U. S. Student loan debt. Later, discussions about Cyber Security and business. Now a Senate Hearing on training firefighters who respond to firefighters. Mark begich questioned officials representing the Forest Service and firefighters about the resources needed with increasing firefighters in Populated Areas. This hearing is an hour. Thank you so much for being here. Its a pleasure to have folks here. This is the subcommittee on Emergency Management intergovernment relations in the District Of Columbia. I apologize. I have a cold so im suffering through a cold. So i appreciate you being here. I want to thank the witnesses to be here especially on short notice to lend their expertise to our discussion. We are here to look at the problems that are serious and concerns to many states for a while now, and thats wildfires. This is a challenge that confronts communities of all towns, villages, cities, states and the federal government. As a former mayor myself i know firsthand how important
Hawk. This years proposal just reversed it and wants to retire the u2 and keep the global hawk. When you flipflop completely within one year it doesnt give you a lot of confidence these poem proposals have been thought out. If you talk to commanders in korea they want to keep them both with the volatile young leader now in charge in the north. But the other reason im not willing to accept many of the administrations proposals is that im not willing that we have to accept that we have to have a smaller military or a smaller role in the world. Most republicans and Many Democrats are not willing to throw up our hands in retreat and resign ourselves to a smaller military and smaller role. Because we know as the United States retreats others will fill that void and those others will not move the world towards greater freedom and greater prosperity. The United States is exceptional and it is exceptional in a way that no other country in the world is. President also accuses republicans of wan
Threatening your state are stark reminder of this present danger. Before the hearing we spoke with tom wescott. He estimates that a vast majority of his membership will be engaged in those efforts before the fire is finally brought under control. The scourge of wildfires has become epidemic and will i am peril our nation. Changing the way in which federal government budgets for wild land Fire Fighting. It makes sense and should be done but only a first step. For decades firefighters are battled on how to deal with wildfires. Today with the increased development of wild land urban interface, we want to develop a more wholistic strategy to deal with the issue. The clearly the federal government must take the lead. We applaud the strategy. This strategy establishes a National Vision for wild land Fire Management and response. The strategy is an Excellent First step but once again more must be done in the 1960 and 1970s they were blited with with arson. The National Commission on Fire Prev
The senate gavels in at 2 00 eastern for general speeches. At 5 30, senators will vote to move forward on district judge nominations for virginia, massachusetts and nevada. You can watch the house life on cspan live on cspan, the senate on cspan2. Deputy National Security adviser tony blinken talked about the u. S. And European Response to isolate russia after its intervention in ukraine. He talked about the effectiveness of the sanctions and why the annexation of crimea will eventually prove to be what he calls a strategic loser for russia in the long term. He spoke at a conference on europe hosted by the brookings institution. Its about 45 minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, i hope youve had a chance to enjoy some lunch. It is, of course, a brookings sandwich lunch, so, you know, theres limits to the enjoyment, but nonetheless, we hope youve had a good lunch. Were extremely pleased to have tony blinken here to finish off and wrap up our annual conference for us today. Tony, unfortunately,
Get broader sanctions. And thenians seernational community crimea as lost, at least for the short term. I do not think we could afford to see effective occupation twoee de facto operation in inces inive provoin Eastern Ukraine. Whatever can be done to find moscow accountable would be very important. My second question. In much broader question about the future of nato and the future of article five protections. I agree europe will certainly react if there is a movement of troops across the border. The idea is that they are protected under the mutual defense covenant in nato, but russia is perfecting a new form of warfare in which they dont march troops across the border, in which they very slowly but methodically contest areas, gain control of areas with a range of tactics from intimidation to bribery to provocations to little green men with no russian uniforms. So this is a longerterm challenge for us. But is article v still a sufficient protection for countries along russias border .