Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20150418 :

CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings April 18, 2015

These villages. So if you have a small hall tank in your home, you can truck water to the home and fill the tank, and you can have faucets and you can have a shower and you can have some water in the home in that respect. But as it turns out, that model doesnt deliver a lot of water into the home. And so what weve learned is that homes that have honey buckets that have basically no system other than a central Watering Point where you go fill up buckets, they deliver about 1. 5 gallons of water per person per day. If you have a small hall system, they deliver about 2. 5 gallons of water per person per day. Now, the w. H. O. Recommends a minimum of 13 to 15 gallons per person per day of water. If you look at what the use is in the United States in general, we generally use about 50 gallons per person per day. So our villages in alaska are doing extreme, extreme water rationing, and we know that this isnt just true for alaska. There are other areas in the arctic, some of our other neighbors in the arctic and Northern Canada and greenland and northern russia also have issues with remoteness and water and sanitation, and so what were hoping to do and weve done this with circumpolar surveillance, were hoping weve learned many things from our partners. Were hoping that this Alaska Initiative on water and sanitation that i explained to you a little bit earlier can potentially be used as a model and help in pushing that model forward to develop these technologies across the arctic. Thank you. Tim, this tenyear study, the new study for the first time in a decade, its very comprehensive, and its encyclopedic. How is it going to be used by the health front how is it going to be used by the leadership of the Arctic Council to move an agenda forward . Well, whoops. Sorry. Not exactly sure, but its i think one of the things we were supposed to do is to highlight some of these differences and to put this out there in front of them and say, you know, especially since this was the second Arctic Human Development. The first was really kind of a stock taking. I mean there wasnt a lot known. And, like i said, this wasnt necessarily new research. It was kind of pulling together existing data and pulling together from a number of scientific studies and like i said, one of our mandates was to look at some of the trends over time. All of of the chapters do that all of of the chapters do that, economic chapter, my chapter, certainly the health chapter. So what weve done is weve looked basically over the first decade of the 20th century since the first report and said, okay, we identified and hopefully i brought these out, these are the areas that theres generally been improvement. Things are Getting Better in certain areas but this chapter is certainly highlighted areas where there hasnt been improvement and hasnt been improvement in specific arctic regions or across the a. Tick and certainly the issue of suicide and some fof these others that ive mentioned are intractable diseases, the issue of Domestic Violence keeps coming up again and again. So hopefully, you know, the Arctic Council and other people interested in the arctic can look at this and say, okay, these areas are Getting Better but theres theres other areas that are actually not Getting Better and those are maybe the areas that we need to there needs to be some focus on. Could you say a few words about the u. S. Calculation in this. You know the policy environment here, you know the history of the u. S. Engagement on these arctic issues. You talk all the time with the administration around these issues. What can we hope for in this next phase in terms of prioritization and leadership on these issues. And will they take up your recommendation . Well, heres hoping. Well, you know, i think that the really disappointing thing i guess was about 12 or 18 months ago, it was put forward to the office of management and budget to create a budget for the u. S. Chairmanship so that there would be extra funds. It would be given to implementing some of these key priorities. Unfortunately, they said that was not a good idea and that budget does not exist. So what is happening is we have these fantastic priorities but agencies, this is again the theme we raised with senator murkowski, going to have to use existing resources and try to squeak, reprioritize and we know in this budget scarcity, this is really difficult. So that was sort of step one. We missed a huge opportunity that i think what the u. S. Chairmanship is going to be is a lot of really good projects and highlighting projects and modeling projects that well showcase but, quite frankly, the funding will not be sufficient to boost them. Great work being done but, boy, they need some turbocharged government. Now i never like to end on a pessimistic note so the white house did has a new body in place, the arctic executive steering group, which is led at very senior levels. This group has been charged with doing a gap analysis. So its if you dare to read the white houses Implementation Plan for the National Strategy for the arctic region, short little title, we do see where in the Implementation Plan there are clear outlines for and i quote, to coordinate better comprehension of the health and survival rates of the arctic Indigenous People for wellbeing as an objective. I hope this gap analysis says we have the u. S. Chairmanship theme is arctic improvements and arctic economic and living and wellbeing conditions. We have some great things but there are not funding. We are going to prioritize this and we are going to put funding. I would argue as a domestic priority for the state of alaska, it is an absolute tragedy to hear some of the figures that youve cited. Its appalling. Its unacceptable, leadership begins at home. We need to start focusing our time and attention on americans that are suffering from these conditions. And then exactly we need to pull this out and provide that leadership effort circumpolar. Pam, my concern about the Sustainable Development working group, the sdwg, it is the mothership of the working groups, its a monster working group and thats where i think it gets stuck because it does so much. Thats why i think its absolutely vital that we pull this out and say, look, if were serious about this, were going to put those resources and were going to hold those arctic governments to account and say, lets put that money in and my frustration, tim, quite frankly, with the Arctic Human Development part, its not an Arctic Council product. Its not. Thats a problem because if its not a product, you go thats a lovely report, thank you very much and then we can keep going to our regular business. This is exactly what we need these wonderful assessments and reports, we need to hold governments accountable for how are they moving the measure. I love that stop sign. The Arctic Council needs that graph and those stop signs. You promise this, you ministers, you sign and you said we agree with this, but our governments have done nothing about it. Whos holding them accountable. And this is part of the Arctic Councils governance requirement but it comes from leadership from national councils. I think we have an opportunity here, and its and to raise Public Awareness absolutely but we must start making the tough budget choices, as senator murkowski show me, show me that money. And so far weve said its important but we havent reflected that its important in our budgets. It begins with our budgets, and i would encourage omb to be much more generous, so easy for me to say from health and human services, weve got to start addressing these challenges. Thank you very much. Lets move to our audience. Weve got 15 minutes, lets collect several bundled together several interventions, we have one here and one here and one there. Yes, sir, please identify yourself, be very succinct and offer a quick comment or question. John farrell, Arctic Research commission. First of all, i completely support your recommendation. Health bless heather, bless you, sister sister. I would take health out of sdwg as fast as i could. They have too many things in it and also structurally, it should not in my personal opinion be head of delegation and have a Service Officer brand spanking new every two years. That causes difficulties and the other ministries do the same thing so we really need to get subject Matter Experts on sdwg for this specifically and specifically on how dr. Collins, thank you so much. Im so pleased to see you involved in this activity. Its a challenge. Part of the tyranny of focusing on suicide in the north is focussing on the small numbers of people. You can have discussions in full in other places and they will point to the large numbers of deaths in Subsahara Africa so if youre allocating funds, you try to go with the large numbers of people, but these are citizens. A question for you, you mentioned rigorous evaluations. They fund a lot of services. Some people would argue thats really not looking at the root cause researchwise in terms of suicidality. We tried at the commission unsuccessfully to get an statute of medicine study focusing on this and we failed because we did not engage with alaska native communities in developing this and explaining what the study was and explaining how committees are formed and how editorial control is done. Do you think an iom study if we tried again would be a useful way to do a rigorous evaluation of this issue in the north . And loaded on that question is, very hard to get capacity, even if you have money oriented towards these problems, hard to get capacity, theres no medical school in alaska, theres not a lot of investigators in the lower 48 to keep people interested in grant in this kind of work. Ion and how do we build capacity even if there is funding . Thank you. Sir . And then good afternoon, charles newsted, state department and i hasten to add im speaking for myself, not the department, or ill find myself in the basement without a telephone. Im very impressed first to comment, im vey impressed by the broad scope and expertise that this panel represents. Its truly impressive. And im also very impressed with the way that you and your colleagues have Brought International cooperation into play in dealing with the arctic. Thats vitally important. Heather mentioned the main thing is money and bottom line. And i found and i think most people would agree with this, International Scientific cooperation is a great multiplier on what you can do with your budget, so i applaud your efforts in that way. And now my specific question, im wondering if the panel could compare in their various different fields the Health Situation in russia, various regions, compared with that in the west with alaska and canada and greenland, et cetera, and final question is, has mr. Putin made hes trying to become a czar again, as we all know. Has he had some effect on the arctic yet . Is that discernible . And is that good or bad . Thank you so much. There was a hand thank you. Linda fernandez. Perhaps as a result of what would be a success of the alaska water and sewer challenge thats going to be magnified to the pan arctic. I guess i have a suggestion as well as a question. Are you teaming up efforts with all the International Collaborators during World Water Week thats convened in sweden every year . Has great buyin across a lot of international countries. As well as private sector organizations like w. H. O. Its clear to me that while you have made Great Strides in having the partners involved, some of what youre suggesting as Technology Developments on sanitation and water have been addressed in other settings with with the Arctic Partners perhaps engaged differently, so id make a suggestion and question whether you can in fact synchronize efforts and join in with that group. Thank you very much. Are there any other comments of questions at this time . Yes, please. Hi. Im michelle learner coming from sort of a different perspective. I work for bread for the World Institute. We work on hunger and malnutrition advocacy so my question is just in general, would you consider that malnutrition or Food Insecurity, lack of money clearly, how do you think thats impacting the health of people in the arctic. Thank you so we have a question around should there be an iom study. Would that be useful . Whats the comparison russia versus the west . I think well turn to tim on that, although everyone here will have something to contribute on that and who will impact putin. What about tieing water week to sweden and then the food and security issue. Michael, why dont we start with you. I think it was a question from the gentleman from the state department about the Health Situation in russia versus other circumpolar nations and i have to say that i know very little at least in regards to water and sewer in russia. My focus has been on Infectious Disease and weve had some collaborations with the russians on a number of variety of different of Infectious Diseases. And i know that in many of those areas there are issues with infrastructure and theres poor infrastructure so there certainly is a great possibility that there are issues with water distribution and sewage and russia versus the other countries, but i cant tell you for sure. The next question was, are we teaming up with partners of the World Water Week in sweden. I would like to speak to you more about the World Water Week in sweden because i actually am not aware of that meet ging and we probably should be attending. Weve had weve had some of our circumpolar partners in some discussions on sanitation of water and health but they havent been formalized. Theyre through our collaborations on Infectious Diseases so id be very interested in learning more and we should certainly attend that meeting and learn more from them. Thank you. Then the woman at the barefoot World Institute im sorry. In terms of Food Insecurity oh, im sorry. Im an Infectious Disease epidemiologist and Food Insecurity is not something im a specialist in. I know in alaska its an issue particularly in rural alaska and melting of the perma frost because many of the native peoples put food in food lockers buried in the ground in the permafrost. Those food lockers are failing. I think i went through the questions. I think i went through the questions. Sure so in response to you, john farrell ill start with the Research Capacity because i think thats critical. In places where you dont have a lot of researchers. One is to develop a cadre of researchers who have some commitment and some insider understanding of the context so we certainly do need to see more Research Career development in the context of alaska. So i would certainly support that and i think that means a number of things. That means figuring out how to establish mentoring for students that the idea of pursuing research as a Career Options becomes a feasible and realistic idea. It means working with institutions in order for them to develop an adequate infrastructure and base for training and sustaining young researchers and researchers throughout their career, as well. So, yes, i agree that that would be important particularly in the context of Mental Health, Mental Health research. Some of those efforts are underway at nih where there are initiatives that focus on american india and alaska native Capacity Building and we need to continue those efforts. With respect to the iom meeting, i think i would probably ask you again, that sounds like how buyin is there in the local context. That seems like it would be one starting place to make sure you got all your stake holders in alaska being of a single mind about pursuing something in that direction but certainly whatever avenues whether its an iom report or whether its some other avenue to bring attention to the needs and to rigorously document where we are with respect to effective interventions in these contexts it would be an interesting intervention. Thank you. Wonderful questions. Two quick comments. First a preview of coming attractions. Well be releasing hopefully in june a major study on the russian arctic. You heard in the energy panel russia has Enormous Economic stakes in the arctic. They have a long history in writing very comprehensive and detailed strategies. Some of them quite interestingly and caitlin has been a great student of studying these strategies. They do have a very robust Sustainable Development component. But as the russian economy continues to experience extraordinary difficulties, you know, this is going to be a challenge for them to sustain their very ambitious strategies but we need to understand whats important. Why is the arctic so important to russia and my thesis is that weve actually seen some significant and disturbing chan

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