a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. daines: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. daines: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of senate resolution 181 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 181, designating may 19, 2015, as national skitzencephaly awareness day. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. daines: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. daines: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of senate resolution 182. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 181, expressing the sense of the senate that defense laboratories have been and continue to be on the cutting edge of scientific and technological advancement and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. daines: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. daines: mr. president i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. wednesday may 20. following the prayer and pledge, the morning business be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. following leader remarks the senate then resume consideration of h.r. 1314. the presiding officer: without objection. senators should be aware that the filing deadline for all first-degree amendments to both the underlying bill and the substitute amendment is at 1:00 p.m. tomorrow. mr. daines: if there is to further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow. >> the senate gavling out. members continued debate on trade promotion authority earlier. it is the last week before the memorial day recess and senators are supposed to work on the amended patriot act as well and the shortway extension of the highway trust fund. we heard more about that from a capital hill reporter. >> federal highway funding expires at the end of this month and congress is working on a short-term extension to try to bridge the gap. keith lane is joining us. how is the current program funded currently and why is congress facing this deadline at the end of the month? >> the traditional source for trans transpirortation is revenue collected from the gas tax at 18 cents a gallon. the problem is it hasn't been raised since 1993 and cars are becoming more efficient and people are driving less so the gas tax isn't bringing in as much. there is a $13 billion gap in how much the tax brings in and the amount the federal government spends on transportation which advocates say what we are spending now is barely enough to keep up with what they have. they would like to see increase but there is disagreement on how it should she paid for. >> why this deadline now? >> the measure they are pulling up today is an extension of an extension. the bill was passed in 2012 and supposed to expire last summer and they passed an eight-month extension in july of last year and here we are now. >> you write the house and senate are considering a summer fix. what happens if funding is not extended? >> the reason they are focused on the summer is the transportation department said they have enough money to cover spending through the summer without additional money. there had been talk about an ex tension through the end of the year but that would have required $10 billion and there was no agreement on how to pay for that. they stuck with the deadline there is money to cover. >> what is the status of a long-term funding bill in the house and senate? >> well congress hasn't passed a transportation bill longer than two years since 2005. there have been 30 extensions or close to to it. transportation advocates are pretty unhappy about that. there is an amendment being discussed for the house version of this from democrats that would have prevented any extension past september 30th that were not six years in length. that is the length people are seeking because they say that would give states certainty as they plan long-term construction projects. >> what is the whitehouse take on it? >> they have proposed a bill that could be paid for are repatriotion and taxing overseas businesses. some republicans have supported that idea but the parties disagree on the rate of the taxes rather participation should be mandatory or voluntary and there is talk about it being a one-time solution to the transportation funding not a permanent solution. >> you wrote about comments that the former secretary of transportation made about how crazy it was to not raise the gas tax. why is it not an option? where else would the money come from? >> the political reality is it is hard to get a tax increase through this congress. even hood who said he is in favor of a 10 cent bill didn't come out in that position until after leaving office because the obama administration said they are oppose to a gas tax increase. >> i want to touch briefly on the tweet you sent out about a house democrat whose district is portland oregon a big bike city and he doesn't want to see any more short term patches. what is happening here? >> he is offering an amendment to a bill today that would ban any extension after this. this one expires in july and the deadline is september 30th the end of the fiscal year. he would prevent any extensions that are not a six-your long term transportation bill that would end the cycle of temporary extensions. >> does he have supporters behind him? >> he has supporters in the desire for the long term bill but i think there is a realism that the only thing that can get through is this temporary extension. >> we will follow you at the hill and watch out for your tweets at laeing. >> and the house today did pass a short-term highway spending bill to keep road bridge and mass transit projects funded. the vote was 387-35. the house adjourned today and will come back tomorrow to discuss the house bill that expired at the end of the year. coming up tonight, hilary clinton takes part in a round table on small business in ceder fall, iowa and then the senate commerce committee looks at the reauthorization of the federal aviation administration. and later a group of ceos speak out against airlines and the united arab emrites for receiving unfair subsidies. hilary clinton took questions and defended income from her speeches. robert coster writes hilary clinton broke a long drought to take a few questions from the traveling press here on tuesday. distancing herself from the president's trade pact and defending the millions she and her husband have made giving speeches. at the end of the meeting for small business at a bicycle shop clinton said she favors having the state department release e-mails from her time as secretary of state as soon as possible quote i want those e-mails out. now the business round table from iowa followed by the questions and answers with the press. this is an hour. hi everybody. great. well first let me thank all of you in particularly our round table participants for being with us today. thanks to vitech for welcoming us to this facility. i am deelected to have the chance to talk more about small business. but i want to begin by saying a few words on what is happening with the american economy and families because i have always believed that when our families are strong our country is strong. we have come back from very tough economic times. i don't need to tell anybody here that. our economy and our country are in much better shape today. and in large measure because families worked so hard. they took extra jobs, they skipped vacations, they scrimped, they postponed going to college they saved and made it work. but the deck is still stacked for those at the top. people are not getting a fair shake. something is wrong when ceo's earn more than 300 times than what the typical american worker earns. and when hedge fund managers play a lower tax rate than truck drivers or nurses. i am running for president because every day americans and their families need a champion and i want to be that champion. i want families to do more than just get by. i want them to get ahead and stay ahead. i want to make the word middle class mean something again. smalls businesses like vitech and the ones you will hear about today have to be at the heart of that effort creating jobs driving growth giving millions of americans the chance to give up to their own god given potential. i didn't learn this from politics. i learned it from my father who was a small business man. he had a very small business. he printed dapery fabric went out and sold them. my brother, mother and i would help out with the printing process. that is what put food our on table and gave us a solid middle class home. today small business all over have worked themselves back from the perfect storm of the crisis when sales and credit together dried up and businesses are starting to sort out how they can grow again how they can add jobs and planning for the future. but i think the deck is stacked here as well. ask any small business owner as i have and they will tell you it is wrong that it is so easy for big corporations to get breaks but so hard for small businesses even to get a loan. it should not take longer to start a business in america then to does in canada or france. but that is the fact. now i want to be a small business president. a president who does make it easier to start and run a small business again in america. so it seems less like a gamble and more like an opportunity. we have to level the playing field for our small business. we need to cut the unnecessary red tape that cost sing small businesses time and money. we should scrub the federal regulation regulations to find ways to make life easier to small business. and offer incentives to state and local governments to do the same because that is where many of the obstacles lie. we need to simplify tax filing and provide targeted credit and deduction for small businesses not just the big corporations that can afford the lawyers and lobbyist to find every single loophole. third we should use technology to expand small businesses into new markets whether it is across the state or world. that is what i did in partnership with with ebabey. we started a public private relationship help companies reach customers very far away. of course i want to emphasis this i will fight to level the playing field for small businesses so they can get the financing they need to build and hire including women and minority entrepreneurs who face extra barriers. and this morning, when i was reading the des moines register big headline, report iowa ranks last for women-owned businesses. this could not be a more timely article for our discussion today. and although it said iowa has made some progress. it saw the lowest growth in those businesses by women from 1997-2015. and women-owned companies have the least economic clout in iowa compared to all other states and the district of columbia. so this is a very important issue for our whole country but i think it is especially important for our friends here in iowa because access to credit can be as important to growing a small business as it is to the big ones. and you should not have to be a fortune 500 company to get a loan. for many small businesses these loans have come from community banks are deep local ties. but today those same local banks are being squeezed by regulations that don't make sense for their size and mission. like endless examinations and paperwork designed for banks that measures access in the many billions. when it is harder for small banks to do their jobs it is harder for small businesses to get their loans. we can ease the burden without hurting the consumer and without letting up on wall street. we should not apply the same restrictions on community banks as those needed to regulate the big banks. let's be clear about this. it isn't the big banks that need relief from washington. it is small banks and small businesses. we should do more to rein in behavior on the too big to fail banks. i fully support the regulations from dodd frank but we should pass common sense community banking reform right now. however the republicans in the congress insist on using this issue to give relief to community banks as a trojan horse rolling back protection for consumer and rolling back the rules on the biggest banks as we are seeing in legislation republicans are producing right now. we should call this a senate bill attempt to gain the system for those at the top. our goal should be helping community bacbanks serve their neighbors like they always have. help them create jobs and help families get ahead and stay ahead. i am very eager to hear the ideas from everyone around the table. i see some elected officials in the audience and i am excited to hear their ideas as well. we know there are obstacles and we want to know what we can do to help our community banks get back on their feet to do what they want to do most which is help businesses in the community expand. >> why don't we start with introductions? >> i am fred johnson your host of the day. excited to see so many people hear. >> donna parson the chair of ceder fall banks board of director and pleased to be hear representing the many community banks not just in the state of iowa but nationwide. >> and i am the owner of marketing and four seasons consulting. i am happy to be moderating and being a panelist which is a challenge. let's start with questions. donna? >> i need to say after listening to what you just said about community banks and relieving some of the regulatory burdens i cannot tell you how enthused all of us in the community banking world are to hear this. 88% of the banks in this country are community banks. and we are loosing those at a rapid rate unfortunately about 10 every year in iowa and part of that is because of the regulatory burdens that have been placed upon us. and we exist to support small business. small businesses are our bread and butter. we go hand and hand as a partner with our small business customers. and the burdens that have been placed on small business owners from the regulatory and documentation standpoint impact us as well. it creates extra expense complication, the average annual salary for a compliance officer is $73 400 which is a burden on a smaller bank. we need to be regulated. certainly as bankers and community bankers we need to be regulated. our customers and employers and everybody can trust us with their money and we have a responsibility to do that and we should be regulated. but the regulations need to be parsed out and allocated appropriately for risk profile business model size geography and all of that. >> donna, if i could just follow-up on what you said because i think people forget. they look at the banking induesseldorf -- industry and see the big banks with the trillions in assets and they think that is what represents american banking. but as you point out 88% of our banks are community banks. what i have been hearing and talking with community bank board members officers, is that what was meant to rein in too big to fail has really fallen actually harder on them and that is why they need relief because they were not part of the problem. and yup, they are in some ways saying it is disproportional. is that fair? >> that is right on the money. we are not creating systemic risk. we are not too little to fail. that is exactly right. we need to be a regulated industry but they need to make sense for the different size and profile i mentioned earlier. that is very welcome news. we want to be able to loan money to your small business clients. >> what i see happening, which is my i mentioned it at the end of my opening remarks is that community banks are paying the price in two ways. paying the price for being regulated as though you were a large bank that presents systemic risk and paying the price because it is the trogejan horse issue where the republicans are saying they need to make changes in the dodd frank reg playing -- regulations because of changes. i think we need to walk and chew gum at the same time. we need to make changes and provide for the community banks. is that doable? >> i don't know why it would not be. it is in other environments. that is a meaningful distinguishment that has an impact. give us a break so we can get out there and loan more money. >> this makes me very happy. i started my first business with my first bank loan at the age of 15 because the mobile banker knew what i was doing and knew i was a hard work. he took a chance on me. i opened my first restaurant with a bank loan at the age of 20 because the bank president knew me and my work ethic and believed in what i was doing and knew it was something the community needed. a large bank never would have done that. >> that is an amazing story. you have the entrepreneur gene. you were 15 going place to place selling baked goods and then at 20 you start a restaurant? >> it was a fun hobby that kept growing and growing. >> when you started goldie's how old are you? >> i was 20. >> i bought an ice cream shop from a lady ready to retire. at that time the community had not had a restaurant for over two years. i thought i would serve sandwiches. it has grown to a whole scale restaurant that does over $700000 a year in sales. >> how many employees? >> i have almost 30. >> i feel like i should say i rest my case. that is exactly what we want to get moving again in the economy so that more young people in particular have the chance to do what you did brad. as you began to build your business did you encounter obstacles and you were in the middle of the great recession while putting this together. can you talk about the realities you had to over ppcome. >> starting out of college i thought i knew everything. i opened a restaurant and have been doing food service for a few years. i didn't know as much as i thought i did. it was a really tough hurdle to get the expenses reined in and get the business tuned so it works. it took me about three years. i lost a lot of money in that process. my banker was patient with me and saw the potential and enabled me to keep the business operating to get it to the point where it was successful. >> dawn, does that sound familiar? as a community banker this young man you have known and watched, may not have all of the collateral in the world, but has the ambition work ethic and ideas and you are able to take a chance on him? >> absolutely. we know his story. we know the local market. we know some about his background. so we are able with local decision making to extend credit maybe a little more generously and maybe on more favorable terms because we are neighbors. that is the difference. i wanted to throw something in. you commented brad that you don't know how to get started and that is a very interesting and common thing when we see entrepreneurs or new businesses coming in and talk to our bankers. they don't understand about financial statements, budgets, financial projections. i want to throw out there there are a lot of free resources in this country that plays out differently in different areas. retired executives is a wonderful free resource. i know a lot of community colleges have programs available to new business owners and entrepreneurs. chamber of commerce and economic development organizational efforts can help. >> brian has a wonderful story about one of those resources here locally through the small business development center. >> great. >> those are great. as i was trying to figure out okay by debt is growing, my income is not paying all of the expenses but i am lined out the door, what am i doing wrong? i am always busy but not making money. this business development center was freight great for avenues to look at to work on here are resources you can look into for help and assistance and counseling and it was great to have that. because you know in small town iowa there is not a lot of resources to help you. it was great to have that connection. >> how did you find your way to that help? >> i went to the city manager saying this should be working and it isn't. i don't know what i am going to do. and he connected me with the county development office and they led me to here. >> that is a very important point. even if you have the drive and ambition you may not have all of the skills and appearance and the more you can rely on people and resources to get over those hurdles the better. and you do a lot of that? don't you connect a lot of people through your business? talk about your business and what it does to help? >> i started a consulting business in 2007 providing technical assistance and counseling to small businesses. that grow from a passion of being able to give back because i believe as you said small businesses are the engine that drives a community. and when we can take that and bring that into a larger eco system of sharing and compassion and sensitivity toward people that want to start businesses and not to discourage them. i think some policies really may not be intentionally discouraging people from starting businesses but there are policies in place that do. >> like what? give us some examples. >> one of the things i have done in the past is work with small businesses that are low income individuals. there are a lot of challenges there. there are a lot of pathologies there. i have a question for you from someone that kind of expresses some of the issues of people who want to start businesses but they don't have the credit they might have challenges that will follow them for years and years and sometimes forever, here is the question: do you have any plans to make funding loans available to young entrepreneurs? will you change the language in the law that prohibits people with criminal backgrounds the ability to access these funds? or do people who made mistakes in their past not matter in society anymore? so i work with people who were in some of those situations. and some of the policies of not being able to you know vote. or policies of credit. you know? it is great when you have credit. and you have access and you can do things. but some people have made mistakes and those challenges have caused them -- hasn't taken their dreams away but it has made it more difficult for them to pursue those dreams in a way as brad did. having the counselors and intermead aries that are there to help. good credit score. what does that mean to a person who has a dream. but has gotten off track. credit worthyness? give me an opportunity and i will show you what i can do. i have grown. we are human and grow and learn from hismistakes. >> people wonder why some communities in the country are mall halloed out and don't have small businesses or economic resources. there are a number of reasons and one is the point you are making. many people because of where they live or they made a mistake and maybe don't get their voting rights back which i totally disagree with i think if you did your time so to speak and made your commitment to go forward you should be able to vote and be judged on the same bases. you ought to get a second chance. but in a lot of communities there are resources but they cannot be put to good use because too many people can't get access to be able to build those dreams in reality. i think we have to take a hard look at that. i think like brad was saying you went to college. did you come out with any debt? >> i come from a family where i went to community college on pel grant. one of my high school disabilities i lost and had negative income. i went to college with a negative networth. if it were not for the pell grant it would have been difficult. >> that is the other thing that happens. people that try to further themselves by going to school and ending up with debt then that wiped out their credit score. here they did what they think they were supposed to do. i certainly see it all of the time reading the stories about the ads coming to this college or this school and get these skills and you will get a job. and people barorrow money and don't get the job but still owe. then they go and are considered non-credit worthy even though they are trying to do what we want them to do. it is complicated set of issues. particularly low income communities one of my goals is to do watt i can to provide a good base for self generated entrepreneural activity, small business formation and growth. it is difficult but it is at the core of turning around a lot of communities. that was a very good question, too. >> tell us about this wonderful bike shop you have. >> we moved in two months ago. still trying a little. but you talk about using resources this was actually going to be a parking lot. and through a community effort and our local main street organization we discovered grants historic tax credits that made it possible for the development group to make it ready for us to move in and our main street group also on top of small business development centers we used to the past has allowed us to make use of educational training. make it to where upcoming technologies we could use to further our businesses. having that local resource made it nice beyond mainstream. it turned into what used to be a main street area about 20 years ago to a thriving business community and the gem of the area. >> did you have a preexisting business that you moved into this new space? >> yeah. we had previously rented and only our former location on main street for nine years and moved over here when this became available. it will further our growth for the next 20 years. >> how many employees do you have? >> we have five employees. we hired additional employees for the move. >> it is new bikes used bikes, customer's bikes, bike parts -- >> service, education we do a little of everything. able to intill our passion of bike lanes and helping out communities. >> i was going to ask about bike parts because i see my friend bill there. i wanted him to say something because yesterday at one of my events the senator was there and we were talking about how we can enhance through the use of technology the capacity of small businesses to do even more work for themselves or at least to keep it local. and bill do you want to stand up and esh plain what you were and i were talking about yesterday. come on around here. >> this is a -- this is a cord from a 3-d printed. we call it additive manufacturing. you are adding material and if you had an engine block or a part from a bicycle and you wanted to machine it and you drilled a whole in it that is subtract subtractive manufacture. this is a mold to make compressed gas. you will see this is free inside here. and the old world of manufacturing they would have to make a variety of different pieces and then put gaskets and bolt that together. and any time when you are dealing with compresed gas the place where you can have a link is dangerous. not through the 3-d technology. the 3-d printer would lay down a layer of sand all the way across and then another arm comes across and it lays down. and the university of northern iowa at their metals lab is doing research to prove these products. so this isn't just for big business. companies use it. they can take a traditional manufacturing process of making a mold to make this and go from three months with this one mold to overnight and the cost is incredible on the savings. this is just an example where they printed this nut on the bowl and now this isn't a mold. this is just an example of what you can do. but eventually they are going to go -- this is dealing with sand technologies. but there is metal technologies so they can direct print parts. you know, you could take a drawing of a bike part and print it out of metal or you could do polymers. there is a whole line of different items on a bicycle you could make yourself once you had the design for it. we think that added manufacturing is going to onshore a lot of jobs. not only in iowa but across the country. and this morning i stopped in at the tech works and not only are they doing work for companies but the most important thing, i think, is what they are doing is educating the new workforce. what i hear from small business people as the chair of the economic development budget side across iowa they all are fighting to get talented and skilled workers. so as we advance these technologies we have to advance the workforce to help. culinary needs great chefs and people with the tech niskills. these new bikes are so advanced compared to old ones. the technology part is so important. but the workforce is big. and the university of northern iowa with the cedar valley tech works is working to develop individuals who can handle this because it is an explosion of technology and 3-d printers are going to go to mars and be on the ships fixing everything. it is amazing. >> i want to explain this because here is an issue of potentially profound implications for business particularly small business. it is american technology. we need to get ahead of it. we need to be using it. we need to be thinking about it. training people for it. but also making sure that you know suppose in a couple years brent decides he wants to have his own 3-d operation so that you don't have to send an order and wait for a part to come. you have somebody trained on your staff to turn it around within hours if not a few days. we have to be looking for every competitive edge we can get. and we have two potential future scenario. one is robots 3-d technology, all of the advances we can see happening and even dream of happening will displace workers, will lead to more loss of jobs and we will be once again struggling to find ways to give people the digny and purpose of work. or we can start now which is something i want to do and start right now with a public private partnership trying to figure out how we will get ahead and stay ahead of the technology changes with a particular emphasis on what that means for small business. this is what we have to do. >> private partner research training people they are working with 80 companies right nouchlt they cannot find time to hardly do research. we will have the largest 3d printer in the united states here by this fall. small business development centers? federal government has cut back on the funding and states that were struggling to try to keep up and i know because i fund the small business through my budget. we hear over and over in iowa how they help spall businesses. so you are right on and thank you for the opportunity to say a few words. >> thank you so much. i look at where we looked at and this is the tweet spot. the more we can do to generate from the bottom up and training people for small businesses. does that make sense to you that could be something in the future that could enhance your business opportunity? >> i would like a 3-d printer. and the other thing we should think about doing is we have two other elected officials here. we can think about how we create centers so that ever business doesn't have to buy their own. you can buy time on it. it should operate in my view 24/7. shouldn't be a 9-5 job. you have the machine it should operate around the clock so that if your bike shop in a year or two is ready for this you can sign up for the time and collect some of de parts you need to do and once a week you get it for a few hours and reproduce them. we have to start thinking differently. this kind of communal cooperative approach is something i have seen work in other places. there has been studies done about how it can be affective in northern italy where you have a group of small businesses and each one alone can't afford to buy a machine or to hire a certain expert. but together they can. and then they share that and they teach get their part of it. and you know they are still in competition but they have lowered their cost in a way that makes it sensible for them to cooperate. dawn is that something banks would be interested in funding? >> banks are interested in helping something that helps our small businesses thrive without any question. and kind of wanted to tap on to some of the comments just made too, when it comes to funding things that help small businesses because i think people are familiar and mob maybe you have worked with the small business administration before. they make loans through banks to help small businesses. and you know there have been challenges on occasion with funding. you know the government funding the fba. and if they put a ton of money into fba during the financial crisis which was huge and waved some of the fees that business owners have to pay to access funds. we are back to somewhat normal times and it is interesting there are no guarantee fees if the loan you are applying for is less than $150,000. ... if there would be a way to consider that that would help. >> one of the arguments that is made against the small business administration by republicans is that if the government it's a government agency and it displaces banks which is a total misunderstanding of how the small business administration works. you are the ones that have to make the hard choices about who should get it and under what circumstances but you have to obviously follow the rules and you would have more flexibility. we really wanted to jumpstart more amenity bank lending and our communities. part of what we would do is exactly that, raise the limits to avoid the upfront fee. >> absolutely, it's a partnership. we make the loan but the government is helps with a guarantee. >> i think that's important. >> i want to go back to the workforce job creation issue and there was another question i got about asking you where you stand on transpacific partnership. the writer said that other trade bills have resulted in jobs going overseas and when people lose their jobs they have lower paying jobs it decreases customers so what is your stand and what would you do to ensure that jobs are staying in the country? >> is obviously a hot topic right now. i have been very clear on this and i has said over and over again any trade deal that i would support must increase jobs jobs, must increase wages must give us more economic competitive power around the world to sell our products and must be good for our national security and there are questions being raised about this current agreement. it hasn't been fully negotiated yet so i don't know what the final provisions are yet. but it needs to be very strong on health and environmental rules. it needs to try to address directly or indirectly the manipulation of currency by countries that would be trading partners and began to reign that in because that's been a big source of us not being as competitive as we want to be and we also have to address, there's a provision in the ss we are told and i wrote about it and warned about it in my book that gives corporations more power to overturn health and environmental and labor rules then consumers have and i think that is a problem, so i have said i want to judge the final agreement. i have been for trade agreements, i've been against trade agreements. i've tried to make the evaluation depending upon what i thought they would reduce and that is what i'm waiting to see. there are some amendments being proposed in the process right now that would direct the administration to cover certain issues or to negotiate a certain way that i think has merit and i want to see how that turns out as well. >> i wanted to also ask if either jeff or tim if either one of you have anything you want to add about small businesses. >> thank you. i think it's important if government can't do anything right, it just weather cam but it has to be -- this building is a perfect example. it's actually a historic building a post office with the start tax credits which is one of the successful economic development or grams and is revitalized all of our main streets. the programming proves the building in the business of takeover and drive. the largest property -- credit and i will history that went to small businesses prominently so we can do things that are partnerships growing our economy. he knows how to get ahold of me to tell us what those concerns are but you mentioned the access to capital for small businesses. it's a fortune 500 company and they had invested and today your instincts are very good because it's been running literally 24/7 24/7. eamonn fortune 500 companies need us to help them a peek into the future to help them do well with what they are doing well with now. a perfect example of public-private partnerships with people that know those locally needed need the tools to deal to do those. it would be wonderful the federal government would become a partner again on economic growth. >> it's really interesting point about john deere, just because and i'm not saying this is why they have been invested but a lot of big companies also are pulling back on new investments in research, development, new capital equipment investments because it doesn't show up in their bottom line quickly enough and they are under so much pressure they keep putting out as high as set of earnings is possible to try to get credit with the financial markets and i'm looking very hard at how we can change the tax code so that more companies from small to very large are incentivized to make the kind of investments for the future that right now they have to really worry about making because they will be punished in their quarterly returns. and again i'm not saying that is what was going on at john deere but i see it enough to know that is a problem for even the biggest of our companies. >> i want to thank you. last night after we spoke there were several people that got on my facebook and twitter and they were excited that we have someone that is putting energy into iowa, to small businesses. they are excited to see their future looks a little brighter so i think that's really important and it's nice to see people in the audience going wow this is exciting so it's good to have that energy back. we had kind of loss that energy. i and my husband we shop at all local small businesses as much as we can. the quality is better, the service is better and we just feel like we are helping but you also bet with my clerk. i think we are showing some impart -- empowerment and i think what we want to do is to stand behind you and really encourage our communities to take advantage of our small businesses. so there is lots of gems out there and you are bringing that to light for us. >> well that really means a lot to me because my goal is to help set the table so people can begin to solve problems again and not get caught in ideological debates and name-calling and finger-pointing. it doesn't help anybody. it doesn't start a small business. it doesn't educate a child but i think if we begin to really put our heads together about what works and build on that there is no limit to where we can be in the 21st century just as we were in the 20th. everybody who talks about how america can do this and we are behind where we are in decline they are just wrong. anyone who has ever bet against america has lost but that doesn't mean they can sit back and just assume it's all going to work out for the best. we have to work hard like these people run their businesses are showing and we have to stay ahead of the curve. we do live in an increasingly competitive world. we have so many other countries and companies and workers who want what we have and i don't fault them for that. it's our fault if we don't stand up and really push back and push ourselves forward so that's exact weight where i want this campaign to be. not about me but about us about what we can do together new good ideas. i don't care where they come from. let's get them out of must look at them hold them up to the light and make sure they are real and then let's figure out how we can implement them and find better opportunities for more people. being a popcorn person myself you have to tell us a few things about your business. [inaudible] >> wow you are expanding. did you have experience in running a retail store before you started? how did you go to the bank with your idea and make the case in funding your business? [inaudible] >> that's often the way it works, is an it? oh wow that is great. how many employees do you have? that's terrific. congratulations. good look, keep going. any and the other small-business stories before we wrap up? [inaudible] [inaudible] >> that's another part of the four points that i made about the access and regulations and paperwork and given where we are with on line everything we have to be able to do much more of this on line and we have to be able to slim it down. everybody is always trying to protect themselves so they ask a million questions for 102 and up we have the right tank questions that we need answers for from people like yourself and others who want to start businesses that should be adequate but we need to put our heads together and figure out exactly how to do that. there are some interesting lending programs on line right now that are providing funding much faster based on total on line transactions, right? >> wright one of the burgeoning issues for us in the financial services industry certainly in a regulated thinking industry are the non-banks of which there are friday of different kinds. lending tree lending.com and what would he from the bank perspective very helpful to us would be to have a little bit more level playing field in terms of how the banks and the non-banks are both treated thoroughly and from a taxation standpoint. some are under regulated, some are not regulated at all. i think everyone is aware that credit unions which started with the best of intentions absolutely for lower-income people people of modest means in some natural affinity group to pull resources and lend to each other have just exploded and are not for the little person anymore but i think there are 200 credit unions larger than a billion dollars. that's bigger than 90% of the banks. so that is tough for us. it's tough from a competitive standpoint to be a bank that pays taxes and to compete with the nontaxable entity but it's worse from the taxpayer standpoint because there are literally billions of dollars of taxes where an affair environment would be paid. one statistic to throw out from the state of iowa the average iowa family of four paid $11,400 in taxes, federal taxes and $2.5 billion credit union with $38 million in profit paid zero. >> and to add to that the federal poverty level for that family of four is about $24,000. so you take $11,000 from 24, i'm not good at math. >> you don't have to be. >> a little side note as they talk about tax credits one thing that retailers across the nation as do community banks is that we are starting to see more and more people embracing the technology and we are disadvantaging the brick-and-mortar retailers that pay sales taxes that fund our city governments, our police officers and firefighters and that's kind of on unfair tax burden that the brick-and-mortar people have to pay whereas andy keeps her money more local. >> a very good point. >> maybe when i finish talking to the people here, how's that? i might. i will have to ponder it. [laughter] and i will put it on my list with due consideration. >> i'm terry greenlee from sigourney iowa. we ever county of 10000 people. one of our biggest challenges for small business is broadband internet and one of the challenges we see is even those sigourney has great broadcast or regularized download we don't have -- in cedar rapids in those towns but also there's no internet on the backlog. if we can do the same thing for broadband internet. >> and for our rural everywhere and even for some urban areas that are not considered attractive enough to have the kind of high-speed internet that you are talking about. in the weeks ahead i will be talking more about how we have to become more competitive than providing high-speed internet across our country and the perfect example of the rural electric cooperatives. when we begin to electrify her company it became clear that we would do a pretty good job in the larger metropolitan areas that private utilities would want to go there. there would be a lot of business there but it would be expensive and it wasn't that attractive from a profit perspective to put the lines and to go into rural america. that is where the rural electric cooperatives came in. they said we are going to provide aid utility service that will connect our entire country. it took until the light -- late 1960s to get every single part of her country electrified, at least the lower 48. i think your point is really a smart one. if we are going to be competitive globally and there are lots of smart people in rural areas who have good ideas. when i referred earlier to the partnership i set up with e-bay when i was senator from new york we had upstate new york and way up in the north country near the canadian border around the adirondacks they have a lot of small-business people with great ideas but they didn't have that big market and what we did was to connect them up and help them do a web site and get them on e-bay help them advertise. so the man who is making exquisite flyfishing rods and selling one every couple of weeks could get orders from scandinavia as he did. we need to do that everywhere so that you can sell your products from wherever you are and you can sell into the global marketplace. that is where i think we can do more than we are doing and we can't do it without high-speed internet. so i applaud you for that. >> we are coming close to the end here. do you want to give a closing some asian? i want to thank all of the panels for being here and i want to thank the guests for being here but do you have a closing summation? >> i want to thank you and everyone he came in this conversation is another example of why i love doing this. i always learn something and i feel like we need a conversation in our country again where we are talking to each other where we are respecting each others opinions, even when we don't agree. we are listening and we are learning and trying to figure out what the best solutions are for the problems that we face and i have gotten an enormous amount of good ideas, good information from doing these roundtables and i want to thank all of you for participating in this one. what we want to do now is maybe take a picture and then maybe have our elected officials, and joined the picture and we will be able to do that and i might, if you know if i can learn something i might come over and say a few words and take a few questions from the press. barb you have us here and maybe we can get bill and jeff and tammy to join us. can you get us all in? okay. [inaudible conversations] bill thank you for this. that's quite a thing. movable parts, pretty amazing. we will get everybody. popcorn heaven, get everybody up here. [inaudible conversations] >> good seeing you. i wanted to show you a picture. it's the largest 3-d printer in north america. >> that's a john deere? >> he's in the process of putting that part into the computer so they can print that out next and that's the table when it came out and they unloaded it. they are ready to restore it. >> we will give you an opportunity to come maybe this fall. >> i would like that. >> we were precinct cocaptains with the last time. thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] hillary clinton took questions from reporters answering questions about her e-mail account and other issues. >> okay are you already? >> thank you so much. >> lets bring some order to this. >> secretary clinton to you regret the way that the clinton foundation handle foreign donations when when you were secretary of state and your opponent say that the foreign donations and the private e-mails are examples of the clintons having one set of rules for themselves and once it set of rules -- >> i'm proud of the foundation and proud of the work that it has done and it's doing. attracted donations from people, organizations from around the world and i think that just goes to show that people are very supportive of the lifesaving and life changing work it has done here, comment elsewhere. and i will let the american people make their own judgments about that. >> secretary clinton given the situation in iraq you think we are better off without saddam hussein in power? >> i know there've been a lot of questions about iraq posed to candidates over the last weeks. i've made it very clear that i made a mistake plain and simple and i've written about it in my book. i have talked about it in the past and what we now see is a very different and very dangerous situation. the united states is doing what it can but ultimately this has to be a struggle that the iraqi government and the iraqi people are determined to win for themselves. we can provide support but they are going to have to do it re-at. >> secretary clinton on your income disclosure recently that came out on friday you were in the tip top echelon in this country. how do you expect everyday americans to relay to you? >> bill and i have been blessed and we are very grateful for the opportunities that we had but we have never forgotten where we came from and we have never forgotten the kind of country that we want to see for our granddaughter and that means we are going to fight to make sure that everybody has the same chances to live up to his or her own god-given potential. i think most americans understand that the deck is stacked for those of the top and i am running a campaign that is very clearly stating we want to reshuffle the deck. we want to get back to having more opportunities for more people so they can make more out of their own lives. i think that's exactly what america is looking for. >> can you explain your relationship -- a report out this morning that you exchanged several e-mails and should americans expect if elected president he would have the same type of relationship of these old friends you have had her so long? >> i have many many old friends and i always think that it's important when you get into politics to have the friends you have before you were in politics and to understand what's on their minds. he has been a friend of mine for a long time. he sent me unsolicited e-mails which i passed on in some instances and i see that is just part of the give-and-take. when you're in the public eye, when you are in an official position i think you have to make sure you are not caught in a bubble and you only hear from a small group of people. i'm going to keep talking to my old friends whoever they are. >> secretary clinton the state department might not release your e-mails until january 2016 and a federal judge said they should be released sooner. will you demand they be released sooner? was their conflict of interest in your giving paid speeches to the run-up in your announcement and that you are running for president. >> the answer to the first question is know and i've said repeatedly i want those e-mails out. no one has a bigger interest in getting them out than i do. i respect the state department they have their process that they do for everybody not just me that anything they might do to expedite that process i heartily support. they want american american people to learn as much as we can about the work that i did with our diplomats and development as -- experts because that thing was to how hard worked and what we did our country during a time i was secretary of state where he worked extremely hard on behalf of our values and our interests and our security and e-mails are part of that. i have said publicly and i'm repeating it in front of all of you today i want them out as soon as they can get out. >> we demand that? >> they are not mine. they'd longer the state departments of the state department has to go through the process so as much as they can expedite that process please move as quickly as they can to get them out. >> thank you. thank you all very much. [inaudible conversations] >> tuesday the senate commerce science and transportation committee held a hearing on the reauthorization of the federal aviation administration. faa administrator michael weber testified about efforts to modernize the air traffic control system and the next generation air transportation system next jan initiative. this is just over two hours. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> this hearing will come to order. good morning. today the commerce committee concludes his series of planned hearings on reauthorization of the federal aviation administration with an examination of the nation's air traffic control system. they may begin by thanking aviation subcommittee chair a out and make a member cap well for taking through several valuable hearings on the way to the school committee hearing. it's been a busy work period and a great deal of progress has been made thanks to their efforts. u.s. air traffic control or atc system involves thousands of dedicated air traffic controllers guiding tens of thousands of flights safely across the country on a daily basis. we can be proud of the system's safety record. the same time increasing demand the need to improve efficiency and changes in technology all underscore the need to modernize the system that is still radar base and operated using concepts and procedures developed decades ago. efforts to modernize software and hardware have made progress but the long view negates modernization programs have often taken too much time and cost too much. we have sex or portion the deity's office of inspector general the government accountability office detailing the implementation delays the cost overruns that have plagued these efforts for decades and stymied leadership for multiple administrations. the most recent visible initiative is the next generation it air transportation system or nextgen. before was given the name the original goal was something called free flight which was expected to result in a genuine transformation of the system away from air traffic control to air traffic management to taking advantage of gps for navigation and surveillance was at the heart of this idea. faa would save money eliminating most radar and airspace operators would save time and money and fuel by choosing their own direct routes. with more than 15 years after the faa began talking about free flight we still seem to be more than a decade away from anything resembling it. in fact a recent study by the national research council completed the nextgen currently seems to be more about increments of programs and improvements rather than a transformational change. also airlines another operators feel burdened with expensive effort of implementing changes that won't yield direct benefits for many years to come. this situation has led policymakers to question whether the current atc structure is best suited for the task at hand the long-standing difficulties of modernization on one reason to consider reform to the system's reliance on annual transportation appropriations and the vagaries of the political process make long-term planning for system capitalization management of the footprint difficult and probably more costly and the faa will always face challenges attracting and retaining the talent needed to drive major technological change when i must compete with cutting-edge businesses in the private sector. to address the challenges we must consider if there's a better way to deliver atc services for the traveling public and airspace users and i'm open to considering all ideas. faa is a great record of safety regulators something that regulators something though continuous air traffic control services were moved out of the faa. i look forward to hearing from our witnesses about what reform of our system might look like and how reform could serve the needs of all airspace users. to be sure the matters we discussed today are part of a larger effort on reauthorization where we will address a host of other important issues. i'm looking forward to working with ranking member nelson is well a senator's ailing camp on members of the committee to end such legislation. lastly i want to stress their interest about atc modernization are not focused only on the current leadership team. as i mentioned before seems clear there are structural limitations that impeded success over the years principle is the key question is whether we were to build an air traffic control system from scratch today would we necessarily conform to the old strictures or strike a better path? i look forward to this discussion i want to turn to my colleague senator nelson the ranking member for his opening remarks. >> thank you mr. chairman and senator thune joins me to acknowledge the families of those lost on colvin air flight 3407. your presence here is a reminder of how much is at stake with the safe operation of our aviation system so thank you for being here. obviously we have the busiest the most complex airspace in the world and thanks to the hard work and the dedication of the faa employees we have an agency that is providing the safest most efficient airspace in the world yet the negative impacts of the uncertainty of the funding and the sequestration have led to widespread concern about the funding of federal programs and the federal operations. if you take a meat cleaver approach instead of a scalpel approach the sequester forces irresponsible budget decisions in our domestic and defense programs. some of you are going to suggest that the answer is to privatize the faa and air traffic control. the senator feels like we ought to get budget certainty and repeal sequestration. if we do not, the situation will worsen when additional budget cuts return in 2016. the faa has faced unpredictability for too long. the last faa bill took four years and involves 23 extensions and a partial faa shut down. now the good news is that senator thune and i are working together and we are going to do everything possible to get this faa reauthorization going. in the past because of that uncertainty, because of that sequestration the faa has had to furlough employees, implement a hiring freeze, temporarily close their academy and hauled a lot of the work that i've had the privilege of seeing with the administrator on the nextgen programs. this has set the f. a. a. back in its progress to advanced air traffic control modernization so the conversation about moving air traffic control into private not-for-profit entities has an impact far beyond you witnesses here today. take for example the department of defense. they share a responsibility for controlling airspace with the faa and they have for more than 65 years. today, the department of defense controls about 20% of our airspace for civilians as well as the military. faa and d.o.t. coordinate activities to ensure our military can train warfighters test new concepts, equipment and defend the nation. air defense right here in the continental u.s.. no other country in the world has the defense assets of u.s. and we must ensure that our defense and jurists are not harmed by removing the government from air traffic control and i can tell you the department of defense has visited me and they don't want any of this privatization. well, look at the airlines. even the airlines are not in agreement. let me quote from a letter from delta. quote, rather than wasting months of collective energy only to find ourselves with a less efficient, less responsive more bureaucratic like costlier new monopoly service provider we should instead focus our efforts on achieving real reform in the next authorization that brings about tangible benefits for operators and more importantly for the traveling public end of quote. that's delta. so since aviation is the backbone of our u.s. economy we must prioritize air traffic control investments for the good of this country. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator nelson. we have a great panel today led off by the honorable michael huerta followed by the honorable john engler former governor and the honorable byron dorgan policy analyst at fox and former ally of ours are made to decode also a former member of this committee and mr. jeff smisek chairman president ceo of united airlines mr. paul rinaldi whose present of the air traffic controllers association and mr. mr. ed bolen who is ceo of the business association -- aviation association. a great time am i look forward to hearing from all of you and i will start on my left and you're right with the administrator. mr. huerta please proceed. >> thank you chairman thune ranking member and members of the committee thank you for inviting me to speak today about the reauthorization of the faa. they have reauthorization provides us with the opportunity to propel our next -- to foster the kind of innovative climate that has long been the hallmark of our proud aviation heritage. this reauthorization is provided a form for many industry and government to openly discuss possible changes in the governing structure of the faa to help us create the aviation system that will sustain our nation's economic growth well into the future. we are open to having this discussion but we must all agree on the most important problems of reauthorization should fix. in our view is her budget and stability in the lack of flexibility to execute on our priorities. these challenges exist for the entire agency not just for the air traffic control system in the next gen organizations of some of suggested. in addition to finding agreement on the problem we are trying to solve the should agree on funding is to avoid unintended consequences. our ability to deploy nextgen technologies and capabilities hinges on interdependencies and relationships within the agency. next an is more than a installing technology in its and our air traffic facilities in aircraft that involves participation of safety organizations make sure technology is safe and the comptrollers and pilots know how to use it. we believe any decision about governance must take into account these issues so we may best serve our nation and the public. some of our good for changing the faa has not delivered on air-traffic modernization. i would argue the faa has made major progress in modernizing our airspace system to nextgen. we completed the installation of the more powerful technology platform at their new high-altitude air traffic control system. the system will accommodate date applications of nextgen and handle the expected increase in air traffic. lester refinish the coast to coast and solution of the ads-b network that will enable satellites based air traffic control that on a parallel track your collaboration with industry would identify key priorities and implementing their nextgen air traffic procedures. we now have more of a satellite-based procedures and our skies than traditional radar base procedures. we have created new nextgen routes about some of our business -- busiest areas saving millions of dollars in fuel decreasing carbon emissions and cutting on delays. in addition to these improvements we have set clear priorities and delivering more benefits in the next three years years. these range from improved separation standards for heavy aircraft that are poor nation of traffic on the airport surface and streamlined clearances using data communications. and nextgen srd of that $1.6 billion in benefits to airlines and the traveling public. in the next 15 years the changes we have already made to produce $11.5 billion in benefits. we recognize however it is not enough to rely on him projected benefits. that is why we go back and study the benefits that certain improvements have provided to users. for example in atlanta we safely reduced wake separation standards to improve efficiency at the airport. because of this change at landis jackson absent international airport is increased number of planes that can land by up to 5% or five planes more per hour. delta airlines is saving up to two minutes a taxi time per flight and these improvements are saving them to between 13 million to $18 million in operating costs annually. clear where the criticisms of the faa's implementation of nextgen and i would like to explain our prayers. their theories about how to play technology in a complex operating environment. some take the position they usually start from a wide-ranging vision and work back from there on developing a range of scenarios. others suggest mapping out the entire picture and proceeding when you are sure of the endgame. others say to take a more pragmatic approach and this is the path the faa has chosen. based on close consultation with industry. this approach used by the office of management and budget matches investments with tangible benefits to airlines and passengers. we acknowledge it requires upfront investment but we are careful not to strand program in the middle of implementation. when dealing with widespread change in the dynamic airspace system there is no margin for error. the system must transport 750 million passengers every year with the highest levels of safety. any technology we implement must be reliable and safe from the outset. to achieve this high standard we must remain nimble and we must have flexibility. our aviation system is a valuable asset for the american public. we should use the upcoming reauthorization to provide the faa with the tools necessary to meet the demands of the future and to minimize disruption to the progress we have made with nextgen in our work to integrate new users into our system. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and i'm happy to take your questions. >> thank you administrator huerta. >> are we live? good morning mr. chairman committee members thanks for the opportunity to testify this morning. the business roundtable members include leaders of aerospace companies and every one of our members relies on air transportation as customers of cargo on passenger airlines as the 20th century drew to a close u.s. aviation set the standard for the world's largest safest most technologically advanced system. said we have lost their primitive position and their future leadership isn't dell. this air-traffic system remains the largest the world say this but not the most technologically advanced nor the world's most cost-effective. our air traffic control system relies on the same technology ground-based radar and radio transmission is it in the 60s but almost all of the surveillance technology is still analog. like any other stakeholders we are concerned about the halting pace of the modernization represented by the faa's nextgen program. national academy report in this committee released this month clearly stated the problems. the original vision for nextgen is not what is being implemented today. airlines are not motivated to spend money on equipment and training for nextgen. in modern innovative air traffic control system would offer tremendous benefits to the users of the airspace, more efficient bypass, reduce fuel consumption lower emissions and less noise pollution, global commercial leadership leading to expanded exports and increase services to small community airports. so what are the obstacles? last year my seat mate here in faa administrator huerta offered one explanation in his speech at the arrow club of washington. quote there something away the faa can implement nextgen recapitalize their aging infrastructure and continue to provide our current level of services without making serious trade-offs something senator nelson referred to in his opening comments. administrator huerta and i would agree i believe on this critical point the current voting system clearly does not provide the needed resources but the deeper problem is the broken budget tori process itself which prevents the faa from pursuing step-by-step technological improvement that a standard elsewhere certainly in the business world. an example of what works look at at&t and verizon. in the years the u.s. government has been talking about nextgen four generations of cellular technology to 4g video -- about dr. to the faa's funding of 20 billion-dollar modernization effort by an annual and unpredictable cash flow. most other transportation sectors issue long-term revenue bonds to finance large capital modernization but bonding is something the faa cannot do. states do it the private sector does it but the federal government does not. i convened at the roundtable and expert group to help study this issue including fa and transportation department officials and knowledgeable policy advisers. their conclusion the status quo is simply too costly and too inefficient. they identified the necessary elements of alternative systems. separation of air traffic control operator from regulator to improve transparency and accountability and to further increase safety. an organizational structure that accounts for multiple objectives for safety and access are valued along with cost efficiency. governance of the air traffic control appointed by stakeholders. the revenue structure that enables air traffic control be fully self-supporting without government financial support and free the federal budgetary process. to one in six x. turns -- wage and benefit structures to protect employees prevent employees career expectations and preserve a collaborative culture. over the last two decades most western countries have restructured the way air traffic control is funded and governed determining it's a high-tech service business part of critical infrastructure and -- infrastructure separating air traffic control into an entity independent of the rest of the faa is a manageable process. tools and precedence exist for addressing the risks that come with any innovation and a thorough planning process is necessary. in the end i hope u.s. senators responsible for the oversight of the faa used the reauthorization process to put america on a trajectory to a modern air traffic control system that is the gold standard for the world. now is the time for decisive bipartisan efforts to restore america's global leadership. this is the roundtable looking forward to achieving these important goals. thank you for the opportunity members. >> thank you. senator dorgan. >> mr. chairman thank you for inviting me back. i have served on this committee for 18 years and no doubt badgered hundreds of witnesses so -- are the past two years i and former transportation secretary jim brimley have cochaired a project at the transportation institute looking at the subject of air traffic control and the structure of air traffic control. i was a chairman of aviation panel the last time we worked on reauthorizing the faa and i put up a headline from moment where we finally succeeded and is set after five years of debate, 23 short-term extensions and a partial shutdown congress approved the final version of the faa bill. my hope this time around is that your headline will be shorter and your conclusions bolder for this reason. aviation is one of the major arteries of the american economy and the fact is the issue of effective air traffic control is essential to that industry. i think we have now come to an intersection where we have to decide can we retain our leadership in developing the new technology and the next generation air traffic control system? can we retain our leadership with the current atc structure? in my judgment we cannot. our conclusion at the institute after two years of work with stakeholders from around the system if we want to retain america's leadership with the most advanced atality moving from ground-based radar to next-generation satellite guidance which would be safer faster and more efficient if we want to retain that we are going to have to restructure the air traffic control function. .. >>