quorum call:

quorum call:

ms. stabenow: i would ask that we suspend the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to h.r. 22 which the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to the consideration of h.r. 22 an act to amend the internal revenue code of 1986 and so

forth. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you very much mr. president. first let me say that it's important that we fund the highway trust fund and that we have a long-term commitment to our infrastructure of our country for jobs, the economy for neighborhoods. i see the distinguished senator from oklahoma coming in who leads the transportation -- the committee that oversees transportation he and my friend from california have put forward a six-year authorization, on policy that we should commend them for. i'm proud to be part of a group, certainly democrats have been united in saying we need a sense of urgency, we need to get beyond month-to-month highway trust fund renewals and we need to make a commitment to a long-term approach just as every other country has done in a global economy. so that we can continue to compete and win as it relates to

our roads and bridges and ports and rails and all the other part of our infrastructure. what concerns me about the bill in front of us, though, is that while we on the one hand wanting to make sure that we have good infrastructure for our community, safe roads safe bridges, other investments that one of the ways it's funded in this bill and i believe strongly we need to fix this before it moves forward and i'll do whatever i can to make sure that we do, along with colleagues on both sides of the aisle who care about this -- is what is a small provision that actually takes money away from communities and neighborhoods who are working very hard to come back from blight. we have communities all across michigan. this is called the hardest hit fund. and there are communities all

across michigan, i don't have the full list in front of me right now but i will do this off the top of my head, do detroit, saginaw and lansing and grand rapids and i'm given a whole list. the highland park jackston heights inkster port huron adrian all communities that are working very hard, public- private sector efforts to bring down drug houses on a block that children are walking by on the way to school and rebuild it with a park or a new housing. and this is a program that has worked. in one of america's great great cities that's gone through a lot of challenges, the city of detroit. a huge effort going on right now, mr. president public

sector, private sector, foundations, we have c.e.o.'s running towards the city of detroit. it's an amazing thing to see what the private sector is doing. they are engaged in an effort to save and rebuild neighborhoods that can be saved by going into neighborhoods where the majority of houses, where senior citizens have lived for generations, young couples have bought a house but maybe there's two or three houses on a block that are empty that are places where crime are occurring, drug houses, you take those down and what's happening in the city of detroit, home values are going up. things are beginning to turn around because of this strategy. unfortunately, in this bill moneys that have been allocateed to cities across the country states across the country -- and do we have a list of

states -- the states across the country have been allocated funds to fix issues, to fix houses to rebuild neighborhoods and in this bill money that they're counting on, money that's been allocated to them will be taken back. can you imagine that? the way this works you have people doing construction -- okay we'll get that. we have construction going on let's say they're removing asbestos in a home or taking a house down. the contractor does the work, the city pays the contractor then turns the bill in to the u.s. department of treasury, counting on the fact that they will be paid because we, the federal government, have given them in writing our word that they have a certain amount of dollars allocated.

this bill unfortunately, -- and i'm hopeful that this was not done on purpose and that we will be able to fix this -- but the this bill actually says you incur that bill from the private contractor but we're not going to pay it anymore. it's one thing if we want to debate this program makes sense going forward but for alare locations that have already been -- allocations that have already been made from south carolina to illinois and ohio and my good friend, rob portman and i -- i would be happy. mr. inhofe: i would be listening, i say to my good friend and i am concerned about that. as you know, there are several titles in this bill. i chair the environment and public works committee which is about 90% of the bill. but what you're referring to here is in the banking title of the bill. and i understand and i can't say this for certain but i

understand there are a couple of amendments that do address this one may be yours. do you happen to have one? ms. stabenow: mr. chairman, senator portman and i will have an amendment. mr. inhofe: that was my understanding was the case and i have checked with the leaders on the banking committee and i think they're anticipating that could happen. so i appreciate that. i wanted clarification as to where that problem you point out does exist in the bill. ms. stabenow: thank you very much mr. chairman, for that clarification. i do want to indicate very clearly that for communities around this country, this is a big deal. certainly this is a big deal for michigan. and i can't in any way support any effort going forward unless this is fixed. it is a small amount of dollars in the relative scheme of funding this bill. and if it means we fund the highway bill one month less rather than devastating communities like cleveland and

detroit and flint and cities in illinois and south carolina and nevada and california and kentucky and across the country then so be it. but i can't be any part of something that takes a hugeest, you know, and stops it in its tracks when it is so important to rebuilding. and i just want to share one example of why this is important. i know the chairperson is chairman is waiting to speak. i do want to show, as we rebuild communities -- let me give you one story. on detroit's east side in october 2009, this was in the paper yesterday mr. president a 14-year-old girl on her way to high school was pulled behind the garage in a blighted neighborhood. in 2012 detroit neighbors organized to try to protect school girls from being assaulted on their way to school. one volunteer told "the detroit free press" of rescuing a

14-year-old girl who was attacked in a an abandoned garage. girls walking to school, doing the right thing wanting to go to school, wanting to get an education, abducted at gun gunpoint, abducted and assaulted. in 2012, a young woman was pulled into a building two blocks from school. trying to go to school and she was sexually assaulted. "the detroit free press" interviewed an 18-year-old young woman who walked every day to school. she said she passed 88 vacant homes and she knew that other girls her age had been attacked in the neighborhood. this is getting fixed mr. president. this is getting fixed. those buildings are coming down. in some cases what we have are landlords fixing them up. they are going in and taking

asbestos house rebuilding the house. people are buying homes. they're coming back into neighborhoods. some cases small businesses are buying these homes. we have rejuvenation going on like i have never seen before. it is dependent on the blight funds that we, through the department of treasury, have made available. now, i'm not debating whether or not we should add more. i'd love to. we need more funds. we need a more more robust program. what i am saying is, it's outrageous if we are in a situation where money that cities are already counting on and spending with the private sector with neighborhoods with church groups, ive who everybody who is involved in this. if they are in the middle of a project and we go, you know

what the good news is we're going to fix the road in front of your house. the bad news is your neighborhood is going to fall apart because we're not keeping our commitments as it relates to blight. and so i'll be speaking more as we go, mr. president. i want to certainly yield to our distinguished chairman. i appreciate the work that e.p.w. as i said earlier in the policy. but this is absolutely critical. this has to be out of this bill. and i hope it will be. i hope it will be. thank you mr. president. mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, it is my understanding that the senator from indiana senator coats, is going to come down and is going to be wanting to get some time, and i'm very flexible today, so i just want to visit about the bill. we have so many parts of this,

and i think the people have really not had a chance to -- they've had a chance, but a lot of the members have not really gotten into the bill and seen how far it goes and what it does. and this is the sixth one of these that i've had since i've been p in the yaws senate -- been in the yaws in the united states senate. house and senate. and this one i think is really good. people forget that we -- when we -- well, the last big bill we had was 2005. it was five-year bill, very similar to what we have today. there are things in that bill, projects that are now complete. in my state of oklahoma, we had a bridge that was in terrible condition in oklahoma city. in fact, we had a terrible accident. a lady and her three small children were driving under the bridge. concrete dropped and killed her. this is happening -- i -- i did a

talk yesterday on all the bridges with problems that exist all around the country with all of our deficient bridges. so it is serious. so since 2009 we have not had a long-term bill. this is it. we have been operating on short-term extensions. there have been a total of 33 short-term steptionshort-term extensions. on short-term extensions, you can't get anything done. you can't have any of the re-forels. right now in this bill we have reforms to the nepa system, the environmental system, we are giving latitude for road construction in terms of endangered species. so there might be some little critter down there six feet down that we don't want to disturb. some people think -- anyway, we're making exceptions. so we're going to be able to rule ireally get this thing going. this is the first time since 2009 that we are doing it the

right way. what we've tried to do is kind of take them one at a time. for example, we wanted to show how much daylight is in this bill so that people know how their money is being spent and they -- and every project that's out there can now be monitored. what i would like to do now is talk a little bit about the background of this. people don't realize when all of this started in 1956, that was the great general became president of the united states, dwight d. eisenhower. and i have to say that the -- and i can say this as one of the most conservative members of the senate that i believe the federal government has grown larger and more invasive than our founding fathers ever envisioned and our country would benefit from a smaller more efficient government. and i think that we -- you know, one of the things that i've observed in government as a conservative is, if there is a problem out there government comes along they start some

kind of an agency to deal with the problem and the problem goes away, but the agency continues. and so they -- and in fact they become more of a problem. right now i'm having a problem with one of the big bureaucracies, the f.a.a., on legislation that i have proposed and that we passed actually two years ago. now we have an extension of that. and i think that if you look at the budgets of the various bureaucracies, in that case, i don't have the exact figures but it has almost doubled since 199. -- 1996. and yet the work load is less than it was at that time. this is what's going on. this is what people are complaining about. what they're not complaining about is what the constitution says we're supposed to be doing. in article 1 section 8 what you and i are supposed to be doing as members of the united states senate and the house is

we're supposed to be, number one, defending america and number two roads and bridges. so i think sometimes you just need to get out that old worn-out document and reread it. that's what this bill is all about. no one else is doing it for us. there are a lot of ideas that people have. there are a lot of people, conservative groups, for example, that are saying that they could -- what's the terminology? devolution. i can never remember that. devolution is something that sounds good. and i would tell them, the presiding officer something that in all of his infinite wisdom he doesn't know. 20 years ago i was the father of devolution. it is more fun to stand and say all we have to do is a way with all the federal gas taxes and move them to the states and let the states take care of these. well i'd suggest that some

people in states like south dakota, there is a lot of land up there not a whole lot of people and so it just wouldn't work. here is the problem with that issue. in order to make devolution work -- and again, i was the guy that -- it was fun to talk about until i found out it is wrong. and that is, that you have to, -- first of all, it is easy to repeal all the federal taxes. then you have to assume that all 48 states will agree to pass a tax increase. and that ain't going it happen. i think we all know that. so all these things are -- but i want to mention something that i think is important. go back and give a history of this thing. there are two areas where i believe the federal government has got to be involved. as i mentioned that's very consistent with the constitution. this is both a conservative and a constitutional understanding of the role of the federal government. president eisenhower's federal aid act of 1956 authorized

construction of 41,000-mile national system of interstate and defense highways. now, this chart shows what that was. it is the blue -- is the blue the original? okay the blue is the original and then the red is what came along later, which is the national highway system. so you have the interstate system and the national highway system. the blue is the interstate system. 41,000 miles. and this was actually a map of eisenhower's interstate system back in 1956. in order to finance this massive undertaking and to fund the remainder of the federal aid to highway program the highway revenue act of 1956 created the highway trust fund. that's what we've been talking about for a long period of time now. and it provided that revenues from certain highway user groups be credited to the highway trust

fund. now, what's interesting about this is, i can remember when the biggest problem with the highway trust fund was it had too big a surplus. it was a huge thing. so the administrations -- i remember the clinton administration came and they tried to take $12 billion out of the highway trust fund for another program and they were successful. it took me three years to get it back. but that's because it was a target that had a lot of money in it. well the dedicated funding mechanism provided certainty for the federal highway program. the 13-year authorization of the highway revenue act gave the states the necessary certainty to plan and construct highway projects p. now, since 1956, congress has regularly reauthorized the federal highway program. eisenhower's highway act of 1956 was implemented to solve many problems we are experiencing

now, as our infrastructure deteriorates. you got to keep in mind that it was all built on a 50-year basis, that it would last 50 years. well, that was ago. so it's beyond its maintenance period now and that's why it's so critical today. the act ornlly act originally in are 1956 was designed to solve the problems we are experiencing today. most notably the traffic jams and efficiency in the transport of goods. not only did eisenhower understand it, but he demonstrated the terms and conditions of the constitution in the implemented federal highway act of 1956. the original principles of the constitution and the federal-state relationship exists to ensure liberty while

maintaining security. you got to keep in mind that eisenhower -- yes, he was president; but first he was the general, he was the star. he knows more about military. and his concern was originally -- it really wasn't the economy as much as it was the military. you know, this is right following world war ii, and he is anticipating something else could happen, so he wanted to make sure we could move our goods and services for defense -- military defense purposes. now, the principles are made operational via the highway act of 1956. this is a chart is a statement of purpose by the president. he said the obsolescence of the nation's highway presents an appalling problem of waste danger and death. and this is a statement that he made at that time. unfortunately, congress has forgotten that passing fully funded long-term transportation

legislation is one of the unique responsibilities and has instead falling into a pattern of passing short-term extensions. now, i've already talked about how many extensions have been passed since 2009. 33 of them. and those extensions you extension you don't get any of the reforms any of the opportunities to build roads cheaper and repair the bridges much cheaper. now we can do that. so he said, adequate financing there must be, but contention over the method should not be permitted to deny our people these critically needed roads. the need for federal investment is dire. just look at the current condition of our roads and bridges. what was once the best transportation system in the world is now rapidly deteriorating. but we struggle to maintain the

existing condition of our infrastructure. our global competitors are outpacing us in their infrastructure investment. i think we have another chart on that. the interstate is just as much about defense as it is interstate commerce. the obsolescence of the nation's highways present ans an an appalling problem. the condition of our roads has impacted the quality of life for all americans. 54% of america's major roads are rated poor or mediocre. according to the u.s. department of transportation. this has become a matter of life and death. 32,700 americans died in traffic crashes in 2013 with one of three fatalityies related to poor road conditions. we all remember back in 200 up

in--back in 2007, up in minnesota they got a lot of attention that they had the bridge collapse, the people who died, people that were injured. and it's something that could really been avoided if we had kept up to date in all of our bridges.t as i said yesterday we talked about all the bridges that we have, not all of them, just the ones used more than others. this shows the structurally deficient bridges. the darker the color the worst the bridges. here's my state of oklahoma. you can see the entire northeast corridor of the state has got a lot of deficient bridges. i was talking to the senator from missouri, senator blunt yesterday and he talked about missouri. the problems we have in missouri and oklahoma, there are a lot of small bridges so we are addressing that. but also the very large bridges that are causing unnecessary

deaths. our national interstate system needs to be completely reconstructed. right now the 47,000 -- this is critical here. the 47,000-mile interstate system is about 60 years old and many of the first segments, including segments in oklahoma, missouri and kentucky, are now well beyond their 50-year design life. when eisenhower successfully passed the federal aid to highway act of 1956, both the house and senate were controlled by democrats. while he was a republican, the measure was met with widespread bipartisan support. there's no such thing as a republican bridge or a democrat road. you know, this is something that should be blind to partisan politics. but nonetheless, he was very active and he considered that one of his top priorities. in fact, during the debates in congress in 1955 and 1956, there had been no opposition to the

interstate highway -- interstate system. the drive act -- and that's what we're going to be voted on. we've already voted motion to proceed to it, so we've crossed that bridge and we're now going to be considering amendments. the drive act is a long-term investment vision with new reforms that will provide states with certainty and flexibility needed to revamp our national highway system, and we're going to have to do this. this is the only opportunity we're going to have to get this done. we're going to try to finish this bill by the end of next week. that will be quite an undertaking. and i would invite and hope that all of our members will bring their amendments down. we will be considering amendments. we can't consider them unless they come down. what i don't want to happen is to be standing here begging for amendments to come down and then two weeks from now right before

it comes time to find that we have to pass a procedure not to allow amendments. we don't want that to happen. so get your amendments down here early. we know there are some of them. there's been a lot of publicity on this -- that are not germane. we're going to go ahead and consider it. we're going to open the amendment process. that's one thing i think the republicans do better than the democrats because during the years the democrats controlled this chamber we just had a handful of amendments at that time. we passed the eight-year record in that month by encouraging people to bring down amendments. i'm asking the democrat and republican senators to do that. anyway, this is going to be the most significant bill. now that we have passed the

defense authorization bill, that's not all behind us yet -- we're still meeting on that. in fact, we had a meeting this morning. but nonetheless it passed from the committee and from the floor. but we have not -- and so now the most important thing that's left for the rest of the year is this bill that we're talking about now. there's going to be a lot of legislation that's going to be introduced. we in my committee the environment and public works committee, i know the chair is an active member of that committee, its not just public works, roads highways and bridges, the other part of that includes regulation. if you go back to your state, i don't know care what state it is and you talk to people who are in business they'll tell you right now the greatest problem is the overregulation of the e.p.a. the environmental protection agency is passing regulations right now. look at the cap and trade

legislation. that would constitute the greatest tax increase in history and yet they tried to pass it as legislation. now they're trying to do it as regulations. the water the waters of the united states, that's an issue if you talk to your farmers and i don't care if it's in south dakota oklahoma, missouri, any of the rest of the country and you say what's the biggest problem facing you right now? it's nothing that's found in the farm bill. it is the -- it's the overregulation by the e.p.a. and they'll single out the waters of the united states bill or rule that they're trying to put through. i recall so vividly just a few years ago when the two members authored bills to take the word "navigable" out. so i'm sure that there are some who have forgotten the fact that the -- the regulation of water in the united states has always been the states. and except for november gabble water. and i understand that. -- and fept for -- and except

for the navigable water. and i understand that. what the liberals tried to do is take the word "navigable" out so the states would have no say in the water that's out there. not only did we defeat the legislation but both senator feingold and congressman oberstar who were both authors of the bill, were both defeated in the next election. it's the overregulation that's rule consuming most of our time. this is the area where everyone agrees. i was listening to our friend from -- from -- i can't remember who was talking about that now. you have to keep in mind this bill passed, our bipartisan bill unanimously. not one vote against it. now, i'm prepared to yield the floor because i understand that the senator from indiana is here and so i yield the floor.

mr. coats: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. coats: mr. president, i want to thank my colleague from oklahoma here for his recent statement. and i also understand he's willing to help relieve me a little bit as i'm the next presiding officer. i appreciate that and i'll relieve him of that responsibility as soon as i finish with my remarks here. mr. president, as many know, i have since february been coming to the senate floor now 18 different times to highlight waste, fraud and abuse within the federal government. the senator from oklahoma was talking about his committee

which he runs in such an efficient and effective way particularly taken and resonating with the overregulation under this administration. and it's just killing our farmers. it's killing our small businesses. we're all for sane, sound cost-effective regulations that address safety and health. no one is -- is trying to undo those. but we've got an agency that is just running amok with ideological determinations on the basis of what -- quote -- "they think is best for the country." regardless of what the numbers come up, what impact that it has, what negative impacts. no one has better led this effort than the senator from oklahoma, senator inhofe, and i want to thank him for that. but today i come to talk about waste and abuse and fraud. you know, i've been down here 18 times since february once a week

, i could be down here every day. i could be down here every hour. it is astounding the amount of money that taxpayers hard-earned dollars have to pay for that has been categorized by neutral agencies, not on a partisan basis at all as total waste total fraud and total abuse. and so here i am again trying to do the best we can to make this government more effective more efficient focused on the essential things that it needs to do and wiping out eliminating the abusive use and the waste use and the fraud use of hard-earned tax dollars. now, today what i'd like to speak about relates to the so-called affordable care act. i think we found out that the better title would have been "the unaffordable care act."

but last week in the senate finance committee we had the director from o.m.b. a member from o.m.b., mr. bagdolian. he's director of audit services at the government accountability office. it's the g.a.o., not the o.m.b. fascinating hearing. but he came to report to us on about abuses that are taking place or could take place with the affordable care act enrollment. and it's amazing and i'd like on go over that. his -- his team, his audit team -- this is his job. his job is to go and audit the spending of taxpayer dollars and in this case they looked at the affordable care act enrollment process and they wanted to see whether or not the procedures that had been agreed to to prevent people from abusing this in a fraudulent way if they have been implemented at the center for medicare and

medicaid c.m.s. and so what they did is they ran an undercover so-called secret shopper investigation to test the internal controls of healthcare.gov and to review how the centers for medicare and medicaid services handle this new program. particularly this investigation was designed to determine how effective the administration's federal health insurance exchange is at protecting against fraudulent applications. so it's a very narrowly focused test and a very legitimate test just to see have the agreed- upon measures and criteria for qualifying to enroll in health care, the obama administration bill, have they been put in place? now, there are millions of people who have selected obamacare plan through healthcare.gov.

eight million americans in 34 states have selected plans through healthcare and 85% of them have qualified for premium subsidies. that adds up to tens of billions of subsidies all through healthcare.gov. that's an issue i was and i'm -- issue itself and i'm not necessarily here to address that at another time. but the key question was if applicants misrepresent them with fake facts in order to receive those subsidies would the folks at healthcare.gov determine those and catch them from qualifying? and unfortunately the answer is a resounding no. g.a.o., general accounting office found that 11-12 fake applications received approval. for this investigation g.a.o. created false identities and used them to apply for premium tax subsidies through the

federal health insurance exchange. they used fake documents or in several cases no documents at all. it was just a test. and so they would either learn that the -- those applications would be turned down or that those restrictions that were designated to those running healthcare.gov knew what they needed to do and did what they needed to do. so the centers for medicare and medicaid services accepted 11 out of 12, accepted the fake documents or some didn't even attempt to verify their authenticity and as a result they enrolled those applicants. they granted them special thousands of dollars in premium tax subsidies. specifically c.m.s. awarded $30,000 in advanced premium tax credits to is 11 of those 12 applicants in 2014 are alone. as 2015 began c.m.s. then

terminated coverage for six of these 11 fake individuals noting that they had not properly registered or provided necessary documents. so it seemed that, okay, the fake program turned out to work, and c.m.s. has finally caught on to the fact that they were being fraudulently -- they were issuing fraudulent acceptance of applications for subsidies. well, that optimism was very short-lived because g.a.o. then called up c.m.s. pretending to be these individuals who had been turned down. and in five of the six cases they were able to get their coverage and subsidies restored without submitting any paperwork. the system handles millions of applications billions of dollars of subsidies and they did not design the mechanism to identify fraud even though they had been told they were not identifying the fraud and not putting the measures in place to

do so. part of the problem here, mr. president, is the law is so gargantuan as to be nearly unworkable. but there is no excuse for these compliance numbers when billions of taxpayer dollars are at stake. and, unfortunately the administration continues to measure success by the number of people who have signed up for obamacare. last year the administration rejoiced when reaching the enrollment role and lauded it as approve of the ex-chaiption, that they were work -- exchanges, that they were working just fine. given the results of this investigation, i wonder what percentage of those enrollees were real people providing real information or people providing no information or false information. and when the tests revealed that 11 out of 12 -- a pretty high percentage -- you can multiply that out over what you think might be happening in the enrollment process, and there could be

very very substantial amount of money, taxpayers money being paid in subsidies to people who do not qualify. well mr. president careful oversight of these programs for federal benefits is of utmost importance whether it is c.m.s. on obamacare or any other agency in government providing benefits to individuals and i have listed many of those in my "waste of the week" speeches. this government needs to -- must -- and congress must do better in terms of oversight in to make sure that taxpayers' dollars are spent efficiently and if not returned to the taxpayers, so they don't have to be sent here and wasted in the first place. clearly, g.a.o. used only a small number of claims, but imagine what would happen that hasn't been looked at or identified what those numbers would be. this is a ka canary in a coal mine.

if this is an alarm bell of dysfunction, i don't know what is. i am note going to speculate on -- umnot going to speculate on -- i am not going to speculate on how many of money has been wasted. but i will put $30 billion of documented misuse of subsidies that were paid for under -- paid for under the g.a.o. investigation. so just a little bump up here on our gauge as we head toward $100 billion, an i have been told that next week's "waste of the week" will take us to our goal of $100 billion. we had hoped to reach that goal by the end of this year. we'rewe're way ahead of time. i could come down here every day, or maybe every hour, given the waste we are finding in this

misuse of taxpayer money. i thank you again for helping me out here on the time situation. i look forward to relieving you in the chair as the presiding officer. and with that, i yield the floor and notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. inhofe: mr. president we've got so many elements of the bill that is under consideration now. the drive act -- it's enjoyable to talk about it because yesterday we talked about the transparency the fact that we have a way that the public can know every dime -- i was watching as the occupier of the chair was giving a presentation on waste in

government. this is not a case -- if all government agencies had the transparency that we're going to have 234 in the drive act where everyone is going to go and know on are a day-to-day basis the progress know every bridge, every highway that's being done, the renovations then we wouldn't be having that problem. we're doing it right. and i have to always -- you know i look at these different parts of the bill. it's so big. you can talk for a long period of time about it. yesterday we went over not all of the bridges the deficient bridges in the country but quite a few of them. and when people stop and realize that people die unnecessarily because of the deficiency of our brinls, it is a serious -- of our brinls, it is a -- of our bridges, it is a serious thing. one of the parts of this bill that people are not aware of as much as they should be is the freight section of the bill, transporting freight around. we talked about the history of

this we talked about the fact that the first bill of the -- that came along for a transportation reauthorization bill back in 1956 was primarily for military purposes. now we realize the deficiency we are compared to china compared to other countries in not keeping up our highway system. but today the national highway system carries more than 55% of the nation's highway traffic and 97% of the freight traffic. of the 4 million miles of public roads, the national highway system represents 5.5% of the nation's most heavily traveled miles of roads. now, that's 5% carrying 97% of the freight. americans depend on the well-maintained national highway

system. american businesses can pay an estimated $27 billion a year in extra freight transportation costs due to the poor condition of public roads, of the increase in shipping delays, and raising prices on everyday products. recognizing that it is the foundation of the nation's economy and the key to the nation's ability to compete in the global economy, it is essential that we focus efforts to improve freight movement on the national highway system. you -- you know, in all the bills i've been involved in -- six of these over the years -- we've never really addressed singled out freight to be aaddressed and yet there's no one in here who hasn't gone down the roads and highways and you see the congestion and traffic and we see the trucks that are idling over here and everyone being late and the costs. there's a tremendous cost to that. the drive act includes two new programs to help the states

deliver projects that promote the safe, efficient and reliable transportation of consumer goods and products. the first new program is the national freight program. the national freight program is distributed by -- by a formula that will provide funds to all states to enhance the movement of goods reduce costs and improve the performance of -- for businesses. it's kind of interesting because when you -- one of the good features about a -- a transportation system and the way we've been doing it with our transportation reauthorization bill is that we rely on the states to decide what their priorities are. you know, this infinite wisdom in washington, they think we know more than they know in the states, that's not true at all. this is one of the rare areas where we go to the states and say look, you guys, you decide what you think your priorities are in indiana or in oklahoma and we -- and so we have a formula to address that. but the problem with that is,

when you get to moving freight then they don't have that as a high priority because most freight moves through a state and they don't consider that to be a local problem. they're more concerned about passenger cars and so it doesn't appear. well it does appear now. so we have the first new program, the national freight program is a different type of formula and it addresses the movement of freight through states. the program will expand flexibility for both rural and urban areas to designate key freight corridors that match the regional movement of goods on roads. it will improve the efforts to identify projects with a high return on investment through state freight plans and state advisory committees. now, the second program is the assistance for major projects program and it creates a competitive grant program to provide funds to major projects of high importance to the

community, to the region and to the nation. the program includes a set-aside for rural areas and ensures the equitable geographic distribution of funds. the program includes strong transparency provisions and provides for a congressional selection and approval process for projects identified by the department of transportation as vital to our national interest. these new freight programs will only exist if the drive act is enacted. that's what we're talking about now, the drive act. and it will be enacted by congress, i'm very confident. i can't imagine by the way that people not listening to the people back home. right now if you go back to any of the states, i don't care what state it is, and you talk to the departments of transportation the state department of transportations, and they'll have not just the road builders, the suppliers but the people that drive on the roads, it is the most popular thing in america. and i can't imagine having the

opportunity to have a -- a six-year program any justification for voting against it. and so i think it's time we become innovative and forward thinking in how the federal programs are using tax dollars to responsibly partner with the states to improve the national highway system and the drive act is the answer. do you have a chart on the -- okay. yeah. fort lee, new jersey, the george washington bridge connects fort lee, new jersey, to new york city. it's the second worst freight bottleneck by congestion index in the nation. average speed slows to 29 miles an hour. rush-hour speeds in the morning and evening slow to below 15

miles an hour. the nearby i-95 cross-bronx expressway is the most congested corridor in the country. the morning southbound commute is considered the worst of the worst in the country. the george washington bridge is -- works -- it is in the worst, the busiest motor vehicle bridge. well that's what we're looking at. yesterday we were looking at -- what was the name of the bridge in new york? the brook lij bridge, wasn't it. that was where the one where some of us in here are old enough to remember the old "tarjan" movies? do you guys remember that? johnny weissmuller was tarzan. one of the movies was tarzan's new york adventures." and the brooklyn bridge was built in 1893 for a design life

of 60 years and here we are today, we still have the brooklyn bridge. any way he crawled up on the cop and the cops were -- occupy the top and the cops were chasing him with guns and he dove off. and every time i drive over the brooklyn bridge, i think i'm going to be diving off of there if the bridge collapses. then we have the houston texas bridge. do we have something on that? yeah the houston texas is the home of five of the top 20 freight bottlenecks in the nation. texas is -- it's the home of nine of the top 25 freight bottlenecks. freight bottlenecks cost the freight industry in texas some $671 million a year. that's just in texas the bottlenecks. and 8.8 million hours of delay. i-45 at u.s. 59 is franked third by congestion -- is ranked third by congestion index. i-45 at u.s. 610 north is ranked

15. average speed slows to 39 miles an hour. morning and evening rush hours it drops way below that. look at it. you can see that that is the problem. well that's why this is a very important part of this -- of the the -- of the bill that we're -- is before us now. so i think we have an opportunity and we have to sometimes remind people what doesn't work. what doesn't work is short-term fixes or short-term extensions of previous bills that were passed. the last one that we passed was 2005. it was a five-year bill. it expired at the end of 2009. and at that time, we should have started another one and -- another transportation reauthorization bill but we didn't do it. so we had short-term extensions. there's a guy named gary ridly out in oklahoma who's recognized nationally and he's been here

testifying several times before us as a national real scholar. he really understands transportation. he's done an analysis. he says that if we'll look at the 33 short-term extensions that we operated under right here in america after 2009 and before this bill it cost about 30% off the top. now, i think it's important for a lot of people here because sometimes there are rating organizations that will say well we don't -- we're going to oppose a bill because it's a big spending bill. sure it's a big spending bill. you know, that old worn-out document called the constitution says what we're supposed to be doing here, defending america and bridges and roads. and so that's what this is all about. and we're going to be doing it. but for conservative groups to say that we don't want to support this bill, they have dropped short of understanding the fact that the alternative is

to have short-term extensions and that costs 30% off the top. the conservative position is to pass a funded highway reauthorization bill. i know that a lot of people will be talking about devolution. i can talk about this because going back 25 years ago at that time a guy named connie mack, who was a house member and later a senator from florida he and i were the fathers of devolution. you didn't know that, did you? we're the ones who introduced the devolution bill. the idea sounded so good on the stump because you can say well, we just repealed all the federal taxes and make state taxes out of them. well it didn't quite work that way because you can't do that. if you repeal a federal tax then you have to pass a state tax. now, how many people here think think -- are naive enough to believe that all 48 contiguous states would be willing to pass a sizable state tax increase. it's not going to happen. and so that's why the national

highway system is so important. that's why eisenhower started this thing back in 1956. because we have friends -- my friends up in wyoming, there are very few people in wyoming but there are a lot of roads and that's part of our national highway system. now, if you did this if you did a devolution project, they would have to pass a 48-cent per gallon gasoline tax increase in wyoming. and so it's not going to happen and we know that's not going to happen and we're not going to be a uniform system unless we do it with this. and the opportunity we have now is the drive act. i know that the house has made some statements that they want to do a five-month extension. well see that's -- there we go again, another short-term extension. and their reason for this i guess is they want to get to the year's end and then couple that because of the pop layerity of the -- popularity of the highway bill with some of the tax changes that are going to be set to be changed -- to take place at the first of this coming

year. so i -- i know that some of my friends, because i've talked to them over in the house have said well, we want a short-term bill because we don't think you're going to pass a long-term bill in the senate. well, when they find out we are going to pass a long-term bill in the senate and we are going to pass this bill then that -- that changes things. so i look forward to that to the opportunity to get this passed and get it passed in a timely fashion. by the way, we have to keep in mind, we are in a deadline. we -- the deadline is the end of this month. the highway trust fund runs out of money at that time so that's where there's -- it's important that we get this passed. and i do have request for a u.c. mr. president, i have nine unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and the minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: and mr. president

i ask unanimous consent that the senate recess from 12:30 until 2:15 and at that time during the recess -- and that time during the recess count postcloture on the motion to proceed to h.r. 22 the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: with that -- all right, with that, then, the hour of -- well, i yield the floor and suggest the absence sense of a -- suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mrs. fischer: thank you mr. president. i would ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection.

mrs. fischer: mr. president i rise today to speak about critical legislation before the senate regarding our nation's transportation regulatory framework and infrastructure. as an active member of the senate commerce and environment and public works committees, i'm proud of the work my colleagues and i have done to develop a strong comprehensive bill that keeps our nation moving by making our transportation system safer and more efficient. while also increasing our global competitiveness. as many of you may know, my father was the director of the nebraska department of roads and through his service and by osmosis, i gained a deep appreciation for infrastructure projects and enabling them to move forward in nebraska and elsewhere. i've spoken with families and consumers, workers and business

owners all across the state of nebraska and the message is loud and clear. nebraskans want a long-term highway bill. nebraskans want to bring certainty to local projects and increase safety on the roads and highways. in the coming days the united states senate has the opportunity to provide our constituents with just that. a six-year transportation bill that will help vital projects get up and running. the bill enhances safety, makes much-needed regulatory reforms and increases investment in our nation's infrastructure. i appreciate the work that chairman thune inhofe and senator boxer and their committee staff members have accomplished with the drive act. the drive act will reauthorize

surface transportation programs for six years something that i have long advocated. to provide certainty for states, businesses families and the traveling public. most importantly the bill advances key provisions to ensure that local infrastructure projects in my state will move forward with a better and more defined process from the onset. throughout the process of developing this bill, i worked with local stakeholders in nebraska including our state department of roads highway builders consultant and transportation leaders. the meaningful changes that i champion will provide better coordination between the federal highway administration and states on streamlining

environmental committee and review and programmatic agreement templates when initiating new infrastructure projects. more specifically, the bill will establish procedures based on a template developed by the transportation secretary allowing states, in addition to the federal government, to determine which state or federal agencies must be consulted prior to beginning an infrastructure project. in addition, the bill provides technical assistance to states that want to assume responsibility for reviews of categorical exclusion projects which are a category of projects that don't have a significant impact on the environment triggering a less arduous level of environmental review. my provision would help states

provide their own certification regarding the appropriate level of environmental review of certain projects rather than wasting time and taxpayers' dollars waiting for the federal government to provide the assessment. given nebraska's challenges with starting and completing infrastructure projects, these elements of the drive act offer a major step forward for transportation projects in my state. i appreciate all the input that my office received from nebraska's transportation stakeholders on these crucial issues. the bill also includes major components of a bill that i introduced earlier this summer called the truck safety reform act. the legislation offers important regulatory reforms to the federal motor carrier safety

administration or fmcsa and encourages stronger regulatory analysis more transparency and wider public participation in this regulatory process. the bill also provides regulatory relief to agricultural producers in nebraska. it reforms research at the department of transportation to reduce duplication across the modal administrations. and it addresses the challenges of the c.s.a. truck scoring program. i'm also pleased that the bill establishes a new freight program to prioritize, increase efficiency and lower the cost of the movement of freight imports and exports throughout our nation. the freight program will help america's transportation system continue to facilitate expanding

u.s. trade flows. the drive act further incorporates performance-based regulations into our nation's transportation system. performance-based measures will offer states more flexibility in meeting the goals of infrastructure-related regulations. furthermore, the reforms to our transportation system will increase u.s. global competitive ness and strengthen safety on our nation's roads. they will also provide certainty to states and local governments businesses consumers workers and families. although this bill does not include every single provision that i initially advocated for i was willing to compromise, and i was willing to compromise for the greater good of our country's transportation

network. i truly appreciate senator boxer's willingness to negotiate in good faith. i encourage all of my colleagues to support this essential legislation. it is time for us to address our nation's transportation challenges. thank you mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. president, i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. coats: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. coats: madam president -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. coats: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coats: madam president i have repeatedly come down to the senate floor to talk about our budget issues. just earlier this morning talked about my 18th "waste of the week" look at waste, fraud, and abuse in terms of government spending and waste of taxpayers' dollars. the first of four years -- first credit four years of this six-year term that i'm enjoying and participating in i was consumed with the issue of our

continuing deficit spending and increasing national debt. i was part of a group working directly with the president in an effort for many months and his top people to reach an agreement on how to address our long-term budget situation. it is no secret that under this administration the national debt has almost doubled staggering to think that over the 230 or 240 years of the life of this country we've gone from $10 billion to now we're -- trillion dollars to now approaching $19 trillion of debt. as chairman of the joint economic committee and -- we recently released some information. 16 things to know about congressional budget office long-term budget outlet. this is something we spent a great deal of time debating years ago but it's fallen under the radar obviously dealing

with issues that are important this iran deal just signed by the administration deserves intense concentration and consideration in terms of how we address this the continuing economic malaise and slow recovery from the recession any number of issues, highway funding and health care and so forth. these are all important issues but underlying all of this is a fundamental issue that has not been addressed and if not addressed it's going to have significant adverse consequences for the american people. not just for future generations but our own generation. i keep trying to bring us back to this gorilla in the room here here that we keep kicking down the road. all the time gaining more and

more consequences, negative consequences for the american people. so our joint economic committee just released recently six things to know about the congressional budget office long-term budget outlet -- outlook. number one be, the u.s. cannot rely on borrowing forever. i mean, this -- this -- this is not a complex issue here. if you continue to borrow more money and don't pay your bills eventually the tax collector is at the door. and with the tax collector being at the door, this means eventually they're going to -- investors are going to demand higher and higher interest rates, which is going to -- because we don't have the confidence that the united states is going to be able to pay its bills. secondly mandatory spending skyrockets. we've all known that the spending for medicare, medicaid, and entitlements is just running amok and it needs to be addressed on a long-term fix.

third, our debt burden threatens national security. c.b.o. projects -- ex-cause me -- excuse me, the large amount of debt could also compromise national security by constraining defense spending or by limiting the country's ability to pram prepare for such crisis. we're cut cutting our defense at historically low rates of readiness, in terms of dealing with this. and so while the threat increases daily while the threat is right there before us, we are slashing our spending on defense and national security because we can't afford it. because the entitlements are eating all this up. number four, bankruptcy looms for social security. we stand here and pretend like everything is fine, everybody is going to continue to receive their social security checks, no problem. c.b.o. projects bankruptcy looms

for social security. the report that just calm out from the trustees -- that just came out for the trustees basically says that within the relatively short period of time social security is going to hit bankruptcy. what does that mean? that means dramatic cuts in social security benefits to people who have counted on using social security to help for their retirement, or dramatic tax keys cover the deficit. now there is a portion that the trustees say is going broke next year. we're in 2015, halfway through more than halfway through and next year by end of 2016 social security disability fund is going bankrupt. that is what has been said here, and if you don't trust my words read the new -- not my favorite

newspaper but one that usually gets its facts -- not always -- right. "the new york times" today has a major article "social security disability benefits face cuts in 2016." let me quote a couple things that is said in that paper on this issue. "11 million people face a deep, abrupt kupt cut in disability benefits in 2016 if congress fails to re-plenish social security's disability trust fund, which is running out of money." that was you shalled by the administration. officials express concern about the program as they issue their annual report on the financial condition of medicare and social security which together account for 40% of all federal spending. the trustees of social security said that the fund, disability

trust fund would be depleted in the last quarter of 2016, that then benefits would automatically be cut by 19% because revenues largely from payroll taxes would be sufficient to cover only 81% of scheduled benefit payments." folks, we've been warning about this for years not doing anything about it, and we now have this report from the trustees who oversee these funds, and the report is public lushed by "the new york times" -- is -- and the report, as published by the unusual times today, say this thing is going broke next year, and cuts will be 19% because weigh don't have the money to -- because we don't have the money to pay for it. you'd think the alarm bells would be sounding. you'd think that we'd finally be

understanding that we were hitting the wall on spending, that finally we have to step up and do something about runaway entitlement spending or srve going to pay the -- or everybody is going it pay the price. "the trustees in their report said that the squeeze on the disability program was 'but the first manifestation of larger financial imbalances facing social security as a whole as well as medicare'." where is the aarp? where are the people in real estate tirement who say don't touch a penny of my social security or medicare benefits when the trustees say don't worry, we won't have to touch a penny of it. the program is going broke on its own. for all of us who have been pleading to do something to address this issue it's not

even being talked about. and yet if anybody who comes down to the floor here an says this kind of stuff is immediately pill loriedimmediately pill loried by the aarp. it is going to automatically happen because we haven't addressed the issue. don't criticize us for trying to address an issue that's going to cut your benefits by 19% oregon cause the program -- or cause the program to go broke. support those who are -- who have the courage to stand up and say, folks we got to do something about this. if you want to continue and guarantee social security benefits when people retire or give them medicare coverage when they retire and need it, something has to be done now or there are going to be massive cuts. that's not just a republican standing up, a conservative standing up saying we're spending too much money we've got to cut back on that; this is the trustees who oversee the

programs are warning us saying, you got to do something or everybody is going to take a major cut. a couple other things that came out on the budget outlook. the federal debt has nearly doubled since president obama was elected. the federal debt has nearly doubled since the president was elected. what a legacy. why in the world would a president of the united states with the responsibility to oversee the fiscal basis of what makes this country work and commit to people that they will address problems as they occur -- you know, if this was a private business, madam president it would be in bankruptcy. nobody would buy the stock of this business. nobody would buy bonds of this business. nobody would invest in this

business because it's totally dysfunctional, and it's totally going broke. and yet it is the federal government -- they got printing presses down in the basement and they keep cranking out dollars as that devalue uwait devaluates their value to cover our debts. and they say loan money to the states. but buy our bonds because don't worry, we'll pay them back. not at this rate. so we're heading toward the wall. we're in the crisis. and we're really not doing anything about t it. now, point number six and the last point hopefully c.b.o., the congressional budget office, made correct assumptions. so they their warnings here are based on are assumtions that hopefully we'll take some efforts and prevent this. but if they're off by just .75%,

it has an effect of raising the federal debt to 159% of the economy. you know who has those numbers? greece japan is careening towards that catastrophe. but if you want to see a model of what happens you want to see an example of what happens to a country that allows its debt to run unchecked and to be -- and to hit the 100% mark of its total economy just take a look at what's happening in greece. none of us want to see that happen. but we have far too little alarm bells sounding in this country because it is happening and this isn't just republican propaganda or conservative propaganda. this is the congressional budget office. i.t. notit's not republican. it's not democrat. it's totally neutral.

it's math. it's numbers. it has nothing to do with ideology. it has everything to do with numbers. that ought to be driving us to be dealing with this issue standing up to our constituents and saying, regardless of the political consequences, folks just do the math. it's pretty simple math. if we don't do something everyone is going to pay a price. for those organizations -- and i call out aarp -- that scare people with mail and phone calls and everything else saying, they're going to cut your social security they're going to take some money away from your disability benefits -- that's not what we want to do. we want to guarantee what we have propped to people. -- promised to people. but if we don't take these actions, it'll automatically happen. and so we need the support of everybody who has concern not just about my generation who are retiring in record numbers but about the future, for our children and grandchildren. what is this country going to be if we can't take these steps?

i get exercised about this as to why i came back. that's the only reason i decided to run for the senate again -- or one of the two main reasons. i was worried about terrorist attacks and the marriage -- the nightmare of a marriage between weapons of mass destruction and terrorist groups impacting our country and the world. but while we seem to be struggling to address the terror issue and having some success -- at least we're aware of it on a daily basis -- we're letting this fiscal crisis go by without even talking about it. so i think everybody is exhausted. we've had exhausting exchanges. we've had bipartisan democrats and republicans working together pleading with the president and the white house through -- starting with simpson-bowles a bipartisan effort the gang of six a bipartisan effort, the committee of 12, a bipartisan effort.

i was part of the dinner group an effort pleading with the president "let's do something together to address this problem" and being turned down time after timee. and now we're sailing toward the end of this presidency, and obviously nothing is going to be done even though the social security trust fund is going to expire on the president's watch. oh they'll come up with some gimmick. they'll shift some money around, just putting us further in debt, just kicking can down the road. they have to cover this because politically they won't allow this to happen, but they will do it in a way that mix our situation even worse. so as the president careens towards retirement and his legacy wounds one of them is going to be come back to be responded to by people for years and years in the future. why didn't we do something when we had the chance on a bipartisan basis with support from both parties? why was the president so adamant

about not doing anything to address this problem? and so time is running out. social security disability will collapse under the president's leadership here before he escapes at the end of 2016. you can tell how frustrated i am but i'm going to keep coming down here, keep talking about this stuff and hopefully -- well we don't want it to happen under crisis. we don't want to be days away from bankruptcy, so we move some money around in the federal budget and so fortunately and so on -- take it from peter to pay paul and put us further in debt and then kick the can down the road. and, boy i feel for the next president, whoever that might be. they're going to get a can of worms. because we didn't do anything about this during this tenure. madam president, with that, i yield the floor.

and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. booker: i appreciate the provision, madam president i'm grateful for that and i ask unanimous consent to vitiate the

quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. booker: thank you. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until >> this weekend on the c-span networks, politics, books in american history.

>> a number of senators are planning amendments to open euros travel and trade with cuba. reuters reports that would be the first legislation to facilitate president obama's push to normalize relations with cuba. the amendments would be added to the set financial services spending bill under consideration in committee. this morning on "washington journal" we talked with a florida congressman about his thoughts on u.s.-cuba relations. we'll sure as much of that as we can into today's white house briefing gets under way which we will be taking you to life. >> host: a new phase to the program oxman carlos curbelo republican serving his first

term serves on the transportation of a shocker to me. we will get to the highway funding bill but first immigration issues. sanctuary cities. the house will vote on legislation. that would proposed grant some jurisdictions the issue of illegal immigrants to does immigration and customs enforcement. >> guest: look i'm a major proponent of immigration reform and this legislation is inspired by the tragic death renders murder that took place in san francisco just a few days ago. i understand the sentiment that we want to do something or show that congress is being proactive. however, century cities is only one of the many pernicious symptoms of our broken immigration system. if you want to put an end to all of this if you want to bring order to immigration in the united states this bill today

really isn't a solution but it's a band-aid. it addresses those cities that refuse to cooperate with the federal government but it does so kind of my punishing law enforcement. i'm not sure that this is the best way forward. what i'm going for what i'm advocating for is real solutions to immigration system that this bill today will not secure the border. and whatnot reform our visa system. it will not help us account for the 11-13 million people that are living here illegally. that's what we need to focus on. this isn't a real solution. >> host: are you a no vote transfer to have a decided but i'm not enthusiastic about this legislation. >> host: what have you heard you are a republican who has set up a pack to go promote republicans who are for immigration reform to addressing the whole system. but have you heard from leadership about getting some are you talking to them about getting something on the floor and window might happen?

is a more likely after 2016? >> guest: our leaders know that this has to get done. they know it's an important issue for the country. and it's an important issue or our party. the question is how do we do and how to build enough trust with president obama to get it done? before this last election speaker of the house told the president please don't move on immigration on your own. give us a shot to do it. the president a general matter anyway. that was very damaging to the prospects of immigration reform. however, there is a significant group of us in the republican conference that are working very hard every day to build momentum for the speech and say look, we can't just focus on whether it be sanctuary cities or visa caps. we really need to look at the whole system and pay attention to it is failing our country failing our economy failing our

law enforcement agencies, and fix it. and that's what we're going to continue advocating for. i have the only political action committee in the country, on the republican side, that is dedicated to supporting republicans that understand the importance of this issue. >> host: how much money do you have? >> guest: we have raised almost $100,000 already. >> host: how many collisions are looking to push reform? >> guest: i don't have a hard number but we've already supported over 30 members of congress, and all of them have told me personally yes, this is an important issue and i want to work on a. i take another word posting you say it's important for the part as well. donald trump had to say on tuesday about his immigration remarks that he made recently. >> and we brought something up that wasn't even discussed by anybody am a democrat republican wasn't discussed. the problem we're having in this country it's a tremendous

problem with the border and port security and lack of border security, and illegal immigrants. it's a huge problem and now everybody is talking about it addressing i was right in people that were criticizing me to be sick of our calling and they are saying off the record, mr. drum, you were right. and even reporters -- mr. trump and even reporters a couple of them called and they sort of the isa would you go on the record? no, no, no. we want to do that but we're getting great credit. last week as you know we had a tremendous rally 15,000 people in phoenix, arizona, and it was unbelievable. they really came for a reason, and it was illegal immigration. they are being decimated. they want it stopped. i want people to come into the country but they have to do it through the legal process. >> host: congressman treachery he is trying to sound a little reasonable after making some

completely ridiculous, absurd and really unacceptable remarks. heatsink people agree with them that immigration is a problem in our country and something that needs to be addressed. certainly i think most americans believe that and we've seen that in polling. what we don't agree with him on is the disparaging remarks he made about mexicans and mexican-americans. i have many mexican-american friends. they are some of the hardest working people in this country. they came to this country to work. i understand that mr. trump hires many of them in his many different businesses, so mr. trump has been a destructive force on the political scene. he is kind of distorting what the debate has really been about, and the bottom line is that like so many others, and i include president obama, the democrats and republicans as well he has used immigration

for personal political gains i making outrageous statements in the case of the president in 2008, i've criticized him over and over. he promised during the campaign and he said my first year as president we will address immigration reform. democrats have the whole house and control of the house 60 votes innocent and they refused to act. why? so that they could continue using immigration as a political football. whether it's mr. trump, other republicans, the democrats, i condemn anyone who uses this topic on which is a very series of topic, it needs real solutions for political gain. >> host: should mr. to get out of the race track to of course he should. is not a serious candidate. he is doing this to get attention to race a number of issues about he is now criticizing hillary clinton and a very aggressive way but it i don't know if he's very close to the clintons. they went to was one in 2005.

he has contributed to the clinton foundation. he contributed to ms. clinton's campaign. donald kohn's campaign is not about the country, not about the future of america. it's about him. he's very selfish and he should get out of this race so that we can have a series of debate and listen to serious candidates that have honest and sincere solutions for the future of our country uzbek donald trump will tour the border today, going to laredo texas. the people of laredo, texas inviting it to go down there. you can look for coverage on this on c-span.org. what do you make about? >> guest: he should apologize. they are many mexican-american to that live in that part of the country and he should apologize and he should recognize their hard work, their contributions to this country. he should announce it getting out of the race to get would be the best thing he could do. >> host: i also talk about u.s.-cuba relations because that is an issue earlier this week when the embassy in washington reopen for the first time in 50 years.

secretary of state john kerry attending the ceremony. want to show you and our viewers what he had to say and get your response. >> change is rarely easy. especially when are your positions have been so deeply ingrained and so profoundly felt felt. but although we can and must learn from the past, nothing is more futile than trying to live in the past. president obama believes, and so do i, that our citizens benefit far more from policies that aim to shape a better future. there is after all, nothing to be lost and much to be gained by encouraging travel between our nations, the free flow of information and ideas the resumption of commerce and the removal of obstacles that have made it harder for families to visit their loved ones. make no mistake the process of

fully normalizing relations between a united states and cuba will go on. it may be long and complex, but along the way we are sure to encounter a bump here or there and most even of frustration. patience will be required. but that is all the more reason to get started now on this journey, this long overdue journey. >> host: your reaction treachery look, i have shown a willingness to work with the administration on a number of issues. the environment, education initiative. even immigration. however, on foreign policy i just think that this administration is taking our country to a very dangerous path. this is the administration of these deeply flawed and negotiation with iran that it resulted in a complete flawed agreement. this is the administration of the redline in syria at no point for foreign affairs in this country.

and in the case of cuba this is the administration that in exchange for alan gross an american who was unjustly held hostage by the cuban government they have given the cuban government everything that government ever wanted, and then some. three convicted spies, one of those convicted of conspiring to murder american citizens removal from the list of state sponsors of terror, even though everyone knows that cuba continues to have close ties to many of our enemies like north korea, like the guerrillas in colombia. we've given them sanctions relief, full diplomatic sanctions legitimacy on the world stage. all why? as the report to the cuban government for having held out the gross hostage for five years. because that's how this all started. i think it's a major mistake. mr. kerry says that we can't live in the past and i agree we

have to live in the present, and the facts today on that cuba is led by military dictatorship that's responsible for the death of american citizens to become on february 24 1996, the cuban government shutdown to cessnas flown by american citizens over international waters, those young men were murdered come in their '20s and '30s. this is the same cuban government that was shipping arms to legally to north korea just a couple of years ago. this isn't the same cuban government that today continues to wreak havoc in our hemisphere. they have destroyed the country of venezuela, a country that was part of a democratic community of nations and nose those almost a failed state because the cuban government. so why does president obama and secretary kerry, why do they insist on continuing to reward of his government with unilateral concession and asking

for nothing in return for the cuban government continues beating people on the streets of havana, imprisoning dissidents. i mean, i just don't understand the logic. >> host: he represented to his district in florida. 70% of your district is looking at. how many cuban americans does not include, almost all cuban americans? what are they telling you? >> guest: about -- >> host: some cuban americans with the sanction should be lifted. the embargo is not working. >> guest: about half the latinos in my district are cuban-americans. what i found is the more people know about the reality that is today's cuba more people know about the history of u.s.-cuba relations, the more they are opposed to what the obama administration is doing. and look sure, some the polls say six in 10, seven in 10 americans think we should try something new.

when that question is asked by itself should we try something different with regards to cuba if someone doesn't know the history doesn't know all the details, everything that is going on they would be likely to say yes, because they know it's been a long conflict. but the bottom line is that the policy that i want for the united states is a policy based on the facts today. not fantasyland that secretary kerry was describing the this is in any of the united states and we need to be very careful how we proceed. >> host: let's get viewers to fall. patrick in virginia, democrat, you are up first. >> caller: yes. my question is first of all a death of america is a death. however, in the hands of an illegal immigrant or in the hands of a twisted minded -- [inaudible] or anybody a terrorist. now what i don't understand is

how the congress -- [inaudible] under some of his supposed be deported by tons. yet at the same time that congress hasn't taken any action on federal grounds house but we will take your point, patrick. congressman? >> guest: interesting connection that the caller has made. look i don't think the confederate flag as any place on government property. and in florida we saw a great example of leadership in 2001, long before we were having this intense debate today governor jeb bush said this flag is part of our history but it does not unify our cities and it does represent our state today. he got and put in a newseum and that's what we should do.

that flag represents an army lost the war. we are the united states of american we should be united under one flag. -- >> "washington journal" live every day of 7 a.m. we leave this out to take you live to the white house for today's briefing. >> john-- comic i would take the congressman for his comments. first off his cuba policy is a retread of the carter policies of the 1970s, clinton policies of the 1990s -- >> so my question to you is, the u.s. hasn't even seen these agreements and really just gotten on the what, secretary moniz described as u.s. a general briefings about them. how can you be so confident is a good just and adequate address concerns the u.s. has had about

iran? >> to be clear and i think this is consistent with what secretary kerry another set on capitol hill today is that this is not represent some sort of sign deal. in fact, you will recall that prior to iran getting any kind of sanctions relief, they have to provide the iaea with the information and access and that they need in order to complete their report about the possibility military dimension of the rest of the program. i know there's been a suggestion by some republicans that there is some agreement that was cut off to the side. effect as this is a critical part of the agreement in effect you still cannot go forward until the information and that access has been provided to nuclear expert at the iaea. now, separately this is the international institutions that is responsible for tearing out the inspections. they are a neutral party but yet

they have the kind of expertise that is required in order to conduct these kinds of inspections, evaluate this information and generate a report. and that is exactly what they are going to do. and our negotiating team is aware of the agreements that have been made between the iaea and the iranian 50 were called even in the final days in the negotiation there was some travel by senior iaea officials to tehran to start talking to this issue, and what i believe secretary moniz mixer today is that are members of congress that would like to get greater understanding into the kind of access and information that the iaea is seeking, that our negotiators will in a classified setting have a conversation with those mounds of congress about what exactly the iaea is seeking. >> can you tell us when that will take place? apparently this came up in some

of the classified briefings that took place yesterday and there was not information given to congress about those separate agreements the iaea had with iran. is the time we do plan to brief congress in a classified setting? >> i would agree to department of energy but we'll see if we can get you some more things. i don't know the be a formal hearing although i suppose there couldcould be but again he would be in a classified study. what we are talking about is information that is sensitive information that we don't want of a discussion about publicly because it's it poses a proliferation risk. but there is a desire and willingness to share information and that's exactly what our negotiators are committed to doing to the last thing i will say about this at josh, an important part that should not be overlooked, the eventual iaea report about the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program will be published and made public. the people of an opportunity to

see the conclusion that were reached by the experts at the iaea. about the potential military dimensions of iran's nuclear program. >> has the president been following this about this adam bland in texas and any thoughts about what took place there? >> i know he is aware of this incident that has received significant media attention of last week or so. this is essentially destroyed under investigation by local law enforcement and the local prosecutor down in texas. and so i would like an to weigh in with the present specific thoughts your until the local prosecutor has had an opportunity to conclude the data that they've opened into this matter. >> ambassador rice mr. tabler to present trip that he is on. the same thing and some of the calls from kenyan politicians and other leaders for the

president not to bring up the gay rights what he was up there. she said basically if it's appropriate i'm sure the president will feel comfortable bringing up the issue if he wants to. that seems like it's a far cry from some of these other trips that the president has taken work he's made a point, for instance in china he said we will proactively bring up the issue of human rights because we realize it's an issue and we wanted out of there. i'm wondering why the distinction? will the president it is not prompted on proactively bring up issues because whenever the president travels anywhere around the world, and you've covered the president numerous overseas trips of this president has taken. the president routinely makes a strong case about the important, importance of government a protecting the basic universal human rights of their people. that's true with the president has preview travel to the middle east, when he is traveled to

asia, when he traveled to latin america and to be true when the president travels to africa later this week. the president understands passionate let me say this with. in the minds of the president he can be a forceful advocate and traveling around the world in making the case for the protection of basic universal human rights. he doesn't ever he goes i'm confident he will do that in africa. >> the president of uaw said he met with obama and labor secretary perez last friday committee wants obama to prevent autoworker jobs from going, from leaving the u.s. can you confirm that? did the president, did the president make any promises? >> i can't can confirm the meeting i don't have a lot of details to read it to you. the president did have as it often does have a conversation with some leaders in the community about the president

continued focus on expanding economic opportunity for middle-class families in this country. there was a discussion on the wide range of issues primarily focused around how to expand economic opportunity for everybody. >> i want to see getting the words on the highway bill and he paid for not that that bill yesterday cleared a procedural vote in the senate? >> our team is to reduce the legislation to more than 1000 pages long -- still reviewing. the things they're paying close attention to are the pay-fors, the offsets if you will. whenever we talk about funding bills, democrats and republicans will often have the most heated disagreements when it comes to ensuring that these programs are properly funded. and so that is getting some careful attention to there are concerns that have been raised about some of the safety provisions included in the bill. the department has petitioned

makes safety of the american traveling public their top priority. we are going to take a close look as a safety provisions that are in here. we are going to continue to have conversations with members of congress about this big of the things that he mentioned yesterday that continues to be true today is that transportation, surface transportation legislation is the most likely legislative vehicle, no pun intended, to move before the end of this month and that's why we would we have insisted that the provisions related to reauthorizing the export-import bank should be added to any transportation bill that passed the congress before the end of this month. ..

in that call, the two leaders discussed efforts to deepen our cooperation in the fight against step three. the cooperation that exists between turkey and the united states and the other parts of our coalition. obviously, anybody who has looked at a map of the region understands the significant interest that turkey has the

situation. they share reported that some 560 miles long with syria appeared there have been reports has recently as earlier this week of a bombing that occurred on the turkish syrian border. we are still trying to gather more information about what exactly occurred, but it's an indication that the instability along turkey's southern border is a source of significant concern that concern is understandable. in the context of the conversation the president had with president theodore won last night, they talked about efforts to enhance and deepen cooperation. but they will focus on his promoting security stability in iraq and they'll be focused on bring about a political settlement inside syria. it is notable turkey is doing a

number of things to support the counter iso- coalition. hosting one of the training facilities for the program for the syrian opposition. turkey has taken steps to curb the flow. we do know from reports that the 560-mile long border between turkey and syria is traveled by some foreign fighters seeking to join arms alongside isil and taken steps to close the border and there may be more things we can do together to help them stem the flow. not just turkey's responsibility but obviously the responsibility of countries around the world to be engaged in that effort. the last thing i'll say the first is turkey has been a leader in humanitarian effort. obviously a significant number of refugees created by the crisis many have fled syria into turkey and turkey is there any significant burden to

provide for 2 million refugees who fled into turkey. that's an enormous burden on the nation of turkey we are mindful of the amount of responsibility in that regard. ui specifically about the military base in turkey. i am not able to talk about some of those issues because a specific operational security concerns. what we have acknowledged as our coalition has access to a variety of bases throughout europe in the middle east for a variety of mission that included isr intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance personnel recovery refueling and carrying out of military airstrikes. operational security reasons i

can't get into which bases are used for which purpose. >> are in a new agreement last night on the phone call. >> as it relates specifically i don't have details. i can confirm in the context of the conversation the two leaders did agree we would deepen cooperation as they take on this isil threat to >> fbi director james carney said yesterday that isil poses a greater threat. is that consistent with the president understanding now? >> kristen, we spend a lot of time talking about significant resources and time and energy devoted to countering isil executing a strategy that will ultimately destroy the organization. whether it is military stats is military staffs are steps to cut off their financing operations trying to stem the flow of

foreign fighters and to ratify individuals using social media. we have a multipronged strategy we used to counter isil. what is also true if the administration has been successful in decimating core al qaeda and the progress against al qaeda affiliates around the globe continues. we did not have an opportunity to talk about it yesterday at the department of defense announced earlier this week that muhsin al-fadhli the leader in syria was taken off of the battlefield as the department of defense air strike this month. this is an individual responsible for planning and operationalizing external plots by al qaeda against the united states. so we continue to be mindful of the threat posed by al qaeda and

that announcement is an indication that we are not just focused on the threat but that we have success against threat. [inaudible] does the president agree with this statement? >> i would refer you to director colby. but i'm telling you is the president is mindful of those threats in the discussion of those threats in this briefing room should be a clear indication of that. the other indication is the significant progress in making countering countering threats to the united states. >> two-year efforts secretary jeh johnson said in terms of the effort to counter online social media messaging he said quote i believe it is being developed but it needs a broader platform. the question is how come the message is still being

developed? >> as you know, this is enough or we've been engaged in for quite some time earlier this year, six months ago the white house convened a summit to focus current violent extremism. and trying to counter efforts of extremists using social media to radicalize vulnerable populations. what continues to be true is when trying to counter the message of an organization like isil, the most effective ways to build up a platform of moderate muslim leaders. they are the most persuasive voice and we have worked with other countries. the uae has played an important role in helping to develop and implement those messaging strategies but the work on that does continue as the secretary said. >> my question is you seem to

suggest the u.s. is behind. they need the larger microphone. why haven't we gotten further than not at this point given the report that came out saying essentially isis restaurant in the u.s. >> we continue to be engaged on recruiting moderate voices in the muslim community who can be most dead and has the most credibility in countering the radical hateful ideology. [inaudible] >> that's definitely not the way i would describe it. i would describe it as the united states and this administration has for a long time now been focused on the need to counter the radical ideology that isil is spreading on social media in a variety of

ways to succeed in doing that and one of them is to build up that capacity and prominence of moderate muslim leaders to counter the ideology. >> can you give details about the message of what should the moderate muslim leaders say? >> the state department is responsible for working around the world to implement strategies. >> josh, the white house has full confidence in the iaea and its capabilities. is that a reasonable view? >> the reasonable view is the international community has turned to the iaea an independent international organization of nuclear experts who are responsible for conducting these kinds of inspections. they've done that in a variety of countries and obviously

they've got an important role to play in examining a possible military dimensions of iran's nuclear program. we have made contingent on the steel moving forward that i ran grant access and information that they need to complete their report. the other thing that is true is we actually have a lot of information about iran's nuclear program that we have developed. as is information we already know. what is important is to make sure iran even before they receive the sanctions relief that they are ready to comply with the requirements the iea ea has for information. >> in years past it makes nuclear activity in syria and

libya missed activity in other countries. are you completely confident in their capabilities now >> i'm not aware of this specific instance. presumably this iaea is. you're illustrated why the president insisted on the most intrusive set of inspections ever imposed on a country's nuclear program. it means the iaea inspectors will have access to the iran nuclear program that is unprecedented in any other country's nuclear program. iaea inspectors have access to iran's uranium mills. they will have access to iran's nuclear sites and access to iran's facilities for the manufacture centrifuges. they will have the ability to monitor those sites and can run the centrifuges need to be taken out of operation so are

effectively locked up. this is the access the iaea has never had and that's why we continue to be confident that this deal will prevent iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. if it shuts down every pathway. >> as was revealed in the hearing today, the iaea will have to rely on iran to provide samples of certain facilities. is that correct to rely on iran to provide access to samples? >> for a detail like that i would refer you to the iaea. it is not as if the iaea can intervene through for us but contingent on the agreement and this is why it's important. there was a lot of time spent about whether or not the international community would

insist iran address the potential military dimensions of their nuclear program in the context of this deal and a lot of suspicion. a lot of republicans stood up and said this had to be part of any agreement. that is what we've delivered in the same can. we have delivered a written commitment that they will provide the iaea with the access and information into clear experts need to finalize their report on the potential military dimensions of the program and accessing information needs to be provided in advance of october 15th. if i sit here late to said the iaea will have all the access they need to resolve questions to rate their report about iran's nuclear program, you would've looked at me skeptically. that is the charitable way to say it. not that you are now. but it's part of your job description.

i don't take it personally. the point is this is a situation in which our critics prior to the deal being written criticized the deal before it was revealed because they were skeptical as ever going to reach the bar. that's exactly what they've done. we've delivered ahead of the expectations of our critics in this regard. >> are you sure about the fact that the iaea in other instances you're not familiar that they miss the area ms. libya, missed iraq. you are still confident this time is different. >> in those instances you've described the investigators didn't have the access and that is why we can be confident he kinds of days tough inspections regime that we can shut down every pathway including the covert path.

>> secretary moniz told the foreign relations committee that the u.s. does not have a copy of the agreement between the iaea and iran. the chain of custody for the fissile material double-team moved out of their program under the agreement. without that and without knowing that, how can we trust what is going to happen? >> bill we do know what the agreement is between iran and the iaea. it is not something i can discuss in the setting but it is something that can be discussed in classified settings two senior members of the administration and congress. [inaudible] >> you are actually conflating two different things. one thing is having a copy of the document and knowing what is in it. the united states and our negotiating partners the p5+1 are worth the agreement and u.s. officials are prepared to brief members of congress about the details of those arrangements.

>> numbers of congress are upset the u.n. vote was allowed to proceed before they had a chance to fully review the document. they refer back to secretary kerry's testimony yesterday which suggests once the u.n. has backed dead for all practical purposes international sanctions are off the matter with the u.s. congress does and in fact would make it difficult to further sanction iran if there were ever any following away from the agreement. >> the first thing we have to recognize his distractions are not off until everyone has reduced their stockpile by 90% and disconnected 13,000 centrifuges and until they have complied with the iaea's request for accessing information to determine the possible military dimensions of iran's nuclear program. that is what is required to move

forward. >> actually the information and access about the potential military dimensions of iran's nuclear program has to be provided in 90 days. that is why we continue to be confident will have verification measures to ensure they are complying with the terms of the agreement. if they don't the deal won't go forward it won't move forward in an instance until the steps and more have been taken by iran. >> the house has released the law for sanctuary cities they saw in administration policy and the president would veto this bill. on the underlying issues to the white house have a concern about so-called sanctuary cities and the notion that locality can decide on its son to not enforce the law?

>> one of the characteristic elements of the significant challenges the federal government and federal law enforcement officials have had worse in the law by working closely with local law enforcement officials. this is something in the united states congress had the opportunity to fix in the context of comprehensive immigration reform legislation. the fix is blocked by republicans and house of representatives. that is why the president acted on his own and the president actually scrapped the secure communities program that previously codified a relationship between the federal government and local law enforcement to cost a number of cities to declare themselves sanctuary cities. the president dragged his team to move forward on the priority enforcement program that would allow state, local and federal law enforcement officials to better coordinate and better cooperate and we are starting to see city sign up for and engage

in conversations about establishing the program and it will -- we believe it will allow us to make it or progress in achieving what the president believed should be our top priority when it comes to immigration reform, which is making sure we are concentrating our limited law enforcement resources on those supposed threat to public safety. >> do you believe that 60 been able to do through executive actions is still a significant problem? the house is acting today and the president believes you have cities declared they will not abide by the law. >> john, we do know what would make a better is if we had the opportunity to ramp up individuals if we could provide fun for us but officials with additional tools include enhanced penalties for immigration violators and

increase penalties utmost to engage in trafficking and document fraud and if we could make sure those individuals convicted of repeated game related offenses are repeated drunk driving offenses, that those individuals would be to portable. all of those were included in the comprehensive immigration reform bill the republicans blocked. marco rubio made the expression famous but he was right about this that the closest thing we have to amnesty is the current broken immigration system and that's what republicans refuse to fix and republicans have perpetuated. when it comes to law enforcement and making sure we focus on those individuals who pose a threat to public safety, the president has done far more to protect our communities. there's more there should be done and more that congress is to do to put forward a proposal to address challenges.

>> can you bring me up to speed. what is the president's position on the issue of people serving in the military? >> snl, the military last week announced a review to examine this exact question and i know secretary carter and others have indicated that individuals capable of serving their country should be prevented from doing so based on the gender related questions. the key here is implementing them in implementing back and await the military can look forward with their critically important mission. that is what the military is studying right now. >> i think there is an answer in there. does the president believe the transgender and serve in the military and the ban on people serving should lift? >> we welcome the decision by

those announced by the secretary of defense to reveal how they could implement a change in the policy. >> he believes the question of how -- right now you have transgender as a mental disorder. the effect is and should be lifted. it's a question of how that would be implemented? >> my point is that's not an irrelevant question. the practicality of implementing the policy makes a difference. that's exactly what the department of defense is looking up. i noted in a statement they have said they would conduct the review with a bias in favor of changing the policy. the president certainly supports the approach. >> people who are transgender should serve? >> this is that the department is looking into. >> should they have a right to

serve? >> i'm doing my best. what is relevant here is the way in which the policy can be successfully implemented and that is what the department of defense is reviewing. they are reviewing implementation with a bias in favor of lifting the ban of this president does believe that's the right approach. i think they've set a timeline. i don't remember what it is that you can check with them. i know they have like a 90 or 120 day review period they can get into detail. >> i want to go back to isis. not only that isis is a greater but these encrypt did -- the fbi does not access to it. he described it as not only trying to find needles in a haystack, but invisible needles because of the way they are

communicating. can you talk about the specific challenge and how is it that the united states is feeling a mite of that problem. >> this is a thorny political issue or thorny policy issue i should say. here is the reason it is complicated. the president is a strong advocate of robust encryption. robust encryption does protect the privacy and security of typical americans than they should have access when they use technology dish of access to technology that protects their privacy. at the same time, there's legitimate public interest that's even shared by many tech executives in ensuring the encryption technology can't essentially aided and abetted them. a terrible act of violence. so that is essentially the question before policy makers

and a question that law enforcement officials have to confront in a very real way and this'll be a policy we have to work through. the president has discussed this issue quite a bit. i would encourage you to take a look at the interview he had. the president was in california for a cybersecurity summit in committing to stanford university and after the summit he had a conversation in which they discuss the policy issue. >> so essentially trying to figure out where -- [inaudible] >> i think what director called me when hasten to add to that declaration is our law enforcement officials in this country responsible for keeping us safe work closely with our intelligence community, our homeland security community to deploy a range of measures to

protect the american people and it requires a lot of work a lot of expertise and dedication that our men and women in law enforcement come intel community and homeland security or to the task and we're proud of the work they do. april. >> josh, two questions. first, the justice department and the white house aware of anything that the justice department is looking at the issue right now because there are cases similar to this that they are watching before they step in. have you heard anything that they are looking specifically last night hearing there will now be a new autopsy? >> april, i would refer you to the department of justice for exactly what they're doing in this specific matter. >> already. you don't know anything about just watching the case?

>> they are monitoring the situation that is the local prosecutor right now conducting the investigation. the department of justice is aware the local investigation is ongoing and i'm not aware the department of justice has opened their investigation. that is something they would announce. >> on the issue of intelligence and understanding what happened with a needle in a haystack, on issues of intelligence they are different faces and layers of how we have to deal with how the government is dealing with threats here in the united states and abroad. how would you rank the intelligence when it comes to here in the united states tried to find a needle in a haystack and also trying to find out others like iran during the bush years. have things changed? has the intelligence gotten better specifically when you

have to bring in other countries that ask for an iran deal and then a needle in a haystack. how would you rank our intelligence here at home and abroad? >> well, couple things. first is there are tremendous capabilities that our intelligence community use to keep us safe and protect interests around the globe. we live in a world in which our adversaries and in some cases our enemies are very inventive and creative and persistent in trying to develop new ways to evade detection and carry out acts of violence. that is why it is critically important our intelligence community remained vigilant about the threat. they do and these are seasoned experts and they are themselves creative and taken steps they believe are necessary to keep us

safe. the other thing critically important is the effective relationship the intelligence community has with the intelligence services around the world and by sharing information and coordinating efforts with other countries intelligence capabilities, we can significantly enhance our own security and this is true when we talk a lot about the important security relationship between the united states and israel ended a significant and that is certainly something that contributes to our national security. in terms of i think the other thing i would do, april, i would refer you to the office of the director of national intelligence. this is a position created near the end of the bush administration that sought to make the communication of intelligence to the president more effective. there are a variety of government agencies that have an intelligent mission and it's the

responsibility of the director of national intelligence to coordinate the nation to make sure each agency engaged in the work and leveraging their particular expertise to maximize the benefit to the country and to our country's decision-makers. the director of national intelligence can tell you more about that. >> how much is the average americans saving looking for the lone wolf for possible threats like a needle in a haystack. that leaves people uneasy. how are americans supposed to digest that information? >> april, we have wanted knowledge one of the most difficult threats to prevent to attack. it is by definition not conspire in a large group of individuals are rather acting on their own

to take certain steps and try again to stop that person before he or she acts is very challenging and something that our law enforcement, homeland security officials are very mindful of but they have a variety of measures and steps and strategies they can employ to prevent a mobile from acting. for some more information about that, i would refer you to the fbi. they have announced in the last several weeks people who could have been had they been able to follow through with their actions can individuals that can certainly fill you in on their activities. james. >> josh, thank you. earlier in this briefing you were asked about the effect of the iaea been forced to rely on

iran to provide samples from the sensitive side a prospect that seems to be enshrined in the agreement between iran and the iaea. you didn't seem to want to address this directly. rather he touted the fact the administration has and exceeding the expectations of critics as you put it, delivered iran's commitment. i don't think you want to be the position of delivery commitments from iran. you want to deliver compliance from iran. i wonder what you can say to us to assure us that there is not going to be some gaping hole in the chain of custody or the iaea is concerned. >> i do feel confident in telling you this administration working closely with the international community to deliver and if they don't follow through we have a range of steps they can take to hold them to

account. that is the essence of the agreement and that takes a couple of forms. the first is the agreement include snapback provisions. if we detect iran is not following through on their commitment, we can put the sanctions regime back in place that are most ardent critics believe and agree has been critically successful. the other fact of the matter is we continue to have all the options on the table the president previously had and that includes the military option. [inaudible] >> i don't know the details. but i can tell you is i can tell that you before i ran receives any sanctions relief under this joint agreement, they must provide to the iaea all of the information and access at the iaea says they need to complete their report about the potential military dimensions of the nuclear program. i know critics are suggesting a

side deal going on. what i suggest to you is this is a critically part and part of the agreement. >> it sounds to me the administration wouldn't have a problem with it if iaea is self content to receive evidence or soil samples or what have you but doesn't have a proper chain. >> the iaea is an international body of independent nuclear experts that can determine what access they feel they need in order to complete their report. but we will have the opportunity to do is read the report after it's been written and i'm confident part of that will be a description of the kind of access they needed and received to write the report. >> when ambassador raised if this yesterday, we had a colloquy in which he basically stated that congress has received copies of everything the united states is in a

position to deliver in terms of documentation relating to this deal. i think the way she put it is to the effect that we are not in possession of anything which could give to the congress that we haven't with respect to documentation. is it contemplated that going forward by virtue of the mechanisms put in place there could be new documentation generated and if that is true does the administration commit here now to continuing to provide congress with all available documentation related to the implementation? >> i'm not aware of any lingering documentation out there, but that is why it is hard to confront what is essentially a hypothetical. what i do know is what secretary -- i'm sorry, ambassador rice said yesterday that all the documents the

united states has in our possession has been forwarded to congress. i will acknowledge some of those documents are documents not released publicly because they do contain some sensitive information about documents available for the review of every member of the united states congress. there is additional information the united states and negotiators are aware of that we can in a classified setting share with members of congress said they are documents that there's information relevant to the negotiation and we've committed to sharing as much of the information as is deemed necessary by members of congress. that is the position we are in. that is an ongoing commitment that we will continue to provide information and answer questions. what we do believe as congress is now in possession of all of the information they need to abide with a particular

agreement not to expect they will do over the next 60 days. >> i want to return to the subject that kristin raised. in your answer to kristin, you spoke about the problem of what you call violent extremism. we know a lot of attention has been paid to the formulation and why it isn't a different formulation. in your answer when you yourself are talking about the problem of violent extremism, twice he went to talk about the need for building a platform for moderate muslim leaders and finding moderate graces particularly in the muslim community. i just wonder josh if we could return to the question why is it you see the answers to the problem in the muslim community that you don't see fit to identify the problem itself. you want to talk about violent extremism.

>> genes, kristin was asking me directly about isil. we do know a extremist wrap a lot of ideology, hateful and nihilistic ideology in the trappings of the religion of islam and it makes sense that we would have gauged leaders in the muslim community to assist as is the counter and rebut the messaging. that is certainly not early strategy. there are a variety of ways we can degrade and ultimately destroy isil the counter communities in the united states and around the world. >> is there some other religion besides islam today they use the fomenting violent extremism? >> are people of all religions but no doubt the very dangerous terrorist organization in isil have sought to wrap themselves in the religion of islam to try to sugarcoat their hateful ideology. any data.

>> i wondered if the administration had a view on a bill about genetically modified things with the mandatory labeling, genetically modified foods by state and local governments and establish a voluntary labor in. are you familiar with it? >> i'm not familiar with the bill, but we'll get you some information. [inaudible] >> will collect some information about it. >> secondly, you are aware before the briefing senator cruz is a across the street at lafayette park with a protest against the nuclear deal. among other things he was very vocal about the expectations being lifted essentially that there would be so much money that the country would use the

money to kill americans. do you have any thoughts about that? >> isomer senator cruz was going to hold a pro-war rally in front of the white house today. i didn't see how many people turned out for the rally. it doesn't seem like he said anything there he hasn't said somewhere else. [inaudible] >> i think that pretty much says it all. jordan. >> thanks josh. >> even though the administration is familiar with iran and the iaea, will there be the administration officials to do the actual documents? >> jordan, as i mentioned earlier let me say one thing. the other thing irrelevant fact is the iaea as the agreements with more than 100 countries around the world. these are agreements between the

iaea come in individual countries and the international body of nuclear experts that is responsible for things including carrying out inspections like this. what is true if the united states are negotiating partners are aware of the details of those agreements, those conversation and is prepared to share them with numbers of congress. we obviously can't do it in a setting like this but a conversation can occur in a classified setting and senior administration officials have admitted to have. >> is there a reason you haven't seen the actual document? is there some sort of role preventing that are protocol preventing administration officials are reviewing the documents? >> the protocol in this case is an agreement between iran and the iaea, but iran agreed to because of pressure applied by united states and our negotiating partners decided

must you provide the necessary access and information so they can complete their report, we are not going to get any sanctions relief and i should say unless and until they provide the access and information come in the sanctions will be provided. >> different subject. there was a bill introduced in the house this week, and the house and senate sponsor by senator merkley that would have a lot of antidiscrimination sanctions for lgbt individuals. >> jordan, i can tell you we applaud the efforts of members of the house and senate to put forth a comprehensive legislation to fight discrimination. while we are going to review the language they put forward, but what we do, then they say the administration shares the goal of insuring americans are treated equally under federal law and we believe legislation is a good next step in the right direction.

>> about the general principle, the petroleum reserve as a target and agree with republicans in congress when needed. >> direct your reason for not going to answer your question. the first is that it's hard to talk about -- the first is i am not aware that this is a paid for that is previously offered. therefore it is hard to talk about it in principle because this is the only example of it at least that i've seen. i could be wrong about that. it's hard for me to speculate or opine on the principle at stake. the second is the market sensitivity of this particular

policy is high. and so even speculating about it or opine in on it on principle could have an unintended impact on the financial markets. i surely don't need that today. >> particularly on the highway bill you mentioned the preferred vehicle with the reauthorization does not look like a sure thing at all given with members on both sides of the aisle have said the past couple days. >> i think you heard from the president yesterday that this is an important priority and there are some members of congress who agree, the majority in congress who agree the xm bank is a priority -- minority do not agree. but i think just about everybody in congress agrees it is a

priority to make sure we fund our transportation system in a timely fashion. i don't have a plan b to tell you about. we'll continue to urge members of congress, democrats and republicans to focus on making sure they fund the service transportation system appropriately and on time and when they do they should include a provision to ensure the reauthorization of the xm bank. >> you said yesterday there would be elected if lawmakers traveling to africa. do you have that list? >> i saw the list. they are going through to make sure it is final and will provide before it goes out tonight. yesterday was more than a dozen. the last time i looked at the list there was about 20 members of congress. we will have that today. [inaudible] >> no, it is not finalized yet. we'll get back to you before the end of the day. suzanne. >> i look at the iaea statement

and they are calling this a roadmap. i am getting confused. yesterday susan rice said she acknowledged there was an agreement not published in congress. you are saying today and i'm a little confused about whether this is a game of semantics. it is not as ideal, then why can't you get the documents to the congress is saying here in the statement that they will have -- it is a roadmap and they said they will have something more definitive concrete document by december 15th. does that mean congress will have to wait for the document by december 15th? >> what they will know by october 15th is whether or not iran follow through to provide the iaea with information and access to complete the report.

i believe december 15th is the target date for writing the report at which point it will be made public and have the opportunity to review it. the reason that i think some of our critics in their desperation to kill this thing are playing semantic games is again the critical component of this agreement is iran limiting their nuclear program and cutting off every pathway to nuclear weapon in exchange for sanctions relief. you have to take all the steps to cut off every pathway to nuclear weapon and reduce your uranium stock pile and disconnect 13,000 centrifuges. you have to render her and mr. heavy water reactor. the other thing is provide information and access and that is why i describe this as an important component of the agreement to not be dismissed as some sort of side deal.

>> you might want to have some documents. this seems like a game of semantics. >> what this is if the united states in the international community using our leverage to benefit the iaea and their investigation of the military dimensions of iran's nuclear program. that is why it makes sense the documents an agreement is between iran and the iaea. >> i'm writing this story right now to decide if this is a side deal or not. it is just getting really ridiculous and confusing. >> i think our position on this is crystal clear which is a must iran cooperates with the iaea in providing access and information they need to read their report about the dimensions, iran will not get any sanctions released in the deal won't go forward because they've been clear.

>> tried to write a story that's almost like commerce and to ride it when you don't have the documents but it's not a side deal. it's just too much. let me move on to the issue of countering violent extremism. michael mccall, the homeland security chairman of the house has a bill passed out last week that would create a center for counter in front extremism in the homeland security department. you're probably aware of this. i haven't seen whether you support that or whether you fear is the aclu does that it could target some of the communities and also create more fear that there might be intelligence gathering on that instead of helping that prevent. >> will be made clear on principle is our efforts to counter rather extremism are more site to if we can work with

individual communities and the leaders of individual communities across the country to counter this after, to counter the effort to radicalize some vulnerable citizens. the leaders in these communities that have their own vested interest in trying to counter radicalization of hers and we are going to be more effective if we are able to partner with leaders and partner with these communities to try to prevent radical ideology and hateful ideology from inspiring people to carry out acts of violence. that principle has been in place for quite sometime and we know how effective that is. >> the resources being devoted and there's not any kind of agency governing it. what do you think of the legislation? >> it sounds to me like maybe we have our first republican in the

house of representatives who is ready to come out against the cluster level funding for nondiscretionary defense programs because this is a program it would be affected by the sequester of the nondefense side they get is even congressmen -- chairman mccall would agree it is critically important to national security. he is saying that aren't enough resources for the program but he supports legislation that would cut funding for the program. i am taking on his concerns directly. i haven't looked at the details. cheryl. >> so this morning, house speaker boehner suggested giving the few legislative days left until the end of the fiscal year there is likely to be a short-term funding resolution. >> a few legislative days. i am no math expert.

i think there are like 70 days between now and the end of the fiscal year. at least he was honest. is the president prepared to concede a short-term deal is necessary? >> what we believe is necessary in the 70 days that remain whether congress is in session or not republicans have a responsibility to take democrat up on their offer to try and negotiate a budget agreement that would prevent a government shutdown. we have seen these kinds of talks between democrats and republicans on capitol hill be effective in trying to identify common ground and we believe that would occur again if republicans like i said would take up democrats on their offer to have those conversations. we believe that the best way to resolve the problem and even if congress may not be in session there still is no reason the conversations can't occur. we certainly should not wait

until the government has already been shut down before republicans start to engage in conversations. that's unfortunate what happened last time. we can't repeat that mistake. >> are you saying you would oppose? >> in the 70 days between now and the end of the fiscal year of republican should sit down with democrats and broker the kind of bipartisan agreement has been good for the country and good for our economy in the past. mark. >> on your pro-war reform, does the white house regard any and all opponents of the iran nuclear deal as pro-war? >> they can explain for themselves. one republican member of congress that he would be prepared if he wins the presidency in the next election to kerry at a military strike against iran on inauguration day. i haven't heard senator cruz's position on this. maybe he disagrees.

>> you don't believe that is the case for all opponents of the deal, do you? >> all opponents have too explained why they would oppose the best way and that is through diplomacy. they cannot make their own individual case. senator cruz again can speak for himself. my understanding is he's sympathetic to the view that the next president should be prepared to carry out a military strike against iran on inauguration day. >> what is the president been doing all day? his schedule is fairly barren. he said a presidential daily briefing his departure. >> there's a couple things related to his africa trip. i might as well go ahead and tell you about. i don't know if it's breaking news. unless bill has the scoop here. the president is doing an interview this afternoon with

the edc and i suspect that's an opportunity to discuss his upcoming trip to africa but also the historic agreement with iran. obviously there is a significant international interest in both of those stories. those interviews will be broadcast for the first time and 11:00 p.m. eastern time tonight. so you can set your dvr's. [inaudible] >> that sounds like a pre-broadcast, not a rebroadcast. 11:00 p.m. jared, i located the last one. >> will he be dropping by any policing initiatives? >> i don't believe so actually. i know the attorney general is planning to be there, but i don't believe it's on the president's schedule today. >> on josh's april questions,

the white house has put out these initiatives and they've been going for some time now. let me ask you in terms of process within news stories come up and we start to learn about yet another video or yet another event that the things happening. how did these initiatives that have originated at the white house adapter take the new information as something they have a mission and the president has given them a purpose and they essentially go forward along those guidelines with each new incident, let's try to figure out how this fits into the overall narrative. >> well, my first instinct is to tell you and i think this is obvious for someone who's been following this closely like you have been, at each of these incidents occurring unique circumstances. it underscores the need that we will discuss in the president's

21st century policing task force to work with individual communities to tailor a solution and the thing we know when we build stronger relationships between local law enforcement agencies and their communities that they can operate more ugly. that is the principle that we are seeking to apply all across the country. yes, this means it applies in a lot of different ways and communities but the underlying print but was essentially that one. there is one other thing that you alluded to which is the prominent role video has played in telling some of these stories. that is by the department of justice has advanced this pilot program for body wearing cameras. local law-enforcement agencies have acted on their own to ensure the law enforcement officers are wearing cameras. there is more to understand in terms of the impact of this technology on policing. but it certainly does indicate

there's some potential associated with body wearing cameras and something the justice department is working on. >> i don't want to read to much into the cause and effect. but it came after several incidents where video was utilized, civilian video was utilized and that was something for the legislative proposal in white house proposal. what i am asking is if every need for for the community oriented policing task force comet is there a need for them to ingest each new incident and react to it? a separate question and you may be better able to get a specific answer when we hear from the attorney general today, should there be some kind of broad

message to police departments, something stronger than we have seen in the past to say this is happening too often. that is not language we have necessarily heard from the president or the attorney general, an imc in april saying yes it has. but this needs to stop and that the police method needs to be criticized more directly. ..