The committee will come to order. We meet today to consider two of president obamas nominees in the Intelligence Committee. Mrs. Caroline dianne krass, nominee to be the general counsel of the cia, and ambassador Daniel Bennett smith, nominee to be assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research. As we would say, inr. Welcome to you both, and to the family and friends with you today. I also understand that senator bennett will be introducing ms. Krass and should arrive shortly from another hearing. When he does come in, i will give him the opportunity to make his remarks, and then we will go back to whatever we are doing. We have received answers to our prehearing questions from both nominees, and those can be found on the committees website for anyone whos interested. And we look towaforward to hear both of your opening statements. This committee has the jurisdiction over all nominees requiring Senate Confirmation within the Intelligence Community, and we try to move that p
Must do ex parte. If you cannot do ex parte, you can send out a partially filled out renewal form, et cetera. Those are wonderful policy changes, however, since this data is a brand new application, its brand new data points, were looking at tax filing status and all kinds of data we never used before in eligibility, we dont have that in our current data files. Therefore, we must ask the family for that new data. And, therefore, we cant do ex parte for this first year for those folks. So its another challenge for work processes and the workers. But once we get through that, i think its going to be wonderful. Great. Well, we would now like to open this up to questions from those of you in the audience, those of you watching us on line as well as people who might be sending in a question from twitter. We have them roaming around the room with microphones. Please identify yourself first by name or affiliation. If you have a direction for one of our panelists versus another, please do so a
Chairman Julius Genachowski and former fcc commissioner robert mcdowell. Thats followed by our discussion with congressman greg walden, chairman of the house subcommittee on communications and technology. Guest were in a landscape thats absolutely shifting, and there are areas of the statutory scheme where it would make sense to look at and say are those keeping up with the changes in the marketplace. Fundamentally, having this kind of competition, programming innovation, access by new players to consumers and access by the traditional players to viewers in new ways. Obviously, whats happening on tablets is amazing. Whats starting to happen in the living room is very exciting. Were in just an incredible time when it comes to the delivery of video programming to consumers. There are issues. We heard it at the commission, both of us did, from distributers who were concerned about the costs of programming. Consumers are concerned about the costs of programming, so thats an issue of i thin
Having a specific commitment. Scientific these negotiation, we are discussing very broadly for all sectors. And andrement what is being done. It is not close. It is just the reason we expect to work. And within each of the sectors, these issues are looking into. We will see how far it is possible to go under each of these issues and each of those sectors. I think thats important to ear in mind. I have a question. The commission this week released a draft regulation on restricting products from cloned animals, and im just can you tell us to what extent that issue will find its way into the trade agreement, into the trade negotiations, and can you elaborate on some of the food safety issues this week . All the specific proposal of the commission has a note that, no, its not an usual we are discussing during these negotiations. Of course we are always ready to listen to questions, comments about our initiative. On food safety, i think that there were good discussions between the two teams
Unanimously from the Intelligence Committee and will, when confirmed, serve as a top intelligence official in the department of state. He is well qualified, having served for 30 years as Foreign Service officer in a variety of positions in the state department. Most recently, he was ambassador to greece from 2010 to 2013. This i. N. R. Is a key position responsible for informing diplomatic decisions with available intelligence and in providing the state departments input to intelligence decisions. I urge his confirmation. Thank you, madam president. The presiding officer who yields time . All time is yielded back. Is there a sufficient second . There appears to be. There is. The clerk will call the roll. Vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote . If not, the yeas are 98, the nays are zero. The nomination is confirmed. Mr. Reid madam president . The presiding officer the majority leader. Mr. Reid . The next vote will be t