. Homework needs to be done. Regulations need to be followed. And a mine plan needs to be dutifully filled out and sent in. Okay, so there is some fault on the industrys side. On the other side of the ledger, we know for fact gao has pointed out and documented the poor allocation of Land Management agency resources. Thats documented. And the way they did it is they looked specifically for service in blm, and they have these examples that ill show you in a minute. Third, agencies are not effective at managing the mine plan review process. It can really get it has gotten out of control. I remember when i was with the usgs. We did all of the work out of the usgs conservation division. All the mine plan permitted and approvals. Review of the drilling plan, environmental plan, mine plan. Everything. It was done promptly, usually got out the door in time. We had a pretty Good Relationship with industry. Things got done, environmental law. We were underneath the law. Everything was handled. But as that was taken way and the bureau of mines was dissolved and the Land Management agencies dont have enough geologists to staff up, they get further and further behind despite their best efforts. The gao report main graphic is this one. And it shows during a fouryear period of 2010 to 2014, they looked at about 60 mine plan permits submitted between the service and blm. Heres the alkaslocation of the approvals in terms of time it took to do the approval. Two things about the chart. Number one, it ends all the way to the right by saying more than 48 months. All right, thats four years, and you dont see all the way up to the six, ten, and 20year figures i gave you earlier. So thats sort of artificially truncated there. Okay, well give them that. What you dont see here though, and you wouldnt know if i didnt tell you, is a lot of these plans, permit, especially the ones that were approved quickly, are for minerals such as zeoolites, play, sand and gravel, and other such materials that arent critical. All right. Theyre moreusally and quickly permitted. Whereas the more critical metallics take time. Remember i said, since 2000, theres only been 14 metallic mines approved. So that factors into this chart, but its not explained as such. When you compare the United States to the rest of the world, heres where we stand. We are in the seven to tenup category for permitting. Australia and canada have been mining longer than we have, perhaps, and they really know how to handle it. Their permitting time is short. Chile, probably one of the Worlds Largest copper producers is right in the middle. Other countries around the world, you would be surprised, are getting onboard with environmental restrictions, and thats a good thing. And its taking more time, but we are probably by far the worst as far as the time taken, it takes for a permit to be issued. Now, lets look, for example, at a case study, and this is called the Bear Lodge High grade rare element deposit in eastern wyoming. This is very, very important, and no one here probably has the intimate knowledge of this. I spent some time with the officers of this company. Heres what they told me, and then i researched it on my oend. When i melded it all together, this is what i found. These red dots here are the operating rare Earth Element mines on this planet. Notice most of them are in china. One or two in india. One up there in finland. The Mountain Pass mine in california, you see there, is no longer operating. So thats out of production. The next slide now you see the advanced rare earth projects worldwide. These are not mines now, but these are projects where theyre trying to become a mine. And you notice bear lodge is there in wyoming. They are working on that as best they could. Australia is also trying to gear up as is south africa. Even denmark is working on greenland. Theres some deposits there. But the thing that makes bear lodge, wyoming, not only a critical mineral but a strategic Mineral Deposit are the following. First of all, as marc indicated, china produces most of the rare earth and they consume 60 of what they produce. Theyre going they themselves are going to have to import by 2020. So were how is that going to happen . On top of that, we have the molly corps bankruptcy last year, no prupgz, and china is buying up the best of the rest worldwide. That we know for a fact. The bear lodge deposit right now is classed as the richest rare earth deposit in the western hemisphere, maybe the world. It is so important to the department of defense that they want the operation they want the mine operating now. And ill get to that in a minute. Lets look at bear creek bear lodge quickly. Im really surprised by the small relatively small footprint of this operation being 900 acres. Over 45 year life span. Thats interesting to me. And as i said, its the most advanced project for rare earths but its not yet a mine. And theres reason for that. I guess i think you see where im going with this. There has been a whopping problem with the permitting process for bear lodge. And let me walk you through this slide and try to explain why there is a problem. Number one, they began work in 2004, so they have been up there for 14 years. They have run into a Land Management agency that does not exercise in a timely manner or in the spirit of neapa, their authority as the lead agency. There also is an antiproject agency bias in the employees that has to do with the development of that deposit. And i would like to point out that just this past weekend in the paper, there was an expose about the foot dragging and outside collusion of employees from the epa with regard to the pebble mine in alaska. And legal deposition has it dead to rights. The fact that the employee admitted it. So this is not just unique to pebble. It goes on, whether we like it or not. Whether we think it doesnt, it does. The additional time was lost by the owners of the deposit because of the restrictions asked of them. For example, they were asked to put tailings back in the mine while theyre mining. They were asked to build too steep, too long access roads across private property for which they could not obtain permission. Theres been an over year long delay the environmental statement, and in the end, this is what happened. Rare Earth Resources Corporation basically asked the federal government to suspend because they no longer had the cash to continue. Dod is furious. Absolutely furious. And this is why. The virginia class Ballistic Missile submarine replacement from the ohio class to the virginia class is going to occur, and its going to occur by replacing the Nuclear Powered mechanical drive in the ohio class with the rare earth magnet drive stealthy drive in the virginia class. This is going to require so much rare Earth Element material, well, not so much, whatever. Heres the point. That number is classified. The only source of that material on this planet for the virginia class Ballistic Missile subs is either from the australians, who are feverishly working to get up and running on their own, or guess what. China. Do you think for a minute china is going to sell rare Earth Elements to the department of defense for the virginia class . Probably not. In fact, theyre working on their own stealthy sub. And thats something that dod is also struggling with. Considering the bear lodge example, were going to wrap up here for questions, i want to talk to you briefly about how better we can secure our mineral future because something clearly has to be done. Number one, we really need in this country to improve federal stewardship. We really do. In fact, certain states do a magnificent job with stewardship. They know how to land manage. They know how to permit. They know how to collect royalty rental. They know how to lease. They understand reclamation, and they understand the concept of mullable land use. If i have a quarry and im done, i fill it with water. I have a body of water, i can stock it with life. Its over a century old, and sometimes it would be better just to forget about it as far as the Land Management agency goes. A tipable bom permit takes almost a year. Now, this isnt again, these are statistics from gao and others. Up in north dakota, you can get a permit for drilling or whatever in about ten days. Now, theres congressional legislation right now pending on this, and well see how that happens, but just to give you an idea. The legislation for minerals is inside of the energy bill. So the energy bill passed the senate, and then, of course, its in conference now. And its maybe going to be signed, maybe not, but the hope of the mineral bill being passed depends on its host, the energy bill, and well see how it goes. In the long term, what can we do to appreciate our reliance on Critical Minerals . And the first thing is that we are reliant, and they portend to our Economic Health. And secondly, our hightech standard of living. You know, if i want these things, these gadgets, ive got to have those minerals. No way around them. There are no substitutes for them yet. We need also to map all of the domestic deposits. I remember when i started with the survey, their mission from 1879 by president hayes was to go out and map all the hands and survey all the materials located therein. And that hasnt been done. They have strayed a little bit from they have strayed from their mission, and that needs to be corrected. We need to also consider disallowing more of these large, multimillion acre withdrawals. It does no one any good, and again, we have taken the land out. We dont know what the minerals are. Now, if theres a crisis, we dont know what our bank balance is in terms of mineral wealth. We need to identify also geopolitically correct alternatives to imports. I showed you hoe much we have grown in import dependence and so has marc, and were going to do that. Industry universities can form partnerships and some of the good ones have been recently, for example, doe and penn state, my alma mater, partnered up. And penn state now researchers are pulling rare Earth Elements out of coal dust and coal debris that companies dont want or would get rid of. Theyre pulling it out with no effort. Theyre pulling out a half a percent, and with no effort, almost no additional effort, theyre prepared to pull out 2 and on and on. So thats coming. An additional legislation would maybe support Industry University projects and leave the government out of it. I draw the analogy to you here in the closing minutes to the u. S. Energy picture and environmental stewardship. You know, ladies and gentlemen, we are the number one producer of oil and gas in the world right now. We clawed and scratched our way to the top. And by analogy, our minerals and mining and critical Mineral Industry can do the same thing. We can improve ourselves to the top of the heap because mining today is not like your grandfathers mining from years and years ago. Its responsibly done, environmentally sensitive. And i have seen some of these sites, so has dr. Michaels. You know, people, these companies do not want bad press. When they mine or drill and produce resources, they want clean, nice, good Media Coverage for the good work that they have tried to do. In summary, we need a better way to get a huge commitment to our industry just like they have given to us. And we want to start with improved federal stewardship. And i think what ill do, ladies and gentlemen, is ill leave it there, and well take marc and i, any questions. And i thank you very much for your attention. , marc and i, any questions. And i thank you very much for your attention. When we get a question, please wait to be called on. And wait for the microphone. The microphone is walking back there and it will be walking toward you. And to announce your name and affiliation. I dont go why we like that so much, but we really do. I learned something. I learned a new phrase, which is geopolitically correct. And i dont know where im going to use it, but geopolitical correctness is really should be studied at a lot of universities very soon. So, lets have questions. Mr. Keely. All my life you are with . You. Ah. The science unit. All my life, i have been told were about to run out of copper, were about to run out of this, out of that. Are we actually about to run out of these or is this a strategic thing that we dont want the chinese controlling our resources . Dr. Keely, remember back when the slide i showed you the distinction between reserves and resources . Okay. What really is hard to wrap your head around sometimes is the more we produce of a commodity out of the ground, the more often the amount of reserves goes up, because as we produce, we discover more and better and more ways to discover but more. So its like a squirrel cage. So for some of the commodities like copper, were in no real danger of running out, although we still do import some. And you know, as marc said, there are supply chains. For the more critical ones, we havent done enough exploration on federal lands because we cant get in there. Remember i told you about access issues . So until we start to really inventory more, there is the possibility of running out. I hope that answers your question. Down here. Thank you. Very interesting presentations. Im gary merit. Ex state department. Im curious about two things. One, theres been no mention of the possibilities with recycling. I mean, its no doubt a small percentage, but from critically strategic perspectives, recycling has got to be on the table, i should think. The second is my confusion about if it is a critical Rare Earth Resources are critical for virginia class propulsions systems, why is it that it has to be a private sector or a private corporation . Is that the only way we can think about it . If it is so critical, are there not federal options somehow that could be on the table . I know thats heretical in this setting to ask that question, but i would appreciate it. You want to take it . You want to do it and ill come back . On the recycling issue, there is an effort under way at the department of energy to look at recycling of critical or possible Critical Minerals, and a five years private taking place now, looking at recycling, material efficiency, and substitutions of clean energy or hightech minerals. Elsewhere in the world, in europe, in japan, recycling is much bigger when it comes to these particular materials. Because japan was hit with the 2010 issue that they really dug in deeper in terms of looking at all possibilities of securing reliable supplies of these materials. So they were looking at urban mining, is what they call it, where they could do better separating out some of the minor metals. Some of the more valuable stuff like the gold or platinum, these things, they can get. But getting the other materials has been difficult. But i think they pursued it in a lot bigger way than we have in the United States. In addition, i mentioned the University Industry partnerships are starting to yield some very positive results. As i said, penn state has shown with their research program, theyre pulling rare earths out of coal waste, which is good. Recycling certainly should be looked at more. Also, theres plenty of room for research on substitute materials, because if we can find substitutes, we should do it and do it as quickly as we can. Now, back to your other question. Listen, i dont want you to go out the door thinking that, you know, we were slanted one way or the other. This is a situation where, you know, we have few options, and were working on it, but one of the things about it is if we dont mine in this country and we rely on imports from the strictly environmental standpoint, it becomes a nimby project. Someone else is mining it and those other places in the world dont have any or much less Environmental Control than we do here. So it becomes a net negative as far as the Environmental Quality when you keep mining offshore. Probably better to open up some lands and at least see whats there and under strict control do mining here. I think thats probably the best way to look at that. In addition to the recycling, the material substitutes, and also the what im calling advanced mineral processing. Theres a big, big field of research there thats available to universities and industries alike. All right. Over here. That answer was geopolitically correct. Independent social scientist and author. I wonder if you would comment on the dark side of this. Is there vulnerability to terrorism because of these critical things . Is there a black market . I saw recently in National Geographic that there are miners in africa who are going into closed mines in dangerous conditions and doing mining for their own personal gain. Is any of that going on in this rare earth sector . Ill take part of it. There is an illegal market for some of these materials. Thats all i can say. I know in china, the rare earth mark market, the underground market is big. It may represent maybe as much as 25 of whats being produced in china. And they allow this, the government would allow this because they know some of these provinces, they employ people, i mean, its a very contested issue. Its not necessarily they can easily set it down. They may not want to set it down. It puts people to work. But theres the environmental contamination issue thats becoming a bigger concern with the illegal operations. In africa and the congo, i read in one journal where they identified that one is being smuggled out to congo through rwanda, bought by china, possibly. And it goes unaccounted for. A lot of this material is not even accounted for. But there are these underground structures already in play for a lot of this material. And let me add to what my colleague just said. You have all heard of conflict diamonds and the like, and of course, a lot of these Strategic Minerals have their conflict problemed attached to them. And then of course, marc had earlier explained about supply chain vulnerabilities. I would say coming out of these places like central asia or africa, and i know for a fact we talked to some of my colleagues that tesla motors, for example, has just washed their hands of rare earths. Theyre not going to be involved in that anymore. Theyre going to convert to direct drive. Theyre getting away from rare earths. They dont want anything to do with the conflict, the environmental pillaging or the supply chain threat. Similarl similarl similarly,sem similarly, siemens, they said were done with direct earth. Were going to direct drive power turbines and we dont need the rare earths, so its starting to backlash. But so depending on what part of the globe it comes from, and i showed that map of the green and red colors. The redder it is, probably the better to stay away from. Could i ask a question . I dont quite understand part of the answer. Your answer, when you say that tesla is saying were not going to be using rare earths because were going to direct drive. Can you explain . Well, theyre going to reconfigure their motors so they dont require the magnets. I see. To power the cars. Listen, im not a tesla aficionado, but theyre getting away from rare earths. So is siemens. Theyre both on the thought process. Thats really the way markets tend to work. Yes. Thats a good thing. Thats why we have them. Because we dont have everything. It looks like well take one more question, unless nobody has one. And i will take the liberty todd . You need the microphone. Name name is todd wiggins, local citizen, and appreciate the talk. There was, speaking of the socalled conflict mineral issue. There was recent protest at the apple store in one of the grand openings where a group was out front. And i dont know if thats continued. That was a couple years ago. So how do you think thats affecting their image as far as let me try to shed some light on it. The author of this book had a section here on apple. And these conflict minerals that are used to conflict minerals used to design gadgets that we like. Basically he said, look, apple was 85th Largest Company in the world. And within the last five years, they catapulted to the Largest Company in the world. And Critical Minerals are to Apple Corporation as oil is to exon. In fact, apple blew past exon in size. Part of the apple apparatus is looking feverishly for material substitutes to get away as fast as they can, because if you recall, i showed you a periodic table. Every year, more and more and more and more. So theyre making themselves kind of like tesla or siemens, more and more vulnerable as they go wide, lets say. So what theyre really trying to do is partner with universities, find material substitutes, ceramics is a big area of research now. Of course, the recycling, and the mineral processing. If i can pull out socalled, you know, conflict minerals or whatever you want to call them, out of coal dust or somebody elses trash, good to go. And so thats but they are thinking about it, as are many other companies. We want to have an image of environmental responsibility. And i think thats good. Okay. We want to be environmentally responsible. But when it comes to shortages, sometimes our back is against the wall and the question is how are we going to handle it, what are we going to do about it . My guess is that apple probably wants to reduce cost. Supplies are low. Costs are high. So we innovate. Thats what we do as human beings, i seem to think. We have a reception for you upstairs in the Winter Garden that will begin forthwith. All you need to do is put your name tag back on so we know who you are, and well see you ipstai upstairs. Democratic president ial candidate Hillary Clinton is campaigning in ohio today. Cspan will have live coverage at her stop in athens where shell be giving a speech on jobs and the economy. And democratic president ial candidate senator Bernie Sanders is in kentucky today. Cspan will have live coverage of his rally in louisville at 7 30 eastern. Indiana voters are going to the polls today. The state has 57 republican delegates and 92 democratic delegates at stake. C cspan will be live with primary results, candidate speeches and your reaction. Madam secretary, we proudly give 72 of our delegate votes to the next president of the United States. [ cheers and applause ] in iraq and afghanistan, i helped both countries with their constitutions being sort of a facilitator of agreement on key issues among the iraqis or afghans. Your influence is considerable. Heads of state or government, very anxious to meet with you. Sunday night, former u. S. Ambassador to afghanistan, iraq, and the United Nations discusses his memoir, the envoy, from kabul to the white house. My journey through a turbulent world. We saw the extremists exploited, ooltd we have corrected it towards the end of the period that i was there by the surge, by reaching out to the sunnis, by building up iraqi forces, by establishing a unity government, killing zarqawi at the end, to bring about security. Violence was way down. But unfortunately, when we left, and the vacuum was filled by rival regional powers pulling iraq apart, violence escalated and we have isis now. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on q a. Starting live here shortly on cspan3 joining the center for strategic and international studies, for a conversation with a woman who heads the pipeline and Hazardous Materials administration. Shell be talking about the challenges of transporting Hazardous Materials around the United States. Okay, good afternoon. Hi, my name is sarah. I direct the energy and National Security program here at csis, and were pleased to have all of you here today for our discussion, the future of simsa. We have been very persistent in trying to get administer dominguez here because we think a lot on her agenda is on our agenda. Thats on the oil and gas side, in the United States, has been changing and may change going forward, and how we manage some of the safety issues associated with that transition. Many of you know administrator dominguez is the administrator of the pipeline Hazardous Material and safety administration, and theyre responsible for the Development Enforcement of regulations for safe, reliable, operation of 2. 6 million miles of gas and liquid Pipeline Transportation and nearly a million transportations a day by land, sea, and air. Its a pretty staggering volume and amount of activity and very important work. Ms. Dominguez joins phmsa last june, before that, served as the principle assistant deputy secretary for the army for civil works where she provided policy direction and performance oversight of the army corps of engineers. Civil Works Program focused on Water Conservation and development, navigation flood control, high and outdoor recre. A lady who is not averse to complex and difficult to manage issues. So we invited administrator dominguez here today to talk about her plans for the future of the agency, and as you guys know as csis we have done a lot of work on this yare crarea to lietd the Important Role we think regulators and companies and all of us must play to insure the Safe Delivery of those resources. So we invite the administrator to make a few remarks and then we will open it up for question and discussion. Thank you very much for taking time to be with us today. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, sarah, very much for your kind introduction, and for the invitation to join you all at cis today. And particularly thanks to the energy and natural National Security program. For inviting me to speak today. It is an honor to be here. Your organization, of course, provides a forum for some of todays most cutting edge conversations in economics, security, health, human rights, a whole potpourri of issues including energy, to really inform citizens and i think leaders alike, and i very much appreciate the forum. Im also very excited to be here today for what you called a timely discussion. I couldnt agree more. Its extremely timely. As sarah said, my name is Marie Therese dominez and i have served at the u. S. Department of transportation since august of last year, i formally came on board in june and was confirmed in august. As phmsa, our mission is to protect people and the environment by advancing the safe transportation of energy and other Hazardous Materials that are essential to our daily lives. Our operating environment is complex. Its diverse, and critical to the way that americans live. In response, those of us at f z fimsy are addressing the issues at hand, but just important, were going beyond the issues at hand. We have challenged ourselves to invest in and plan for the future of our agency. Today, i would like to share some of our challenges and some of our opportunities. How were responding to our ever growing mission, and our longterm Strategic Vision for advancing safety through our phmsa 2021 framework. Growing up, my dad used to say he could fix anything with a pair of pliers, some duct tape, and wd40. And of course, he was absolutely right. He could fix anything. But what he likely didnt think about was the process involved in getting his tools of choice to him safely. Wd40 is a hazardous liquid transported in an aerosol can, and it has to be regulated during shipment. And it also cant be permitted on any kind of passenger aircraft and it has to follow very specific Hazardous Material labeling and packaging standards. All too susceptible to aerosol can regulations, whipped cream canisters. So my dad and every single 8yearold who has ever had an ice cream sundae with whipped cream from a canister are phmsas biggest fans. So just a quick question here. How many of you all have taken a flight in the last year . Just raise your hands. Okay. Pretty significant number. Overwhelming. Have you noticed that each time you check in, you have to agree not to bring any Hazardous Materials on your flight or in your checked bag . You have to touch that screen. Okay. Phmsa along with the faa developed these Safety Standards because many common Household Items can become dangerous when transported by air. Last fall, phmsa issued a safety advisory and shortly after an interim final rule banning the transport of electronic smoking devices or ecigarettes in ch k checked bags on commercial flights. After a series of close call incidents, it became clear that these devices, which are powered by lithium ion batteries, were susceptible to overheating in the cargo compartments of commercial aircraft. The interim final rule addressed these concerns and provided guidance for safe transportation of personal devices as long as precautions are taken to reduce the risk of fire. This is just but one example of how phmsa addressed safety issues. By learning from incidents, by analyzing critical data, by Understanding Market and technology advancements, and proactively issuing guidance for safe transportation of these products. As i mentioned, our mission is to protect people and the environment by advancing the safe transportation of energy and other Hazardous Materials. Our operating motto demands that we keep a close eye on industry trends, collect and leverage data, and understand emerging technologies and the changing Energy Environment in order to anticipate risk, inform our regulations, and truly drive safety. At phmsa, were transportation, energy, and Hazardous Materials experts. We are engineers, analysts, policymakers, and inspectors. And lawyers, too. We have some of the worlds leading corrosion and welding experts, and we actually hold a chair of the u. N. Subcommittee on transportation of dangerous goods. These are all members of our teams. Of our team. And this team is incredibly dedicated. And their dedication is matched by their expertise, and each of them contributes on a daily basis to safety, our level of enforcement, and response. Its really truly entrusted to our agency. Our regulators, as regulators, our goal is to smartly leverage the full scope of tools at our disposal, from regulation to edge caution and outreach. All in an effort to eliminate incidents and accidents, injury and harm. We inspect and enforce compliance of the Safety Standards that we promulgate. And we incorporate Lessons Learned from these accidents and incidents. Identifying trends and considering the human as well as the environmental impact, as we develop policies, initiatives, and regulations. In the last decade, the way that the American Public consumes and interacts with energy and Energy Products has fundamentally changed. And today, the expectation is that these interactions will be so safe and reliable that the public really doesnt have to think about the risk thats involved. They, the American Public, and you should associate this safe level of transportation with a job that we do every single day at phmsa. Phmsa is a relatively new and unique agency, established in 2004 by the mineta act, the creation of phmsa brought the regulation of the movement of Hazardous Materials by all modes, including pipeline, under one domain. Today, we house these two different programs, and yet interconnected Safety Programs all under one roof. Our office of Pipeline Safety regulates the designs, construction, operation, and inspection of pipelines that transport oil and natural gas across the country. Its also what powers our homes, cars, and the economy. The office of Hazardous Materials regulates the transport, packaging, and labeling of all Hazardous Materials. And provides training to Emergency Responders who deal with transportation incidents involving hazmat. There are over 2. 6 million miles of pipeline in the United States. This is enough pipe to circle the globe 104 times. Phmsa sets the standards for safety for this vast underground Pipeline Infrastructure which moves natural gas, oil, and other Energy Products 24 hours a day. We also regulate the move of Hazardous Material, including explosives, poisonous, corrosive, flammable, and radioactive materials. All valued at about 2. 3 trillion every year. These goods are moved on the 307 billion miles of our nations interconnected transportation network. Including land, air, and sea. The reality is that between pipelines and the transport of Hazardous Materials, if something is manufactured, produced, shipped, heated, or cooled, phmsa had a hand in it. This is an enormous responsibility for one agency. And a fairly small one at that, comprised of less than 600 people spread across the country. As an agency, phmsa operates in a constantly changing environment. Energy innovation and Technology Advances faster than regulation can often keep pace. The u. S. Energy renaissance has strengthened Americas Energy security and Economic Prosperity while simultaneously creating new Transportation Safety challenges. Our goal at phmsa is never to let these changes impact safety. The United States is in the midst of an unprecedented increase in Domestic Energy production. As a kid, i remember the gas crisis in the 70s, and now our nation is the number one producer of oil and gas around the world. And the United States no longer imports the majority of the energy it consumes. Its also created new concerns for consumers, pipeline operators, hazmat shippers, safety paramount across the board, no matter where you are in the supply chain, all of these companies that we regulate, the focus needs to be on safety. An example of the dynamic environment is the advancement of liquefied natural gas. Natural gas is an important element of the president s all of the above Energy Strategy to make america more energy independent. The abundant supply of natural gas in the United States has increased demand for it actually on a National Basis and internationally. And as the industry grows, we have to take a hard look at how the u. S. Produces, uses, and stores l g in this country. Phmsa plays a role in setting Safety Standards in the way the facilities are designed, maintained, and operated. An emphasis on safety, again, is more relevant than ever. Crude oil is also being produced domestically in unprecedented volumes. Kwle yearly, about 5,000 car loads are transported across the United States, and phmsa is working dill jnltly to make sure these products arrive safely at their destinations. In 2015, in collaboration with the federal rail administration, we issued the high hazard flammable rail rule. They designed new requirements designed to reduce the consequences involved trains transported large quantities of Flammable Liquids including crude oil and ethanol by setting new regulations in speed, braking systems, rooting, and tank car design. This comprehensive rule directly addresses the risks associated with this growing and changing marketplace. Advancing the Safe Movement of these products by rail. Our role in the changing Energy Market goes beyond regulating the products that power our cars and homes. Basically, we have been able to fly across the ocean for over a century now, but were now also global consumers. Asking products literally to move around the world with the touch of one button. You may remember the really cool gift last year during the Holiday Season was hoverboards. And in 2015, the embodiment of the hoverboard was the back to the future nostalgia we all had. But i have to tell you that several of the Major International manufacturers of these devices were not compliant with the international Safety Standards for the parts that were actually inside the hoverboards that they had manufactured. Many of the models were found to have faulty batteries, chargers, and cutoff switches that after regular use were not only susceptible to short circuiting but in some cases they were actually spontaneously combusting. It was a collaborative work of both phmsa and the u. S. Customs and Border Patrol as we worked to stop shipments of these faulty goods at the ports. Phmsa issued a safety alert that provided guidance on how hoverboards were to be transported, what their handling should be, the usage, et cetera. And it was the u. S. Consumer Safety Commission that educated the public on the quality and verification of what they actually needed to look for in the product they had purchased, oftentimes online. These collaborative efforts increased overall awareness of the safety risks that was really involved in arguably one of the hottest toys that sold last year. A major objective of phmsas Hazardous Material Safety Program is to maintain a global system of Hazardous Materials regulations that enhances the safe and efficient movement of hazmat from oil to batteries that power everything thats we just talked about, including your phone. They literally cross every border, every jurisdiction, and all international boundaries. The u. S. Is a leader in international harmonization. Working to set Global Compliance standards and Risk Identification and development of safety controls and to insure regulatory consistency. It was theseet