>> if we could trust them to do everything on the up and up, we wouldn't be so concerned about it when i look at the examples any others in a previous reports we have a capacity issue.

we have to get the management oversight in there and move forward on that basis. we have lots that we want to talk to you about over the coming period of time, and we credit you for the work that you have done, it is one of serious import in your report and we look forward to you expanding that. with the work you are doing i think will be very helpful to us. it will help us focus on what we need to do in terms of legislation, or probably more on oversight, the people are not doing the management work that they are not doing as they should. what we need to do to help them do that. if they're not getting that capacity. do you have anything would like to add? thank you for your time. we think of for testimony and for your service and the offer remains to work with you if we can be helpful in having responsibilities fulfilled. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> will take about a five minute break for the second panel starts.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the subcommittee will now receive testimony on the second panel before us today. he serves as executive vice president of counsel for professional services council what he is responsible for the association's federal acquisition legislator and regular policy. prior to this he was vice

president of at&t government services. he has held a number of staff positions of the united states senate, including both counsel and staff director on the senate small business committee as well as council on armed services committee, he holds a jd from american university school of law. as you saw for the first panel, it is policy to swear in you before your testify. would you please, do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? thank you very much. your full written statement is noted as well and will be placed in the record that we would like to accord to five minutes to make her opening remarks before we start to question and i invite you to do so at this time. >> mr. chairman, congressman flake, thank you for your invitation to appear before the subcommittee today. professional services council is a leading national a professional technical services firms of more than 330 megacompanies represent small,

medium and large businesses that provide federal agencies with services of all kinds, our members employ hundreds of thousands of americans in all 50 states. we have been actively engaged in the policy issues relating to the federal government contracting in iraq since the first day of shock and awe. we testify before the senate before this committee on three separate occasions during the past four years. twice at hearings which were chaired by the distinguished vice chairman of the commission, mr. shays, when he was in the house of representatives. we said that, the relative legislation, participated extensively in the competence of lessons of learned project, conducted by the special inspector general for iraq reconstruction, accountability office. and 2005 conducted a formal joint lesson with the commanding general of the army. with other commissioners appointed to conduct this review and at the opportunity to work professionally with many of them and in the past we worked professionally with the senior commission staff in each and every individual brings expertise in a perspective to these important task. i've also had the opportunity to

work with many of the key federal agencies involved in developing the requirements, including the oversight activities in the special inspector general for iraq reconstruct and we appreciate the challenges that they have faced and the commitments they have shown to fulfill the government's mission. we have also been privileged to work with dozens of companies and hundreds of executives from across our membership in our industry that put their companies and their employees on the line every day to further the u.s. government's mission and objectives. regrettably, too many members of the military, government civilian employees and contract employees have given their lives in that sport. mr. chairman i can say without fear of contradiction that the issues in iraq and afghanistan contracting are among the most complex ever experience and are interrelated and interdependent among numerous and often changing government directive missions, activities and priorities. while it is possible and certainly easier to be selected in the issues chosen for review, the value of any analysis of the current or past different art

contract activities. in iraq particular must take into account several sets of realities. first, iraq contracting is not one activity at all. it is really three different subsets. the support of the military and military related activities, second to reconstruction of iraq entered the economic and development of system provided in iraq and afghanistan. second we must look at the timeframe for efforts in iraq. the initial military action through the fall of the saddam regime prevented a very different set of actions on the ground for the work taken by the coalition authority and different still from the more recent rapidly changing physical changing environment and new sets of contracting policies. some initiative by congress, undertaken by the defense department, state, and the joint contracting command for iraq and afghanistan. the final set of realities is what i refer to as situational contracting. to truly understand the nature of the contracting activities in

iraq, it is essential to understand the differences between emergency contracting during the heightened military action, contingency contracting during heightened physical security challenges and a longer-term sustainment contact that is characterized the situation today. it would be a mistake is like any subset of acquisition regulations that are written for normal contracting and expect procedural perfection when they are applied in a wartime environment. we have known from almost the outcome of a conflict that there are too few trained government professionals a site to support the rapidly escalating u.s. operations in iraq. the significant growth of the number of contracts are in a number of contractor employees deployed in theater. we have known from almost outside of the conflict that many of the contractors that were a warded business in a theater of operations were overwhelmed by the rapidly changing and magnitude of the work. and the pressures put understand of business operations while responding to wartime requirements. it comes as no surprise to many of us in the private sector have been watching and comment on these activities, and i hope it

would not be a surprise to anyone in government who had responsibility for any part of these that the lack of contracting officers deployed in the theater, the lack of qualified contracting officer representatives assigned to supervise contractors, the lack of state department security, or the lack of a government program management and technical had an impact on the governments ability to execute, manage and oversee these capabilities. as we review those elements of the interim report that found their way to the public domain prior to today, we were struck by the fact that these examples cited did not impact the speed to abuse or fraud. rather they spoke to some of the structural challenges that are all too well known. for example, the building of a dining facility at significant cost to the government despite questioned as to the need of that base is not a case of a contract or government fraud or misconduct. it may be inefficient. it may be waived, but it is not fraud or misconduct. similarly as the commission continues its work we hope it will use its opportunity to set the public record straight on

highly publicized and often tragic events and to mystify the perceptions that at times overwhelmed the facts. finally the commission has held only two public hearings and in both cases only government officials were invited to testify. there are numerous other perspectives that must be heard from in order to ensure a balance objective review. professional services council stands ready to contribute further to the commission in any way appropriate as they do that outreach. in the meantime, the interim report should not be treated as final or conclusive document. the need for additional input and discussion for the final report is clear and essential. in addition we hope the commission for future hearings and it's finally port would address the root cause for these issues, explain the reasons and applications for such activities and develop action plans to minimize future occurrences. congress should expect no less. men and women who have already served in iraq and afghanistan and those who will serve there or elsewhere in the future supporting the u.s. government deserve no less. thank you for the invitation to provide these user i would be happy to try to answer any questions you may have.

>> mr. flay, you're recognized. thank you. mr. chvotkin, you heard the last panel. you were present for that. what if any areas do you disagree with the recommendations of the panel? >> mr. flake, thank you, i've had a chance to look at the report quickly last night. the panel focused on oversight is appropriate. i think it misses an important part of the front end of the process. making sure that there are the resources available to execute the work correctly in the first instance of i support oversight. i think it's an important element of the system. but if we don't have the right people doing the right things at the beginning of the process, we can be assured that the oversight function will find errors and mistakes. so we have been strong proponents for increasing the number of contracting officers and contracting officers representatives, increasing the amount of program management bringing the work of iraq and

afghanistan close to the theater of operations rather than from alexandria or from rock island illinois. and i think with more resources on the ground on the front and we will address those issues, some of the issues that the commission identified as dangerous and deficiencies. >> are there cases where fraud is alleged among contractors but never proven? and if that's the case what damage is done to the contractor? >> there are many allegations of fraud, certainly allegations of contractor overbilling or discharging. many of them do not prove to be the case. there are some litigation issues, the justice department does not pursue every allegation of fraud. sometimes the case isn't there, sometimes the prosecutorial discretion isn't there. but everyone of those damages reputation of the company. and i think called into question the function of the entire acquisition system. if there is no credibility in

the system from the requirements generation to the contract award to the oversight to the contractors responsibility, if allegations were made that are not sustained sippy for the sake of making allegations, then that damage is not over the contractor in itself but the entire acquisition system. >> you mentioned the dining hall facility. controversy surrounding that. apparently it was the same contractor that was doing reconstruction, i'm sorry, refurbishment, got the same contract for 30 million to rebuild the facility, or build a new facility. and the commission pointed to a lack of coordination, nobody knew the contractor for those overseeing the contract, didn't know that any refurbishment had been done. is there some responsibility that falls on the contractor there to say, hey, we're being asked to build a new facility when we have been doing work on the old one. is there a code of conduct that

contracting community abides by in this case? perhaps it's not fraud, but it would seem to be some responsibility there that lies with the contractor who had both contracts. >> i'm not familiar with the specifics of the case. i've read about it for the first time in the commission's report last night. if there was the same contract i would be very surprised if during the course of that work the contractor did not at least raise to their supervisor, to the contracting officer that i'm doing similar work and they are on the basis. i understand, so whether they did or not i would hope the contractor would take that obligation and initiative to do that. many times because of the rotation assignments because of the resources, it is the contractors who have the visibility of the activities of the facility and i hope they would take that initiative. i intend to ask around and see what i can find out about the contract but i don't know who it

was in the work that they have done. i don't have any comment about the specifics. >> it would be great if you could forward any findings to the commission. i know we have boats coming on. i'm certain that in many of these cases where the contracts are not bid out, that members of your association and community are upset because they would like to bid on these contracts. you sometimes ask for these jna's, or can you review the material and what form do you have to go to the agency and say why was this bit out? i'm sure those type of situations. what kind of remedy do you have to make sure that the agencies abide by their own rules in terms of contracting things out, or getting things out. >> that's a very important question. in fact, we hear a lot where

there is a lack of competition, our members tell us about that because as you said they do welcome the opportunity to compete for work and duke and pete aggressively they would much prefer to have sole-source work but they understand the importance of competition, and the importance of a predictable procurement process. so when those issues are raised its not racist weekly to us, but when they are we asked that question. congress last year required the defense department when issuing sole-source awards over $100 million to make those justifications publicly available. so that process will soon start, regulations have been recently put in place. on the history, we don't have access to a lot of the government's decision-making, but we do ask the question frequently, why wasn't competition appropriate, why wasn't able to be undertaken. certainly there are national security reasons. certainly there are agencies in

a wartime environment that might prohibit it. but even dating back to the original u.s. involvement in iraq we were strong proponents of phasing in good if there was a need for a sole-source award because of a emergency situation or to support the troops, that didn't necessarily need to have a nine-year or tenure or even a five year contract. it could've been a better plan for the competition process. some of it is resources. some of it is the change in environment in iraq and afghanistan in particular. but we have been strong proponents of competition and that should be the standard that supplied. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. thank you very much for joining us today and for giving our perspective on this. we're going to close the meeting in time to get the members of the. we thank you for your time and your patience waiting for the first panel. >> thank you, mr. chairman. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> the white house as vice president joe biden is in iraq. the associated press reported that he is there to visit u.s. troops and meet with iraqi leaders, including the president and prime minister al malik. vice president bike and headed to the same week as u.s. troops handed over security in cities and urban areas to the iraqi's. also from the ap, the new unemployment numbers are sending stocks sharply lower today. the u.s. jobless rate hit a 26 year high of 9.5%. president obama says he is still deeply concerned about the continuing loss of jobs across the country. the president will speak this afternoon. in the white house rose garden about jobs. we will have that live at

2:20 eastern time on c-span. >> coming up here on c-span2, a look at how pakistanis view al qaeda, the taliban and the u.s.

>> how is c-span funded? >> publicly funded. >> donations may be? i have no idea. >> government. >> c-span gets its funding to taxes. >> maybe, i don't know. >> how is c-span funded? 30 years ago america's cable companies created c-span as a public service. a private business initiative. no government mandate. no government money. >> according to a new opinion poll, most pakistanis view al qaeda and taliban as a major security threat. at the same time, both of those polled in pakistan are opposed to the use of unmanned aerial drones by the u.s. military

inside their country. more now. >> we will call the hearing to order. this is a hearing of the subcommittee in aviation. i want to thank all of you for joining us today to talk about the importance of the issue of aviation safety. this is the second hearing that we have held this month to discuss the subject of aviation safety with a particular focus on the safety of regional carriers. in this hearing will we were easy testimony from representative of network carriers and regional carriers from the air transport association and from the regional airline association respectivrespectively. we will also hear from the airline pilots association and from mr. scott bauer representing the families of continental flight 34 oh seven. which crashed on every 12 of

this year in new york. i do want to say as well as we started hearing that i had intended and wish to have representatives of the carriers themselves at a hearing. and so we did not accomplish that today. i'm not minimizing at all the representatives of the ata and the raa. i will have representatives of the airlines themselves within the next month or so. it is important i think that they would accept an invitation to come and so i will extend those imitations again. in this country, i think it is safe to say that we had a remarkably safe system of air travel. it's not my intention with hearings about aviation safety to alarm anyone about taking a flight on a regional carrier or

network carrier. we operate aircraft all across this country every day, and provide critical air service to many people who would not otherwise have that kind of transportation service or that kind of option here but we do have a responsibility it seems to me to ask questions and get answers to the questions. do we have one level of safety, to have one standard of safety that now exists, or have we drifted some. if the traveling public ever has doubts about the consistency of safety, in our airspace system or with any airline travel, the airline industry inevitably will suffer. so we have to move together to make certain that people have no reason to question the oversight or the application of aviation safety across the country. i have said before that i read extensively about the most recent crash that occurred in our country, the crash in

buffalo, new york. frankly, a number of things happened on that flight that cause me great, great concern. there were a number of mistakes that occurred, a number of things that to me were revelations have a quite stunning. and led me to question, was this an aberration? was it something that happened only in the cockpit of this one plane? or is there something else at work? is there a set of standards that is applied one way in one set of gears and another way and another set of carriers. i don't know the ant to do that, but i think it is important that we ask those questions. the plane that crashed in new york was a bombarded a dash operated by a pilot and copilot who had both commuted long distances to work, were found to have had a reasonably little rest before the flight. copilot raised issues in the

transcript that i read in the conversation in the cockpit of her inexperience with icing conditions. clearly they were flying in icing conditions. the captain had failed a number of flight test during his career which the carriers themselves were unaware of and did not have information about. we're going to hear from those that are investigating this, the ntsb i know is doing substantial investigations. but the larger question for me here is what about the airlines and faa's ability to prevent a double standard or two different standards of expressed in the cockpit. what about the enforcement of rules with respect to familiarity with certain kinds of conditions, familiarity with equipment. we are supposed to have dating back to the mid- 1990s one level of safety, quote unquote, for both regional and national

cares and i want to hear from our witnesses today whether you think that is actually the case, whether the system has kept up with changes or whether there have been changes that have occurred that have drifted us away from one standard. i particularly concern from some of the things i learned in the last hearing, for example, that the carrier does not easily have full access to the records of pilots they are considered hiring. i'm talking about all of the records are they have access to the records that of everything that has occurred with respect to an airplane. an airplane that comes off a line and is put in service, everything that happens to that particular airplane is a matter of record that anyone can access. and that is not the case with respect to the record of the pilot or the people in the cockpit. i think that there is some reason to be encouraged by what the new administrator randy babbitt has done. he called for a meeting monday of this week which reflects a

concern that he wants to understand these things quickly and take whatever action is necessary. it is also the case that he indicated that after two years after the ntsb suggested a rulemaking on access to records for pilots, that mr. babbit indicated to me that the next time he came to a hearing and i asked the question, have you begin a rule making he indicated the answer to be a an affirmative instead of a negative so i think we're making some progress here but this is very, very important. it's something that we have to ask questions about. they are tough questions, but necessary and important questions. i want to thank the witnesses for being with us. senator demint is a ranking that are of our subcommittee and i know he wishes to make it, and then i think also introduce esther maurer more formally who is a member of your state. >> thank you, mr. chairman and i thank you again for conducting these hearings. and i would just add my comments

to yours, agree with everything you said about the concerns about this flight. a lot of us get on regional flights ourselves every week going back and forth to our home states. we assume a lot when we get on a plane, and i know all americans do. and we do need to make sure that there is a standard of safety for every american. i'm looking for two working with the chairman on language that would reveal all of the pilot records just as we have them for an airplane, and some things seem to me, since right now. i do have the pleasure of introducing mr. scott lauer this morning. mr. mao is the father of 30 year old -- a 30 year old who was in flight 3407, lauren bauer. he was born and raised in reading pennsylvania where he and his wife raised their daughter.

he currently lives in south carolina or i appreciate him taking the time to come to washington. i think this is his third week here and i know this is very difficult for him to continue to recount this tragedy in public as well as in private. mr. maurer comes before this committee this morning as a representative of over 150 people in the families of the 3407 crew. they come together as a result of the terrible tragedy with a goal of breaking changes in the airline industry and the faa. hoping to keep an accident like 3407 from happening again. and saving many other families the sadness that they are continuing to endure. mr. maurer is also joined this morning by his wife and lorin's boyfriend. i am deeply impressed with the work and all of the families of the