SECRETARY KERRY'S PRESS AVAILABILITY IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

Press Availability in Vienna, Austria

Press Availability

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Vienna, Austria

July 15, 2014

SECRETARY KERRY: Good morning, everyone. I want to first thank the extraordinary team of diplomats and experts who have been on the ground here for weeks and who have been working tirelessly, actually, for many months in these negotiations. And I’m talking about both our American team as well as our colleagues from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, China, and Iran, and particularly I would like to thank Baroness Cathy Ashton of the European Union and her team, whose stewardship of these negotiations has been indefatigable and superb.

In today’s world, it’s an understatement to say that diplomacy is difficult. But diplomacy is our preference for meeting the challenges that we do face all over the world, knowing even as we do that solutions are rarely perfect and nor do they all come at once. But that has never deterred us from pursuing the diplomatic course, and that is exactly what we are committed to doing and doing now.

President Obama has made it a top priority to pursue a diplomatic effort to see if we can reach an agreement that assures that the Iranian nuclear program is exclusively peaceful. In that effort, we have built a broad coalition of countries, including our P5+1 colleagues, to ensure that the international community is speaking with one voice. Despite the difficulties of these negotiations, I am confident that the United States and our partners in the P5+1 remain as squarely focused as ever on testing whether or not we can find a negotiated solution to this most pressing international security imperative.

Over the past few days, I have had lengthy conversations with Foreign Minister Zarif about what Iran is willing to do and what it needs to do to not only assure the community of nations, but to adhere to what the foreign minister himself has said repeatedly are Iran’s own limited objectives: not just to declare that they will not obtain a nuclear weapon, but to demonstrate in the actions they take beyond any reasonable doubt that any Iranian nuclear program, now and going forward, is exclusively for peaceful purposes.

In these conversations, and indeed over the last almost six months since the Joint Plan of Action took effect, we have made progress. We have all kept the commitments made in the Joint Plan, and we have all lived up to our obligations. We have all continued to negotiate in good faith. But after my conversations here with both Iran and with our P5+1 partners in particular, it is clear that we still have more work to do.

Our team will continue working very hard to try to reach a comprehensive agreement that resolves the international community’s concerns. I am returning to Washington today to consult with President Obama and with leaders in Congress over the coming days about the prospects for a comprehensive agreement, as well as a path forward if we do not achieve one by the 20th of July, including the question of whether or not more time is warranted, based on the progress we’ve made and how things are going.

As I have said, and I repeat, there has been tangible progress on key issues, and we had extensive conversations in which we moved on certain things. However, there are also very real gaps on other key issues. And what we are trying to do is find a way for Iran to have an exclusively peaceful nuclear program, while giving the world all the assurances required to know that Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon.

I want to underscore: These goals are not incompatible. In fact, they are realistic. But we have not yet found the right combination or arrived at the workable formula. There are more issues to work through and more provisions to nail down to ensure that Iran’s program will always remain exclusively peaceful. So we are going to continue to work and we’re going to continue to work with the belief that there is a way forward.

But – and this is a critical point – while there is a path forward, Iran needs to choose to take it. And our goal now is to determine the precise contours of that path, and I believe we can.

With that, I’d be happy to take a few questions.

MS. HARF: The first question is from Jo Biddle of the AFP. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. You said that you’re returning to Washington for further consultations with President Obama, but you did say that the July 20th deadline is still on the table. How confident are you that you can get an agreement by July 20th? And if we’re talking about an extension, have you any idea how long that could be?

And I wanted to ask you about reports that – today quoting Mr. Foreign Minister Zarif that the Iranians are proposing a freeze on a nuclear program for a few years in return for being later treated as a country with a peaceful nuclear energy.

SECRETARY KERRY: I’m sorry. That got garbled in – take – hold the mike a little bit away.

QUESTION: Sorry.

SECRETARY KERRY: A little bit away, sorry.

QUESTION: There was a report in The New York Times today, an interview with Foreign Minister Zarif, in which he suggested that the Iranians have proposed freezing their nuclear program for a few years in return for being treated later as a country with a peaceful nuclear civilian energy program. Does this meet any U.S. demands or is this one of the real gaps that you’re still talking about?

And if I may, can I just ask you about the crisis in Gaza as well? Did you talk with Foreign Minister Zarif about this? Are you asking the Iranians to use their leverage with Hamas? And what could the United States do to try to achieve an implementation of a ceasefire which Hamas appears to have rejected? Thank you very much.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, with respect to the issue of July 20th, yes, it’s obviously still on the table and we’re still working, and we’re going to continue to work. The team will be here. They’ll continue to meet. And I will, as I said, go back to Washington to talk to the President and also our team back there in order to assess where we think we are with respect to the progress that we have made.

As I said, we have made progress, and there is work still to do, and we believe there is a path forward, so let’s see what happens in the next hours and days. I’m obviously prepared to come back here if we have the team say to me that there’s a reason to do so, but I have no plans to do so as I leave to go back to Washington to consult with the President.

With respect to the issue of the – what was in The New York Times and the question of a gap or no gap, I am definitively not going to negotiate in public. I’m not going to comment on any stories with respect to substance one way or the other. The real negotiation is not going to be done in the public eye; it’s going to be done in the private meetings that we’re having, and it is being done there. And I might add these are tough negotiations. The Iranians are strong in their positions. They understand what their needs are, we understand what ours are. Both are working in good faith to try to find a way forward.

And as I said, I think we’ve made some progress. Obviously, there’s more work to do. We’ll assess where we are in the next few days and make judgments at that point in time. And we don’t do this, obviously, exclusively. We are part of a team, the P5+1. Our partners, all of them, weigh in equally in this decision, and we need to be consulting as we go forward.

With respect to Gaza, let me say a few words. I cannot condemn strongly enough the actions of Hamas in so brazenly firing rockets in multiple numbers in the face of a goodwill effort to offer a ceasefire in which Egypt and Israel have joined together, and the international community strongly supports the idea of a ceasefire, the need – the compelling need to have a ceasefire. At the same time, there are great risks in what is happening there and in the potential of an even greater escalation of violence. We don’t want to see that – nobody does – and nor does Israel.

But Israel has a right to defend itself, and it is important for Hamas not to be provoking and purposefully trying to play politics in order to gain greater followers for its opposition, and use the innocent lives of civilians who they hide in buildings and use as shields and put in danger. That is against the laws of war and that’s why they are a terrorist organization. So we need to remember what is at stake here, and we will continue to work for a ceasefire.

Now at the moment, one of the reasons I’m going to Washington and not to Egypt, just to answer possibly another question ahead of time, is because there was this offer on the table, and we believe that it was important to give this offer an opportunity. And I still think perhaps reason could prevail if the political wing can deal with the military wing and Egypt can have some leverage. Let’s see what happens.

But we are prepared, as the United States is always prepared – and President Obama has said this again and again – to do everything in our power to help the parties come together to work to create a climate for genuine negotiations to be able to deal with the issues that truly separate these parties, and we stand prepared to do that. I am prepared to fly back to the region tomorrow if I have to, or the next day or the next, in order to pursue the prospects if this doesn’t work. But they deserve – the Egyptians deserve the time and the space to be able to try to make this initiative work, and we hope it will.

We urge all parties to support this ceasefire, and we support and we ask all the members of the Arab community, as they did yesterday at the Arab League meeting in Cairo, to continue to press to try to get Hamas to do the right thing here, which is cease the violence, engage in a legitimate negotiation, and protect the lives of people that they seem all too willing to put to risk.

MS. HARF: Our next question is from Lou Charbonneau of Reuters.

QUESTION: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, I wanted to return to the issue of Iran first. The Supreme Leader of Iran last week had a major speech in which he spoke of Iran needing the equivalent of what some see is as many as 190,000 older-generation centrifuges over the long term, a kind of massive industrial scale. How did you respond – how did you react to this speech? And in your meetings here with the Iranians, have you seen any sign of a new and substantial flexibility on the Iranian side since your Washington Post op-ed two weeks ago, enough progress that could, in theory, justify an extension?

And then I wanted to add on a question about Libya, where the situation is quite alarming. The UN is pulling out its staff and there has been shelling of as many as 90 planes at the airport. Thanks.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, with respect to the Supreme Leader’s speech on the 190,000 centrifuges, that’s not a new figure. It didn’t come as a surprise to me or to others. And what it is is it’s a reflection of Iran’s current ambitions with respect to a nuclear power program, and it reflects a long-term perception of what they currently have in their minds with respect to nuclear plants to provide power. It is not something, I think, that’s meant – and I think it was framed that way, I believe, in the speech.

Obviously, that’s not – I’m not going to get into what we’re talking about in numbers or whatever, but we have made it crystal clear that the 19,000 that are currently part of their program is too many, and that we need to deal with the question of enrichment. And so all I will say to you is that we will continue to press.

Now I do want Iran to understand, I want the Supreme Leader to know, that the United States believes that Iran has a right to have a peaceful nuclear program under Article IV of the NPT – there’s no question about that – a peaceful program. And what we are now working on is: How do you guarantee that what they do have is in fact purely peaceful and that it adheres to the stated intentions of the Supreme Leader and other leaders of Iran never to have a nuclear weapon?

Now, the Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa. We take that very seriously. The fatwa issued by a cleric is an extremely powerful statement about intent. But it is our need to codify it. We can’t take any declaration because that’s not what a negotiation nor a nuclear agreement is about. It’s about verifiable, specific steps by which parties that have disagreed can agree that they know each of them what they’re doing and how they’re living up to their responsibilities. And that’s what we’re seeing in this particular effort.

So Iran can have a peaceful nuclear program and they know how to get there. It’s by living up to the demands of the international community, the United Nations Security Council; the IAEA questions need to be answered, the additional protocol needs to be adhered to; and a specific set of verification and transparency measures need to be put in place among other things that make the promises real. That’s the nature. It’s not specific to Iran. Any country would be in the same place and need to do the same thing, as they do with respect to any kind of agreement.

Libya: We are obviously deeply concerned about the level of violence in Libya, and every single day in the State Department, we make assessments about the level of violence, about our personnel who are there, about our Embassy, about the overall nature of the violence. And that is why President Obama has appointed a special envoy, David Satterfield, a diplomat with a great deal of experience who most recently filled in in Egypt. And he has been working very closely with Jonathan Powell, the British special envoy, and with other special envoys – France, Italy – all of them focused on how we can transition Libya away from this militia violence, which is what is threatening the airport at the moment. It is not violence that has broken out every single day, all day. It’s mostly fighting at night and it is not threatening broadly every interest within Libya, but it is dangerous and it must stop. And we are working very, very hard through our special envoys to find the political cohesion, the glue that can bring people together to create stronger capacity in the governance of Libya so that this violence can end. And we’ll continue to stay very, very precisely focused on it.

MS. HARF: And our final question is from Amir Paivar of BBC Persia.

QUESTION: Thank you very much, Secretary Kerry. Many Iranians wonder – I would like to be very specific – why the U.S. and the world powers would not accept Iran maintain, say, 10,000 centrifuges. And here, I’m not haggling over numbers, but if the other terms of the deal are secure, numbers capped, degree of enrichment low, inspections intrusive – if trust is an issue, they say, both Iran and the United States have their checkered history when it comes to nuclear capability.

SECRETARY KERRY: Well, as I said earlier, when you start asking about specific numbers of centrifuges and so forth, you get into a zone of public disclosure that is just not helpful to the negotiations at this point in time. So I’m not going to talk about a specific number, what number might work, not work, what we will accept, won’t accept. All of those questions belong at the negotiating table, and that’s where they are.

But let me just say, in general terms, this is not an issue of trust. This is an issue of factual process by which you can verify on a day-to-day basis what is happening. Now why do we need to do that? Why are there P5+1 at the table? Why is China joining with Russia, joining with the United States, joining with Germany, France, and Britain – all of them together at the table demanding the same thing, as well as the rest of the world through the United Nations Security Council and the resolutions?

This is not a fabricated issue. The reason that trust has to be built and a process of transparency and accountability has to be created is because over the years, a secret program has been pursued in a deep, under-the-ground, mountaintop facility that was concealed for a long time until it was discovered, and levels of enrichment have been going on on a regular basis and serious questions raised about weaponization in that context.

Now we’re working to answer those questions, and I want to – Foreign Minister Zarif is a tough negotiator. He knows how to fight for what he is fighting for. But he’s been clear, as we have been clear, about what we need to do to try to arrive at a fair, reasonable way to meet both parties’ rights and interests in this situation. And I believe that, as I said, we’ve made progress, and I think both of us can see ways in which we could make further progress and hopefully answer those questions.

But I’m not going to get into why Iran might have done that or who pushed who in what direction or what mistakes were made in the past. You can go back to the 1950s and find lots of things that have happened that have given rise to the relationship we’re in today. What we want to do is try and see if that’s changeable, put that to the test. The first test is to answer the questions and come up with a formula that says to the world this is a peaceful nuclear program, and it cannot be used to make weapons and we know that to a certainty. The test is: Can we know whether or not Iran is able to and is or might be building a nuclear weapon?

Now we’re going to continue to do what we are doing here. We’re going to work hard to try to find this agreement. This is not just important to the United States, Iran, and the P5; it’s important to the world. And it is important for us to try to work hard in order to see if we can find success, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.

MS. HARF: Great. Thank you, everyone.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you all. Appreciate it very much. We’ll see you again at some point, I’m sure.

U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT CONTRACTS FOR JUNE 15, 2014

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 

CONTRACTS

ARMY

Johnson Controls Building Automation Systems, LLC, Huntsville, Alabama, was awarded a $450,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for the procurement and installation of utility monitoring and control systems and similar services such as heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems with an estimated completion date of July 14, 2019. Funding and work location will be determined with each order. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Huntsville, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W912DY-14-D-0063).

General Atomics - Systems Integration, LLC, San Diego, California, was awarded a $38,781,663 modification (P00019) to contract W58RGZ-13-C-0124 to acquire continued operations, sustainment, and integration of two deployed Highlighter fixed wing aircraft. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $8,873,018 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is July 13, 2015. Work will be performed in San Diego, California; Bridgewater, Virginia; and Afghanistan. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.

Northrop Grumman, Huntsville, Alabama, was awarded an $18,258,765 modification (P00107) to contract W31P4Q-08-C-0418 for the Integrated Air and Missile Defense S280 transition from the baseline M1085 mounted Command Post Platform Shelter to an M1148 Load Handling System Family of Medium Tactical Vehicle mounted S-280 Shelter. Fiscal 2014 research, development, testing and evaluation funds in the amount of $18,258,765 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is Sept. 30, 2015. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Alabama. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.

Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, LLC, Oak Brook, Illinois, was awarded a $17,027,415 modification (P00003) to contract W912DS-13-C-0045 for dredging shoaled material. Fiscal 2014 other procurement funds in the amount of $17,027,415 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is Sept. 7, 2014. Work will be performed in New York harbor along Newark Bay Port Elizabeth Channel, Newark Bay north and south areas, and along Kill Van Kull in the vicinity of Constable Hook and Anchorage Channel. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York, New York, is the contracting activity.

U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND

Federal Express Charter Programs Team Arrangement of Memphis, Tennessee, was awarded an estimated $57,810,843 modification (P00012) to previously awarded contract HTC711-13-D-CC02. The modification brought the total cumulative face value of the contract to $1,176,792,312. Team members include: Air Transport International LLC, Wilmington, Ohio; Atlas Air, Inc., Purchase, New York; Delta Air Lines, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia; Federal Express Corporation, Memphis, Tennessee; Polar Air Cargo Worldwide, Inc., Purchase, New York; and MN Airlines, LLC, doing business as Sun Country Airlines, Mendota Heights, Minnesota. Work will be performed at worldwide locations with an expected completion date of Sept. 30, 2014. Fiscal 2014 transportation working capital funds will be obligated on individual task orders. This was a competitive acquisition and 28 offers were received under the initial procurement. The U.S. Transportation Command Directorate of Acquisition, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, is the contracting activity.

NAVY

BAE Systems Land and Armaments, Weapons Systems, Minneapolis, Minnesota, is being awarded a $43,245,218 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-12-C-4221) for research and development activities associated with Integrated Power Systems power load modules, to be used for electromagnetic railgun pulse power containers design, and for the fabricating and testing of prototypes. Work will be performed in San Diego, California (75 percent); Minneapolis, Minnesota (15 percent); and Dayton, Ohio (10 percent), and is expected to be completed by December 2016. Fiscal 2014 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funding in the amount of $14,502,272 will be obligated at award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity.

BAE Systems Norfolk Ship Repair, Norfolk, Virginia, is being awarded a $29,773,261 modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-11-C-4403) for the USS San Jacinto (CG 56) fiscal year 2014 drydocking selected restricted availability. Work will be performed in Norfolk, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by January 2015. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Navy) funding in the amount of $28,857,059 will be obligated at time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Norfolk Ship Support Activity, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity.

Walsh Construction Co. II, LLC, Chicago, Illinois, is being awarded a $26,947,000 firm-fixed-price contract for the construction of electrical capacity and cooling towers at Naval Support Activity Bethesda. The work to be performed provides for the construction of electrical upgrades to improve the capacity of the power distribution infrastructure. The proposed new construction includes the demolition and reconstruction of three existing cooling towers, and the construction of a fourth cooling tower cell to accommodate future loads. Work will be performed in Bethesda, Maryland, and is expected to be completed by January 2016. Fiscal 2013 military construction (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $26,947,000 are obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with 12 proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Washington, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity (N40080-14-C-0158).

General Atomics, San Diego, California, is being awarded a $10,267,000 modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N68335-09-C-0573) for the integration and installation of the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System CVN 78 shipboard software and support. Work will be performed in San Diego, California (79 percent), and Waltham, Massachusetts (21 percent), and is expected to be completed in October 2015. Fiscal 2011 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount of $10, 267,000 are being obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Lakehurst, New Jersey, is the contracting activity.

MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY

Lockheed Martin Mission System and Training, Moorestown, New Jersey, has been awarded a $20,000,000 option exercise modification (P00148) to previously awarded contract (HQ0276-10-C-0001) for support of advanced concept initiatives by the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (ABMD) Program Office to identify technology for introduction into present and future ABMD Baselines and upgrades. The modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $1,808,932,405. Work will be performed at Moorestown, New Jersey, with an expected end date of Dec. 15, 2015. Fiscal year 2014 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $500,000 are being obligated at time of award. The Missile Defense Agency, Dahlgren, Virginia, is the contracting activity.

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

Merchants Food Service, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, has been awarded a maximum $7,220,745 fixed-price with economic-price-adjustment contract for full line food distribution for Louisiana and Mississippi areas. This contract was a sole-source acquisition. Location of performance is Mississippi, with a Nov. 15, 2014, performance completion date. This is a four-month bridge contract with no option periods. Using military services are Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2014 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE300-14-D-3015). (This contract was awarded on July 11, 2014.)

READOUT: PRESIDENT OBAMA'S MEETING WITH CONGRESSIONAL MEMBERS ON PROMOTING EXPORTS

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE 

Readout of the Obama Administration’s Meeting with Members of Congress and their Constituents on Promoting Exports

Today, senior Administration officials met with Members of Congress and their constituents to discuss policies, Administrative initiatives, and legislative efforts to help businesses increase exports and create jobs in their districts.  The Members and their constituents shared some of the best practices that business owners in their communities have put forward to increase their own exports, and Administration officials, Members, and their constituents discussed how the Administration can best partner with Members and businesses moving forward. Participants also discussed the critical importance of reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank and securing trade agreements to help American businesses grow their markets abroad.

Members of Congress who attended the meeting included:

• Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington
• Representative Elizabeth Esty of Connecticut
• Representative Denny Heck of Washington
• Representative Scott Peters of California

Senior Administration officials who attended the meeting included:

• Secretary Penny Pritzker, Department of Commerce
• Ambassador Michael Froman, United States Trade Representative
• Anne Wall, Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs and Senate Liaison

U.S. CONGRATULATES IRAQI PEOPLE ON ELECTION OF A PARLIAMENTARY SPEAKER

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

U.S. Congratulates Iraqis on the Election of a Parliamentary Speaker

Press Statement

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Washington, DC

July 15, 2014

---

We congratulate the Iraqi people on the election of a new parliamentary Speaker and two Deputy Speakers. The election of a Speaker is the first step in the critical process of forming a new government that can take into account the rights, aspirations, and legitimate concerns of all Iraq’s communities.

We urge Iraq’s leaders to follow this achievement with rapid formation of a new government pursuant to Iraq's constitutional timelines. We further urge the international community to support Iraq's democratic political process, which reflects the aspirations of the nearly 14 million Iraqis who voted for new representatives from all parts of the country. These representatives are now charged, through the Iraqi parliament, to form a new government with leaders who reflect a broad national consensus.

As I said in Baghdad, this is a moment when the stakes for Iraq’s future could not be clearer as much depends on the ability of Iraq’s leaders to come together and take a united stand against ISIL. Iraq faces an existential threat and Iraq’s leaders need to confront that threat with the urgency that it demands. As they do, the United States will remain a steadfast partner in support of their fight for the democratic process and against ISIL.

NASA | COLLIDING NEUTRON STARS CREATE BLACK HOLE AND GAMMA-RAY BURST

NSF REPORTS OCEAN MICROBES HAVE DAILY CYCLES OF ACTIVITY

FROM:  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 

Ocean's microbial megacity: Like humans, the sea's most abundant organisms have clear daily cycles

Coordinated timing may have implications for ocean food web

Imagine the open ocean as a microbial megacity, teeming with life too small to be seen.

In every drop of water, hundreds of types of bacteria can be found.

Now scientists have discovered that communities of these ocean microbes have their own daily cycles--not unlike the residents of a bustling city who tend to wake up, commute, work and eat at the same times.

Light-loving photoautotrophs--bacteria that need solar energy to help them photosynthesize food from inorganic substances--have been known to sun themselves on a regular schedule.

But in new research results published in this week's issue of the journal Science, researchers working at Station ALOHA, a deep ocean study site 100 kilometers north of Oahu, Hawaii, observed species of bacteria turning on cycling genes at slightly different times.

The switches suggest a wave of activity that passes through the microbial community.

"I like to say that they are singing in harmony," said Edward DeLong, a biological oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and an author of this week's paper.

"For any given species, the gene transcripts for specific metabolic pathways turn on at the same time each day."

The observations were made possible by advanced microbial community RNA sequencing techniques, which allow for whole-genome profiling of multiple species at once.

DeLong and colleagues deployed a free-drifting robotic Environmental Sample Processor (ESP) as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE) research expedition to Station ALOHA.

Riding the same ocean currents as the microbes it follows, the ESP is equipped to harvest the samples needed for this high-frequency, time-resolved analysis of microbial community dynamics.

What the scientists saw was intriguing: different species of bacteria expressing different types of genes in varying, but consistent, cycles--turning on, for example, restorative genes needed to rebuild solar-collecting powers at night, then ramping up with different gene activity to build new proteins during the day.

"It was almost like a shift of hourly workers punching in and out on a clock," DeLong said.

"This research is a major advance in understanding microbial communities through studies of gene expression in a dynamic environment," said Matt Kane, a program director in NSF's Directorate for Biological Sciences, which co-funds C-MORE with NSF's Directorate for Geosciences.

"It was accomplished by combining new instrumentation for remote sampling with state-of-the-art molecular biological techniques."

The coordinated timing of gene firing across different species of ocean microbes could have important implications for energy transformation in the sea.

"For decades, microbiologists have suspected that marine bacteria were actively responding to day-night cycles," said Mike Sieracki, a program director in NSF's Directorate for Geosciences.

"These researchers have shown that ocean bacteria are indeed very active and likely are synchronized with the sun."

The mechanisms that regulate this periodicity remain to be determined.

Can you set your watch by them?

DeLong said that you can, but it matters whether you're tracking the bacteria in the lab or at sea.

For example, maximum light levels at Station ALOHA are different than light conditions in experimental settings in the laboratory, which may have an effect on microbes' activity and daily cycles.

"That's part of why it's so important to conduct this research in the open ocean environment," said DeLong.

"There are some fundamental laws to be learned about how organisms interact to make the system work better as a whole and to be more efficient."

Co-authors of the paper are Elizabeth Ottesen, Curtis Young, Scott Gifford, John Eppley, Roman Marin III, Stephan Schuster and Christopher Scholin.

The research also was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

-NSF-


Media Contacts
Cheryl Dybas,

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT TRI-MISSION VIENNA MEETING WITH STAFF/FAMILIES

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks at the Tri-Mission Vienna Meeting With Staff and Families

Remarks

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Vienna, Austria

July 14, 2014

AMBASSADOR MACMANUS: (In progress) working the last several days, and have probably seen more of the Secretary than the three ambassadors up here. (Laughter.)

So if anything, this is a great honor for us to be with you, Mr. Secretary, and of course with this combined staff of S staff coming from Washington with you and the Vienna missions staff. If there’s a great opportunity – I learned – I’m an old staff guy. The Secretary knows this. And if I learned an important lesson, it’s that you can determine the leadership of a principal, of a leader, by the staff that are around them. I know that Dan and Alexa and I have been amazingly well-served by the people in this room who work for us, and that you have served by your staff, and together they make an incredible combination.

So for all of you, you made the three right decisions. One, you worked hard and you worked well with each other; two, you showed the Secretary that Mission Vienna is exactly the right place to come to get a job done, which it better be, because I think we’ll see him again and again. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY KERRY: I know you’re just saying it to get a job. (Laughter.)

AMBASSADOR MACMANUS: Well, I’m working on that.

And the third thing is the staff was smart enough to keep the three ambassadors away. So we’re happy to be here; we’re happy to join all of you in welcoming our leader, our boss. We all get up in the morning and say, “I work for the Secretary of State.”

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah, yeah. (Laughter.)

AMBASSADOR MACMANUS: Now you can say when you get up in the morning, “Me, I work for John Kerry.” (Laughter.) Mr. Secretary, welcome.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you, Joe. I’ll take it all, I’ll take it all. (Applause.)

(In German.) Nice to see you all. (In German.) It’s nice to be with all of you. And one thing that’s for certain after that introduction: With the name Macmanus, you know there’s a lot of blarney there too. (Laughter.) And you just heard some of it, but anyway.

I am really happy to be here in this incredible city, and especially with the three missions that we have here. I’m deeply appreciative for the work that all of you do. I’m very grateful to Dan, Dan Baer, and all of the work that the folks at the OSCE have done. It’s been so critical to our ability to be able to try to have a hand in working things out in Ukraine, among other places and other things, but that’s been the most recent crisis. And Dan has been there every single minute and helpful, and the folks there on the front lines have been really making a difference. As he just said to me, I talk to Lavrov, Lavrov and I work it out, and we dump it on Dan and other people to figure out after that. (Laughter.)

And Alexa, thank you so much for your leadership of the flagship mission, in a sense – our representation in the country, to the country. We appreciate that, and I expect to see you out on your bike tomorrow morning early with me. (Laughter.) She’s a – I’ve been told by everybody – I’ve been warned don’t ride with her, because she’s going to crush you. (Laughter.)

AMBASSADOR WESNER: John can keep up.

SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah, not at all. Not at all.

But we went out for a ride this morning. Actually, I had a wonderful time. I went out in the complete peace and quiet of about four motorcycles and 15 cars, all – (laughter). It was really fun, and I rode through the streets and by – hit all this fabulous architecture, obviously, and history. And then across the bridge and down onto the island, and we rode up and down the island, which is really beautiful. So I think we’ve got to plan more trips here, staff. Where the hell are you? It’ll be fun.

And Joe – this guy is very, very special to the Department, as all of you know. And we are in the middle of the – in talks about nuclear proliferation and reining in Iran’s program, which is really tough negotiation, I will tell you. And the IAEA plays such a central role, not just there but all over the world, in holding people accountable. And he’s done a tremendous job, so much so that I am dragging him back to Washington to the Department to be the executive secretary for me. He’s worked there with Condi Rice, worked there with Hillary Clinton, and he does such a good job that he keeps getting called back, I’m afraid. But thank you, Joe, for (inaudible). (Applause.)

And is Charlie Slater here, by any chance? Charlie. Charlie’s worked for 36 years for the Department here, right?

PARTICIPANT: Yes, sir.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you. Everybody wants to say thank you (inaudible). Thank you very, very much. (Applause.)

And Marianne Spitzer. Is Marianne Spitzer here? Marianne, 40 – how many years?

PARTICIPANT: Forty-three.

SECRETARY KERRY: (In German.), right?

PARTICIPANT: Yeah.

SECRETARY KERRY: Incredible. Thank you very, very much. We thank you. (Applause.) Thank you.

And then I understand that Jodie, Julia, Josh, and Jennifer – do we have Jodie, Julia, Josh, and Jennifer? They’re probably all over at – you are obviously Josh, not --

PARTICIPANT: Actually, I’m Jodie, sir. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY KERRY: Oh, you are? (Laughter.) I screwed that up. (Laughter.) Okay. Well, I want to thank you. Will you tell the others – they’re probably off with my team, but they’ve been the key link to my team. And obviously, your name has to begin with J to work for Wendy Sherman or something. I don’t know. Thank you for what you guys have done. Our team could not survive here without all your effort, and I really appreciate it. Thank you. (Applause.)

It’s really special to be back here. I have to tell you, years ago – it’s too long, too quickly, I will tell you – I was in Budapest for a conference when I was a senator, and I had my kids with me. Then – I can’t really – I think they were about 15 and 11 or something like that, and we took the boat back from Budapest up the river to Vienna and spent a couple days here. Really had a very, very special time, and it’s wonderful to come back here. I know western Austria a lot better than I know the east because I was lucky enough as a kid to have a dad who was in the Foreign Service who was passionate about skiing, and so he dragged me to the mountains of the Tyrol and Vorarlberg. I got to fall in love with the place.

But it’s fun to be back, even though it’s very brief and I’m in and out. It gives me a chance to be able to say to you on behalf of President Obama and myself a very deeply felt and real thank you for what you do. This is tough work – not as tough in Vienna – (laughter) – as it is in a lot of other places I’ve been recently like Kabul or Cairo or other very difficult parts of the world. And many of you have spent time in those places, which is part of the reason you’re here now.

But it’s – I just did live conference from Kabul the other night with this group of moguls who assemble in Ketchum, Idaho, Sun Valley every year, the so-called Allen Conference. And it’s a lot of media moguls, people like Rupert Murdoch and Barry Diller and whole bunch of names well known in the media world. And Charlie Rose was doing this interview with me, and he asked me about sort of the world, where we are now. And I will tell you, I had to explain all of – that America is not retreating, we are not disengaging. There is a very disingenuous narrative that is being pushed by some people in the course of politics to try to somehow fault President Obama for the Arab Spring or for the aspirations of people in Syria who’ve been met by a brutal dictator and so forth.

But I am confident – and I’m particularly confident as former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as well as a 29 member – year member of that committee – never have I seen the United States of America as engaged on as many fronts that are as critical to us at a time where the world is in as much conflict and turmoil and transformation as it is today. This is a tough time, complicated time. What happens with Russia in helping us to get chemical weapons out of Syria is affected by what we do and respond to their aggression in Crimea and in Ukraine, and what happens in Egypt affects whether or not we can move forward with the peace in the Middle East or what happens on the border of the Sinai and what happens with Gaza and a ceasefire, and all of these things are interrelated.

And you see this sectarianism being released in parts of the world, which has been bottled up for years in the Cold War, in the press of dictatorships that were able to tampen these aspirations down, the former Yugoslavia and Tito classic example of that. And when the Iron Curtain fell, when the wall came down and the world changed, all of the sudden all of those forces had been released in a world where globalization is also changing everybody’s connection to each other. Everybody is connected to everybody all the time now, and the news is coming at you at such a volume, it’s hard for the average person to digest it and to make sense of it and understand where things are going.

It’s harder to build consensus, I will tell you, in politics than it ever was before. When I was a kid growing up, you could listen to Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson if you wanted to – (laughter) – I did – on what was it, four channels – ABC, CBS, NBC, and public television. That was it. That’s it. And so the whole country stopped and listened. And the next day at work around the coffee counter or the water cooler or whatever, that was the topic of conversation. Today people will go to the shopping channel or to HBO or whatever it is, and it’s hard to find an audience, and that makes it harder to communicate and harder to build a political understanding of the choices that we face.

So all of this I say not by way of prolonging my presence here, but just to tell you this is complicated, tough stuff, and made the more so by the fact that there are more economic powers than there ever were previously, feeling their oats, and lots of people who are jealous or angry or pressured or humiliated by one part of history or another, and we’re an easy target.

So I ask all of you to think about that every day as you do get up to go to work – not about John Kerry being your Secretary of State, but about what you’re doing, your work. And I really want to say thank you to you for this, because it’s not a lot of jobs in today’s world where you can get up in the morning and really make a difference in the lives of other people, make a difference for your country, have an impact on people. And whatever you do in here, it doesn’t matter who you are, whatever your role is, you are an ambassador, not just these folks up here. You are. You may be the only person sometimes some people will ever meet – less so here in a place like Vienna, but in a lot of posts that’s true, when they come for an interview for a visa or where they come in and they have a problem, so think about that. And think about how we take the values that we cherish so much about our country and protect our interests.

And for those of you who are local employees, I thank you particularly, because you have sort of joined us. You’ve become part of the family, even as you are a proud of and will always be a citizen of your own country, but you’re helping us in this mission, and we can’t possibly do this without you. So I thank you very, very, very much for that. (Applause.)

And (inaudible) have a chance just to shake a few hands and say hello to everybody. But as I leave here, just remember – I said this – I was privileged to speak to the graduating class of Yale this year, and it was particularly a pleasure because it happened to turn out to be, literally, I hate to say it, 48 years to the day that I was privileged to speak as a graduating senior to my own class. And I talked to them about sort of the world we’re in right now, but at the end I tried to remind them all, which I remind you of, we are – I get always a little uptight when I hear politicians say how exceptional we are – not because we’re not exceptional, but because it’s kind of in-your-face and a lot of other people are exceptional, a lot of other places do exceptional things.

But we are exceptional in a certain way that no other nation is. We are not defined by thousands of years (inaudible) of history. We are not defined by ethnicity. We are not defined by bloodline or by anything except an idea. And that idea was expressed in the Declaration of Independence and in our Constitution, the idea that people are created equal and that all people have a chance to aspire for greatness, for anything they want. Pretty amazing, right? So think about that. It’s the only country that is literally united and formed around and whose rule of law is based on that idea, one idea, and it’s pretty special. So thank you for representing it. Thank you. (Applause.)

JAPAN LOOKS TO REINTERPRET COUNTRY'S MILITARY ROLE

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 

Hagel, Onodera Discuss Reinterpretation of Japan’s Constitution

DOD

By Jim Garamone

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, July 11, 2014 – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has held his first meeting with his Japanese counterpart since the government in Tokyo announced it would reinterpret the country’s pacifist constitution to allow Japan to take on greater military responsibilities beyond self-defense.

Hagel met at the Pentagon today with Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera and in a joint press conference afterward said the United States strongly supports the move, calling the decision by Japan’s government bold and historic. If approved by parliament, Hagel said the change would enable the U.S. ally “to significantly increase its contribution to regional and global security and expand its role on the world stage.”

The United States and Japan will work together now to revise U.S.-Japan defense guidelines. “Today, we confirm that these new guidelines should be in place by the end of this year,” Hagel said. The revisions will allow Japan to participate more fully in such areas as ballistic missile defense, counterproliferation, counterpiracy, peacekeeping, and a wide range of military exercises.

The two countries also will be able to work more closely together on maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and other areas, Hagel said. “We can raise our alliance to a new level, and we intend to do that,” he said.
The two said they discussed what the United States and Japan will do to modernize the alliance to ensure it is prepared to address emerging threats and challenges. Onodera said he and Hagel also discussed security in the broader Asia Pacific region.

Hagel reiterated the longstanding U.S. position on a territorial dispute that the Senkaku Islands, also claimed by China, are under Japan’s administrative control and fall under the U.S.-Japan mutual security treaty.

“The United States opposes any attempts by any country to change the status quo through destabilizing unilateral actions, and we oppose any effort to restrict overflight or freedom of navigation,” Hagel said. China declared an air defense zone over the islands last year.

Both defense leaders stressed the importance of good relations with China.

P5+1 NEGOTIATIONS BRIEFING

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Background Briefing on P5+1 Negotiations

Special Briefing

Senior U.S. Administration Officials

Vienna, Austria

July 12, 2014

---

MODERATOR: Hello. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Vienna. Thank you for you flexibility today and for coming tonight. First, to start with ground rules. This is all on background as Senior U.S. Administration Officials. Most of you are familiar with our team up here. [Senior U.S. Administration Official One] will give some opening remarks and then we’ll open it up for questions. We have a bunch of folks up here who can answer them, including, I think most of you know [Senior U.S. Administration Official Two], and has been doing these talks for a long time as well, so – but all of that will be on background. No matter who it is, Senior Administration Officials. Please keep us honest on this.

So in a moment I’ll turn it over to [Senior U.S. Administration Official One] and then [Senior U.S. Administration Official One] will give some brief opening remarks and then we’ll do questions. When we do Q&A, please, even though we know most of you, identify yourself and your outlet so we make sure we all know who you are. So, with that.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Okay. Thank you. Thank you all for being here this evening and welcome to today’s backgrounder.

It’s been a very busy 10 days since we arrived in Vienna. We all have to stop and remember what day of the week it is. They’ve all sort of blended together, so I know for all of you, it’s been a difficult 10 days as well, because we try to keep it fairly buttoned up, so appreciate your patience.

We’ve had a mix of plenary sessions, expert meetings, bilaterals with all of the other countries here, and of course with Iran, and coordination sessions that are led by the High Representative of the European Union Catherine Ashton, who coordinates and leads these talks. Today, I want to say a few words about what we expect from Secretary Kerry’s visit here tomorrow and about what’s happened in the talks during this round, and then of course, I and my colleagues would be happy to take your questions.

The Secretary is coming to Vienna for consultations with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif, EU High Representative Ashton, and other foreign ministers from the P5+1, whose schedules allowed them to be here at this time. He will talk with them about where the negotiations currently stand. He obviously will meet with Foreign Minister Zarif and assess Iran’s willingness to make the critical choices it will need to make if we have a chance of getting a comprehensive agreement. And he will see if progress can be made on the issues where significant gaps do remain.
He will then make recommendations to President Obama about next steps in the negotiation. You all have probably noticed there isn’t a whole lot of time left until July 20th, and this is clearly a critical time in these talks. So in many ways, you could consider this a check-in point by the ministers and all of the delegations, even those who cannot bring ministers here because of scheduling conflicts – the BRICS conference is about to start at the beginning of next week – are sending high-level representatives to add to their delegations.

A few additional points: We remain very united in the P5+1. Everybody has their national positions, of course, but when it comes to having one negotiating position for going forward, we have stayed quite united. The sessions that will take place tomorrow are not meant to be a formal ministerial. There will not be a formal plenary session, but rather, a chance for people to check in with their teams on the ground and with each other. As I noted, the Russians and Chinese both have important business to attend to in Brazil this week at the BRIC summit, which complicated their efforts to come, but are sending senior diplomats to Vienna for these meetings as well. So while I know it’s easy to write a story that the P5+1 is in danger of not being united, it’s simply not true.

Second, in terms of what has happened thus far in this round, we’ve made some progress. But on some key issues, Iran has not moved from their – from our perspective – unworkable and inadequate positions that would not in fact assure us that their program is exclusively peaceful, which, as I’ve said to you many times, we have two objectives: that Iran not acquire a nuclear weapon and that they assure the international community that their program is exclusively peaceful. And so far, on some key issues, Iran has yet to be able to take the decisions that are necessary to meet those objectives.

All you had to do is listen this week to the public comments coming from some in Iran’s leadership to see that we are still very far apart on some issues, and obviously, on enrichment capacity. The numbers we’ve seen them putting out publicly go far beyond their current program, and we’ve been clear that in order to get an agreement, that their current program would have to be significantly reduced. So this is one of the gaps, although, of course, not the only one that remains, but a key and core one.

And finally, as we said the other day, it’s worth remembering that this is not a negotiating – a negotiation between two equal parties. It’s certainly a negotiation among sovereign nations and we respect the sovereignty of every country. This is not, however, a mediation. This is the international community assessing whether Iran can come in line with its numerous nonproliferation obligations, to which it has been in violation for years.

To conclude, and then I’ll be happy to take your questions, we do believe there is a way forward here. What the Secretary and all of us will be doing over the coming days is to determine what that path might look like and how we can give all of us the best chance of solving this problem diplomatically, which is what President Obama hopes that all will be able to achieve.
With that, let’s move to your questions.

MODERATOR: Great. And again, and when I call on you, please identify yourself and your outlet.

Yes, go ahead.

QUESTION: Amir Paivar, BBC Persian. We were told that what the Iranian leadership says in public is something you are not focusing on as much as what you hear in the negotiation room. Are you being told the same numbers you referred to in the negotiation room as well?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: What I think I’ll say to that is there is no question that we have heard about Iran’s aspirations for its nuclear program in very specific terms and very specific numbers. And that remains far from a significant reduction in their current program.

MODERATOR: Yes. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Ali Arouzi, NBC News. You say the Secretary’s coming here to gauge Iran’s willingness. Isn’t it getting a bit late in the day to gauge Iran’s willingness? And secondly, you said Iran has to make some very tough choices. The Iranian delegation has consistently said also that the United States needs to make some tough choices. Do you agree with that, and if so, what are the tough choices you have to make?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I think that the United States has already made a number of very tough choices, and I think that’s evident in the Joint Plan of Action that was negotiated among the P5+1. In that, the President of the United States took, I think, a very bold decision to say that we would be open to discussing a very limited enrichment program to meet the practical needs of Iran.

He also agreed that we could sit down and negotiate a Joint Plan of Action, that we would make some limited sanctions relief available to Iran and some of their frozen assets in bank accounts around the world if they would take very concrete steps. Iran chose to take those very concrete steps, and we followed through in what our obligations were.

So I think the good news of the JPOA, it shows that in fact we can each take difficult decisions to try to reach an agreement. Now we’re talking about a comprehensive agreement and we’re talking about the very heart of Iran showing the international community, not just with its words, because of course we have the Supreme Leader’s fatwa and saying that Iran has never had an interest in having a nuclear weapon. Now we have to have concrete actions that are verifiable.
I think that everyone at the table has come with ideas. We have presented a number of proposals, concepts, ways forward, that we think are very thoughtful and acknowledge the tremendous scientific knowhow that Iran has, but at the same time really does mean that Iran must address the international community’s concerns. We’re talking about a decade of violations of obligations under the NPT, such that the UN Security Council has passed four resolutions and required international sanctions that have been imposed by the international community. So that’s really what’s at stake here.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: And I would just add that it is certainly late in the day in these negotiations, but it’s not too late for Iran to take the steps that are necessary to give the international community confidence.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Good point.

MODERATOR: Go ahead, Lou.

QUESTION: Thanks. Lou Charbonneau, Reuters. I wanted to maybe first follow up on the comment that [Senior U.S. Administration Official Two] just made. And so if it’s not – there are only a few days left until July 20th, and here we’ve heard how large the differences are. Is one of the issues that will be discussed a possible extension of the talks? And, I mean, how workable is this? It does seem that some in Congress – we had a story yesterday that it seems like it would probably go through. And then the Brits have released a statement saying that Gaza will be discussed tomorrow, the situation there. And so I don’t know if maybe you could say a word or two on that.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: So let me say a couple things and then Senior Official sitting to my right here might want to add something.

The ministers are not coming here to discuss an extension. The ministers are coming here, as we said in the statement about Secretary Kerry’s coming, to assess the situation, to see whether more substantive progress can be made while they are here, to see that in fact we get done everything we can possibly get done. If, at the end of that process, we have not come to a final agreement, then we will assess where we are and the Secretary will make recommendations to the President about next steps.

We have always said that if we can make some significant progress, that if we thought we needed some additional time, we thought the world would probably want us to take it, and to get to a final agreement. But what the ministers are coming here to do is to assess whether, in fact, we have made and are making and will make, in the eight days remaining, enough progress that it warrants, indeed, us continuing that work if we cannot get to a final agreement. And as you’ve noted, it’s difficult to do – not impossible, but it is difficult to do.

In terms of the issue on Gaza, these are foreign ministers. Whenever they show up anywhere, they discuss whatever is happening in the news and in the day. But they are coming here very focused on this negotiation. None of them are going to be here for a long, long time, so their first priority is going to be to see what they can do to move this negotiation forward and to make substantive progress. I would be very surprised if foreign ministers, wherever they show up, wouldn’t talk about the issues of the day.

QUESTION: A quick follow-up on that, if I may?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah, and then --

QUESTION: For – just what you said about --

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah, yeah.

QUESTION: So are you planning to work down to the wire, up to the 20th and now --

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: We have always said we would work till the last moment. We have always said so. I don’t know whether [Senior U.S. Administration Official Two] wants to add something, particularly about Congress, because some of us have lived here in Vienna now for 10 days. Some people got to go home for a few days, but that person did spend some time chatting with members of Congress, so you might want to add something.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: I would just add two points. First, as we’ve made clear, the Secretary, Secretary Kerry, is focused on determining whether a comprehensive agreement can be reached in the next few days, and that’s going to be his focus when he’s here.

Now if that can’t happen by July 20th, both the Administration and Congress are on the same page, which is that we obviously have to consider all of our options. But we – it would be hard to contemplate things like an extension without seeing significant progress on key issues. And that’s what we’re going to be looking for here over the next few days. We’re going to be trying to get to a comprehensive agreement and then we’ll think about everything else as we go forward. And in that, I think Congress and the Administration are approaching this with the same perspective.

On Gaza, the one point I’d like to underscore is that Iran has a longstanding record of supplying weapons, rockets to various terrorist groups in Gaza, including Hamas; that those rockets are being used to fire at civilian areas; and that Iran has a responsibility to cease and desist from continuing to supply weapons of war that are fueling this conflict. And any opportunity that we get to communicate that message to them, we will take.

MODERATOR: Yes, George. Go ahead.

QUESTION: It’s kind of a – George Jahn, Associated Press. It’s kind of a peripheral issue, this whole issue of unity, but it pops up every so often, and Mr. Ryabkov today spoke to some Russian media and said, basically, our national interests trump unity. And they do have national interests with Iran that are quite strong and they’re trying to develop them even further. Why would he choose to make this comment at this point? Thank you.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: You’ll have to ask Mr. Ryabkov – (laughter) --

QUESTION: He’s --

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: -- why he – and he’ll be back here, I think, sometime tomorrow, I believe. But – he’s here already?

QUESTION: Yes, he’s already here.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Excellent, so then you – excellent. He was trying to get back sooner. He was in Brazil himself getting ready for the BRIC meeting, so I’m glad to hear he’s back. He’s a good colleague.

QUESTION: I have a follow-up question (inaudible).

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: But – so --

MODERATOR: Do you have any more you’d like to say?

QUESTION: Is that it?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: What I would say is you’ll have to ask the Russians why they said what they said. All I can tell you is that we all have national interests; of course we do. But we have all been completely unified in the objective of this negotiation and the key issues that need to be pursued.

MODERATOR: Yes. David Sanger.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Please introduce yourself.

QUESTION: I’m David Sanger from The New York Times. The statement that you made earlier about the public statements that have been made by Iranian officials, I assume you were referring to the Supreme Leader’s comments a few days ago. What they seem to reflect was a fundamental argument by the Iranians that they still need to be able to move to industrial production; if not right away, then I think in this – in the talk, he said five years from now or sometime after that.

As you look at the fundamental differences right now – not the numbers, but the fundamental differences – is there still a view among the Iranians that industrial production is their key goal? And is it still your view that only, as you said, a very limited enrichment capability for a long period of time is your key goal?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Absolutely, our key goal is a very limited enrichment program. As you know, we believe that what would be best is no indigenous enrichment program at all, but if there is to be one, then it should be limited for a very long duration of time. And the United States is on record worldwide, believing that no one should have an industrial-scale enrichment program, that it’s not necessary, that fuel is available on the open market. You all know that we negotiate 123 agreements all over the world about what people’s programs – nuclear programs are going to look like, their civil-nuclear program, how they’re going to provide fuel for those programs.

QUESTION: But we have one in the United States.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Huh?

QUESTION: We have one in the United States.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Indeed we do, but we are one of the original NPT states, so for non-nuclear weapons NPT states, we have worked worldwide to really limit those who have indigenous enrichment.

Now the reality is that, as well, as you know, President Obama has been a leader in the world to decrease the number of nuclear weapons in the world, including our own, and hopes that sometime in the future – maybe not in my lifetime, I hope in the President’s lifetime – that in fact, we have no nuclear weapons.

So I don’t – I think where we are, David, in this negotiation, is we believe that right now, we are at a place where Iran is in violation of its NPT obligations and its obligations to the UN Security Council. For some period of time, they’re going to have to have a very limited, very constrained program that will have inspections, verification, monitoring, and a lot of limitations on what they can do. At the end of that duration, they will be, like any other non-weapons – nuclear non-weapons NPT state and will make their own choices.

QUESTION: When you said a limited period of time, how long a period of time?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yes.

QUESTION: Can you measure this in years, decades? What’s your concept?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: We’ve said always double digits, a long time.

MODERATOR: Great. The gentleman from Bloomberg on the far right, the non-Indira Bloomberg reporter. I know that’s a good title to have.

QUESTION: I’m happy to be called a gentleman, thank you. (Laughter.) And thank you, Mr. Sanger, because my question fits into that. Mr. Lavrov is going to a country tomorrow where Russia has announced it will be negotiating nuclear deals. Now the country he’ll be visiting tomorrow developed a indigenous enrichment program by military junta in secret using a technology, gaseous diffusion, that had exclusively been used for bombs. And that country, which is Argentina, announced 10 days ago that it was going to implement an industrial-scale 20,000 (inaudible) program.

So I know you don’t answer questions directly, but I would like to ask you, what can Iran, and the P5+1, for that matter, learn from the Argentine instance?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, look, every situation is sui generis to some extent, and there is a long history to where Argentina is today. What I would say is that we are looking at this instance and this particular situation where Iran has been outside of its obligations to the NPT and the UN Security Council for over a decade. And I think, quite wisely, Iran came to the negotiating table wanting to re-enter the international community, to meet its obligations, to become a normal nuclear non-weapons NPT state. It’s going to take them some time to get there. There are a number of things they need to do to be able to get there. But there is a path for them to do so, and quite frankly, to have a very modern, civil nuclear program that meets the needs of their people within constraints that will give the international community assurance that they will not obtain a nuclear weapon and that their program is exclusively peaceful.

Should they choose to do that, and I hope that they do because I think it’s in the interests of their own country to do so, though they will define those interests – not me, as they tell me all the time – if they do so, then I think the return for the country economically, politically, domestically, and in the world is quite substantial.

MODERATOR: Laurence Norman from The Wall Street Journal. I’ll introduce you.
QUESTION: Thanks, hi. Two – a couple of questions if I may. First of all, just a detail of how long people are going to be here for. You said they’re not coming for very long. Can we take from that that Mr. Kerry will be leaving on Monday definitely, or is that still in play?

And secondly, there’s a lot of focus on the enrichment issue, but you said at the beginning that there are some issues that have made some progress. I know you don’t know – I certainly know you’re not going to sit here and list them off for us, but can you give us a sense of whether you feel that those other issues are really – that we all know are really beginning to come together to take shape could be turned into a deal?

And just finally, you said double digits before. Just for the sake of a clean quote, can we say that the U.S. position is asking for at least 10 years as a duration of this accord?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I think it’d be better to leave it just to double digits, even though I take your point. Trying to get a number is a good thing, but I’m not going to give you one.

Second, in terms of the Secretary’s schedule, those of you who have had the pleasure of traveling with the Secretary of State, for me to try to predict his schedule would be an insane feat on my part. I don’t think that, had you asked me in the beginning of the week whether the Secretary of State was going to be in Kabul today, I would have said yes. So if you ask me if he’s going to leave here – come here tomorrow and leave here tomorrow, I can’t tell you a thing.
All I can tell you is that the ministers are coming here for a check-in. They are not coming here to be the negotiators, to work text. They are here to see if they can help move substantial progress on the areas in which there are some serious gaps. And I think you all understand well enough, in a negotiation, that when parties know ministers are showing up, they’re going to wait to see what can be accomplished. And we hope that something can be further accomplished, because as [Senior U.S. Administration Official Two] pointed out, we need to see some additional progress in this.

As to areas in where there has been progress, there has been some. There are areas in which the gaps have narrowed so that one can see if everything else fell in place, that that would probably fall in place. Remember we’ve talked about this Rubik’s Cube concept 100 times here. You can have every piece fall in place and that last one won’t go into the tumbler until everything else is in place. So one can see that there are places where there’s progress and you might get that final step taken if something else falls into place as well. It’s a negotiation.
QUESTION: Can I just follow that up (inaudible)?

MODERATOR: Yeah.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah.

QUESTION: Are they significant areas? Are these other areas where there’s been progress, are they significant keys?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: They can become significant areas once other pieces fall into place.

MODERATOR: Great. Laura Rozen.

QUESTION: Laura Rozen from Al-Monitor. Thank you for doing this. You all have had the chance to be in the room with the Iranians when they do show flexibility or there has been progress after weeks and weeks or – I’m sure of arguing over differences. Can you just give us a sense, not on the specific substance necessarily, but how do you see movement with them? Things that were intractable in conversations two weeks ago, how might it move? Because many of us are trying to wonder on these big things, because we understand both your positions very well, how might they move, or you might move? Thank you.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, look, when we came in here, we did not have a text. We have a text that we are working off of. There are brackets that remain in that text. But nonetheless, it has made some progress moving forward. Some of the brackets have been taken out. I think Baroness Ashton and her deputy Helga Schmid have worked constantly, very difficult. The Iranians are very good negotiators. Their English is quite good and we – as you all know, this is done in English and words mean a great deal. My lawyers tell me that every single day as we look over this.

So this is a process of discussion, but also of coming up with ideas, ways that one might get from here to there. Sorry I’m not giving you a whole lot, but doing the best I can.

QUESTION: Can I ask one follow-up?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah.

QUESTION: Because so much of what they’re arguing for in terms of industrial-scale enrichment and not having to be dependent on a foreign power to provide fuel for their power program at some point is a pride – I mean, kind of. And I noticed you using language today talking about their technological achievements. Are there ways that, recognizing their research potential or right, would be able to compensate them for a longer delay in this thing that’s very important to them?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Right. We’ll see. As I said, there are a number of ideas that are on the table, a number of ways forward. We’ve also talked in this room that this is a package; this is not about any one element. All the pieces have to come together to reach the objectives of making sure they can’t acquire a nuclear weapon and that their program is exclusively peaceful. I think that what we are talking about here is how you get from where we are today to normal, and that’s going to be a long duration of time because of past history, under a lot of constraints, but there will come a point, if Iran does make these choices, where they will be free to be like any other non-nuclear NPT state, non-nuclear weapons NPT state.

MODERATOR: Okay, let’s see, who haven’t I – Michael Wilner. Who haven’t I gone to yet?

QUESTION: Yes. Hi. Michael Wilner with The Jerusalem Post. My question is on the role of Congress, and I know I’ve asked you this before, but they don’t seem entirely thrilled with what they’ve gotten. No surprise there. They sent this week a letter; 344 members of Congress signed onto it. And what they said was that there is no such thing as nuclear-related sanctions that are designated in the laws that they’ve passed. Now, your colleague, Catherine Ashton, has said that her mandate is to negotiate specifically on only nuclear-related issues and that that doesn’t include ballistic missile issues or technology, it doesn’t include certainly terrorism-related matters. Do you agree with her on that and do you read the law differently? Is your understanding that the U.S. does demarcate nuclear-related sanctions?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: What we have said to Iran and what was discussed in the Joint Plan of Action where we promised, working within our system which has checks and balances, that we would not – we would work with our Congress so that there would be no new nuclear-related sanctions, and we make a distinction between nuclear-related sanctions and sanctions on human rights, sanctions on terrorism, and they – those will all stay in place.

We are in consultations with Congress. Congress has played a very critical role in this negotiation. I do not believe that Iran would be at the table except for the leadership that Congress has shown on their concerns for these issues and for the sanctions that were passed in addition to the very critical UN Security Council resolutions which passed international sanctions, and the European Union’s actions, and individual countries’ actions around sanctions. I think Congress plays in that regard a critical and leadership role, and we see them as very important partners.

Both the letter from the House and the letter from the Senate really talk about wanting to ensure that partnership continues, that Congress will play an active role in anything that comes out of these negotiations, and we would absolutely agree that they will.
You want to add?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Yeah, I would just add that I think we agree with Congress that sanctions are not an end in themselves; they’re a means to an end. And many of the sanctions that Congress has passed in partnership and consultation with the Administration have been designed to help produce progress at the negotiating table. We believe the Joint Plan of Action was the result of the strategy we developed. We believe that progress in these talks can be connected to that as well.

To say that there is not one single sanction that can be lifted in the context of a nuclear agreement, of course, is not a plausible position. Equally true to say that all sanctions get lifted in the context of a nuclear agreement is not plausible because there are, as my colleague said, terrorism and human rights-related sanctions that are quite specifically targeted at other behavior of Iran.

So ultimately, this is going to be a negotiation within these talks, and then consultation with Congress to determine what are effectively nuclear-related sanctions and what are not. And we believe that we can find a way forward on that that works for everybody.

MODERATOR: Yes, Paul Richter, the L.A. Times.

QUESTION: Hi. If the Secretary determines that Iran is not willing to go ahead, is that the moment when you begin discussing an extension, or does his determination mean the show has ended and there’s no purpose in further discussions?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, as I said, Paul, I think we’ve made some progress, and I think that we hope that the ministers being here will build on that progress, and that we can keep moving forward toward that comprehensive agreement. And as I said, it’s not impossible to complete it by the end of these eight days – difficult. But we certainly want to make substantial progress such that we can make an assessment about the best way forward from there.

I don’t want to prejudge what the Secretary will think or say or what he will recommend to the President of the United States. So this is the check-in. He will have direct discussions with Baroness Ashton. He will have direct discussions with his ministerial partners in the P5+1, with the senior diplomats who are coming here from Russia and China, and with Minister Zarif. And then he will assess where we are and give those of us who are here to continue negotiations – and I would include my colleagues who are sitting up here as well – as I think most of you know, Deputy Burns has returned here as well.

So we will see what is possible and then we will decide what’s the best way forward. But right now, we are entirely focused on seeing what additional substantive progress can be made.
MODERATOR: Let’s just do two more, I think. Who hasn’t had one? Hannah Kaviani.

QUESTION: Yeah, thank you. Hannah from Radio Free Europe. I want to go back,
unfortunately, to digits. You mentioned in your comments that Supreme Leader’s words last week basically shows where the gap is, and I wanted to see his position on the timeframe that Iran should have met its practical needs in its nuclear program, is also where it shows you the gap in your positions, or this timeframe that he mentions – not now, not two years, not five years – is something that can help you in the process of negotiations?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, there is no question, Hannah, that those statements that talk about what Iran’s aspirations are, but not necessarily aspirations that are met today, are – is important. And we certainly have noted that and we hope that that will be considered in working through an agreement for a period of time that is necessary to provide the assurances that the international community is looking for.

MODERATOR: Okay, let’s do one more. We’re going to go up here.

QUESTION: Yeah, if I may, a totally different subject.

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Tell me your name and where you’re from.

QUESTION: My name is (inaudible). I’m with Suddeutsche Zeitung in Germany. So I would be interested if you can give us an idea what the Secretary and his German counterpart are going to talk about on the recent spy cases in Germany. I understand that the U.S. Government is not happy that the German Government has asked the highest-ranking intelligence official to leave the country. What is the Secretary going to offer to kind of smooth things, as has been said in Washington?

SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, our relationship with Germany is a very critical one and a very important relationship. We very much look forward to the conversation between Foreign Minister Steinmeier and Secretary Kerry tomorrow. They are close colleagues who consult frequently on every subject that’s taking place in the world, but tomorrow they will be focused on how they can get substantive progress in this nuclear negotiation.

MODERATOR: Great. Well, thank you all for coming. As a reminder, especially for those who walked in late, this is all on background: Senior U.S. Administration Officials. We’ll keep you posted on when we’ll have further backgrounders, and we’ll do a transcript tonight as well, and there’s no embargo. So with that, have a great rest of your evening.

President Obama Hosts an Iftar Dinner

HHS SECRETARY ANNOUNCES NEW COLLABORATION WITH STATES TO IMPROVE MEDICAID BENEFICIARY CARE

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

New resources improve states’ abilities to advance Medicaid payment and delivery system reform

Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell announced a new innovative collaboration with states to improve care for Medicaid beneficiaries by accelerating efforts in reforming their health care systems to improve health and care while reducing costs.  The goals and activities of the Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program build on many of the recent recommendations made by the National Governors Association’s (NGA) Health Care Sustainability Task Force.

This initiative is consistent with states’ recommendation that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) identify opportunities for care improvement and addressing high priority areas such as mental health and emergency department utilization.  Through the Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program, HHS is investing over $100 million in technical support to help states in their efforts to improve health, improve care and decrease costs for their Medicaid beneficiaries.  While complementing other federal-state delivery system reform efforts such as the State Innovation Models initiative, this new initiative will help jumpstart innovation by providing federal tools and resources to support states in advancing Medicaid-specific delivery system reform.

“Medicaid innovation is moving forward, and the new Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program, announced in response to recommendations from Governors, will give states the opportunity to even further strengthen their great work,” said Secretary Burwell.  “HHS will provide strategically targeted resources that states can leverage to enhance the impact of their efforts to transform health care.”

“We are very pleased by this new effort to develop performance partnerships with states that can deliver better health outcomes at a cost we can afford,” said Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber. “Using the reform principles developed by a bipartisan NGA Health Care Sustainability Task Force that I co-chaired with Governor Haslam, Oregon has begun to prove these principles can deliver. We look forward to working with HHS, NGA and other states to scale this work.”

“The Task Force's recommendations highlighted many key areas that needed reform, and I appreciate the continued conversations CMS has had with us about these areas," said Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam. "This new initiative and investment demonstrate that there is great benefit to state-federal collaboration.”

The Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program will develop Medicaid specific resources to support state-based innovative health care reform efforts by identifying and advancing new Medicaid service delivery and financing models to improve patient care by providing data analytics, improving quality measurement and rapid cycle evaluation capabilities, and advancing effective and timely dissemination of best practices and learning among states.

U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT CONTRACTS FOR JULY 14, 2914

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 

CONTRACTS

AIR FORCE

Lockheed Martin Corp., Gaithersburg, Maryland (FA87732-13-D-0001); Jacobs Technology, Fort Walton Beach, Florida (FA8732-13-D-0002); SRA International, Fairfax, Virginia (FA8732-13-D-0003); L-3 National Security Solutions, Reston, Virginia (FA8732-13-D-0004); Raytheon, Garland, Texas (FA8732-13-D-0006); InfoReliance Corp., Fairfax, Virginia (FA8732-13-D-0026); CACI-ISS, Inc., Chantilly, Virginia (FA8732-13-D-0027); Northrop Grumman Information Systems, Herndon, Virginia (FA8732-13-D-0028), General Dynamics Information Technology, Needham, Massachusetts (FA8732-13-D-0029); and International Business Machines Corp., Reston, Virginia (FA8732-13-D-0030) are being awarded a $960,000,000 multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract for Network-Centric Solutions-2 (NETCENTS-2) Application Services. This contract vehicle will provide services such as sustainment, migration, integration, training, help desk support, testing and operational support. Other services include, but are not limited to, exposing data from Authoritative Data Sources to support web-services or Service Oriented Architecture constructs in Air Force enterprise environments. This contract vehicle is the mandatory source for all USAF units purchasing services that fall under the scope of the contract. Because this is an ID/IQ contract, the location of performance is not known at this time and will be cited on individual delivery orders. The period of performance is 10 years. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition; offers were solicited electronically through FedBizOps and 21 offers were received. The contract ceiling for NETCENTS-2 Application Services Full and Open remains the same at $960,000,000. NETCENTS-2 is a set of five categories of contract capabilities spanning Netcentric Products, Network Operations and Infrastructure Solutions, Applications Services, Enterprise Integration and Service Management, and Information Technology Professional Services. An obligation of $2,500 has been issued to each of the awardees utilizing fiscal 2013 operations and maintenance funds for the original awards and fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance funds for the five new awards. This is not a multi-year contract. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center/HICK, Maxwell Air Force Base-Gunter Annex, Alabama, is the contracting activity.

NAVY

Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $278,649,002 modification to the previously awarded F-35 Lightning II Low Rate Initial Production Lot VI contract (N00019-11-C-0083). This modification provides for non-recurring sustainment activities, to include procurement of Depot Phases I-IV sustainment activities. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas (35 percent); El Segundo, California (25 percent); Warton, United Kingdom (20 percent); Orlando, Florida (10 percent); Nashua, New Hampshire (5 percent); and Baltimore, Maryland (5 percent), and is expected to be completed in October 2018. Fiscal 2012 aircraft procurement (Navy and Air Force) funds and international partner funds in the amount of $278,649,002 will be obligated at time of award, $236,913,238 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

Northrop Grumman Systems Corp, Maritime Systems, Charlottesville, Virginia, is being awarded a five year, not to exceed $61,177,585 firm-fixed price, performance based logistics contract (N00104-14-D-ZD00), for logistics support, which includes managing the systems by furnishing repaired and new units for approximately 202 items for the WSN Ring Laser Gyro Navigation System, AN/BPS-15/16 Radar Set Weapon System, Guided Missile Destroyer Steering/Scalable Integrated Bridge System, and SPQ-9B Radar Set items. Work will be performed in Charlottesville, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by July 14, 2019. Fiscal 2014 Navy working capital funds in the amount of $2,578,529 will be obligated at the time of award. The contract funds will not expire before the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was a sole source requirement in accordance with 10 U.S.C. 2304 (c)(1). The NAVSUP Weapon Systems Support, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity.
BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration, Inc., Greenlawn, New York, is being awarded a $12,420,183 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the procurement of 249 Mode 5 Combined Interrogator Transponder (CIT) Kits for the U.S. Navy (132) and the governments of Finland (69), Australia (46) and Switzerland (2), in support of the F/A-18 aircraft. In addition, this contract provides for the procurement of 26 power supply Shop Replaceable Assemblies for the U.S. Navy; 10 Integrated CIT systems for the governments of Finland (8) and Switzerland (2); and one lot of Production Acceptance Test Capability for the U.S. Navy. Work will be performed in Greenlawn, New York, and is expected to be completed in March 2017. No funds are being obligated at time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual delivery orders as they are issued. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to FAR.6.302-1. This contract combines purchases for the U.S. Navy ($7,570,415; 61 percent); and the governments of Finland ($2,874,560; 23.1 percent); Australia ($1,879,744; 15.1 percent); and Switzerland ($95,464; .8 percent), under the Foreign Military Sales Program. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00019-14-D-0025).

The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is being awarded a $6,947,488 modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-14-C-0032) for aircraft armament equipment items: SUU-789A/A centerline pylons for the Navy (35) and Royal Australian Government (RAAF) (15); and ALE-50 well covers for the U.S. Navy (11). Work will be performed in El Segundo, California (95 percent); Irvine, California (4 percent); and St. Louis, Missouri (1 percent), and is expected to be completed in May 2017. Fiscal 2013 and 2014 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $4,907,038 and foreign military sales funds in the amount of $2,040,450 are being obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract combines purchase for the U.S. Navy ($4,907,038; 70 percent) and the government of Australia ($2,040,450; 30 percent) under the Foreign Military Sales Program. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

ARMY

Voith Hydro, Inc., York, Pennsylvania (W9127N-14-D-0003); National Electric Coil, Inc, Columbus, Ohio (W9127N-14-D-0004); Alstom Power Inc., Littleton, Colorado (W9127N-14-D-0005); and Andritz Hydro, Corp., Charlotte, North Carolina (W9127N-14-D-0006), were awarded a $99,500,000 firm-fixed-price contract for the rehabilitation and/or replacement of generating equipment at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hydroelectric facilities within the Northwestern Division: Portland District, Seattle District, Walla Walla District, Omaha District and Kansas City District. This may also be used to perform emergency nonroutine maintenance and assessment at Northwestern Division hydroelectric facilities. Bids were solicited via the Internet with five received. Funding and work location will be determined with each order with an estimated completion date of July 13, 2019. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland, Oregon District is the contracting activity.

Lockheed Martin Corp., Grand Prairie, Texas, was awarded a $28,453,514 modification (0007) to foreign military sales (Kuwait) contract W31P4Q-12-G-0001 for the Launcher Modification Kit Phase II Redesign for the Patriot PAC-3. Fiscal 2014 other procurement funds in the amount of $28,453,514 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is Sept. 30, 2017. Work will be performed at Grand Prairie, Texas; Clearwater, Florida; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.

IBM Corp., Reston, Virginia, was awarded a $12,223,063 modification (P00007) to contract W912DY-13-F-0037 Army General Fund Audit Support Services. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $12,223,063 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is Jan. 19, 2015. Work will be performed in Reston, Virginia. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

AvKare, Inc.,* Pulaski, Tennessee, has been awarded a maximum $9,728,923 firm-fixed-price, requirements contract for purchase of pravastatin. This contract was a competitive acquisition and three offers were received. Locations of performance are Tennessee, Czech Republic and Israel, with a July 18, 2015, performance completion date. This is a one-year base contract with four one-year option periods. Using services are military and federal civilian agencies. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2014 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE2D2-14-D-0004).

*In HubZone Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business

AG HOLDER HOLDS PRESS CONFERENCE TO ANNOUNCE $4 BILLION FINANCIAL FRAUD SETTLEMENT

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT 

Attorney General Holder Speaks at Press Conference Announcing Major Financial Fraud

Washington, D.C. ~ Monday, July 14, 2014

Good morning – and thank you all for being here.  Today, I am joined by Associate Attorney General [Tony] West; United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York [Loretta] Lynch; United States Attorney for the District of Colorado [John] Walsh; and Acting Inspector General for the Federal Housing Finance Agency [Michael] Stephens – as we announce a significant step in our ongoing effort to hold accountable those whose actions have threatened the integrity of our financial markets and undermined the stability of our economy.

Today, the Justice Department attained a landmark civil resolution with Citigroup totaling $7 billion in fines and consumer relief to address the bank’s involvement in a scheme to sell fraudulent securities that were backed by toxic loans.  This total includes a civil penalty of $4 billion, the largest penalty to date of its kind.

The penalty is appropriate given the strength of the evidence of the wrongdoing committed by Citi.  Despite the fact that Citigroup learned of serious and widespread defects among the increasingly risky loans they were securitizing, the bank and its employees concealed these defects.  They misrepresented the facts, including the level of risk.  They sold defective loans to countless investors, including federally-insured financial institutions.  And they made false statements to investors, in marketing materials, and even in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.  They led investors and the public to believe that these financial products had been originated in compliance with the law and key underwriting guidelines when this was often not the case.

The bank’s misconduct was egregious.  And under the terms of this settlement, the bank has admitted to its misdeeds in great detail.  The bank’s activities shattered lives and livelihoods throughout the country and around the world.  They contributed mightily to the financial crisis that devastated our economy in 2008.  While Citigroup was not alone in its willingness to ignore internal warnings and disregard the law in order to defraud consumers and investors, as a result of their assurances that toxic financial products were sound, Citigroup was able to expand its market share and increase profits.  They did so at the expense of millions of ordinary Americans and investors of all types – including other financial institutions, universities and pension funds, cities and towns, and even hospitals and religious charities.  Ultimately, these investors suffered billions of dollars in losses when Citi’s false and fraudulent claims came crashing down.

Today, we hold the bank accountable for this wrongdoing – which had devastating ripple effects that cascaded through economies and financial institutions across the globe.  I want to thank U.S. Attorneys Lynch and Walsh, along with their dedicated staff members, for their leadership in making this resolution possible.  Alongside attorneys, analysts, and other committed public servants assigned to the RMBS Working Group – part of the President’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, which I am proud to chair – they questioned a succession of witnesses, sifted through terabytes of data, and reviewed millions of documents.

In addition to the historic $4 billion penalty assessed against Citi, this resolution also includes $2.5 billion in relief that will be provided to those homeowners and communities affected by the bank’s fraudulent activities.  This assistance has become a must-have element in our agreements with banks that contributed to the mortgage crisis.  It will remain so.

Importantly, this agreement does not in any way absolve Citigroup or its individual employees from facing any possible criminal charges in the future.

Taken together, we believe the size and scope of this resolution goes beyond what could be considered the mere cost of doing business.  In fact, it was not at all inevitable in these last few weeks that this case would be resolved out of court.  But in all of its cases, the Justice Department is committed to delivering outcomes that are commensurate with the misconduct at issue.

This action is merely the latest step in our active and ongoing pursuit of those whose activities defrauded the American people and inflicted grave damage on our financial markets.  Citi is not the first financial institution to be held accountable by this Justice Department, and it will certainly not be the last.  In the investigations that remain open, we will continue to move forward – guided by the facts and the law – to achieve justice for those affected by the financial crisis.  These investigations are not only about holding those who violate the public trust to account; they are also intended to deter banks from engaging in this type of conduct in the future.

Now I’d like to turn things over to Associate Attorney General Tony West, who will provide additional details on today’s announcement.

NASA | WFIRST: UNCOVERING THE MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

MAN SENTENCED IN $10.5 MILLION MEDICARE FRAUD CASE

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT 

Friday, July 11, 2014

South Florida Man Sentenced to Prison for $10.5 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme
A south Florida man was sentenced in federal court in Tampa, Florida, to serve 48 months in prison in connection with a $10.5 million Medicare fraud scheme involving physical and occupational therapy services.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney A. Lee Bentley III for the Middle District of Florida, Acting Special Agent in Charge Ryan Lynch of the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) region including all of Florida, and Special Agent in Charge Paul Wysopal of the FBI’s Tampa Field Office made the announcement.

Luis Alberto Garcia Perojo (Garcia), 43, previously pleaded guilty to an information charging him with conspiracy to commit health care fraud.   In addition to his prison term, he was sentenced to serve three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $6,248,056 in restitution, jointly and severally with his co-conspirators.

According to documents filed in the case, Garcia conspired with others to execute a health care fraud scheme through Renew Therapy Center of Port St. Lucie LLC (Renew Therapy), a comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation facility that he helped operate.   From November 2007 through August 2009, Renew Therapy submitted approximately $10,549,361 in fraudulent claims for reimbursement to Medicare for therapy services that were not legitimately prescribed and not legitimately provided to Medicare beneficiaries.   As a result of those fraudulent claims, Medicare deposited approximately $6,248,056 into a Renew Therapy bank account.   The fraud proceeds in that account were subsequently disbursed to various entities, including $1,847,222 to Ariguanabo Investment Group Inc. and IRE Diagnostic Center Inc.   Garcia was President of Ariguanabo Investment Group and had authority over bank accounts for Ariguanabo Investment Group and IRE Diagnostic Center, both of which were shell companies.   Garcia and others used this money from Renew Therapy for, among other purposes, paying kickbacks to obtain Medicare beneficiary identifying information that was used in Renew Therapy’s fraudulent reimbursement claims.

This case is being investigated by HHS-OIG and the FBI and was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, under the supervision of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.   This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Christopher J. Hunter of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.

Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, now operating in nine cities across the country, has charged more than 1,900 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $6 billion.   In addition, the HHS Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with the HHS-OIG, are taking steps to increase accountability and decrease the presence of fraudulent providers.