>> it's like seeing a bad movie, and it's good to see what can be

done wrong to avoid the faults yourself. >> advise for would be writers and given she won a pulitzer prize and was a senior editor, he advice is good. >> publishers out there are desperate for a good new book and author to publish so there should be enormous hope for what is yet to be done. >> more sunday night on c-span's "q and a." >> now a look at the nation's security and safety. the head of the transportation administration talking about testing a new program aimed at getting certain travelers through airport security more quickly. this senate committee hear chaired by senator joe lieberman is two hours.

[inaudible conversations] >> good morning. good morning. the hearing will come to order. senator lieberman, the committee's chairman, has been unavoidably delayed. he will be joining us shortly, but he has asked me to proceed to convene the hearing and to deliver my opening statement. in fact, he suggested that i give a very lengthy opening statement in order to allow him to proceed with his before we call on our first witness. nevertheless, we will proceed as normal. by targeting our airplanes, al-qaeda's succeeded in killing nearly 3,000 people a decade ago. aviation security is clearly

critical to homeland security. we, americans, have demonstrated our willingness to endure, enhanced security measures at our airports if those measures appear to be reasonable and related to real risk, but travelers are frustrated when security measures inconvenience them apparently without cause or when they appear to be focused on those who pose little or no threat. next month, it will be ten years since the shoe bomber failed to take down his flight from paris bound to miami, and yet we still take our shoes off. in 2006, british and american intelligence twharted an effort to conceal explosives in liquid

bottles. we still can't carry on a regular sized tube of tooth peas on to an airplane. the christmas day bomber hid explosives in his underwear, and media reports indicate that terrorists have shown interests in having explosive devices surgically implanted in their bodies. these threats have led to intrusive pat down searches, and one wonders what will be required of airline passengers in the future. we see tsa putting the very young and the very old through intrusive and in most cases unnecessary screenings. at the same time, it troubles many americans to learn that a young man was able to fly across the country without a valid government id and with an expired boarding pass that was

not even issued in his name. if we continue to give extra screenings to individuals who appear to pose no threat, yet others who should arouse suspicion can get passed check points without being questions, our systems are not as finely calibrated as they need to be. the administration has implemented a risk analysis to improve the screening process, a welcome change. this effort should provide a more effective and efficient use of the government's limited screening resources. i'm encouraged, for example, that this new risk-based approach is designed to permit tsd to learn more about travelers through information they choose to provide.

some of the changes will also respond to several of our most common airport screening complaints. secretary napolitano said in september that frequent fliers who opt into a frequent traveler program will be able to keep their shoes on and laptops in their bags. tsa to its credit, and administrator pistole deserves credit for this changed the screening procedures for children under 12, a common sense decision that was overdue. nevertheless, questions remain regarding how some security procedures effect their privacy, health department, and whether or not -- health, and whether or not the procedures are effective as they should be. in august, tsa began installing new software in passenger

screening machines designed to enhance traveler privacy. using a generic outline of passengers, automated target recognition, or atr, detects items that could pose a potential threat. i first saw the less invasive technology in amsterdam in 2010, and i repeatedly raised the issue with administrator pistole and secretary napolitano. this technology was implemented at skipol airport in the wake of the christmas day bomber being able to go through that airport with his explosives undetected. i would note that i assumed this was some cutting edge technology that had been developed in germany. i asked where it'd been

developed, and i found out it was from massachusetts, so clearly there are opportunities within our own country to take advantage of new technology. i urge consideration of this software which better respects travelers' privacy, eliminates the need for a separate screener in a booth, relies less on human judgment, and eliminates the inconsistencies associated with human reviewer, and i'm very pleased that tsa is rolling out and testing this technology. while the atr technology's currently being used with so-called millimeter wave machines which used radio frequency technology to generate images, i would note other advanced imaging technology, or ait screening machines, use back

scatter x-ray radiation that have continued to raise health concerns. this is an issue that i hear about from my colleagues all the time because most of us travel every single week. i also hear about it from pregnant passengers who are concerned about the exposure to the babies that they are carrying. dhs, in my view, should independently evaluate the health effects of that technology and establish the goal of using radiation prescreening technology. let me underscore my appreciation of the fact that no single screening technology can ensure our safety. there is no magic bullet. there is no perfect system. that's why a layered system of

security is so essential involving watch lists, involving intelligence, involving all of the tools at our disposal. the fact is that we face a determined, innovative foe, and no machines can substitute for good intelligence, well-trained screeners, and an observant public. the passenger screening process has received both attention and sometimes anger from the traveling public. it became clear last year, however, from the printer cartridge plot that cargo security is also a threat that terrorists are investigating. that is why senator lieberman and i intend to introduce an air cargo screening security bill later this year. our successes in risk-based screening of maritime cargo

should provide a road map for risk-based screening of air cargo, and that is what our legislation is intended to do, and, of course, just in the past 24 hours, we have learned of gaps in our security related to certain catering operations in the airport in atlanta. those are very serious concerns because obviously the catering personnel have direct access to materials that are put on airplanes, and i'm sure that's an issue that we will be talking about this morning. our government's first priority is to protect against terrorism and the public will accept a certain level of intrusion and inconvenience to add to our airports as long as we are convinced that it is enhancing

our safety, but dhs should continue to expand the use of risk-based approaches to screening with technologies and techniques that are safer, more effective, and that minimize privacy and health concerns. now, at this appointment, i would usually say thank you, mr. chairman, but instead, in this case, i would be thanking myself. we are going to move to our first witness today. we're very pleased to have with us the honorable john miss -- pistole, secretary of the homeland security, transportation security administration. we commend you for your hard work and being very open to our suggestions and to the

recommendations of the public as you seek to protect the traveling public. please proceed with your testimony. >> well, thank you, senator colin, -- collins, and thank you on behalf of the committee for your support in the risk-based security initiative in terms of how we try to work to provide the most effective security in the most effective way. our plans to deploy aspects of this risk-based security initiative were still being formulated, but i'm pleased to report we've begun to implement several aspects of risk based security in some airports and testing other aspects in other portions around the country with the goal of providing the most effective security in the most efficient way. as this initiative progresses, we must ensure that each step strengthens security as intelligence informs us of ongoing interests in attacking

aviation, because travelers present little risk of terrorism, the goal is to focus on those who present the greatest risk. we still find four to five guns in airport security check points every day. we found one yesterday in the airport in bradlye, a gun with seven rounds in it trying to get through. our success in discovering other item items have been detected using mit as you suggested. they have detected items small as a coin or an individual piece of gum that's wrapped. the ait is not perfect as you note, and we work with manufacturers to improve its capability, but, again, noting it gives us the best available

opportunity to detect bombs. we deploy precheck, a voluntary passenger prescreening initiative with a small traveler population in four airports placing focus on prescreening individuals who provide information about themselves prior to to flying. the prechecked travelers may move more swiftly through the standard screening process and can divest fewer items like leaving their shoes on, belt, and a light jacket and keep their laptop in the briefcase and keep their jells in their carry-on bag. we incorporate random and unpredictable security measures throughout the airport. at no point is a traveler guaranteed expedited screening. initial feedback for precheck has been very favorable with

40,000 travelers going through the expedited process so far. the two airlines, american and delta, demonstrated the capabilities, and we're working with other airlines and airports to expand the program as they become operationally ready and as more and more people sign up through customs and border protections hugely scuffle global entry program. it's evident in a new crew member screens system to help positively verify the identity and employment status of airline pilots. tens of thousands of pilots have processed through this expedited screening with very positive feedback. we also evaluate and expanded behavior protection initiative that began at the boston logan airport and now detroit metropoll tan wayne county airport. these techniques are used by trained authors to decide if a

traveler should have additional screening. additional interaction used by security agencies worldwide enables officers to better confirm or dispel suspicious behavior and anomalies. this shows an increase in detecting high-risk passengers, but additional data is required to understand if that trend is statistically significant and measure it against the return of investment. in august, we have a new prep for children 12 and under leaving their shoes on and go through a less intrusive screening because they pose little risk, of course, they can be used by those who want to cause harm. these changes give the authors more opportunity to resolve alarms that occur in the screening process, and results from this enhancement show a sharp reduction, but not e elimination for the fiscal pat down for children and families responded favorably to the changes.

combined with precheck, and known cree member screening, this frees up resources to focus on higher risk travelers. risk-based security helps us strengthen security by reducing the size of the hay stick in which a terrorist could be hiding. i'm dedicated to further identifying additional groups as part of the high-risk security initiative, and i look forward to updating the committee as these efforts progress. in closing, innovation, partnerships, and commitment to the pursuit of excellence, these are the watch words of tsa moving into 2012. thank you, senator collins, members of the committee for the opportunity to appear before you today. i look forward to answering your questions. thank you. >> thank you very much. mr. pistole. as we have seen over the years, terrorists continue to look for gaps in our aviation security procedures, and that's why i was

particularly disturbed to read of a local tv report in atlanta, georgia where lacks airline caters security procedures were identified through an investigative report and an undercover video, and specifically, press reports indicate that the video showed catering employees piggy banking through security check points that there were unsealed catering carts which obviously would allow explosives or weapons to be concealed among the food and those carts that were in the staging area before they were being loaded on to the plane. my question to you is what is tsa doing in the report and have

we yiered another vulnerable, or do you believe this is an isolated incident? >> thank you, senator. . clearly, this is something we take seriously and is a concern under the umbrella of the insider threat. those with special access either through the work, employment, and their backgrounds, allow them access in a way that the general public does not have is something that we focus on, we set standards for catering companies and airports around the country that they have to meet these standards. we inspect those standards, and so when we get a report such as this that there's been some type of breach or vulnerability identified, a move very quickly. in this instance, this was brought to our attention in the last month, we immediately send a team to atlanta to work with the airport, but also the catering company to assess what vulnerabilities there may be that we continue up on that in terms of the investigation as to

what actually happened, and that is ongoing, the bottom line is don't have all the facts as to what may have happened, and what other as a as a as a vulnerabilities need to be addressed. >> can you explain to the committee what kind of vetting the tsa does of airport employees and others who have access to airplanes, but are not passengers? >> yes, there's a seize of background checks and robust system in place to assess anybody who wants access to the sterile area of the airport or even the venders who work in the other area, and so one of the first checks is to make sure they are not on a terrorist

watch list. that's the first step. a criminal background check is also done, and then we do vetting that's recurrent for all of those, especially thought who have additional access to the sterile area. we work closely with the companies and the airports for all 450 airports around the country to determine from a risk mitigation perspective, do they see any as a vulnerabilities in their airports and then the u.s. intelligence community and others who may pose a problem. the chj becomes for the -- the challenge is for those who have no criminal background, have no terrorist list watch anyway, and so that is the challenge we're presented, and so we also

include them responsible for the catering companies and for the employees so we'll do random surprise checks, if you will, on an unpredictable basis so they can't game the system. it's something we focus on. >> i now want to switch to the issue of cargo security in the final time i have left now that our chairman, the true chairman, has joined us. as you may recall at a hearing that we held in november of last year, i asked you the question that if our government had not received the intelligence tip about explosives hiding in air cargo shipped from yemen, would our current security systems have detected those packaged bomb, and you very candidly

replied that in your professional opinion that we have not. could you bring us up to date on what has been done since that time so that we have better screening in place for cargo? we're always going to need intelligence information. that is absolutely critical, and it's part of the layers approach to the security. it does worry me other than the intelligence tip, that the explosives would have made it to than destination most likely. >> thank you, senator. a great deal has been done both by u.s. government, foreign governments, foreign carriers, cargo carriers, and the international civil aviation organization along with the international maritime organization, world customs organization, and the universal postal union, all the groups working together. as you may recall, i was in yemen five days after this took

place to work with the yemeni authorities, but i issued an amendment that put a ground stop on any cargo coming out of yes . what we have done, i believe very collaboratively is work with industry to assess from a very pragmatic stand point, what can you do today, what can you do in the short term, midterm, and long term in working with us? we can issue regulations day in and day out. the question is what can they practically do that doesn't put a halt to the global supply chain, which we did have a significant impact when we issued -- when i issued those security directives, emergency amendments, so what we have done is work with industry to establish standards well beyond much more rigorous than ours addressing risk mitigation from

a business perspective in addition tot government's perspective. cargo from planes overseas is screened, high risk cargo is screened, and working with industry as to the other portions we divide and work with the customs border protection, advanced targeting system to say there's categories of known shippers and known shipments. those in the unknown category, we have to apply additional scrutiny before it comes to the u.s.. that's what we work through with carriers around the world, frankly, and there's 20 countries accounting for 80% of all the cargo coming into the u.s.. we're working with countries on our national security programs. we already recognized several of those and look to recognize another handful of those in the not too distant future. a number of steps have been taken. >> good to hear. gao, as you know, has been

critical there's still problems with screening palette cargo, and that security we're going to have to work on. i want to turn the hearing back over to the chairman, but tell the chairman that mr. pistole brought out in his public testimony that the tsa is still captureing four to five guns per day as part of its screening of carry-on luggage and passengers and mentioned just yesterday the total was six, and one of those guns was at bradley international airport, and it was a fully loaded gun. i think that's a very good reminder to us that the need is there for screening. >> thanks, senator collins. first, apologies to you, mr. pistole. i had to be on the floor when it

convened at 9:30, and i was just thinking who's the chairman. it's been a pleasure to work with senator collins here regardless of who was in the majority or minority, and i said before all that would change in this session would be the titles we had, so i appreciate her holding the gavel and bringing the hearing to order, and i agree with what she just said. there's a lot of people taking shoes off, coats off, going through the lines saying this is a nuance for what, but when you tell us and the american people there's an average of four to five weapons found every day in airports around the country, it reminds us why, and i hasten to say a traveler can carry a weapon in a checked bag so long as its declared and checked, but these are people boarding the plane with a weapon in their

luggage, four or five every day, so thanks for what you and your folks are doing. the rule of our committee is that the first to arrive goes first, and i think that the chair ought to apply that rule to himself, and so i'm going to call on senator paul, and then i'll come after him. >> thank you, thank you for your testimony. does the tsa examine flight manifests? >> yes. do you know when people come through, you've already looked at whoever is flying that day? someone's looked at that? >> yes. it's under the secure flight program. >> right. there are specific searches, then, targeted someone you've looked at flight manifests to determine they may need extra scrutiny? >> that's the whole basis of the watch list is predicated on knowing who is coming either to the u.s. or flying from the u.s., and so we -- i start every day with an intelligence briefing that looks out 72 hours

in advance saying who are those individuals who are known as select tees on terrorist watch list. there's some information about them or clearly the no-flies who want to fly but can't from the last point of the departure in the u.s. or within the u.s.. >> i was thinking more of like people who have been to yemen two times, and somalia twice not on the watch list, but you want to spend time with them? >> yes. >> that screening is occurring also? >> yes. i'd be glad to go into detailed in a closed setting, senator, in terms of the work we do with the intelligence community. >> i just want to know it's occurring in regime terms. >> yes, yes. >> if you fly in from islam bad to la guardia and then back, do you have screening? >> you have additional screening. >> you do go back? >> yeah. >> out of the secure area with an international flight and then go back to the tsa screening? >> yes, transiting from one point in the u.s. to the other, yes, yes, clearly the enabling

legislation requires us to screen every passenger here in the u.s.. >> and with regard to setting up a frequent traveler program, you say there's a couple airports we're doing it in now? >> four right now, senator. >> and what's the plan for expanding that program? >> we are working closely with both the airlines and the airports. i've met with and talked to two airlines ceos in the last two weeks who are very interested and so it's -- right now, we do it with american and delta, and we're in four of their key airports, so the goal is to, as quickly as we can do it in an efficient way, expand that with airlines and other airports, and so i think -- clearly, there's more airports added in the next several months, but more so into 2012. >> right. nashville airport's not one of those, is it? i noticed there are people going through there, pilots going

through a separate line now. >> as part of the known crew member program -- >> that's a separate program? >> separate apart from the passengers. we have the pilots, the most trusted persons on there, actually we're doing that at seven airports, but as i mentioned, we had over approximately 80,000 pilots going through on the expedited screening process. >> on an airport-by-airport basis? >> it is simply because of the check point configuration layout, and is there an area for a dedicated lane or near the exit lane or something that we can con figure it, but it's in close association with the pilots' association and ata who are doing all of this at no taxpayer expense i would add. >> i just encourage we continue to expand this. it's long overdue. >> thank you, senator. >> and that the smaller we make the hay stack of what we look in, the easier job it is to find people. >> greed. >> and that involved more

priority and targeting folk who is are of risk to us, and anything to do to have less pat downs of 6-year-old girl, and, in fact, no reason we should be doing that. we need to get to that point. with an adult, when an adult goes through, and the images' blurred, can the adult request to go through again? >> the policy is not that. >> i'd changed with adults too. 99.9% of us are not terrorists, let us go back through the machine. you'll get rid of ang #er towards the tsa and what you are doing and give us dignity when we travel. let us go back through the screener, you know? i mean, people don't want to have a pat down. >> yeah. i'll take that back, senator. >> we're made to feel like criminal, and we don't want to be made to feel as criminals. >> the only downside is it slows down the line, and people want to keep moving along.

>> i don't know that it slows it down, and if you give them a choice, they can do a pat down or walk back through. when you ask any questions, you are treated like you're guilty of a crime, treated roughly, and it's like ask any questions, we're invasive. that's the what you get as you go through the airport, but i think we need to try to continue to do what we can to isolate and target who can attack us and make it easier on those who are not going to attack us which is recognizably 99.99% of us are not terrorists, so we have to figure out how to get them through in an expedited fashion in a dignified way. >> that's what this initiative is designed to do, so thank you. >> thank you, senator paul. thank you, director pistole for all the good work you're doing. i'm struck by the example of the

four to five weapons a day seized in the lines, and i think it's very important to the extent that you're able without jeopardizing security to regularly announce to the public, generally speaking, what you're finding because there is a level of impatience. i think people resign the themselves to it, but the average person going through the line doesn't see them get stopped with a weapon, and it's important to remind people why we ask them to go through it. there's the at the same statement of the whole bodying holding machines, and i know from having talked to you, there's occasions when you found things concealed on a person which would not show up in a metallic scanner that could be

very dangerous to the other people on the planes, and so i don't know if you want to respond at all to that. >> i appreciate it, mr. chairman. it is a good reminder. we post some things on our tsa website, and we have a fairly active blog that people interact with us on. one of the keys is not providing too much detail so terrorists go to school on the caibts and not, but clearly, there's the fact we are getting four to give guns every day indicates there's people who are not focused on the security protocols. >> good enough 6789 thank you. yesterday, as you probably know, propublica in conjunction with public broadcasting published an investigative report on back scatter machines, one they had become acceptable 20 use in airports, but the article

summarizes health concerns raised by expermits over the past 15 years about these machines. i wanted to give you the opportunity because i know this has been in the news the last 24 hours, if you choose to respond to these concerns at this time. >> you know, thank you, mr. chairman. i did see the article yesterday, and it does contain a lot of information. i'm not sure all of it is accurate from the stand point of documenting all the different perspectives. clearly, it is an issue that we have looked at and continue to look at and work with safety and health officials to ensure that these back scatter evasive technology machines are as absolutely safe as can be, and all the independent studies done indicate they are well below any of the minimum doses recommended. i take senator collins recommendation to heart to have dhs do an independent study, and

we'll take that up and do it because of the lingering concerns and those who have concern about any additional exposure, of course, what the sign tifng studies we have -- scientific studies we have seen is the same radiation as three minutes of flight, just naturally occurring radiation, one-one thousandth of a chest x-ray. with that said, i'm concerned there's a perception that they are not as safe as could be, and since we are using different technology that's a wave that does not have that same perspective, i'll take that back, and we will conduct on another up dependent study to conduct that. >> okay, thank you. another matter in the news, i'm sure you know over the weekend during the winter storm al fred, there was a nightmarish series of events at bradley airport.

to make a long story short, i and others, have been asking questions of jet blue, the faa, the bradley airport, and the reality was planes couldn't land where they were heading, running out of fuel, and diverted to three airports, one of which was bradley which became very crowded, and they -- all the gates were funnel, making judgments about keeping the runways open, and the worst cases, you know, i'm sure, passengers on that jet blue plane stayed seven hours without food, water, bathrooms not working, a nightmare, and timely, they got a bus to go out to take the passengers off, and they may well be subject -- the airline may be subject to considerable fines as a result of all of that, so that's not directly in tsa's area of responsibility, but i did want to ask whether you might have

contingency plans or should for dealing with an influx of passengers and maintaining security at an airport when flights are unexpectedly diverted from another airport to that airport? >> thank you, chairman. we do, within tsa, have contingency plans, obviously, with more head's up, for example, if there's a hurricane or something like that coming in, there's a national deployment force to actually move individuals on an expedited basis within hours to an affected area that needs additional security regimen either for the passengers or the pilots and crew or the workers and things. we have that capability and use it. used it in hurricane irene, by it's something used going back to katrina is where it stems from, so, yes, we do have that. >> that is preface to an answer to my next question.

it was an international flight, and it raised an interesting question, and i want to ask customs and border corral about it whether the passengers on that international flight were forced to have a plane out there so long they had to be taken off the plane and brought into bradley, and bradley has a sizable personnel, whether there's any way tsa and cbp is work together in the unusual circumstance to process passengers more quickly so they are not forced to stay on the plane for an enormous amount of time because they are on an international flight. >> i -- i know there are some provisions. i don't know the details so i have to look into that and get back you and the committee on

that. for example, if it's a situation where international travelers are trying to get out of the country -- >> right. >> they have been processed, and it's a matter of reprocessing because their flight will not depart, there are some options, but they are limited if there's not a good cbp presence there. >> yeah, and i mean, at bradley, it is an international airport, but all of the scheduled international arrivals currently originate from countries with cbp preclearance stations, so there's not adequate -- it may be a rare circumstance, and the other hand that we've had extreme weather lately, so i just ask you to think about it. >> i'll follow with the commissioner on that and see what the options may be. >> good. thanks. my time is up. senator akaka. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, for holing this hearing on the next wave in aviation security.

mr. chairman, because hawaii is located 2500 miles from the mainland, we have unique transportation needs. hawaii residents and many visitors visitors visitor rely heavily on air transportation traveling between islands and from the mainland or abroad. although, protecting the public is our primary goal, we must ensure that security procedures and technologies safeguard privacy rights, 5e7b -- and are not so burdensome they discourage air travel. i applaud the federal employees who have worked tirelessly to secure our commercial aviation systems since september 11, 2001. as we approach the busy holiday travel season, i hope this hearing will allows to review

whether the work force has the tools they need to meet today's security challenges. administrator pistole, you mentioned this morning that tsa's in the first phase of the expedited screening pilot. i understand that honolulu airport, hawaii airlines are being considered for the second phase of the pilot. in hawaii, many people who take frequent short flights between our islands could benefit from the expedited security procedures. my question to you is how are the decisions being made about which additional airports and airlines will be selected for this second phase of the pilot?

when will those selections be announced? >> well, thank you, senator akaka, and thank you for your support for federal employees. clearly, the goal is to move out as quickly and first timely as possible. there are a number of variables that we are working through, and those includes the airline's capability, their airline information technology systems. because of the way this expedited traveler, the way precheck works, is that we take information that is embedded on the bar code of the boarding pass, which the airlines, of course, produce, and so it shows up in that bar code as the person as a known or trusted traveler if you will. several airlines are going through mergers right now, and so their systems, they are waiting until the systems are merged as opposed to having

different systems that don't talk and then trying to merge them into new ones. those will be after the first of the year. that's one criteria. is the airline ready and capable and all of that? the second is the airports themselves, and the configuration of the check point is a key aspect of the one of the goals of this is to have a dedicated lane for those known trusted frequent travelers such as in global entry or the elite tiers and others we'll look at done the road so they go to a dedicated lane, are identified through the bar code on the boarding pass, and then we have a separate screening lane for them whether they keep a light gadget on, belt on, shoes on, lap top in the case, liquids in the checked bag or the carry-on bag, and, again, keeping random and unpredictable is part of that so to directly answer the question, there's a number of airports and airlines that we

are working with to try to get to that point, so i wanted to manage the expectations as best acan to say -- best i can to say there's no decisions made. i'm waiting on a presentation for that second round, if you will. i will say that i met with ceo of one of the major airlines going through a merger here the week before las, and they are committed to doing it in the first quarter of 2012, and so we use one of the largest airports in the country as the basis for that airline, that merged airline probably in the february-march time for frame, so as soon as we have additional information, i'll get back with you on that. >> thank you so much, administrator pistole. i applaud tsa's increased use of automated target recognition software. atr, so that whole body scanner's no longer generate

sensitive images of passengers' bodies, however, i'm concerned that the back scatter machines, which are not currently compatible with atr, are still used in many airports including some in hawaii. does tsa plan to implement the privacy in enhancing the feature for all whole body scanners, and what is the time line for doing so? >> yes, senator. in fact, we just were approved it acquire 300 more ait machines, and all of those have target acquisition. no new will be without that privacy feature built in. i should note sometime this month whether the manufacturer or the back scatter whether their technology upgrades, if you will, are successful in terms of the depiction through the atr rather than through the

traditional mean, but any new acquisition has that privacy for a filtered in the atr. >> as you know, the asian-pacific economic cooperation summit will be held in honolulu, hawaii, next week. the high profile event will feature president obama and his fellow apec leaders from the asian region. i recently met with security steering committee and two of the command center, and event site. i was very impressed by the planning. my question to you is would you please discuss tsa's role in securing the safe travel of the 20,000 dignitaries and guests flying to hawaii? >> thank you, senator.

obviously, the u.s. secret service and diplomatic service of state department have the lead as far as the dignitaries themselves and their entourage. it's our responsibility, obviously, to ensure everybody traveling to the summit, other passengers and attendees have been screened whether they come from the mainland or those last points of departure to the u.s. that have to meet our standards. that's our responsibility, and then, of course, on departure, all those people go through the tsa security screening. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> thanks very much, senator akaka. senator pryor. >> thank you. let me start by asking about a march 10 inspector general report entighted "acquisition of support services contracts." it's number 0ig10-72.

they make recommendations in there, and i'm curious about your agency, about whether you feel you've made the changes and are complying with the recommendations in that report? >> senator, i think i'm going to have to be refreshed on the specifics of that report. >> it talks about the three million recommendations i was concerned about was to include a review of inherently governmental governments by -- excuse me, inherently governmental functions as part of contracts to the administration, and second would be to establish an evaluation factor and review process for requirements identified in the statements of work, and three, assign dedicated, trains, and certified contracting officers, technical representatives to manage and oversee the contracted administration function. >> thank you, senator, i appreciate that refreshment. we've taken a number of steps relating to support services and contractors, and working within

the framework, the department of homeland security said overall we've conducted review of all of our contractor services, and frankly eliminated a number of positions, a number of other positions that were deemed essential to government services who were converted to federal employees, so the idea is to achieve greater efficiencies in our use of contractor dollars and services. as to the specifics of the acquisition, i think we'd identified some areas of improve. or were identified areas of improvement that we implemented, and i have to get back to you on specifics. >> do you have a dollar figure on how much you saved? >> i don't, but i can get back with you on that. i would also say as part of the internal initiative i started six months ago to look at

efficiencies we could achieve within the agency beyond any iggo recommendations, we have come up with a number of opportunities to create efficiencies, savings, and cost avoidance and things that are all important to us and still provide the same critical security services. it's largely a head quartered focus, efficiency review. for example, i put a freeze on hiring in most positions. i've required additional information about anybody who's at a mid or senior level supervisor position to be sure they have requisite support support services board nants they supervise, and merging i.t. functions, and doing other things internally, additionally from the field perspective, and i recently implemented a decision to change the overall structure where we had 12 area

directors that oversaw the work of the 120 federal security directers for the 450 airports, and i reduced that from 12 to six and regional directors to create figure sighs in that report. >> that's good. i want more on that in terms of how much you think you can save and how the efficiencies work. that'd be great. the next question would be about you know, in the past, tsa invested in technology that did not yield the predicted results, including puffer machines. what criteria do you use in evaluating technology, and then what -- how do you measure whether the technology is going to achieve the an anticipated goals you try to achieve? >> thank you, senator. the first criteria is what does intelligence tell us about how the terrorists are trying 20 hurt us? with that as a starting point,

then we work industry to see what detection capabilities do you have currently, and what are you working on that either others are incentivizing worldwide because of something coming up with the gold standard, it's very important and valuable commodity, so we use those two criteria, and then always push industry to improve the detection capabilities, and, for example, on ait, we work closely with industry, gao, and ig have reports coming out about the detection capability, and there's a distinction between what is the capabilities of the machine vice what may be seen as performance. covert testing and we make that distinction, but it has to be intelligence driven, risk based, and to be sure it's properly

tested and vam dated -- validated not only in the lab with the puffer machines, but then in the airport environment itself which did not happen, and so after the puffer machine issue, we actually created a transportation security immigration facility which i know some staffers and members have been to on the south side of reagan airport here to invite all staffers to come out and tour where we test each new piece of technology in an airport environment to make sure that it works not only properly, but rigorously and all of those standards that is not just in the lab setting. >> uh-huh. >> sounds like 5 lot of that also has to do with -- has to do with training and make sure you have the people properly trained on the machines and all of that. good appointment. hit -- let me ask another question related to training. you expanded on your behavior detection pilot program, and i'd like to know more about that. that seems common sense that,

you know, behavior obviously would be a strong indicator, but does it accommodate cultural differences, language beariers, you know, physical disabilities, mental disabilities, and how do you balance that compared to singling out erroneous, you know, folks, for whatever reason you pick up erroneously? >> right. clearly, training is a key aspect of this expanded behavior detection that we're trying, and it is a proved con cement that we're doing in boston and detroit right now, and i want to get the data from those two airports before i make decisions whether to expand it or not, but we have, of course, the core behavior detection officers we have been using for several years now, and we have taken those individuals who showed the most aptitude and gave them additional training based on some foreign behavior detection models, and those individuals

then engage in just a simple question and answer with passengers in these two airports to make some assessments and judgments as to what that person poses any additional risk. now, in boston, we've had over 150,000 people go through, and just, again, answer basic questions, and we've had probably a dozen or so people referred to law enforcement because of their response, and it turned out some of the individuals had outstanding warrants or were illegal immigrants, so not necessarily tsa issues, but something about the person about why are they agenting nervously or strangely or whatever. as i get the additional information, i'll report back to the committee to say here's what we are finding, and here's what i think would be the best thing to do moving forward, recognizing that a simply one layer security that i don't want to have a single point of failure in the layers, and this

helps us identify the one punitive terrorist, i want to use that. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thanks, senator pryor. senator -- >> [inaudible] >> i was just going to complement you on your good timing. >> [inaudible] >> well, i would -- no, i wouldn't either. [laughter] the late, great, ted kennedy, i watched him in the armed services committee. we have a rule, first come, first called on. arrived a minute or two before the hearing came, and then he'd gavel and disappearment like 30 seconds before it became his turn, he'd reappear. he was maximizing his time. administrator pistole, i thank you, and we have a second panel. it's best we go on. you are doing a great job, and you certainly convinced me that all of the effort we're making continues on a daily basis to be

necessary, and i can't stress it enough, and i know i speak for senator collins, your people are finding four to five weapons every day not in checked bags where they are legal, but people going on the plane. think about what could be done to the other passengers, so what the tsa officers are doing it for the protection of the general public, obviously, i'm -- we want you, and i know you want to do your mission in the most coast effective way -- cost effective way you possibly can with the most technology progressive way, and we thank you for what you are doing. it's just point blank made the u.s., the american people safer than we would otherwise be. ..

of the association of airport executives. thank you all, gentlemen, for being here. we look forward to your testimony. each of you has a unique experience and perspective to add to this discussion has you just heard me say i'm grateful for the work that tsa does, but as somebody said in another capacity, this is a journey without a destination point. in other words we are just going to have to keep getting better and better and better as time goes on. so, let's begin with mr. from

dow. >> thank you, chairman lieberman [inaudible] -- hit the button if you would all you've got a big, strong -- >> [inaudible] >> okay. >> i want to thank you and your dedication as you're about to retire you've shown a bipartisan support for security for this aviation and we are going to miss you. thank you very much. u.s. travel is a nonprofit organization that represents every sector of the $1.8 trillion travel industry which employs one in nine americans, and our mission is simple to increase travel to and within the united states. as you all know trouble was a very powerful engine for increasing economic growth and improving our economy and jobs. justin conn 62,000 americans worked in the industry of connecticut, 8.8 billion directors and 1.4 in taxes. in may and 30,000 citizens of mean work in the industry,

$2.7 billion in revenue and 334 million in taxes. but in every city and state as you look around, these are the travelers support the salaries of policemen, firemen, teachers come all around america, and i think it also attracts priced said investment would be airports, hotels, convention centers, attractions. it helped the community is built. while we talk about aviation security, we often talk in terms of terrorism, personal privacy and technology. and less attention gets paid to the economic damage inflicted by the current inefficiency in the passenger screening process. for the troubled community, which supports urban and rural communities, inefficient screening really causes a staggering cost on the economy, can bring the job creation, hampering growth and the data suggests the problem is actually getting worse. the 2008 survey of the air

travelers show the people take more than one flight a year, 28% said they avoid a flight because of the hassle the door to door hassle of getting through the airport and the lei, etc., and that resulted in 41 million flights not taking or 26 billion to the u.s. economy or 4 billion in taxes. you compare that 26 billion-dollar loss with the 2010 survey that was conducted by the consumer research and as travelers if you knew that you had a predictable screening system would you take more flights and two or three more flights which is 83 billion revenue would support 900,000 jobs. the costs are ballooning at the time we are trying to find fiscally responsible ways of cutting costs and the government and in 2000 for 618 million people went through an airport and in 2010 the 623 million scant 1% improvement of numbers but yet at the same time period the tsa budget increased 68% and

the trend can continue word is going to fall in on itself on the sheer cost and manpower. they predict in ten years it will have a billion travelers so you just think of the cost to keep going and what would happen beyond the empirical there are numbers there's other evidence senator collins said travel every single week. you see the efficiency and the need for reform in the security system and it could really stimulate economic growth. the current system while it reduces threat and ensure passenger safety has also been an efficient and there's a huge hassle factor and we published a report recently and it's called a better way, and we'd brought together in 2009 a panel of bipartisan people aviation security experts chaired by former homeland security secretary tom ridge, former congressman jim turner to review the present process to recommend some of the reforms and creating

more efficient and secure travel focused system. they have over 20 meetings and issued the report to call the better way and you have a copy of it which presents a comprehensive review of what can be done. the report lays out a checklist of the 14 recommendations for the congress and tsa to have a road map for creating a secure and efficient system. i'm going to focus on three of the recommendations in my remarks. first discreet a risk-based traveler program with the of them as traitors book about an second, take steps to decrease the number of the carry-on bags and third, reconstitute the aviation security advisory committee. let's go to the first on the blue ribbon panel said they want to work with congress and tsa to create a risk-based system. the need for that is very clear. the current one-size-fits-all screening really does not meet the needs of the traveling public. travelers that have really had no impact or choice in how the

system works and we have to have security of course but in our view the trusted traveler program will allow travelers to often voluntarily to provide background information and qualify for a predictable expedited system and screening system as long as they meet certain criteria that established for these low risk passengers which would be just about everybody in this true if you think about it. the panel recommends the traveler program and i will go through them. first a secure and accessible program that encourages the verification and entered it as a large number of the enrollees just bought a small number. dedicated screening for travelers as the secretary said is important and the confirmation process ensures these are able to use the money and third a screening process that provides efficiency, security benefits and acceptable level of productivity. we strongly believe those elements can take place not long

after the release the team met with secretary pistole jetblue to get their feedback and at that meeting we learned of several initiatives of their taking that are underway at tsa to have a risk-based intelligence based system and to create the administrator pistole's creating diprete check program. i applaud him for his vision, his leadership and undertaking an effort of launching the check which is an important first step when you look at that that is one of the critical reforms that are very important. i also applaud all of you for taking an interest in this area, and hope we can work with you to begin to oversee and the implementation of the process that is efficient, yet still provides great security. as the administrator mentioned they recently started paycheck and it's going forward with checking or putting passengers in the program who qualify through the airline or through the cbp program in global

intrigue and what it does is it basically allows people to share information from the frequent traveler program other distilled or american deadlines well basically would like to see to allow to get into the program allows people to take their information from multiple airlines, not just to airlines and also use other ways such as commercial data, criminal history and the private registered traveler programs that other people aren't mistreating and enroll those people in the program. the second area we should do is really have a dedicated security lanes. we talked about that. and also, as secretary pistole said, have random security which is very important, but if you are randomly pulled out, you should be able to be expedited and have predictability. the next area of reform that we want to assess this to have passengers be able to check one baghdad no cost.

we are not saying no cost to them. the airline should be able to put into their standard fee for their airline ticket a cost for that bad but if we could reduce the number of bags we would reduce the guns you talk about and reduce the hassle and the ability to go through "the new york times" says 59 million more bags came on in the past year. tsa estimates 87 million in the past year-and-a-half and 29 million more mabus next year. so if we could get one back per passenger people would check them and would improve the system greatly. the last thing i would like to highlight today is the reinstatement of the aviation security advisory commission. this is a place where two decades the faa and tsa but i really build a broad base of people to advise. but unfortunately, as we have seen since 2006 this committee has not met and therefore you cut off the valuable input from the private sector, from the troubled community etc. in july of 2011, the

administrator announced they are going to reconvene this committee and we think that's great and we but we would have to travel community involved so we can have the input of the traveler because we do not believe that having great security and a great customer service for mutually exclusive. you can have both. as asking your support to work and allow us to work with you to have a system that is secure, have trusted travelers and a way to reduce the number of bags going through the system and free in state a broad spectrum of people. thanks for what you do. we appreciate your support. >> thanks, mr. dow for the opening statement and for your kind words. next will be kenneth dunlap on behalf of the international air transport association. chairman lieberman, ranking member collins, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to testify at this hearing.

the international air transport association appreciates the leadership of the senate in addressing this critical issue. it's our hope that the hearing accelerates a much needed dialogue and the future of passenger screening post-9/11 in the united states. our 230 u.s. and foreign member airlines have a vision of the future passenger screenings the space and a paradigm shift in the principle behind the checkpoint operations. we believe next generation chip plants must focus on looking for bad people and not just bad things. and i'd ask that you consider for a moment our vision of an effective airport checkpoint from security enhanced with higher with the devotees of its detection comedies and children's names similar to adults on a no-fly list pass through the screening uneventfully. harmless objects such as to nail scissors and nail clippers don't trigger alarms. in this scenario the airport security checkpoint is no longer a stand-alone line of defense against terrorism but rather

part of an integrated system that uses risk-based analysis as well as advanced screening technology to improve security and the travel experience for the passenger. we call this the checkpoint of the future in many of the key components are available today. but let me stress this is a decision, this is not a vision of moving forward and we simply want to encourage a dialogue on with the next future checkpoints should look like. i think the obvious question is why develop a future checkpoint? as we for aviation remains a target and this was demonstrated by the december 2009 attempted bombing of a northwest airlines flight bound for detroit. second i air travel was forecasted to continue growing into a strip point are showing their age. iata expects an additional 90 million passengers to travel within north america between now and 2014 and 659 million new passengers will travel in the entire world. our long-range projections are

that by 2015 as many as 16 billion people will fly annually. but the evidence shows that this throughput of today's checkpoint is decreasing. our systems just can't handle the traffic. in some places across the globe we've seen a drop in the true put by as much as 50% in the last two years. and third, the aviation security system needs to maintain the confidence of the traveling public. and unfortunately the signs of discontent are growing. passengers are becoming increasingly local but the inconvenience of security measures and the threats to their personal privacy. but let me stop and let me be clear about one thing. we have good systems and we also need a confident public that trusts the authorities. if you have good systems combined with distrustful passengers and crew did a toxic combination and a less secure system. what lessons have we learned in the past decade concerning passenger screening?

first, dropping and technology at the checkpoint won't work. that took place in a new radio and saying you have a new car essentially you just have that same old car. second, object finding serve as well but it doesn't represent the future. if we learn anything in the last decade is that a passenger with two male clippers is not automatically threat to aviation. alternatively, if you find toenail clippers you have not necessarily found a terrorist referred, one-size-fits-all screening has outlived its usefulness over 2.8 billion passengers are screened per year and we can't continue at this pace without using risk-based screening measures. iata strongly supports secretary napolitano and administrator pistole's calls for a screening. iata has been working for the last year-and-a-half on developing a more efficient and more effective relevant passenger screening checkpoint. let me spent the last few minutes remaining discussing the core principles and explain how

we propose turning this into a checkpoint. the checkpoint of the future concept described here relies on two basic concepts. the first is the introduction of the risk-based screening using data from the travel documents to the airline tickets that is already being used by the u.s. government and other governments for customs and immigration purposes. let me just stop again and emphasize this does not involve providing the passengers of any kind we are simply proposing that rather than using this data only at the end of the journey for purposes of border patrol and immigration we should use it at the beginning of the journey for security purposes. the second concept is the use of the advanced screening technology to enable seamless journey through screening without removing items of clothing were unpacking luggage. you might ask what does this look like at an airport. before passengers arriving at an airport checkpoint the passenger will diametrically identify himself or herself and have a

brief encounter with the behavior analyst. the passenger is assigned to a land based on the base of of their electronic screening for random selection. the passenger proceeds to the lane and as screen while in motion. passengers who voluntarily opt into the no traveler program and agreed to provide additional information about themselves would proceed through unknown menchov lurleen. those about whom little is known are those randomly selected would go through an enhanced security lane but let me emphasize all passengers are screened to the baseline and in this concept no one gets a free pass. so where are we and what have we done? iata developed a high level blueprint in the roadmap working with like-minded associations, manufactures, academics and airlines to find this concept and this needs to be a global effort to rid to date iata was endorsed in the global effort to study future checkpoints and interpol and 12 states a signed statement of principle but we are headed in the redirection. now we certainly expect that in

seven to ten years all the necessary components for the long term screening process will be available. but we can read purpose and reintegrate the existing technology into an intermediate checkpoint, that's possible within the next two to three years, and this work checkpoint ase existing hardware to combine several elements of the checkpoint of the future including passenger data already being used by government, behavior analysis and the creation of the new screening lines. iata is committed to making air travel safe, secure and more enjoyable. and in summary we believe the foundation of the check point of the future should be based on the lessons learned since 9/11 and the next generation checkpoint should use passenger data, behavior detection from screen passengers based on risk, provide an uninterrupted journey to aircraft and preserve our investment in existing checkpoints. we will settle for anything less the revolution in the way that our passengers are treated at the airports. thank you very much

mr. chairman. >> thinks mr. dunlap there was really fascinating and you have helped us no pun intended to look over the at least in terms of security at the airport, so i have some questions to ask when we get to that. finally, charles barclay on the association of airport executives think you for being here. >> thank you mr. chairman and ranking member call once it's always a privilege to be here and i just going to take a very brief time to make a general points from the testimony. the first is airport executives strongly support risk-based security. we congratulate administrator pistole and his team for bringing that concept for word. it's something we have to have for the future as you heard. we support pre-check and encourage its expansion at airports are eager as well as

airlines to be sponsors of that program and local areas. we would encourage the committee to encourage tsa to move as quickly as they can from the pilot programs to further deployment of diprete check. the rationale on the risc based security we think is pretty simple. you have to look for dangerous people, not just a dangerous things in the future. we have to identify the best majority of people traveling who are not a threat to the system so we can focus our limited resources on the people we don't get to that in advance and then finally, the resources and facilities if we continue the current system of treating everyone the same or going to be simply overwhelmed by passenger growth. so, we have to make changes and

modernize risk-based security is not a compromise in our point of view when you think about the philosophy a dangerous person with nothing on them that we've at four and screen for is a danger to the system, and people with no bad intent with lots of dangerous things on them are not a threat to the system so we need a future security system that implements that understanding. my second general point is that airports are unique partners of tsa. they are all branches of local government, local or state preachers. they all have a local police power and all of branches, divisions or special units that have people with precisely the same incentive as the agents of the federal law enforcement.

my point for emphasizing that is that we have today a division of responsibility, local governments from airports handle local law enforcement are responsible for things like perlmutter, security, the front line vetting and credential incident response and other areas we mentioned in our testimony we strongly believe those should stay with local law enforcement that tsa should not to go for those areas because you have a partnership between federal law enforcement and local law enforcement in these areas. we need both of them not focus on each other, you don't want the good guys spending a lot of time and energy watching each other as a regulator and a regulating entity we want them both pointed out towards looking for bad guys and we think it is

a key element of having a partnership on security between the local law enforcement and tsa as opposed to having them take over more areas. tsa has its hands full with vetting and screening passengers and cargo and we want to see them do that well. it keeps our congress moving into our system moving and we are looking forward in the future system to be in partners with tsa and hope to carry out that mission as well as we can. both groups will make mistakes. we both have to learn from those mistakes and get better as time goes on but local law enforcement and airports are there to be of help and there is no higher priority in our view than the safety of the local citizens they work for.

thank you and i'd be happy to answer any questions from the testimony. >> thank you very much. very interesting testimony. all of you have used, and administrator pistole as well use the term risk-based security. does everybody agree that what we are saying is that risk-based intends to focus looking for dangerous people as opposed to dangerous things which is the focus of the current system, right? i presume none of you would say we should stop looking for dangerous things; is that correct? >> yes i think personally we have to look for dangerous things but there's ways to do that if you take trusted travelers and the go through a machine that detect explosives that's fine but the question is to make it much more efficient to focus on the dangerous people and the dangerous things. >> what's good to the point of

the administrator pistole's testimony that both senator collins and i responded to. so you got an average of four or five guns found in baggage that people are sending through the line to carry on and i presume most of those are not terrorists or for one reason or another people wanted to carry the gun on me because it was their sense of how they protect their own security. but, presumably if you didn't have that kind of screening for dangerous things somebody in fact was a terrorist would be able to carry the weapon on. so what i'm getting at is -- and i know it's hard to do everything and i support moving to the rest base for the dangerous people, what we are not at a point where we can ignore looking for a dangerous things, are we mr. dunlap? >> mr. chairman i think that presumption is everybody does in

fact screened. the guns will be found, but in the new paradigm some people will get screened more and if you have the opportunity to do things like enhance security you can scream a population of people a little bit more thorough. if we start with the presumption that there is a baseline than to address your point those that objects are going to be found as well but they won't be the entirety of the focus of checkpoint screening experience because again, if used in your resources looking for toenail clippers and scissors you're not spending enough time looking for the ied components. >> that's a good approach in other words, the risk-based is in some sense on top of the more efficient application of the existing system. i've noticed in the vision of the future you have even been known travelers have been pre-checked etc and they go through a metal detector and

walk through that particular tunnell. go back a little bit because it is intriguing to look at your vision. i know you quoted some numbers, but how close are we to that? it's pretty attractive people walk through presumably that's it, and how close are we technologically to that? >> senator, if you look at the intermediate checkpoint that was the last slide detected we are within two to three shares of that. everything we need to deploy the more effective security system and efficient using the existing equipment is there today. so within about two years we can have the deep would to any airport in use passenger data which we have today, the heat your detection today, screen passengers based on risk we can do today and then if you push the future out and you look at the tunnels of technology that we are developing, the one thing that we need is an explosive

detection that is performed while a person is in motion that is probably seven to ten years on the horizon and we certainly can't do that today. we are encouraged is that the manufacturers we are working with are telling us that that vision is far closer than what we realize. so obviously technology grew exponentially if we have a plan that preserves the current capital investment in our checkpoints, rearranges a little bit better when the time comes from tsa to make a decision what will we spend money on the next that all the technology and all the pieces for the technology and checkpoint of the teacher will be there so we think it is realistic and its science fact not science-fiction. sprigg is there a lot of work going on in the private sector to develop these technologies? this is a very significant global market i would think that people would be investing in. are they? >> absolutely. we know from our experience of

the manufacturers that all of these advanced technologies are currently under study. but the problem that we have righty is that every regulator a technology standards something certified in the united states might not be accepted in the european community. it might not be accepted in australia so there is a good effort and i would like to play a lot of credit to the tsa for working with like-minded countries to come up with a global standard. so, if we have global standards of detection, that will accelerate and incentivize the manufacturers to invest in the technology that we need and then also i think having a common vision, you know, what does the future look like, that can also incentivize the goal was to be directed into a more predictable vision and a more compact vision of what we need to have in our airports. >> i appreciate that. mr. barclay, let me ask this as you know tsa's pilot program has

led to a separate line for trusted travelers at this point the wine is managed by either delta or american airlines. it you think this format will be successful if it expands to incorporate more passengers and airlines or should tsa be looking for another of ministry of means to expedite the screening of people? >> of the airports you have totally different facilities in each of the four injured 50 airports, and so the airports have been concerned about continuing to have the ability to manage the queues and if you've been through denver the of a great big hole in the airport actually needs to manage the use in the lines because the nature of the facilities and that's going to be true in other airports particularly as the passengers grew, so we are going to have to have a partnership to figure it out as to how we make

the land available for the members to strongly support the idea of the check we are going to do our best with facilities, but there is going to be queue management and airports are going to have to be central to that. >> if i can add one comment i believe having simply an airline frequency program isn't enough through the registered traveler programs out there date of the criminal records we can build a much broader base and that is what we are saying need to be done there are a lot of travelers and folks like us to our trusted and if you have a long line that is what goes into the problem when they are trying to push people through during the peak time but when you have problems, so if you can eliminate that you have a much better chance of finding that needle in the haystack thinks. my time is up. senator collins?

>> mr. dunlap and very intrigued by your proposal with the security screening based on the risk and i do think that we need to move towards a more risk-based system. and tsa is doing that to administrator pistole's credit. i am, however, somewhat worried about the proposal and it's for this reason. if there is anything that we know about al qaeda it is that its members have demonstrated extraordinary patience over the years customer and wondering if we move to this system what would prevent an al qaeda operative perhaps someone like the town square bomber would be bomber who was an american citizen from traveling a lot, registering for the known trawler program, passing the

background check which he would have by everything we know and just biding his time and then if he is only going through a lean in that does an x-ray of his carry-on and then have him go through a metal detector, he could be lining his arms and legs with petn which would not show up at that is my worry. we know the patients. think of the number of years that elapsed between the first attack on the world trade center and the second, and we know the careful planning. so, what is your response to that? >> center, we are acutely aware of the patience of ever adversary and that is why we

believe that regardless of the conduct every passenger needs to be screened for explosives, the need to be screened for weapons as well. so we established a fairly high baseline within our concept to make sure that no one gets a free pass. everyone is going to get screened. every one of the interesting things about the proposal whether you look at the lane four the tunnell all that in corporate process these that have been demonstrated to work already. so we have been known the traveler lane, we have the pre-check plan that tsa is piloting right now which is an analog and we've global entry which is analog and you can go for a century and nexus program as well. so there is a demonstrated history that those types of programs work. on the other hand if you take a look at the high-security leyna, that occurs in every year poured in the world right now. in the u.s., dimaci class deutsch and within that class deutsch you have a passenger getting down or have some other extraordinary security measures

being taken to them, so our concept, it may look a little bit far forward with that is what happens when you try to integrate things that are happening today in one place. but, you know, certainly we don't want anybody to get a free pass, and we got anybody to walk through not getting screening. everybody needs that when they get on an airplane. >> although the known traveler gets screen to come as assuming i am reading your passport correctly the baggage is screened through the x-ray machine and the passenger goes through a metal detector but there would not be the kind of screening is done with them ait or atr where do it si nonmetallic explosives concealed on the body. is that correct? >> if you will get our concept over the next seven years, it is to in fact develop the walk through explicit screening, walk

through imaging so that can be done without a person having to spend 45 seconds of their time with their hands in a position like this getting screened and then going through the resolution process. if you take a look what we are proposing in two to three years, we are talking about taking existing equipment, ordering it and making it a little bit more efficient because, you know, in the end the efficiency to be gained are by not having shot often the airport checkpoint saying take this back, take this passenger and move them aside because that slows down the lane. so, i think -- and i confidently believe in this we can establish a high enough the slang to mature security but also to do something and that is to take the level of detection that we have right now, whatever that number is that the committee has and we can raise it even higher because we can direct our screening resources on those people that we know less about, the least about and those who

appear on the watch list or another type of security list that tsa has. >> could buy at one point? one of the things all security tell us that detour these long-range planning as random and when you have a random system which secretary pistole adds, that enables to thwart that in a very big ways we are exporting again being able to go through this and have the randomness but when you have the random traveler, through mcgeorge you are able to get them through that secondary in the third screening efficiently so the reminiscences very critical. >> mr. barclay, my last question is for you. earlier this year administrator pistole decided not to approve an expansion of the screening partnership program spp which allows private screamers to

operate at 16 airports. what is your assessment of the decision? >> our members support a voluble and voluntary program, so we would like to see revisiting the decision. most of the airports are not to read some 16 out of 450. there are a few others interested. but having it out there is an option is something that our members support. >> thank you. thank you mr. chairman. >> thanks very much, senator collins. >> mr. chairman, thank you. mr. speaker, you estimated at the peak times is when there are problems. can you tell me with the problems are, we are talking about is more likely someone who is a security risk well me get through security or the problems related to the traveling public. >> the problem actually is both. one, the traveling public you create when you have an unpredictable system, you take the efficiency and the

productivity of the american workforce away because you have to go through the hour and a half of advanced if you knew you had 15 minutes you could get their 40 minutes in advance. but what happens during the peak time period is the crowd gets big and you can see the urgency began among how we handle the crowd, people try to move lines and all that, so if you are a bad person you probably want to go through the peak areas so we are saying let's not have those large lines and create the incentive to try to get people through fast because it doesn't work what's good and efficient system at all hours. 64. mr. dunlap, are there countries that we need to have concerns about the standards when the passengers are screened and security procedures occur the pure traveling around the globe held uniform are the standards by which the travelers are having to comply? >> let me start with what i think is a very positive story

that needs to be discussed. globally the level of security across the board has been encouraged to lead to increased immeasurably because of the investment of the organizations such as the international civil aviation organization and their efforts to raise the aviation standards but individually the countries have looked at the united states, have looked at other regulators and have increased their own level, so in terms of are we much safer globally than what we were immediately after line 11 and a quickly, yes. what i would say is if there are countries that are of worry, the best source of who they are and who their names would be would be with the intelligence community, and we trust that the men and women of the tsa have identified those countries and have put in place procedures to deal with those additional threats they might have i wouldn't be the intelligence specialist the would be able to name those countries.

>> thank you. mr. barclay a little on chairman lieberman's question he raised with you about american and delta, and i think that your answer was we would like to have airports that have a lot of authority of those decisions how we manage the program. you all have worked out the public-private partnership in regards to airport employees and their passage through security. has that worked well? is that what you were referring to when you were answering senator lieberman's questioned? >> they are separate because -- but related to the extent that airports are experienced and do know how to do employees bidding they would like to be sponsors of local project programs so that we get a program where in addition to the airline signing of people's frequent-flier programs the airports could have

an opportunity to have passengers show up and do the bidding necessary and help people to get enrolled who are not part of the frequent-flier programs so airports of experience and how to get that information into tsa and we have the members when after nine the leffinge you may remember that there was a privately run registered traveler program that was sponsored by the airports and over 20 airports sign up for that and enrolled over a quarter of a million people also airports would like to be part of pre-check. the item that you mentioned on the clearing house is one that we have since 9/11, before 9/11 only about 10% of employees had to be -- had to get craughwell history record checks from the fbi coming in there was a nightmare.

it was taking over 50 days to get a background check through the process because they were going through opm and it wasn't set up to deal with outside entities outside of the federal government. they were losing accounting records. before 9/11, we had researched that the bankers association for banking employees was doing criminal history record checks and had a clearing house to make them work smoothly for their industry. that is what we set up in cooperation at a time and the airports. we have since that 8 million back crounse. it hasn't cost the federal government a penny compared to the program which is costing hundreds of millions and has visited 2 million we've reduced the 50 days which is what is

important to an industry that is 24/7 needs to get employees vetted and out on the front lines as quickly as possible to do that in a safe fashion, and it's really been a model of the public and private partnership that has worked very well. the reason that they got involved in that originally they ran the security back then and jane garvey who was the administrator selected us to do that because it was a quote model. we of the customers of the clearing house are also the owners. airport executives from the clearing house and make the decisions about its charges and operations, and they are also the customers on the other end. so, that was the reason that we got into that program to begin. >> and that program has worked well? >> very well. and tsa is satisfied.

>> they are, and they have moved in the last year to introduce competition come so airports will have a choice of other vendors that can also do those clearinghouse services, and we want to complement tsa because they have moved on the carefully to make sure that you didn't undo a program that was working while you have introduced more competition to it. so, aviation workers, and like truckers or court authority workers who only have one program to go through and it is federally controlled aviation workers are going to continue to have a variety of options to go through and they are in a program that costs about one third for the employee of what it costs a trucker to get their bet done or a port worker to get in there is done. so it is a very efficient system and one that we would like to see tsa continue. >> thank you. mr. chairman?

>> thanks, senator. senator landrieu? >> thank you. i think this is a very important hearing and i just want to highlight to the committee's detention five items that are in the homeland security appropriations bill that will help expedite some of what the testimony is here. we had in the senate bill, mr. chairman, $10 million for tsa to begin to implement the known traveler trusted traveler program in the senate bill not unfortunately in the house bill a requirement for the tsa to improve its responsive to passenger complaints along with the gao review of existing procedures as in the senate bill not in the house bill. report language correcting tsa to improve training to address passengers with physical or mental disabilities occultism, which is not in the house bill but in the senate bill 311 million above the 11 little to add 175 new behavior

detection officers. again it is in the senate, not the house, and the requirement that tsa of the fy 13 budget requests documents resource allocation on the basis of risk which is very important now there may be others. this is just a short list i had my staff put together because the operation that happens is extremely important but if it is not funded it can't get down and so i want to just thank mr. dow and mr. dunlap in particular for the input of your organizations have given us both that this committee and in our appropriations process i really believe that your association can help us lead the way to the future we can have a very secure system but also a system that is much less intrusive than the one we have now come and watch less low wording of the inconvenience that is in the frustration that is associated with traveling today.

and just for the record, mr. chairman, i want to put into the record according to a 2010 survey by the consensus research concluded that american travellers would take an additional two to three additional flights each year if the hassles of security screening worry eliminated that were translated into an additional 85 billion in the consumer spending, and 900,000 jobs created in the united states. so, this is an area of interest to us all in a variety of the security and the safety of our nation to prevent against the attacks but for the states that are represented that is in the large measure dependent on the traveling public we are a destination, an international destination as many communities in the united states we rely on the international traveler for business. it's just imperative that we get

quickly to this next future checkpoint. so i want to think you'll and look forward to working with you. my question is on checked baggage because i intended mr. chairman and ranking member to file a bill to require the airline for every ticket purchased for a seat that your seat comes with a privilege to check one bad without cost to the public. the airlines want to write it into the ticket cost that's fine but this is pushing so many bags into as you all testified in to the carry-on. i understand that cost and as my staff will find this document when a secretary in the public, testified before our committee she testified that their internal study indicated that a cost tsa about $279 million more because of the baggage,

mr. chairman, not been checked and been carried on. is that your understanding the u.s. independent data? i will start with you mr. dunlap and mr. dow. >> it is certainly a very interesting question. what we do is look of a global trends. if you take a look globally at what is happening to checkpoints the fact that they are slowing down and getting passengers more inconvenient that is happening regardless of whether or not local business model includes some sort out the card pricing which is always being for driving more bags into the checkpoint. if you take a look at what is happening over time, iata as far back as 2005 so the alarms the checkpoints were slowing down. so as you recall in 2005, as a carte pricing or any other pricing models that were discussed the really didn't exist in any major business models of all. and then i think the last thing that you need to consider is

what has been happening at the security checkpoints over the last several years? shoes have been coming off, liquids are being set aside a come and now you have the body scanners where passengers have to take everything out of their pockets. in all deference to the dhs report, there are other factors responsible for the passenger puts the bag in the cabin or put the bag into the valley of the aircraft. >> mr. speed? >> yes, senator, you need to very important points. one was on a checked bag is. our research says if people knew they could check a bag it was included in the price of their ticket, two-thirds would to sell, and you're point is right. we can't dictate the pricing to an airline we certainly can dictate that they would include that with help.

the second point i thought was outstanding is the thing on customer service. we need to measure, tsa needs to measure not only security with customer satisfaction and efficiency not on an average but peak times you have those measurements we can look at them and know that we are satisfied in the customers while improving security. >> mr. chairman i am very focused on this issue because i think that it's pressing the public's anxiety and dissatisfaction with government generally. as mr. chairman, i know it is not the purview of this committee and its and commerce but if we don't do something, the airlines are going to sell a ticket to a flavor and you are not going to get a seat. you are going to stand on the airplane and then have to pay extra for the cushion and i have about had it. okay? you don't get anything to eat, you get virtually nothing to drink at least they give you

water a coke or a seven-up. everything else costs. i think the american people deserve when they purchase a ticket for an airline you get one of bag that you can check in that ticket price and you absolutely get a seat and a glass of water. that should be the minimum federal requirements, and i am going to push very hard to see that that is done. in addition let me ask one final question to the airline. mr. barclay, i flew in from israel last week and got to the newark airport and was not able to use my cell phone from the time i exited the plane until i got i guess outside the building. is that the rule of each individual airport or is that the tsa rule or where does that come from and are you aware of it? >> i will check on that and get back to you with the folks i

presume it was just a usage problem -- >> absolutely not. it was a restriction. no one could use a cell phone from the time they got off the plane until they got their luggage through customs and then out into the daylight which to me when you have business travel the first thing people want to do when they've been traveling for 13 hours on an international flight is like checking with the office to see what they've missed etc., etc.. i wish that mr. dow and dunlap will decide what with a security requirement is for not being able to use cellphone were texts and by the way mr. chairman we waited an hour and ten minutes for our luggage after a 13 hour flight so the airports are going to getting letters from me about the baggage handling issue as well and it is very

disappointing. as much as we can make the travel experience safe and convenient, it has to do with the way they check in their flight and they're upset and this is getting worse and worse as the entrance and we have got a long way to go. i know that i exceeded my time. thank you mr. chairman. >> senator if can i been told that is a cdp rule that you are not allowed to use a cell phone on the air rifles and you could go back to them. >> we will take -- i was going to tell you if we are on the same flight together i will give you my seat >> i also want to thank you for what you are doing to help improve the visa process because it starts when people start planning to come here and the work you're putting forward is going to make a huge difference in our economy. thank you. >> thanks, senator landrieu. senator carper.

>> thanks for joining. senator lieberman and senator collins, senator brown and i have a conference in about five minutes on the postal service, so i am going to be very brief in fact i am going to pose a couple of questions and ask you to respond for the question. the question for mr. dunlap, i was intrigued by your discussion and images of the checkpoint of the future. the concept seems simple enough and that is risk-based screening driven by information that we already collect from the passengers. the use of advanced screening technology, separate lanes for different types of passengers. this kind of checkpoint i think could save travelers countless hours and ultimately increase the travel industry and the local economies. here is my question but given the financial challenge that we face as a nation, what would the checkpoint of the future likely

cost taxpayers and where there are programs and technology is in place right now that can be seamlessly integrated into your vision so that's my question to read this one for the record. maybe one more for the record. this would be for all of the witnesses for you and mr. dow and mr. barclay. >> in your testimony, you discover how the current one-size-fits-all screening process american airports does not meet the needs of either or travelling public, and i think you also noted that we need to move to a system that detects dangerous people went to the dangerous things. and as you know, this committee has continually challenged the government officials to work smarter with federal dollars and try to find efficiencies and other government programs without compromising security so i will give better results for the same amount of money with out sacrificing. i understand that tsa has

delivered a pilot to help expedite the flow with trusted account travelers you've had some discussion today that there is still much room for growth and improvement. can you discuss on the record for me the challenges that tsa faces as it expands the pilot and have the industry can help find solutions to these issues? i will have one more i'm not going to mention it today but another for the record as well of you could respond to this point we i would be most grateful. >> let the record show this is as brief as i have ever been in q&a. [laughter] >> i agree. >> senator carper i appreciate very much and thank you your testimony has been very helpful. we've come a long way. we are in a new agent is no fun, but as we have all said the enemy is out there and is persistent and they continue to

be attracted to air travel as a way to attack us and hurt us and we are trying hard to protect the american people when the trouble because the worst for the airline business would be if people felt on safe. but i think increasingly under the administrator pistole we are trying to leverage new technology, but also moved into on top of the basics the risk-based approach and that is what i think all three of you are asking. so komondor records, your statement or in the record in full. we are going to keep the record in this hearing open for another 15 days for any additional questions or statements on either side of the bench but i think you very much for what you do every day and for the thoughts and effort you put into your testimony this morning. with that, the hearing is adjourned. >> thank you.

>> [inaudible conversations] .. >> a group of supports

unveiled a plan today to try to keep the u.s. postal service financially solvent. that is next on c-span2. house republicans have been critical of the newly created consumer financial protection bureau. that hear something later this hour. on tomorrow's "washington journal" a discussion with massachusetts congressman jim mcgovern about government funded food and nutrition programs. house financial services committee member, congressman bill huizenga, work on the joint deficit reduction committee and europe's debt problems. later a discussion on the history of vaccines with dr. stanley plotkin of the university of pennsylvania. "washington journal" each morning at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> would you continue your statement please. you will receive the answer in the due course. >> i'm prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over if that's your decision.

>> a bipartisan group of senators unveiled legislation today trying to fix the postal service's financial problems of the bill would keep saturday mail delivery for at least two more years, encourage cuts in post office staffing and reduce payments to the postal service retirement system. senators joe lieberman, susan collins, tom carper and scott brown held a 40-minute news conference on their plan. >> we're confident will pull the united states postal

service back from the brink of bankruptcy and secure its financial health into the future. we're introducing this legislation today and plan to mark it up before the full homeland security and governmental affairs committee next wednesday. five years ago senator collins and carper led congress in the adoption of postal reform legislation. they have been the real leaders in this area who have devoted a lot of work to trying to rescue the postal service. this year senator brown and i have joined them in proposing this legislation which really is an effort to rescue the u.s. postal service which needs a fundamental restructuring of the way it meets its obligations to its customers including individual and business mailers and to its employees. if our rescue legislation is

adopted, we're confident that the u.s. postal service, a great, iconic american institution founded in the 18th century along with the country it seven, will survive and flourish through the 21st century and beyond. the fact is too many people still rely on the postal service for us to sit back and allow it to collapse. despite a 22% in mail volume since 2007, think about that for a business. at 22% drop in mail volume in the last four years. the postal service will still deliver 167 billion pieces of mail this year. it is the second largest private sector employer in our country. i say that because it is a public/private institution, separate from the government.

second only to wal-mart, and has 557,000 full-time career employees. it also has over 32,000 post offices which means that the postal service actually has more domestic retail outlets than wal-mart, starbucks and mcdonald's combined. the financial health of the u.s. postal service has been deteriorating for years but the rapid changeover in everybody's lives to electronic communications, combined with the recent economic downturn in our country have swept our postal service into a financial death spiral. in this fiscal year alone, 2011, the postal service in july told our committee that it faced a total loss, a deficit this year, of $8

billion. by september it revised its estimate and now says it will lose $10 billion. the postmaster general has told our committee unless he gets new authority from congress, the postal service will run out of money to deliver the mail by sometime next summer. that's why we're introducing this comprehensive legislation to put a number of cost-saving measures in place which my colleagues will discuss in some detail in a moment. i want to say that we know that many of these proposals are going to be controversial because they include reducing the number of postal facilities in our country, both post offices and distribution centers. reducing the number of people who work for the post office and altering some of the delivery schedules that the post office follows now.

but without taking controversial steps like these, the postal service is simply not going to make it. and that would be terrible. we're pursuing broad changes in this legislation rather than working around the edges to put the postal service back on a real road to recovery. in other words if we worked around the edges and then had to come back again in a couple of years it just wouldn't solve the problem. the problem probably would be worse. the postmaster general has been very clear to us. that he needs the ability to cut $20 billion from the postal service as annual budget. and we're giving him and his employees, what we believe are the tools to achieve that significant amount of savings. the bottom line is we must act quickly to prevent a postal service collapse and

all the awful effects it would have on our economy, and the quality of life of the people of this country and we've got to act boldly to secure the postal service's future. as i mentioned a few moments ago, the u.s. postal service, was founded in the 18th century, but the more you look at it, the more you appreciate that the post office is not an 18th century relic are. it is a great 21st century national asset, but times have changed and they're changing today rapidly and so too must the u.s. postal service if it is to survive. i want to again thank senator collins and senator carper for their leadership in this area and to say how pleased i am, and i know we all are, that in the tradition of our committee, we've achieved a bipartisan agreement here. we're going to be battered probably from all sides when

we go forward with this but it is really a national problem. >> you will get used to it. [laughter] >> believe me, i am used to it. but, but, this is a national problem and we're not going to solve it by playing partisan politics or being rigid about a particular remedy that each one of us have and that's the spirit that has propelled our discussions to this point. so i want to thank my colleagues really for all that they have done, particularly want to thank all of the members of our respective staffs who, if you look at the them carefully are suffering from sleep deprivation and other ailments associated with being asked to do a lot of work in a short time. senator collins. >> thank you, mr. chair. first, let me say how much i appreciate the hard work of chairman lieberman, senator carper, senator brown that

has brought us here today. it has taken a great deal of hard work but have developed a bipartisan agreement that would put the postal service back on a sound financial footing. this bipartisan legislation gives the postal service the authority it needs to restructure, modernize, survive and thrive and i want to emphasize a point that senator lieberman made. we are not crying wolf here. the postal service literally will not survive unless comprehensive ledge ship and minute -- legislative and administrative reforms are undertaken. absent action, the postal service will not be able to meet its payroll a year from

now and that's why we worked so hard to come together to develop a bipartisan bill in contrast to the approach taken by the house. i also want to make the point that the postal service is absolutely vital to our economy. jobs are at stake. the postal service is the lynchpin of a $1.1 trillion mailing industry that employs approximately 8.7 million americans in fields as diverse as direct mail, printing, paper manufacturing, catalog companies, the list goes on and on. in fact yesterday i met with a group that included nonprofit organizations,

paper manufacturing companies, and ebay, which tells you something about the reach of the postal service. in her bill we are asking the postal service directing the postal service to make some painful choices to reduce its costs and not simply to slash services and raise prices. that approach would only produce a death spiral by driving away more customers and thus causing the postal service to lose even more volume. no one will be happy with all of the provisions in our bill, least of us, least of all the four of us but that is almost always the case when painful decisions are required. let me just outline a few of

the provisions that are in our bill. first under our bill the postal service would receive a repayment of nearly $7 billion from the office of personnel management that is due to overpayments that the postal service has made to the federal employee retirement system. everyone agrees that this is an overpayment. gao, opm, and all of us. with part of that overpayment we would authorize the postmaster general to initiate a compassionate buyout program. the postmaster general believes using this buyout program he could reduce the number of employees by

approximately 100,000 workers. second, we would change the amortization schedule that was set up in our 2006 law to help pay the unfunded liabilities for retiree health benefits. what essentially we would do is stretch out the am mortgagization schedule -- amortization schedule so the annual payment would be less and more manageable but we also give the postmaster general an option that he has requested and that is to negotiate with the postal union to try to reach an agreement within the next two years on an alternative health care system that would be less expensive, and that would greatly lower that unfunded liability.

third, we would prohibit the implement take -- implementation of a reduction to five-day delivery for the next two years. at that point five-day delivery could only be implemented if the postal regulatory commission verifies that gao assessment that the postal service has implemented cost-cutting reforms, and savings are still not sufficient to restore the postal service to financial viability. what we want to do is to insure that slashing or eliminating saturday service is truly the last resort, not the first option. this is so important to our newspapers, to rural areas

which lack access to broadband, and to seniors who receive prescription medicines through the mail. we also are concerned an immediate move to eliminate saturday delivery would cause more businesses to leave the mail system. and once they're gone, they're not coming back and the postal service revenues would suffer yet another blow. those are just some of the provisions that are in our bill. i do want to touch on just one more before turning over the podium to my colleague, senator carper, because this is one that i have been pushing for for a long time. we need a complete overhaul of the federal and postal

employees workers' compensation program. just to show you how out of control this program is, the postal service currently has more than 2000 employees age 70 or older, who are receiving higher payments and tax-free payments on workers' comp than they would under the standard postal retirement program. it is obvious that that is not the purpose of workers' comp. it is supposed to be a safety net program that helps injured workers by providing them with income while they're out of work, and gives them rehabilitation services so that they can return to work. one postal employee is actually 99 years old, and

is still receiving workers' comp. he is not ever going to return to work. and should be either, on a lower benefit so it is more comparable to what a retired worker would receive or switch to the retirement program. i'm pleased we were able to reach agreement. those reforms that we're proposing will save the postal service in total, when you look at all of the reforms, hundreds of millions of dollars a year, in workers' comp costs alone. the postal service is now spending more than a billion dollars a year on workers' comp payments. much of it is appropriate and needed but much of it is not. knows are just some of the reforms that are in our

bill. there are many others because this is a very comprehensive bill but again our goal is a thriving postal service that is financially stable and able to serve america in the 21st century. thank you. >> thanks, senator collins. senator carper, apart from being the lead on this for year is the chairman of the relevant subcommittee and senator brown is the ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome one and all. it has been a joy to work with senator collins for the last five, actually six years on postal issues to make sure we have a vibrant postal service going forward into the 21st century. delighted to be with here with our chairman and thank you for his leadership and be here with scott brown who joe has said ranking member of subcommittee. the subcommittee has jurisdiction over the postal service. i want to have, three, maybe four points. first point is, can we

govern? can we still govern in this country? are we capable here in the senate and the house to tackle big problems and to solve them? this is a big problem and this is problem we can fix and we believe that it the blueprint we lay out here today is a great road map to that solution. the consequences, second issue consequences of doing nothing. the consequences of doing nothing, let me put them in a job perspective. we're trying to do everything we can to save jobs in this country. trying to do a lot to preserve jobs. there are seven million jobs that flow from the postal service. direct and indirect jobs. seven million jobs. half million jobs associated with people who work for the postal service. another roughly seven million flow from the work that the postal service does. i want to dwell a little bit how we get into this mess and draw a parallel i could with the situation with the postal service and the auto industry which almost went down here in this country about three years ago. and last thing, just to build on what senator collins said and senator

lieberman said how do we get out of this mess or how do we help the postal service get out of this mess? really the answer flows from old home depot ad campaign. remember the old home depot ad campaign, you can do it we can help. in this case the postal service can do. the postmaster general, his team, stakeholders have a pretty good idea how to get out of this situation and our responsibility is to help. one of the ways we help the most choosing not to be a 535 member board of directors of the postal service. they have their own board of governors. they don't need 535-board member of directors. not everything but part of what we need to do is get out of the way and let them do what they know they need to do all the time invoking what i describe golden rule, treat other people the way we want to be treated. that includes residential customers, business customers. includes the employees of the postal service and it

includes taxpayers. how do we get -- let me go back a few years if i can. not long ago, couple years ago, my mom and dad passed away. my sister and i were in their home looking through all kinds of stuff. you may have done this before with your family. we found a treasure trove of letters they sent back and forth during world war ii. they wrote like every other day to each other from hither and yon. and saved those letters. when i was in southeast asia back in the early 1970s we couldn't wait for mail. it was best day of the week. and we're just, sometimes, joe and susan and scott and i go to afghanistan or iraq. our troops still get the mail. you know what else they use? they use skype. they use facebook. they use twitter. they use the phone, cell phones. they use the internet the way we communicate is so different today. i don't know more graphic demonstration than that. if we go back to when i was

in southeast asia, the u.s. auto industry had 85% market share here. ford, chrysler, gm, 85% market share. 2009 when we almost lost them all, their market share was under 50%. the auto industry said, we have three challenges here. number one, we have more employees than we need. number two, we have more auto plants than we need. number three we have mismatch between the wage benefit structure of big three compared to the competition especially given the market share we enjoyed in 2009. they said we need to address those three things. we need to right size the enterprise. they asked from us not a bailout. they asked us for really investment. we made that investment. it has been repaid for the most part with interest. the situation in the postal service is actually quite similar to what the auto industry faced here in this country three years ago. postal service has given their market share today. they have more employees than they really need. they have more post offices

than they really need. they have more processing centers than they really need. and they're not asking for a bailout as senator collins says. what they're asking for is a refund of a $7 billion overpayment into the federal employee retirement system. we believe we ought to allow them to do that. provide in some cases bonus payments for people. there is 125,000 thousand postal employees eligible to retire. 125,000 out of the 550,000 on the payroll. we want to give the postmaster general his team the tools to incentivize people to go ahead and retire. bonus payments could be 10, 20, $25,000 much like the auto industry did. could be ability to offer extra credit time, credit service in order to go out and retire. but at the end of the day that is big part. for every, 100,000 people go ahead and retire from the postal service saves $8 billion a year. 8 dal billion a year. we anticipate using a

quarter of the $7 billion overpayment to incentivize people to retire. senator collins talked about, i will not get into it today, auto settlement, the auto contest for survival, health care you recall was a big part of it as well, trying to figure out how to reduce for the auto industry their health care costs. they work with the uaw very cooperatively. we think there is the same possibility for management of the postal service to work in very cooperative way with the unions to further reduce their health care costs for current employees and for future retirees. the other thing, that i want to mention in terms, it, not just enough to cut for the postal service to cut its way out of, out of this. by reducing in some cases post offices or reducing mail processing centers and enincident advising people to retire. part of is, susan came up with this one, the idea of removing, encouraging the coastal service to move to curbside service. doesn't work in every neighborhood and every

house. a lot of money to be saved if we incentivize that as well. last point i want to make is this. the postal service has to be innovative, they have to be entrepreneural, they have to come up with new ideas. what is example of good idea? flat rate boxes. if it fits, we mail it. another great example is the partnership that the postal service has with the fedex and ups. fedex and ups don't want to go to every door in america every day. they have a great partnership with the postal service because the postal service goes to every door six days a week. and the postal service in many cases carries the fedex and ups packages for them and it's a great partnership. and going forwards with we move more further away like in the holiday season from brick-and-mortar shopping and shopping centers to internet, the postal service is in a great position to capitalize on that service and make money doing that. the postal service is in great opportunity as we try to downsize state and local

governments. how about putting some of the operations in post office? how about doing that? the idea of maybe exploring something called virtual mailboxes will we're hear a lot more about in the days to come. those are all ideas that the postal service needs to pursue to create more business going forward. i'll close with this comment. just briefly, reflect on what susan and joe have said. we need to be able to demonstrate in this country we can govern again. we need to be able to demonstrate that democrats, republicans, occasional independent can govern again. we can take on a big problem, that we can solve that problem. and this is a big one. situation is dire. we can fix this problem and with the help of goodwill of a lot of people we will and we won't do it a year or two or three years from now. the idea is to fix this problem by the end of this year. thanks very much. and with that senator. >> senator brown. >> you have a lot of questions so i will will be

very, very brief of the point of personal privilege there is reason why the three people behind me and i work together. and i think there's a good lesson there for the rest of the senate to show that we can actually do things in a truly bipartisan manner and i would ask that others take a lesson from what we've done. we've spent hundreds of hours trying to come up with a solution. our staffs have done yeoman's work. we appreciate everybody working together in a truly bipartisan manner. we need to do it more so we can show people we know how to solve problems. it is very real. and we have a choice. we can fix it or not. you get mail delivered or you don't. we can score the touchdown or settle for a field goal and not even get in the game. i for one want to try to solve the problem and work together to find that solution so the time for political theater and games is over. we need to do our very, very best to push this through. i'm thankful to the chairman obviously for doing it. susan you've done a great job. her guidance and ideas

throughout the process were truly wonderful. and tom, once again, it's an honor to serve with you and our committee and try to get things, things done. it is pretty simple folks. fix it or not. i want -- for one want to fix it. i know you want to give us some questions. so fire away. >> thanks, scott. go right ahead. yes? >> senator carper or senator collins regarding the surplus you said part of that could be used for incentives for retirement. would the postal service have the discretion to use the rest as it saw fit? >> the pose mass tir general said approximately a quarter of $7 billion overpayment would be likely used or needed to incentivize people to retire. the postal service has a line of credit as you know with the federal government of $15 billion line of credit. and that line of credit has been pretty much fully exhausted. postal service has an obligation to pay workers comp and they are looking

for money to be able to do that. so the other things they could use this money for, they wouldn't need the entire 7 billion. might us as much as 2 billion to incentivize people to retire. savings against that, 100,000 people do retire, go ahead and take this incentive ultimately we save $8 billion annually for postal service . .

in some cases obviously it would be less. the action also is there to give service credit to people who aren't quite at the number of years that they need. it would be one year under the civil service retirement system under the federal employees retirement system. so, the postmaster general has told us somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.7 billion of that money would be sufficient for the buyout program than the rest he is told us he is to help pay down some of that 15 billion-dollar debt to the federal treasury. that is the postal service at or near her the ceiling for borrowing. obviously it could be used to make workers, and health care obligations so it has lots of uses for that money but from the discussions with the postmaster

general paying down debt is the priority after the buyout. >> i would add one of thought here. this refund from the fers retirement friend is not a bailout. it's not a bailout. it is the result of a legal analysis everybody agrees with that this was in fact and overpayment by the postal service and it is entitled to receive that money back. contrast that with a proposal that was being made frankly by the postal service that they were also entitled $55 billion from the csrl s fund, the other retirement for federal employees, and we specifically decided that that was not justified, and it was controversy about it so i just want to stress this is money that is owed, it is not a

bailout but it will help them to carry out a buyout to reduce the level of their employment. yes? >> ha [inaudible] say that it would be and they felt the -- usage yours is a more thoughtful study approach with the house passed earlier when we talk to chairman issa and senator mccain and then secondly, you said that crying wolf so how is this any different than what you did five years ago and what's to say that he won't be back five years from now crying wolf again? >> let me answer your first question first since you asked a number of questions. the house opposition is based largely i am told by the

$55 billion from the cms or arrest system. as chairman lieberman indicated there was great controversy over whether or not there was an overpayment. there are independent actuarial studies that say that it was an overpayment. one was conducted by the ig, the the at a demonstration said that it was not an overpayment. bye contrast, the administration agrees that the approximately $7 million from the first system is an overpayment and the president actually put the return of that money into his budget. so, the house comments were largely directed at the 55 billion after the gao at our request looked at the 55 billion agree with the administration and disagreed with the two

independent actuarial studies we decided not to put that in our bill. so this has changed considerably from earlier discussions, and the house is aware of that. my staff went over and have a very constructive meeting with german issa's staff and i hope we can work together. we have had won a joint meeting already with our house counterparts. they have taken a different approach but they recognize that this is a very real problem as well. as far as what happened in 2006, we clearly did put the postal service backed on a better financial footing for a while. unfortunately what happened is the transition to electronic mail was far more rapid than the

postal service had anticipated. its costs were high year than anticipated, but the situation is so much more dire now than it was in 2006. the postal service if nothing happens will lose $10 billion this year to a and not be able to meet its payroll a year from now by next summer and did maxed out of their credit borrowing. so, the situation was very bad in 2006 but it's many times worse now we put in place in 2006 for house calls the they were not sufficient for the crisis that we are in which was obviously exacerbated by the recession but caused primarily by the migration to electronic.

>> [inaudible] >> i can't speak for my colleagues but in my perspective, it is the 55 billion is no longer on the table. it is not in our bill, and it is not in the house bill so i don't know if anyone is talking about the 55 billion anymore. even the postal service has abandoned their request. to be a referee for us that's good enough to play that role they agree the 7 billion-dollar a page over payment is real and they also conclude that it's questionable whether or not there's a 55 billion-dollar repayment of the civil service, so set that aside. one of our friends and colleagues here, michael enzi from the republican from wyoming rights under the 80-20 rule and

the 80-20 will let us on the 80% that we agree on and the other percent we don't agree on be set aside the 20% we don't agree on. the reason why there is hope that we might not four or five years from now be faced with the same situation i'm going to go back to the example of a could three years ago when we were contemplating the bailout a lot of people said we shouldn't give a dollar outside the industry let them go down and they returned the possibility making some investment in the world and the market share is growing and today they are hiring people back to work, thousands of people back to work and in part what would happen three or four years ago with the ogle system is the enterprise for the 21st century what we are trying to do is to the very same thing and i think physical shared by german issa and elijah cummings over in the house and their communicate

and while the goals or the same the way they did get there are somewhat different and crete the commission and i'm not sure that we need to do that and the labor agreement and i am not sure that we need to do that and while we may disagree in some cases on how to get where we want to go and the postal service been valuable and stable and productive in the 21st i would agree on that and at the end of the day we will figure out how on the particular as well. >> one last point on this because there was controversy about the csrl payment subject to being called a bailout we shouldn't get into that is that it was a kind of temporary -- it would have injected some money into the postal service without the service changing fundamentally which it needs to

do which would conceal their problems, and what would have done this bill does require them and encourage them in some sense facilitate and enable them with new authorities to make the fundamental changes that the postal service has to make to survive in the century including reducing work force services, changing services and in particular facilities and the good news here is with the exception of the refund in the $7 billion that everybody agrees the postal service deserves there is no taxpayer money of additional tax payer money to put into this as a matter of fact we said the postal service on a course to as we said credits annual budget by $20 million still hopefully not reduce service and therefore not accelerate the drop in volume. so that's why we are very proud of this accomplishment.

>> just one quick point on that. even the first money that is coming back to the postal service is the rate payers money. it's the customers, the postal service money. so there is no way that this is a bailout. the acting head of the consumer financial protection bureau laid out the work of the new agency during its first 100 days. thus efp as it is called was

created by the 2010 dodd-frank financial regulations legislation. the white house nominee to head the bureau, richard, has not been concerned by the senate because of republican opposition. congresswoman shelley moore capito chairs this house financial services subcommittee hearing. we will also hear from the full committee chairman, spencer bachus and ranking democrat barney frank who helped author the original legislation. >> the consumer financial protection bureau, the cftc. today we are joined by mr. special lead advisor to the secretary of treasury for the consumer financial protection bureau. and i would like to welcome mr. dante to the first. for the committee in his capacity and also like to thank him for his willingness to participate. thank you. >> created by the dodd-frank act, the csb has officially been operational for a little over 100 days. however, absent the senate confirmation of the director of the cfpb doesn't have the full power. the focus this morning will give

members of the subcommittee the opportunity to learn more about the operations in the bureau of the designated transfer date. these hearings are critical as the drafters and dodd-frank allowed for little oversight of the cfpb. as my colleagues know, the cfpb is funded through unique mechanisms that allow them to draw a percentage of the federal reserve operating expenses each year. they do have the ability to draw on the 200 million an additional federal appropriation that the exhaust the federal reserve fund, which they have not come as we seek however they have not drawn on these funds, so it is difficult for the u.s. congress to have oversight over how they are spending the taxpayers' dollars. bringing the cfpb on to the annual appropriations process is just one of the several reforms that republicans have offered to improve the structure of the cfpb and make it more accountable and more and more transparent agency. earlier this year, the house passed common sense reforms to convert the leadership structure of the cfpb to a five person committee which is reflected in

the several other committees and throughout the government and allows balance between consumer protection and the safe and sound operation of the united states financial and institution. the u.s. senate should adopt these reforms so we can move forward with assuring the americans consumers are a balanced transfer and agency. we look forward to hearing from mr. date about the operations of cfpb and i think and also for his visit to my office and to the designated transfer date. i know members will have many questions for him and i will save my time for further questions of the statements. in the case the numbers do not enough sufficient time for questions and but encourage them to submit them in writing. there are many important issues to discuss and we may not have enough time to cover them all today. i would like to stay on the issue of the consumer protection and that republicans and democrats agree that consumer protection is an extremely important aspect as we make sure

that our fellow americans have access to credit, have fair and transparent disclosures when signing agreements and securing credit and the the oversight of the consumer product is extremely important aspect. i would like to speak to mr. date for appearing before the subcommittee and will yield to the ranking member of the subcommittee, the gentle lady from new york, ms. maloney, for the purpose of making an opening statement. >> thank you so much. today i applaud the cfpb for a remarkable string of achievements in its first 100 days of existence. it has already formed the two special offices to help that size and educate segments of the market's that have been especially vulnerable to predatory practices. the bureau is already helping seniors through the office of older americans, headed by skip

humphrey a former minnesota state ag and state chair of the aarp. the bureau is already looking out for members of the military service to the office of service affairs headed by mr. petraeus that we are honored to have with us today. thank you, holley, for working and responding so swiftly to complaints that mortgage servicers were illegally for closing on the homes of service members while they were deployed. she reached out to the ceo of 25 companies and got them to stop these abusive practices. the bureau is already working to help students. it drafted a new financial aid form last week that breaks down the real cost of student loans into an easy to understand sheet. it features a total tuition cost, projected monthly payments and a loan default rate from each university.

yesterday the financial services roundtable issued a statement strongly supporting the know before you go student initiative saying, and i quote, it will help students knowledge about student loans, and i request unanimous consent to place their letter in the record. >> without objection. >> the bureau is already making some regulations simpler. they will also begin a targeted review of regulations that inherited from seven different agencies to eliminate unnecessary rules. it has proposed to versions of the simplified mortgage disclosure forum as a part of their know before you roll program and posted them on a crowd source for comments and the bureau combined to federally required mortgage disclosure forms and made it simpler and these are the forms you can literally go on the internet and vote for the one you think would work the best for you.

the bureau and its nominee have strong support by the attorney generals from around the country. 37 ag's recently earned the senate to approve richard cory as the director. they describe him as brilliant, well qualified leader who has defended consumers while also working to find fair and reasonable solutions for the financial industry, and i would ask unanimous consent to place in the record the statement by 37 different attorney general's. >> without objection. some also the statement from treasury secretary geithner the talks about all of the areas the will be unregulated because the financial crisis of the cfpb is not up and running. they have been with us for only 100 days, and what a difference they have made in the lives of so many americans. i wish it had been 100 years. my time is expired.

thank you for what you have achieved under the remarkably different circumstances. many seniors and members of the military and students are better served and mortgages are simpler. thank you for your efforts. >> i would like to recognize the chairman of the full committee mr. bachus for two minutes for an opening statement. >> thank you, chairman capito. all of us, republicans and democrats, support strong consumer protection. after all, we are all consumers, our family members are all consumers, our constituents are all consumers, and they all deserve consumer protection. in fact i proposed a sub prime lending bill back in 2005 and credit card reform back in 2007 and we sponsored the fact act, and i think the than ranking

member frank and i agreed on many things but one thing we disagree with i think across the aisle is the structure of the cfpb. my fear is that there are simply no checks and balances. it could easily become a loose cannon. now that would be the worst-case scenario, and it may not. but it is headed by a director that answers to no one. the director exercises authority over the agency and its staff, and the president's budget said that staff will be over 1200 individuals. the director has unprecedented power to ban financial products and services based on whether or not he deems them unfair, deceptive and abusive under highly subjective standards that is no legally defined content,

and i've looked at the 800 page document the was recently released and there's still a lot of loose ends. the director has authority to spend hundreds of millions of dollars with no congressional oversight. for all these reasons, and the fact that actually was originally designed by elizabeth warren who first proposed it as a mission, republicans have supported a commission and will continue to do so and urged the senate to take it up and have a commission. thank you, madame share tariffs bixby four. i would like to recognize the ranking member of the full committee, mr. frank for three minutes for an opening statement. >> well, first, i want to comment on the incongruity of people at an oversight hearing. this is an oversight hearing. apparently it is a figment of some people's imagination because they tell us there is no oversight. so i guess i am wasting the morning. we are also told that it is

unprecedented. well, that comes from people that have been on the committee for many years and have never heard of the control of the currency because it is structured to be much like the control of the currency was independent of anybody. as a single individual with frankly greater power over the banking system of america than this agency has. will also been told there is no oversight here because it gets its money from the federal reserve. if that is the case, there is no money because it gets from the federal reserve their must not be any oversight over the federal reserve because the federal reserve is not subject to appropriation. the federal deposit insurance corporation is not subject to appropriations to read the office of the control of the currency is not subject to appropriations. in other words, my republican colleagues did not object to the financial addition regulators being exempt from the appropriations process until the consumer bureau came up. it was okay for the comptroller of the currency single individual, okay i've never

heard we didn't have oversight over the fdic or over the comptroller of the currency. and i think that gets to the point where my colleagues told of them have said the the republicans offer consumer protection. well, if the consumers could be protected by that kind of rhetoric i guess it would be in great shape, but they can't be. and what we should be very clear on is among the major changes that the republicans are insisting on before they will come from people, a total branching out of shape of the constitution, the constitution sets forward ways to legislate and then it is a confirmation power. because the republicans don't have the power to get their legislation through, they are using the confirmation power and inappropriately to try to coerce us into a documentation, and the commission is a small part of it. the big thing they want to do is this. they want to put the bank regulators backend charge consumer protection. now my colleagues have said that from consumer protection the seem to have forgotten how to do that when they were in power. i don't remember a single effort

to anything about strengthening the consumer protection in general when they were in public. yes, the gentleman from alabama did propose is of prime bill and we try to work with him that the then majority leader mr. deily said to the committee it should not be taken up and it wasn't until we took the majority that we were able to get legislation on subprimal first on this committee although "the wall street journal" denounced our bill as a sarbanes oxley for "the wall street journal" sarbanes oxley is even worse than attacking people's telephones. but what we have is a failure to do anything when they were in power. the argument is that we need better balance. i have to say my colleagues on this committee be only the few people in america who think that the danger is that we will over protect consumers. the history of the relationship of consumers to financial institutions and the role of the regulators heartily support the argument that there is a danger that the consumer will be overprotective. this is the one chance we have

to give them the kind of protection they ought to have. >> i would like to recognize mr. rice for one and a half minutes for an opening statement. specs before madame chair. the distinction as our concern is the danger in this process is the we will not protect in terms of safety and soundness. our distinction, our concern is that the provincial regulator doesn't have a seat at that table that the provincial regulator needs in order to the advice on safety and soundness, and the reason we are concerned about this is because we've gone down this road before. the reason we are concerned about this is because this committee has heard time after time after time from fannie and freddie's regulators, both past and current on this subject. they have said that the

bifurcated regulation contributed to the failure of fannie and freddie. and the cfpb frankly expands this problem throughout the financial system. so what we have suggested, which doesn't sound radical to me, is that we go back to the original house legislation and introduced that have a commission and allowed for the import of the regulator. that's the ground we are fighting on right now. we are trying to make certain that at least in the process we don't go down the road again to read that we had that we faced with respect to the gse regulation. and i think the notion that an independent regulator with no oversight or opportunity for dissent is good for consumers is simply flawed. at the end of the day the likely result will be tighter cost and less access to credit in the market for the consumers and the way this is structured, less input from the provincial regulator.

64. i would like to recognize mr. gutierez. >> with the gentleman yield for ten seconds? >> i will be happy to yield. >> the gentleman talked about my of ejection from my original bill. yes, there was a commission although i prefer it individually, but the biggest difference is not the commission. it is the republican bill to put the bank regulators back in charge by letting them on their more ec achieved basis overruled if you will. there was never in my bill. the power of the bank regulators by the majority rule to overrule in any particular case, that is the heart of my objection to that approach. >> will the gentleman yield? >> the time for the gentleman of illinois make his opening statement. >> thank you very much. and mr. date, wonderful to have you here. i hope that they've received you warmly over in the senate for your confirmation hearing. i know that at least on this side we are receiving you warmly. it astonishes me what can happen under leader after we pass the bill.

i mean i don't remember a single one of my colleagues on the obverse side of the aisle voting for the bill that created a consumer protection. i remember being their working day in and day out, and i don't remember anybody saying we are for the consumer. as a matter of fact i really like my colleague from mr. california because the american public just heard the republican response. the provincial regulator. we are concerned about the provincial regulator making sure. i'm sure that makes all, everybody in america feel so warm and fuzzy about the united states and what we are doing because the provincial regulator is being defended here. in this line committee meeting. let me tell you why i think it is a great meeting to have. i don't rim know about the leader because bank of america had to cancel the 5-dollar fee and it will save the american people in the millions of dollars. safety and soundness? the safety and soundness of your debit card and you're debit card and a count each and every month

so that you have extra dollars in your account in order to access your money. why? because we passed this legislation that says guess what? you forgot to tell everybody. because you know what? is dangerous that banks and it's dangerous out there when people take a gun and stick somebody up. that's true. but you know what you're doing? you're making sure that the electronics stickup of the bank on american consumers are stopped in america. and how do you do that? by telling people about what these mysterious things are in the devotee in america may not know what the provincial regulator is but let me tell you what they do know, they know the mysterious fees' that show up on their checking and banking accounts and they're going to have an opportunity hopefully to get come from by the senate. >> thank you. the gentleman from