were eight or nine years ago in terms of drug cultivation and production in colombia. it is my view that it should be possible to continue to eradicate or have the threat of e right side occasion --

yours. kind of a disturbing fact. most colombian cocaine, traditionally and historically is transported to the united states. we need to work together to figure out how to deal with eradication which is to say to stop the actual cultivation, to deal with taking down the laboratories which convert the raw material into cocaine. to go after the criminal organizations, those organizations not necessarily the farc guerrillas but those were trafficking it and interdict the products as they move from north america. we need to attack their financial networks. i intend to do that and you have my word of honor that there will not be an opportunity of mine when i am talking to the

government of columbia when i don't make this point and have this discussion with them. >> for what it's worth, we missed that opportunity when he was here last, and there was a lot of happy talk here about columbia. what i hear you saying and with all your nicety regarding your government and friendship with the existing president is that he's not pursuing both tracks in the way that he could be, that he is pursuing the relationship and ending what has been a blight on their country for a long time. he's not pursuing as heavily the issue that has been at the core and that is the production of cocaine in their country that is coming to the united states in the way that he could.

>> mr. chairman, i'm not going to walk that far down this road. i'm going to go back to where i left it before. we are talking, were moving in the right direction. how we got got there, i'm going to leave that to the historians and the people far smarter than me. what i will say is that i believe there is a realization that we have a serious problem. we are now talking to our friends and partners and allies in the colombian government as to how to solve this problem. on that, i feel pretty good. we are all entitled to our own views as to how we got into the situation. the only point that i am making is that i believe we are working on a route out of it. we know how to do it. for the love of pete, it's what we were doing from the year 2000 until the year 2012.

i am determined that we are going to do it again. that is the way i would respond to your valid comments. >> we are the authorizing committee for the work that you do. are there some authorities that we could provide to you that would cause your job to be easier to be successful? >> mr. chairman, i'm going to answer that question this way. as one assistant secretary among several, and one department in the federal government, i will not express a view as to what the executive branch needs in terms of those authorities. i will start the following however. the last authorization that ino received was more than 20 years ago. since that time, the united states has moved from a cocaine crisis to a harrowing crisis we move from a drop focus crime effort to a larger organized

effort. we've moved from an overwhelming effort on the hemisphere to having to deal with places like afghanistan and me and mark. are there areas that were not addressed in the early 1990s? >> yes, undoubtedly there are and i would welcome a discussion >> thank you. >> thank you for your testimony. let's talk about africa for a bit. it has many of the characteristics that make it prone to transnational terrorism and financing and criminal networks operating. let's talk about east africa for a minute with al-shabaab. what evidence do we see their of transnational criminal networks operating? >> huge evidence senator. in fact, i mentioned in my oral

statement and i will say again right now, africa is one of, from my my perspective, one of my three principal focuses. as i look outside the western hemisphere in terms of direct criminal networks with direct impact on the united states. two specific parts of africa, west africa and east or central, south east africa have become transit points for trafficking flows that are moving either east-west from asia and in route to europe or north korea america or seeking market in western europe if not flipping back across. we need to have focus on both of these from up here trafficking perspective. the problem that we have is that

weak institutions in a number of countries in africa that make them very attractive for multibillion-dollar trafficking organizations. we also have organizations like al-shabaab or boko haram or further up north al qaeda or the islamic state, which are april to corrupt and use government institutions as well. africa, from my perspective, is a very important point of focus without even going into the wildlife trafficking area, which we have become engaged in more aggressively over the last three or four years. >> what are some of our strategies and east africa with al-shabaab and their concerns as a transit point, along the coast there, obviously we have concerns there. what are we doing?

>> first you have correctly summarized the nature of the threat and the nature of the threat is product and criminal activity that originates for the most part in south asia, although the product may be further up in central asia, and then is transported from south asia to east africa for transshipment. that becomes a point where it is introduced into a north south access moving either to europe or flipping across the continent and moving into north america. what we are trying to do is build institutions that are better capable of addressing the problem, providing direct support, operational support to existing law enforcement organizations and using vetted units or specialized units in

whom we have a great deal of confidence and are able to share intelligence and information with, and ensuring that their regional coordination and cooperation is such that permits them to actually pass off or hand off movements or organizations that are moving across borders and frontiers so that crossing a frontier doesn't completely list all of the threats, the danger to the criminal trafficking organization. i would say that in east africa, we are better today than we were five years ago. we are still miles away from being able to say that we are comfortable with and confident that these countries and these governments can control their own borders. >> do we have any successes that we can point to specifically? in cooperation with local officials that have yielded

benefits that are tangible? >> we have had several major drug seizures, mostly heroin, coming in from south west asia that have been picked up at seaports, in some cases that airports. in fact, i will shoot you, if, if you wish, i will get you a written summary of some of those success stories. we have also taken down several of what i would call midsize trafficking organizations in east africa, although not the international or global organization. and we have had some success, some of some of which has made the newspapers in terms of reducing, if not shutting down the flow of what is one of africa's great criminal exports and that is illegally trafficked ivory and rhino horn. i would suggest to you that we do have some success stories. they are not as many as i would

like to be able to report. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. sec., you have been an outstanding witness. we we thank you again for your years of commitment and we look forward to following up with you relative to some updates that may occur that give you greater freedoms and that flexibility to do your job. i know you have a hard stop at a meeting that you have to attend so thank you again for your time both here and in preparation for the meeting. we look forward to seeing you again. there will be other questions that people have in writing we will keep the record open until the close of business on monday. if you could get to those fairly promptly we would appreciate it. with that, the meeting is adjourned. >> thank you very much mr. chairman.

>> today the network of enlightened women organization host its annual conservative women's conference. you can see that event live starting at 1:15 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. on c-span, the democratic national committee holds it southwest regional platform hearings in phoenix ahead of the parties convention in philadelphia next month. that is at 1:00 p.m. eastern.

book tv has 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend. here are some programs coming up this weekend. on saturday night at eastern, from book expo in chicago, kareem abdul-jabbar discusses his book writings on the wall about the current political and social landscape. on sunday at 2:30 pm eastern, a roundtable discussion about donald trump's book the art of the deal first published in 1987. panelists include a book critic for the washington post, senior writer for political and senior writer for the wall street journal. then at nine pm eastern, afterwards, the political science professor talks about his book isis, and history. i looked at the history and rise of isis. he is interviewed by the author of mecca and main street, life in america after 911. >> isis was a direct result of the sectarianism and deepening

sectarianism and the civil wars, the security vacuum that exists in the perception that somehow the arab spring and these collective action could not really change the existing order. >> go to book tv.org for the complete weekend schedule. with the political primary season over, c-span's road to the white house takes you to the summer's political convention. watch the republican national convention starting july 18 with live coverage from cleveland. >> so we will be going into the conventional matter what happens and i think we are going to go in so strong. >> watch the democratic national convention starting july 25 with live coverage from philadelphia. >> let's go forward. let's win the nomination and in july let's return and give them a fight. >> and then we take our fight

for social economic, racial and environmental justice to philadelphia. [applause] >> every minute that the republican democratic party's national convention on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. virginia senator tim kaine is the latest member of congress to be featured in our american profile series. he spoke with us about growing up in kansas city. his early political career and his work in the senate. he also shares his thoughts on being mentioned as a possible running mate for hillary clinton in the general election. >> senator tim kane, how is it that someone was born in st. paul minnesota, raised outside of kansas city and up in up in richmond virginia? >> how does men and up in odd places.

i grew up in kansas city. they met at kansas state. they got a job and my dad got a job in st. paul. after about a couple years, they were homesick. so i had been born in st. paul but they move back back to kansas city. i was really raised in the midwest and kansas city. i went to missoula, i went to harvard law school and i met this beautiful virginian, my wife and, and when we decided to get married and were looking in both places, then i really learned really learned what a great negotiator she was and she has continued to be. we have been in richmond for 32 years years and we absolutely love it. >> let's talk about growing up in kansas city per the oldest of three boys. >> yep, absolutely. >> i have two great brothers, steve and pat. steve is a pediatric cardiac surgeon. anytime i think i have a hard job with pressure, i think about my brother steve and i don't feel like my job is so hard. my brother pat, he and his wife

have a law firm that focuses on everything about the sale of commercial aircraft and they are both wonderful guys with kids and i'm the one who got away because my parents are 81 and still a alive and my brothers live close to them. they do like visiting virginia so i try to get them out a lot and i go back to the midwest a good bit to. >> you are up early on saturday mornings, you work at your dad weld shop. what was a? >> my dad had a company called iron rafters that he bought and ran for 25+ years and it was an iron working in welding shop. it would be five employees in a tough year and seven or eight and a good year plus my mother and my brothers. was largely a shop that would make bicycle frames, ornamental iron work balconies, cantilevers to hold tables on restaurant walls, and classic midwestern

manufacturing business, up early to try to get work done before it got hot. my dad was a great business guy and he always taught us that his business would put his workers kids through school and their great artistry. they were ironworkers, union organized iron workers. their great artistry would put my brothers and me through's school. it was a really wonderful place to learn about hard work and not cutting corners and excellence and also, you have to be a team if you're going to be successful. my dad taught me a lot of good values for that business. >> what did you learn about ironwork. >> you know i learned enough so that years later when i was at a harvard law school, i took a year off to work with missionaries in honduras and i just volunteered to come help and i landed there, taking a year of school without knowing what i would do. harvard law school has zero relevance and what were doing but then i told him what i did

they said you're going to run a vocational school that taught kids to be carpenters and welders. it just started and i ran and grew in fundraiser for it and recruited a successor when i went back to law school. i learned a lot about life values from my dad and my business but a little bit of iron working i learned was enough to add that curriculum into the school and teach kids some of the basics of welding when i was there in 1980 and 81. i was really fortunate that i was able to do that. >> what were you like in high school? >> well, i think i was kind of a nerd student. i love learning. i think the best education is going to be tough education. especially reading, if you went back and asked teachers or people i was with they probably would say i always had my nose in a book in some way but also active in student government and the student newspaper. i did some speech and debate

stuff. i was an all boys school so i was a cheerleader on the basketball and football team. we called them yell leaders not cheerleaders. we had a great athletic team and i did that. the best thing i remember is taking off intellectually and seeing the big wide world. it was the jesuit order of the catholic church that has a twin tradition of intellectual rigor and social justice. that high school is teaching you to measure your life by the effect you could have on other people's lives. that, nation of service and intellectual rigor was great. my high school experience was really fantastic. >> was a transformational for you? >> in some ways it started a transformation. my parents are great fantastic irish catholics and we always went to mass every sunday.

i joke about my parents, if if we got back from a vacation on sunday night at 7:30 pm they would know the one church that have an eight pm mass that we could make because we hadn't been to mass earlier in the day. we were mass going catholics and saying prayers before meals, probably like a lot of catholic families my parents didn't talk a lot about their faith. it was more like it's been said reach the gospel and live their faith. they didn't talk about it a lot. but the high school was the place where we started doing a lot of talk about faith and spirituality. that put me in a seeker mode where it wasn't enough for me just to accept what i had been taught but i really wanted to find my own answers. that kind of led me to years later take a year off and go to honduras. it's kind of can do continued to lead me. i would say that high school edges experience with jesuits was a key part of my transition into adult life rather than just

accepting the answers of my parents or others, i've been a person that has wanted to go out and find the answers on my own. the jesuits get credit for that. >> how does tim kaine view his religion today? >> i do what i do for spiritual reasons. everybody has motivations. i almost feel like whatever i'm doing, i have an inner dialogue going that is a spiritual dialogue. what is the broader significance of this interview? what's the broader significance of the vote that i'm taking. what's the broader significance of what i'm doing with my wife. i'm always thinking about the momentary reality but also the way it connects with the bigger matters of what's important in life, and so, i tried to approach my job that way. i try to be upfront with people about it not because i want anybody else to be me. i'm not trying to convince

anybody to do what i do but i sort of feel like sharing my motivation with others is a good thing and i hope if i do that, others will share their motivations with me and that's how i can learn and get better at what i do them better as a person. i have a little spiritual phrase that i use which is a wonderful phrase that was written by george fox who founded the quakers and it's in 11 words, it conveys us spiritual philosophy for me. walk cheerfully over the earth answering that of god in everyone. it has six thoughts, walk, move, be active. cheerfully, be upbeat. why be grim and burden. get out in your neighborhood and out of your comfort zone. go into new places answering,

you can't answer few don't listen you have to listen before you can answer, that of god, the divine spark in each person per there is a divine spark in each person. that's kind of my world discipline that i try to use and what i use as a person or what i do as a public official. >> were gonna talk about honduras. let's get to your high school college and law school. >> you at the university of missouri. you started out in journalism. >> yes i did steve. they have a great journalism program and i came of age during watergate and crusading journalist made a huge impression on me when i was growing up. i'll tell you a joke that's on your profession but it's ultimately a joke about me. i went to missouri and i started to work on the student paper. everybody who was there like me who is a perspective journalism student, they were too cynical. i started to think, i can't believe how cynical these folks are and if i hang i hang out with them for my entire time i will not be fit to live with. so i decided to veer out of journalism and i went into the un- cynical profession of lawyer and politician.

so it's a joke but i did start in journalism and switch to economic. >> why harvard law? >> you know, i was really unsophisticated when i think about where i grew up but i thought i would go to mizuho and university of kansas, but i had a great gpa, i didn't do well on my law school boards and i went to talk to my advisor and the economics department, talking about going to law school and what i was think about and he said actually, have you thought about trying to go to harvard or yale or stanford or chicago? with your scores you could go anywhere. that thought had never occurred to me so i applied to a bunch of schools and i got into harvard and i decided to go and i had never stepped foot on campus until the day i showed up for classes. it was a bit of a culture shock from the midwest where i hadn't done much traveling at all to go to law school in cambridge but i met my wife there so that

tripled the tuition for the entire three years. it was also just an amazing experience, both intellectually and especially in making friends that have been friends for my life. >> you talked about honduras. your in law school for one year and you take a break. why, what did you do? >> i had gone through college and three years so when i started at harvard at age 21, i might've been the youngest person in my class. 550 people. all these people i met, they worked as journalist per they traveled around the world in bed in the peace corps and done all these things. i remember thinking to things, one why am i rushing? life is long, why am i rushing and also, i don't really know what i want to do with my life and everybody else seem so sure. i learn they were just better actors than me, they were no more sure than i was but i thought what if i took some i took some time off and try to figure it out. the high school i went to had a connection with the jesuit mission in honduras and i had been once in 1974.

this is now 1980 and as i was starting to think about, is there something i could do to really take a step away and learn and decide on my path in life and i thought, when i was in honduras seven or eight years ago i always thought i could come back and volunteer one day so i just decided to write these guys out of the loop. a couple of guys had been there and i just asked to volunteer and i got a letter back and they said yes and i marched into the dean's office one day and set i want to take a year off. i remember their reaction was, don't take a year off. the first thing they did was check to see if i had unpaid bills. then they check my grades and i wasn't flunking out and it wasn't for great reasons. they hadn't really confronted that it didn't seem like they had many people asking to do it. i just knew that i needed to maybe step away from the treadmill a little bit to figure

out what i wanted to do with my life. i felt like going to honduras and spending that year helping, but more importantly learning, would help me make better decisions about my future. it was all that and much more. >> in this picture? >> so i was there in 1980 and 8181. i worked with these great missionaries. most of them were spaniards. some were american and somewhere honduras. i ran the school that they had started. when i came back, it really did put me on a path. my wife and i have continue to be very supportive of the school we went back for a 20th wedding anniversary in 2004. my wife had said we've been supporting the mission but i've never been. let's go. for our 20th we went we went back and then this picture was ash wednesday in 2015. i asked john cornyn, senator cornyn from texas, president obama wants to make the egg

investment in central america to deal with the problem of the unaccompanied minor. they are the epicenter of it. the community was right at the heart of it. i like john a lot and i said look, why don't we try to go down and learn what i can of this problem. he said i'll make you a deal, how about mexico to talk about energy reform in mexico and i'll come with you to honduras to learn about honduras in this issue. we went to mass at the main parish in the central square and unbeknownst to me, we let them know we were coming but they reached out to all of the jesuits who had been there in el progreso when i was there there and asked them to come celebrate mass. the guy in the center, he had been my roommate for a while and he was now a parish priest and guatemala. he was in training and now he is about ready to retire. they were all part of the jesuit

community when i was there and they were young vigorous 40-year-olds and now now their vigorous 65 or 70 -year-olds doing great work. they all came up the aisle as the processional happened during ash wednesday and i saw them and i said i think i know those guys and it was a very moving experience. we went to mass, we went back and visited the school which, when i was there was 25 kids and when i left it was about 60 kids. now it's about 400 kids. then we went up to the graveyard on the hill above town where a lot of our friends are buried and we had a prayer service in their memory. the spaniards and americans who had spent their whole life there and who are buried in l progresso. it was a very special visit. >> when you were there in the early 80s, two points, what did did you make about the people of honduras and what did you learn t

>> well, this would be an hour and a half, but i will give you, the people honduras was the second poorest country in the americas next to haiti when i was there. what i learned was happiness is not that correlated with wealth. happiness is really correlated with are you a giving person or not. i met so many destitute people who were giving people and were happy and i've since had the opportunity to meet a lot of wealthy people who aren't that giving an aren't that happy. i learned from them that happiness is spread around the human condition. i learned from them the power of faith to deal with and understand adversity. i learned about, i was getting tired of the catholic worship that i was used to which was big suburban parish, 45 minute mass because you had a empty parking lot in time for the next parking

lot to fill up for the next 45 minute mass. here mass would be to half hours long and it was so vibrant and chaotic and fun. i learned a lot from them but especially how strong spiritual life can help you deal with the challenges that we all face in life. what i learned about our country is that it don't think you can fully understand the things about your own country until you step outside of it. you take things for granted and you realize they don't. here's an example. honduras was a military dictatorship. no rule of law. the jesuits i worked with were helping out poor people trying to help them get the rights and the military didn't like them. i lived with people who prayed for the day that they could vote for anything. that they could vote for a mayor or president of the country. i was living in a country where voting turnout was low but people had the ability to vote

but chose not to. it made me realize that the rule of law is a whole lot better than the iron fist that people live under all over the world, but also that if you're in a society that gives you the privilege to participate, you have to take advantage of it. honduras moved over to having democratic elections in the pictures of my friends waiting in line that were hours and hours long with big smiles on the faces because finally they could participate. you see those pictures from all around the globe. some in south africa and some in other places. it taught me about things that we take for granted here, physical things that we take for granted, opportunities, but having the government that is a rule of law, not a dictator and having the opportunity just as a regular person to participate in choosing your leaders, that was a very transformative lesson to me about our own culture and it kind of shaped my civic engagement when i got back. >> you come back. how did you meet your wife and?

>> my wife and i are almost exactly the same age. for three weeks of the year she is older than me and i hold it over her. she had gone to princeton and because i had gone through college and three years, i started the year had peered i took the year off and came back. we both were involved in a clinical activity at harvard law school where they would send law students out to do hearings in the prison system. disciplinary hearings and parole hearings. it was a way to provide some help but also to test yourself if you wanted to be a courtroom where later. and was really involved in this organization and i had been involved my first year before i left in the way she describes it is she was supposed to recruit new members and she was told, we think this guys coming back who did it before. can you make make an effort to convince him to come back and work. so she claims she not only was trying to convince me to come back but was trying to convince me to pay attention to her and

we were in classes together and she made chocolate chip good skis once for a study group in her side of the story is from the day those first chocolate chip cookies i was a complete goner. i don't remember the chocolate chip cookies but i remember her very well. we started dating when i was in that year of law school and we've been together ever since. we've been married 32 years this november. she is my public service hero. she has been a legal aid lawyer and a juvenile court judge bed when i was governor she help me reform the foster care system of virginia. i let resources for the tasks and now she secretary of education in virginia. she is a public servant and wife and mother and daughter and sister and she manages and juggles all of those roles and makes it seem so easy which it's not, but she makes it seem easy. >> as she only the second person to serve as the daughter of a governor and also as first lady? >> she is actually the second. thomas jefferson's daughter

patsy, jefferson was virginia's second governor and his daughter patsy was later the wife of a governor. but my wife is the only person to have lived in the governor's mansion as a child and then as an adult because the governor's mansion didn't get tilt in virginia until after jefferson was governor. one special memory of me becoming governor in 2006 was at the end of a long day of these inaugural events, we go to the governor's mansion. it's one in the morning, we walk in and the staff is there and they say to me, welcome home governor. they said my wife, welcome back home because she was coming back after being gone for 35 years. she had told all the kids about the tricks they used to play a people, never thinking my kids would have the opportunity to actually use those stories but she kind of wishes that she hadn't about the dumbwaiter and things like that, but we had a

remarkable time as governor. at the huge honor to have the job. one of the things that was so special is being able to be back in what had been, for four years, her girl hood home. to have her parents that had been really transformative leaders at a difficult time in virginia able also to come back and share that experience with the spirit it was pretty remarkable. >> what is your father-in-law like and how influential has he been in your career? >> my father-in-law, the first republican governor of virginia, i have no hesitation to say he is my political hero. he came back from more in the pacific and the first governor's election,'s election, after he got back, 8% of the virginia electorate participated in the election. why coach mark it was a one-party state. there was a democratic machine that was segregation of 50 crafts that try to win run things. they kept people from being able to participate. he came back and said i'm fighting for democracy over in the pacific and i move back to a

one-party state. i'm going to try to build up a competitive two-party system in virginia, and so he built a republican party that was the progressive alternative to the segregationist democrats. he ran for the health of delegates twice and ran for governor and in 1969, organize labor supported him, he was elected governor and within the first year he had integrated the public schools in virginia after all the schools in virginia after all the democratic governors preceded them had fought like hell to keep brown versus board from being implemented. when he integrated the schools, he did it as an act of courage, as an active principle and he was basically frozen out of electoral policy thereafter in

virginia. he held one office in virginia. he was a 48-year-old ex-governor who tried to run for the senate a few years later and finished third in a four-way primary on the republican side. he couldn't even get the nominations because people were really mad at him about what he had done to try to bring about a better day in virginia. now he is 92 years old, he will be 93 in september, and people look at what he and his wife. they look at what he did and they said wow, that was a guy who had a tough time and how to make a tough tough call and he made it the right way. he changed virginia from the state that was looking backward to a state that was looking forward. for that reason he is my great hero and he still is a guy that gives me a lot of advice. when i'm smart i will follow up. i don't only follow it but when i'm smart i follow it. >> you have a picture up there. this is a picture that was on the front page of the new york times. when the school busing integration order came down and he decided were not fighting it, he decided were going to, he

decided the best way to do it was not to tell virginia the way it would be that of his own family would participate. the governor's mansion is in the heart of richmond but it's not in any school district. governors kids could go anywhere, to other hundred and any public school. he said look, if i'm going to say that school integration of the good thing that my kids should go to the neighborhood schools here which were largely african american schools. i should escort them there and say look, education is important and kids should be able to sit down together with folks regardless of race and get an education. that's a picture my father-in-law and my wife's sister walking into kennedy high school on the first avenue high school and it was in the new york times. there were a lot of new york times pictures of governors, blocking the schoolhouse door in little rock in colleges like mississippi, they're trying to

keep black kids from coming to sit next to white students. they were escorting his daughter in school saying integration is good and it's not just for other people. for us it's good. that influence has been so powerful on me and all my wife. i have had a career as a civil rights lawyer before i got into statewide politics. both of my career, fighting for politics in virginia, i did cases all over the state and some national cases. in the network and now my work, his example of being a promoter of a quality is one that i try to take inspiration from. >> before you are married you served in city council. >> yes. >> my question is how did that prepare you for serving in congress? >> i think being in local offices the best trading for being in any office. partisanship wasn't important.

we ran for city council and it was nonpartisan. i've always been a democrat but i became a democrat the day i realized my parents were republican. i've always been a democrat but we ran nonpartisan. people knew who was a democrat and who wasn't. it didn't make any difference. it was about results. partisanship wasn't important. second results were important. you could say anything but it was really good training. people would stop in the grocery stores talk about in it. i once had a woman rear in my pickup truck on broad street and as they were writing her ticket the police that aren't you running for the mayor and they said yes that's the mayor. and she said there's a zoning issue in city hall next week. the assess ability of local officers is a trait that you get into.

it's government by other people. you really up close and personal. you can make people happier than in any other office. i would say starting where partisanship wasn't important and assess ability was important, that to me would be the base of everything i've done a pelvic how did you approach that job, being the the number two in the company? it's funny, i was not only lieut. governor but i was lieutenant governor to a long time friend. mark warner and i met in law school. he was a kid from connecticut and i was a kid from kansas city. we end up back in virginia. i've reconnected with him when he was the campaign chair in 1989. i was his i was his number two in command. the real job of the look tenant governor is providing over the state senate.

i did something real smart. when i got elected lieutenant governor, there were were 40 senators between election day and inauguration day and i said what you expect to see in a provider. i just listened. it really proved to be very helpful then, virginia is the only state with a one term governor. i tried to learn everything i could from mark that if i had the chance of being governor i would be better at it because i had been at the right hand of a governor. he was a governor during some tough times than i was a governor during the worst economic crisis and the horrible shooting at virginia tech that occurred when i was governor. i think they experience of having been mayor which was really tough because of public safety issues, and then having watched mark deal with challenging issues, being on his

right hand for four years as lieutenant governor really prepared me to deal with tough issues when i was governor. >> april 2007, virginia tech. where were you that day? what did that tell you about guns in virginia, guns in america and the issue of mental health question. >> when i was city councilman, mayor richman, i had been elected official where i went to too many crime scenes and too many funerals and too many gatherings and homicide victim families in church basements to be supportive to them. i had scar tissue already but that they in particular, worst day of my life, i had left to go on a trade mission with 100 business leaders leaders from virginia to japan and india. we had just landed in japan and literally landed, gone to the hotel, checked in and i had just

fallen asleep and i got a knock at the door. the head of my security tells us you have to call back. there's been a horrible tragedy in virginia. this is now midnight tokyo time. i called back and my chief of staff told me what was happening. it was unfolding a we still didn't really know. i just said get me back to the airport. were flying back. we went right back to the airport and then as were sitting in the airport lounge, the tragedy is unfolding, 33, 32 people killed, so many more injured. this horribly drainage to young person who had mental health issues that were not being treated. the 33rd death. i flew back super jet lag and went right to, president bush helped five he down because he was going to speak and he and i went and spoke to the tech community the day after the shooting. that began a real period of soul-searching right tried to do two things, first i tried to be a friend to the family who had lost loved ones.

i cannot convey to you the amazing diversities of these families in the random tragedy of violence. the 19-year-old kids who had been on campus for seven months and a 75-year-old engineering professor who survived the holocaust, and then he survived the communist takeover of romania and he spoke out against the communist and they kicked him out of his position and oppressed him badly. he make move to israel and came to the u.s. on a one-year teaching assignment. he fell in love with virginia and state. on that day, as some one was killing all these people, he blocked the door of his classroom so kids could jump out and he was killed. just think about what it says about our country that a guy that could survive the holocaust and will survive the communist takeover of romania and being

oppressed under the communist couldn't survive gun violence in this country. >> i learned like i have learned is mayor that even in a deeper way, we can do better and we need to do better. after the shooting i did spend time with the families. i still do. i'm close with the families and children. i also determined i was going to put a panel together to analyze everything that happened and make recommendations about what went wrong and what we can change. i had people tell me don't do that because if you put out a public about what went wrong you are just handing a lawsuit to everybody to sue the state. i said i don't care about the damn lawsuit. we have to do everything we can to make sure that what happened to these precious people doesn't happen again or reduce the chance that happens again. i put together a wonderful panel of people. none of them were connected to

the victims and none of them were connected to virginia tech and they looked at everything that went wrong and they made a bunch of suggestions about campus safety, training, guns, mental health and they made those recommendations back to us but we made a lot of changes but i'm sad to say, i'm very sad to say, the one change i couldn't make was how some person got a weapon he shouldn't be able to get due to a gap in the background record checks. i was able to fix some of that administratively, but i went to to my legislature and i said look, we need a universal background check system and we need better background checks. they want to eliminate the chance completely of violence but they will make us safer by reducing the chance of gun violence. my legislature wouldn't do it even in the ad aftermath of the worst shooting in the history of the united states. been between my election and swearing in to the senate horrible shooting in connecticut of the school children and their teachers. again i note case on the floor

in april 2013. i said we learned a lesson and now we learned a lesson again. we can make our self they for. we don't have to tolerate. we can respect the second amendment and respect people's second rights. i own a gun. but we can have rules that make people sent safer. that day trying to enact background check legislation with the newtown families sitting in the gallery like that cloud of witnesses i've spoken about in the letter of hebrews, watching us and sitting with them were virginia tech families because we voted almost on the anniversary of the virginia tech shooting. the fact that we couldn't do the right thing, do the thing that the american public wants us to do is extremely disappointing. i'm not giving up because sadly these tragedies are continuing to pile up. we had a journalist killed on live tv in rogue close to blacksburg last summer by somebody who wanted publicity.

somebody with a horrible mental illness. we have to do a better job in this country. there are a lot of things i want to do in the senate. i work on a lot of issues but i want to embrace some commonsense strategies that will and this gun violence in this country. i will do all i can to make sure we do. >> let me ask you about, as governor you had to deal with 11 executions. you are catholic and you talked about that. how do you deal with the public official obligations in your own personal faith? >> really hard because i'm against the death penalty. i don't think we need it. other nations don't have it and they're fine. i refuse to believe that the american public is worse than people in other nations. i've never been a supporter of the death penalty. when i ran for office, i ran to be governor of a system. i knew the first thing i would do is put my hand on the bible and say i would uphold the law. the law of virginia passed by the legislature is that the

death penalty can be an ultimate punishment for the most serious crimes. if it's imposed by the jury, if it's upheld by a judge, if it's upheld by a court, and a really grappled with i'm against the death penalty but i'm taking an oath to uphold the law. i live in a society where there was a rule of law and where i saw what was like where the rules weren't followed and they would do whatever they want. that was a bad system. i said i was against the death penalty but i would uphold the law and i did that. there were numerous people on death row when i was governor. all of their appeals went through without them being given relief and if they a applied to me for clemency i would look at their petition but only in the instance of me thinking that they had a credible claim of in a innocence or they were mentally ill or there was a huge problem. i would execute clemency power in that case but i wouldn't give clemency of the facts were there

to suggest the person was innocent or had been wronged in some other way. it was very difficult. the hardest thing i've had to do in public life was that. the legislature testing me. they kept trying trying to expand the death penalty. about probably about 20 times they tried to expand and i vetoed all of it. i told you i was against the death penalty. when it came to carrying out the law where a jury in an appellate court had reviewed, i grappled with the cases but only gave relief to people who i felt had made a case that they were entitled to clemency. it was a painful painful thing even though i've been governor for many years, it's still painful to talk about it. >> what you think is next for you politically? >> i like this job. if you talk to governors and their honest, a lot of them will

say like being governor better. i came to the senate and i'm on some wonderful committees. i'm on the armed services committee i'm one of the few senators to have a child of the military so that is an important connection but also virginia has a military connection that is second to none. this is so deeply important to our state and to me. i'm on the foreign relations committee. one out of nine virginia's was born in another country. i've lived in another country and if you live somewhere else or was born somewhere else you care about america and the world and virginians you care. those are committees, the budget committee and the aging committee. i really love my committees. i will be up for reelection in 2018 and i'm kind of taking john warner as my role model. he was in the senate for 30 years. he did did a great job for virginia and was courageous. if he saw something happen in his party that he didn't like, when the party nominated oliver north in 1994, he said include

me out. i'm not including oliver north. that was very courageous for him to do that. he set my country and my, while there more important than my party and this would be the wrong thing for my country and my commonwealth. i use his longevity but also his willingness to do what he thought was right. along with my father-in-law, i use them with as examples and i hope to be here a long time. >> would serving as president as the senate give you a bigger platform. >> you know, i have a good platform right now. i really like my job. i'm happy senator and i'm not looking for another one. i am, as you know, i'm doing a ton of work for hillary to try to get her elected. i think the world of her and i think she will be a superb president. i also think, i was one of the early supporters of president obama. i'm still a friend and a supporter and i think he's i think he's done a really good

job under tough circumstances. in some ways though, in some ways, i think the extra essential choice ploys for that nation is even sharper than 2008. if he had lost to senator mccain i would been very disappointed but it wouldn't have represented a fundamental change in the direction of the country. we have issues on the table like should we bring torture back, should we take the virginia value of freedom of religious value and turn it on its head after 250 years and punch people because their muslims today and could be somebody else tomorrow. she we use a tar brush to paint everyone from an immigrant as latinos. these are big challenging issues and the choice for the nation is an important one and i will do all i can to help sec. clinton win. the nice thing is, i don't have to travel far from home because virginia is now a battleground state. rather than worry about what happens in florida or ohio, we

kind of have the feeling that if we take care of business at home we have an ability to play a role in who the next president will be. >> one final? this point. if she said i want you to serve as my running mate, what what would you tell her? >> i really like my job and i want to stay. i think i can help her win and i think i can help her win most by winning virginia and that's what i am doing already. she has a lot of directions that she's going to go. look she's going to choose a person who is the best suited to help her govern and help her win i was slotted for the spot back in 08 and i was being mentioned but my gut was never saying it's going to be me, and i and i don't feel that differently now. >> final question, you have free children. what are you what are they doing now? >> thank you for making that the final question. my oldest boy matt is about to take his second deployment overseas with the marine parties very, very happy.

my middle son woody is a cool artist in the twin cities who does videography and photography and in order to live works in minneapolis rack and parks and still is dedicated to his art. he's a wonderfully creative guy. my daughter is in her last year at nyu and she's in the theater department. how my wife and i ended up with a marine into artist, we don't know but we love them and were proud of them and we live vicariously through all of them. >> and you're enjoying this job? >> i am. i love my colleagues. i wish people outside of the building to see all the negative, and there are negatives, the place to be a lot better, but i wish they could see some of the aspects of my colleagues that i work with everyday. sadly the media climate that were in, cooperation isn't

there. there are a lot of negatives that get attention but what doesn't get attention is that when i work with bob corker to try to draft a bill and he and i drafted a bill together and it got a 98 - 1 vote. then when the vote was submitted, i supported the deal and he didn't. we had set up the rule of the road together in the bipartisan way. when lamar alexander and patty murray rewrite no child left a behind, seven years after expired and nobody could figure out how to do it but they rewrote it together. we got a lot of career and technical education stuff in that bill. others got pieces of the bill. that was hard but we got it done. a lot of things happen that don't get as much attention but there are a lot of legitimate problems here that we have to do a better job solving and may be

the jesuit education in me, i do feel called to do things that are hard and maybe where there's some brokenness that needs to be fixed. i feel like there's a lot of opportunities for me to be part of an improvement of this place. >> senator tim kaine, thank you for your time. >> you bet. i'm really glad we could do the. >> after almost 15 are debate on gun violence, the senate is slated to vote on four amendments next week. today they they return for just a brief pro forma session per they are live on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 3:00 p.m. on monday, june 20, 2016.

>> with the political primary season overcome a c-span's rocha that white house exceeded this year's political convention >> so we will be going into the convention no matter what happens. i think we are going to go in so strong. >> let's go forward. let's win the nomination. and in july, let's return. >> and then we take our fight for social, economic, racial and

environmental justice for philadelphia. >> ahead of their national convention next month in the democratic or a's are holding hearings to decide other platform. next-line it's coming up up today in phoenix. >> yesterday the federal aviation administration officials for the president of the national air traffic controllers association on capitol hill to brief members of the house transportation committee asian subcommittee on efforts to boost recruiting and seasoned air traffic controllers. >> good morning. the subcommittee will come to order. i want to thank you all for being here.

before we proceed, i would like to welcome the hogan family members who have assured you it will be a top priority committee for safety and remember the tragedy and loss that you all suffered. if any of you think this hearing date was arbitrary, it is not. so please help me and recognize and ranking member rick larsen's birthday. happy birthday. [applause] though you wouldn't want to celebrate in any better way. >> all my life i thought if only my birthday fell on a hearing for air traffic controlling. this is a dream come true. >> again come to thank you all very much be it at the subcommittee roundtable in december, the d.o.t. inspector general national air traffic

controllers association highlighted a number of challenges the faa continues to face in ensuring our nation's busiest air traffic control facilities are staffed with the most experienced and highly trained air traffic controllers. like most people when i board a major airliner, i assume the pilots are highly experienced and well-trained and that the flight at least under today's air traffic control system is going to be guided to it destination by a hard-working team of dedicated faa air traffic controllers. like with airline pilots, we assume faa 14,000 plus controller workforce are highly trained and experienced it in 2012 and 2016, the d.o.t. ig found a high percentage of controllers at our busiest facilities, including terminal radar approach control

facilities in atlanta, chicago, dallas, fort worth, houston and new york are so-called developmental controllers or trainees who cannot manage traffic without the direct supervision of a fully certified controller or facility manager. in addition, of the 14,000 plus controller workforce conscious every 10,600 controllers are fully certified, which is a 27 year low. we are also concerned about the safety implications of the rising workload or cpc's come in many subject to mandatory six-day work weeks and high rates of overtime. the drop-in fee pcs can be several factors had over the past several years the faa has struggled to replace the thousands of controllers hired during the 1981 professional air tractor controllers strike, most of whom have reached the agency's mandatory retirement age of 56.

the faa's hiring efforts were severely hampered in 2013 when the agency stopped training new hires that it's training academy in oklahoma city due to sequestration. in 2014, the faa abruptly changed its controller hiring process and made even further poorly executed changes in 2015. consequently, the faa has missed its controller hiring target for sixth in exceeded years. to its credit in the past year the faa has made some progress on the hiring front with the agencies stating that will reach of hiring gold this year. some of the internal bottlenecks that were highlighted at the december roundtable include prolonged security and medical reviews and they have been addressed. the faa has also worked on a revised policy to facilitate the transfer of fully certified

controllers to the busiest facilities. that being said, we have a long way to go. in addition to seen little improvement in the development of fully certified controllers, and we are concerned the agencies revamped controller hiring process is not putting forward the highest quality candidates as evidence by 20% drop in the faa academy pass rate since the hiring process would change with academy failures a whopping 142% above the fy 2015 forecast level. yesterday the parents and instructors at one of our nation's many fine collegiate training initiatives from the cti institutions met with me to share their frustrations with the faa's revamped controller hiring process. it is a story that i have heard many times over in the past two years, but one that is no less sad. their experiences led me to conclude the current controller

hiring process is under serving our nation and the flying public. nearly 3000 highly qualified graduate who want to surface air traffic controllers were left in the cold when the faa changes were made in the hiring process with many more abandoning hopes because they have aged out in their left in the cold is sickly with no notice of any kind that the changes being made after expending on them cases huge sums of money. and yet, we are holding a hearing on an adequate controller staffing levels. i hope that her witnesses can explain why the faa eliminated the cpi program preference. if further progress is not made in areas of controller hiring, placement and training our nation system may not be able to handle rising airline operations in passenger demand which is day

to reach 1 billion passengers by the end of the next decade. should the faa not hire, train sufficient controllers, the faa may be forced to reduce airline operations to the detriment of passengers, shippers and overall economy to ensure safety is not compromised. we saw the scenario played out in april 2013 when the faa curtailed operations across the country due to sequestration related controller furloughs, causing historic airline delays and cancellations. i look forward to hearing from witnesses on ways we can work together to address these long-standing problems. before i recognize my colleague for his comments, i would like to ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material for the record of this hearing. without objection supporters. i would like to yield to mr. larsen for any comments you may make.

thank you, mr. chairman. are calling this hearing today or air traffic control staffing. among other things i hope it will inform and encourage progress and attend the reauthorization will. the current extension expires july 15th. today we hear from witnesses regarding air traffic and staffing and i welcome any discussion of what we need to keep our airspace safest and most efficient in the world. the office of inspector general from whom i have a representative testifying today provides a good starting point for discussion. the oig reported ensuring enough trained at critical facilities but before we get to higher ahead of ourselves, we consider the bigger picture. there is no evidence of safety lapses associated with issues. with that in the sacred spirit of aviation history. everyday u.s. airline safety

transfer into my passengers around the country. at the same time there's no evidence of decreased efficiency due to staffing in fact the department of transportation reported monday that airlines on-time and performance improved in april. that the good news. help the airline industry is critical for international competitiveness. the airlines do well financially and by all accounts a system is operating efficiently. i make these observations not to deny that the need for oversight and vigilant regarding faa's hiring, training and staffing of air traffic controllers. rather i think it's critical to keep this hearing in proper perspective. that said, i am concerned about understaffing critical facilities. potential choke points and air traffic control system such as when passengers first feel the ripple effect of a line of thunderstorms over nebraska. facilities that terminal radar approach control facilities into your control facilities in new

york, atlanta, chicago, i'll need more controllers. on average three quarters of the controllers are fully certified controllers. the rest are trainees in many controllers are eligible for retirement. it is critical that the faa demonstrate two things. it is hiring enough controllers had of projected retirement and it has the ability to shift controllers from other facilities to these critical facilities. while there is more work to be done, i'm encouraged on some progress. the faa is on pace to exceed its goal of hiring 1618 controllers this year and the agency has over 2400 controllers available in pools. the faa and collaboration with the air traffic controllers association has streamlined the process for transferring controllers can facilities more quickly, reducing and certify in writing about controllers and facilities.

the faa can make further improvements and they should not hesitate to hire more controllers when staffing is required. the faa academy for an experienced controllers have to train before being placed in a facility has the capacity to matriculate on their 1900 controllers per year. before controllers can attend, the faa has to certify them and connected back and check in the faa has the capacity to process 300 per month. this hearing is an important exercise of the subcommittee's oversight of safety and efficiency of the air traffic control system. by all objective measures facilities and shortages have not compromise safety capacity today. i do look forward from here and witnesses on what we need to do to ensure that remains the case. again, thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. larsen. i would like to welcome and recognize the chairman of the full committee, mr. schuster.

>> thank you, chairman lobiondo. i want to welcome a group of young people from my district. they are participate in the pennsylvania co-op youth program. they have young legs so i think they can stand for that update. welcome to washington. it is great that you are here and seeing what is going on in your federal nation's capitol. happy birthday to the other man. mr. larsen, he is from washington nasional i'm from pennsylvania so we share that. happy birthday. i also want to say glad to see mr. whole grain here. he's been an advocate for changing the system and getting something done to make sure we can hire. thanks for being here today. aviation is a top priority of this committee and across all the modes at the top priority for us and the u.s. has one of

the safe is aviation systems in the world largely due to the dedicated professional work safety personnel. it is clear the faa has not hired and trained fully certified controllers at our big ears atc facilities to make up for the thousands of controllers hired during the strike you reaching mandatory retirement it's not clear why they have dropped the ball. they can be attributed to sequestration as well as the timing is significant questionable changes to the controller hiring process at this as another example of the long-standing inability to manage its controller workforce. that's a big reason i believe why the atc reform that i proposed and passed out of this committee should take up and the faa has a history of whether it's hiring, not hiring personnel or deploying modern control system again. we have to continue to work towards breaking out and allowing it to operate as an

entity that can hire, maintain and deploy a modern safe aviation system. i'll continue to push for that. under the status quo, the passengers full text her from the forest to reduce air traffic flows across the country. imagine the news reports today of the lines that the tsa have and that's causing some delays come of it is causing passengers thousands and thousands of passengers to miss their flight or connections. imagine if we don't have the flow of air traffic controls. the lines will be not in the airport. they will be on the tarmac waiting in line to get to the next destination, missing connections, flights being canceled. this is a serious problem we have to address. i appreciate chairman lobiondo and i look forward to your inner witnesses. >> thank you, mr. schuster. we are recognizing mr. defazio.

thank you, mr. chairman. are air traffic controllers are doing a phenomenal job. some of them are being forced into mandatory overtime six-day weeks. that is not attainable and it certainly doesn't help recruitment into some of the busiest areas of the country, particularly new york and others. we have to look at new ways to induce fully qualified controllers to move their and we also have to facilitate the hiring of qualified people in their full certification. there is a legislation and i've spoken to the chairman about this. i'm trying to remember the number introduced by mr. tran 11, which would help in the hiring process, particularly targeting veterans and otherwise fix against controllers to move

on and get to work. so i would hope that we would take up that bill. i think it's a noncontroversial bill. as suggestions we are doing a lot of pretend legislation around here on the floor, maybe we should do similar legislation in the bill through before congress embarked on yet another one of his long breaks this year, which is more breaks than work. the issue is critical. many people have been talking about this for years. we have seen the shortage with the aging of the workforce coming and it is past time to do something about it. despite all that coming to air-traffic controllers are doing such an extraordinary job back, you know, the number of air traffic control related flight delays decreased to 17.5% in the last two years. that's an extraordinary testimony to them in the work

they are doing. it's not sustainable without an adequate work force. i am very worried that this will hurt our retention if we don't bring in some more help. the chairman also mentioned tsa. i recommend that the members of the committee. every american is taxed every time they buy a ticket and in its infinite wisdom that congress put her one of those really bad year in budget deals by speaker ryan and patty murray , which decided to divert 1 dollar, $1.2 billion a year per in security fees into the ether so-called deficit reduction or some other part of government to get enough tsa agents out there according to the head of the union would cost about a third of the money being

diverted. it is not right to tax people for something and then take the money away. i would also recommend those relate to our system. unfortunately it's no longer under the jurisdiction of this committee that i would recommend it to my colleagues if they are concerned about. without i look forward to hearing from the witnesses. >> thank you, mr. defazio. now we'll turn to our is cumbersome and randy whole-grain and as the chairman shuster said, randy has been very passionate about this issue and we welcome hearing from you. >> chairman lobiondo, chairman shuster, thank you for your dedication of this. thank you for letting me be here this morning to make some remarks. this is an issue of carefully scrutinized over the last three years and it's important to me, my constituents and air traffic controllers nationwide. the former member of the subcommittee and i also represents several hundred air traffic controllers in the 14th district of illinois, the

largest number in illinois. i met with many others who aspire to become atc's. dedicated students have put in long hours with are credited in the two shins to gain the skills and education to be entrusted with the public safety which is still on air traffic controllers. i was a weekly commuter i am invested in making sure that our skies are safe as all of us. we are facing critically low staffing levels of air traffic controllers within our towers. only 30% of trainees at the chicago trade can't reach full certification. insurance air traffic controllers and towers is paramount to secure air travel. insufficient air traffic controllers means cutting back travel and hurting our economy. no controllers means no flights and that's why i was surprised and confused with the faa when they change their long-standing procedures without warning in 2014 and launched an unnecessary social science at her and peer

students, teachers and administrators said the initiative for cti were blindsided by the faa's decision and told me of its negative effects. for decades, the training program established the recognized and trusted pipeline for highly qualified candidates and military veterans. most disturbingly i believe the new hires dandridge jeopardize their travel safety by diverting the hiring process by highly qualified air traffic controller candidates and veterans in an attempt to elevate off the street candidates. why the faa did this remains unclear. what is clear is that the faa has been less than transparent and open. a six-month investigation revealed he had her setbacks of modifications not only aspiring air traffic controllers but on the legitimacy of the hiring process itself. the investigation revealed faa or aviation related employees may have assisted in giving potential recruits special access to answers on key admissions tests to help them gain jobs with the faa.

at the faa has refused to respond to audio, video witness accounts of misconduct. they conduct a self audit of the allegation and clear themselves of any wrongdoing. this is no way to run an agency responsible for thousands of lives every day. in regards to the biographical assessment, and you're confusing psychological tests come in the faa has repeatedly been opaque and unresponsive. that's why since 2014 that called for a congressional hearing on issues and i'm so grateful to chairman trina lobiondo for allowing me to speak today. we have a question and answers. we need answers about the alleged cheating. administrator michael korda has stated that he cast to internal officers to conduct thorough investigations of the alleged cheating. unsurprisingly the internal investigation go to uncover what was demonstrated clearly an audio recording at the same time the fa has never denied the cheating allegation. so which is it? this past march was filed the

agency unable to recover missing corrupted enough at the center of the alleged cheating. they demonstrate whether the faa knew if it was helping people cheat? when will the administrator come forward with results of the investigation. we need answers about discredited biographical assessment psychological test. who wrote the biofuel and who validated and added some candidates fail the questionnaire and 2014 passes in 2015. why were candidates allowed to set in an unsecured location without showing proof of i.d. as a result of the changes come in many clearly qualified graduates and military veterans were disqualified by a test they don't understand and cannot improve upon even after years of education and ask variants. many have not aged out of the process over losing the chance to join the ranks of air traffic controllers were these dedicated individuals. americans deserve an answer.

i introduced h.r. 1964, air traffic controllers hired an act to reverse the effects of the policies and restore safety and confidence to air travel. i'd like to thank mr. rinaldi for their support and collaboration throughout the years of my bill and chairman lobiondo first cosponsorship of legislation. i bill restores status, veterans and provides relief for those aged under the process and eliminates the use of good assessment. my colleague congressman curbelo has introduced the air traffic controller hiring improvement act. i think them for shared interest on this issue and i agree with the vast majority of his legislation. his legislation creates two separate hiring pools. one of veterans and cpi graduates in another of all u.s. citizens. the hires may not exceed a 10% difference however i have concerns or should the faa hire more pools equally, it would

disadvantage our graduates and military veterans. i've worked tirelessly to instead create a threefold system of graduate veterans and off the street tires which would alleviate the problem and maintained the hiring process. i welcome continued conversations and understand the politics and rationale for there to a full approach this isn't about securing fair job application process before the status quo. this is americans feeling and being faithful and line. this is about transparency from an agency which is accountable to the american people and their representatives. i'm grateful for your attention and work on this issue and i look forward to reaching solutions to provide fairness and safety and security for all. thank you, chairman. i yield back. >> thank you, randy very much. now we will move to the second panel. so we will give the staff a second to set up. i will introduce the second

panel which includes ms. terry bristol chief operating officer of the air traffic controller at faa who was accompanied by mr. wiki can at the faa. we are also joined by mr. matt hampton who we are pleased to welcome back again. assistant inspector general for aviation audit in the united states department of transportation. mr. paul rinaldi, national air traffic controllers association and mr. randy babbitt, labor affairs for southwest airlines. we thank you all for being here. ms. bristol, you are now recognized for your statement. >> microphone, please. >> chairman, ranking member and

members of the subcommittees, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss our air traffic controller workforce. our controllers are proud professionals who are entrusted with our mission to run the safest, most efficient airspace system in the world. the national airspace system is an extremely complex operation. we need to continually meet the ongoing and emerging needs of the aviation community. therefore we must remain committed to hiring, training and supporting the best controller workforce in the world. today i would like to discuss four key areas that the faa's controller staffing process. hiring, training, placement in our collaboration with the national air traffic controllers association. let me start by discussing hiring. the agency has created to hiring tracks. one is focused on reaching candidate with no previous air-traffic experience. candidates must meet minimum

qualification and then pass validated occupational tasks, which include the biographical assessment in the air-traffic selection and training test. the site had as a specialized air traffic control experience track. it focuses on reaching candidate with operational experience such as military veterans with at least one year of air traffic control asked here and. with these changes in our hiring process, the ato was on track not only to meet but exceed the fy 16 hiring goal. this hiring process better address is the agency's current hiring needs and also ensures equitable treatment in the broadest pool of qualified candidates. we will continue to monitor and refine the process as necessary to ensure the best possible individuals or select it to maintain safety and efficiency. our robust training program at

the faa academy and in our facilities provides a strong foundation for new controllers. we have made continual improvements in our training curriculum in the last five years. the faa administrator recently convened in aviation rulemaking advisory committee with the lab with the weapons experts from industry and the academic community. they will work with the faa to evaluate innovative approaches for future hiring and training of air traffic controllers. as if their hiring processes, the faa continually strives to improve the training we provide our controllers. the air-traffic organization supports the air traffic controller is the qualification training working group under the aviation world making advisory committee structure. we are also establishing a center of excellence for technical training and human performance. this will enable us to explore opportunities for car share research and grants that could be used to help shape the future

of air traffic controller training. along with hiring and training, we are also focused on placing new controllers in the right facilities. the faa uses a priority placement tool to forecast and prioritize controller staffing requirements. it captures the latest priority ranking about 315 facilities and assorted in the the order of greatest staffing needs. we place trainees where we need them. collaboration is paramount to our success. the best way to meet staffing challenges is to collaborate with their labor partners to this means building relationships, establishing trust and working together to make better decisions. our collaboration to place controllers where we need them. we are jointly defining our priorities and working to improve the process by which controller requests reassignments to other facilities.

in addition we've established a collaborative resource working group reviewing the staffing models we have in place. in conclusion i believe the faa has a solid comprehensive plan in place to address controller hiring, training, placement and we collaborate to ensure success. we have made tremendous progress in recent months and i believe we are on the right track. we are always looking for ways to improve the air traffic system in the united states is extremely safe and efficient and it remains the envy of the world. we look forward to working with the government and industry partners to consider it even better ways to meet air-traffic needs of the future. this concludes my statement and i will be happy to answer your questions. thank you. the next thank you. now we will turn to mr. hampton for your statement. thank you for being here. >> chairman shuster, chairman lobiondo and ranking member

larson, thank you for inviting me to testify today in the key challenges facing the faa air traffic controller workforce. my remarks today are based on report published earlier this year and our ongoing work for the committee. today the total number of fully certified controllers and that about 10,600. this is that the very bottom edge of faa's overall staffing range at the national level. furthermore the kid individual facilities highlights a number of pressing challenges that demand urgent attention. our analysis of the most critical air traffic control facilities, the most complex and busiest ones in the airspace system shows half of the 23 facilities have certified controller staffing levels well below minimal staffing requirements. these include new york, atlanta, dallas and chicago trade comes. these facilities are also stretched by controllers eligible to retire. we found these problems are the result of several factors

including lack of precision with faa's model for estimating staffing requirements for facilities that manage high-altitude operation, not fully utilizing systems to max my casuals come a lack of accurate complete data on planned retirement in training times and poor communication between headquarters and the field. in terms of hiring, faa introduced several changes to its controller hiring process over two years ago in february 2014 based on internal and external reviews. these changes included standardizing the minimum altercations for all of the centralizing processes in the office of human resources and introducing a new screening mechanism known as the biographical assessment. however, it is the lack of effective implementation strategy for new policies and as the committee is well aware, stakeholders have expressed concerns that they implemented the new process a little over a month after announcing changes

even though they were significant. in addition, faa did not establish a tracking system to monitor candidates as they move through the pipeline. it is too soon to assess the overall impact of the retired process and whether or not it will be to successful outcomes and get a new control certified faster facilities given the length of time it takes to train new controllers. our work shows faa continues to face challenges and made an hiring goals. further, the agency? metrics on the time issue taken up looking to advance to the hiring process. in addition, many new hires select it to the new process have not yet completed required on boarding processes contributing to delays. we expect to complete a report later this year and the recommendations for correct action. there are also several issues that were materially affected controller work horse in the near term that require attention. first, implementing scheduling full text facility managers better manage resources,

particularly large complex facilities. we recommended and faa agrees to adopt a toll widely used in other countries. this will help significantly. second, accelerating efforts to develop procedures, training and tools to safely manage unmanned aircraft systems in the same errors as have other aircraft. fa is taking steps to address the recommendations. finally, assessing workload and productivity impact of new technologies like the 1.6 billion datacom effort that will allow controllers to communicate with pilots via text messaging. this is important because studies suggest this technology could allow controllers to handle 30% more aircraft. in summary, controller training, hiring and staffing issues of long-standing concerns and require sustained management action. mr. chairman, this concludes my statement and i would be happy to answer any questions you are the subcommittee may have. thank you.

>> thank you very much, mr. hampton. mr. rinaldi, you're recognized. >> morning, chairman lobiondo. happy birthday, recommender lawson. ranking member defazio and members of the aviation subcommittee who thank you for the opportunity to testify about the most critical problems. we all have a stake in our national airspace system. it's an economic engine contribute $1.5 trillion annually to her gross domestic product and providing 12 million american jobs. currently we run the largest, safest, most efficient, most complex and most diverse airspace system in the world. our system is unique, unequaled in unrivaled. this is due to a large right of the impeccable work of the men and women i represent to run the system. the united states airspace system is considered the gold standard in the aviation community. and yet the air traffic control staffing crisis puts the status of risk. in 2015 the committee held a

roundtable meeting to discuss air traffic control staffing that event served as a catalyst between natca and the faa on many aspects of the staffing crisis. the changes we have made are small steps in the right direction. air traffic control staffing has any concern for many years but it has now reached a crisis level. we are a 27 year low of fully certified air traffic controllers. controller staffing has nearly 10% since 2011 and the faa has missed its hiring goal in each of the last seven years. with one third of the current workforce eligible to retire from the bureaucratic structure is failing us. bunning has contributed to staffing problems. in 2013 due to sequestration the faa froze hiring, shut down the academy and since then it has not been able to catch up. after sequestration of 2013, the faa asked punished approximately

3000 well-qualified candidates in order to institute his biographical assessment or what we call btu, fundamentally floored. her work with the faa to evaluate a large group of controller workforce before we used it in its 2015 vacancy announcement. for some reason in july 2015, the faa h.r. department terminated the retired military program which we now as rnc. piling on, faa h.r. decided to air traffic control training test could not be used again. natca has worked hard to help validating the exam. a full-day test with their controller staffing crisis has not been an evil test. it is not complete and the fa will not post ulcers and vacancy announcement until it is. the bureaucratic self-inflicted ones have significantly delayed

the hiring of new employees. since a roundtable discussion in december, natca and the faa have collaborated with the job is far from complete. natca believes the fa must take a holistic collaborative approach to resolve our issues. we must be careful not to do anything that would make the current situation worse or delay hiring or slow training to reduce the staffing. natca doesn't just come at a concern. everybody in this room can work together and get a solution. congress needs to pass a reauthorization bill that provides the necessary stable predictable funding to operate a fully staffed national airspace system. if sequestration must be fixed by the faa should be exempted otherwise we'll see another hiring freeze reducing staffing, see furloughs, delays or reduce capacity. natca supports the passage of h.r. 5292 which would streamline the process by ensuring a path of controls hired quickly with

fewer bureaucratic hurdles and allow cti graduates to be hired without being subject to the biodata questionnaire -- biographical questionnaire. the faa needs to hire as many controls as they're qualified. it should be hiring 2002 in employees per year to maximize the throughput through the faa academy. our controls are dedicated highly skilled professionals, the best in the world who are forced to shoulder the burden of chronically understaffed facilities. they are doing an amazing job everyday on the staffing crisis, but it's time for relief. no one wants interruptions in service, delays, least of all air traffic controllers. i went to thank you for calling the hearing and continue to keep our crisis front and center. we must remain vigilant and continue to move the ball forward, otherwise will be hard-pressed but alone expand and modernize their system.

i look forward to answering any questions. >> thank you, mr. rinaldi. mr. babbitt, you're recognized. >> thank you. chairman lobiondo, mr. schuster, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss the issues that are related icon before this body today wearing a number of path that i've collected over the years almost five decades in aviation. those hats are a current airline executive, former administrator of the faa, former president of an airline union and a commercial airline pilot. because of my former lives, if you would, in aviation i think i offer a unique perspective on a number of these issues. first and foremost, i am here today as a senior executive from southwest airlines. southwest is as you may note the

nation largest domestic carrier in terms of carrying passengers in a country roughly 150 million passenger customers annually with a combination of low fares, no annoying fees and a friendly customer service developed by outstanding people at a safe and reliable operation. we operate a southwest a fleet of over 700 boeing 737 aircraft operating nearly 4000 flights a day over 87 u.s. destination and 11 international destination and every single one of those flights is in controlled airspace. to say the least, we are dependent upon and highly appreciative of a robust, highly skilled air traffic controller workforce. in my prior rules as an airline pilot i was proud to interact daily with the men and women of the air traffic controller workforce. their dedication to safety but operational efficiency and

professional integrity is truly remarkable. and it leads to the fact that we all must have confidence in the system. during may 50 years of flying, i never have lost the confidence and it is in large measure due to the skill and professionalism of the nation's air traffic controllers. with that said, my confidence in the overall system today is a little bit shaky. i have no concern, let me underscore, no concern for the safety it. the safety is never in doubt, but i do question the reliability of the system from an operational customer service perspective. the u.s. aviation system is both labor and capital intensive and like other modes of transportation in the industry, prolonged underfunding of staffing needs and system improvements will eventually take it to last it has with the d.c. metro and the tsa security apparatus as two examples.

all of this produces concern about whether the current atc system can be sustained in its present form. eventually without major structural changes and greater funding and staffing certainty from a serious inconvenience to aircraft operators and ultimately our customers in your constituents will result. specifically in delivering to the beneficial next and technologies more quickly and in order to avoid the crisis confronting tsa in d.c. metro, the federal government is to do more to address the supply of certified controllers as well as providing required training to fully utilize the next in capabilities available today, principally performance-based navigation and other capabilities expected to be rolled out in the near future. data communications and the inward environment. aviation traffic is forecast to grow steadily and are having the ice certified levels continue to decline with no relief in sight

is not quite is particularly particularly problematic at critical facilities that require the most experienced controllers to manage the complex operations skillfully and efficiently. as the nation's largest mystic airline concerns us and challenges our promise to her customers that we will provide friendly reliable and on-time service. due to our concerns with the capabilities of the system in the current pace of progress with regard to the program comes up with the strangest airline community and civil aviation union to support significant structural financing procurement reforms are contained within the house version of the faa reauthorization act. the u.s. atc system is a 24/7 operation and as noted earlier contributes $1.5 trillion to the nation's gross domestic product and generates more than 12 million jobs. what we believe is an important economic engine will struggle to meet future demand under the

current system challenged by the stars of annual appropriations process and the threat of sequestration or government shut downs. we applaud the committee and looking for these important issues to be resolved and at least recognizing that the status quo is not acceptable. hopefully the bipartisan solution to these issues can be achieved sooner than later. on behalf of southwest airlines, a thank you for the opportunity to testify and be happy to answer any questions later. thank you. >> mr. babbitt, thank you very much. mr. schuster for questions. >> thank you, chairman lobiondo. mr. babbitt in your distinguished career were on the 93 commission that recommended the type of atc reform that we propose here and passed out of committee. i appreciate you being here today, and your long service in your wisdom and trying to figure out how to change the system and

right this ship so we can have an even safer, more efficient air traffic control system and airspace in america. so far this morning we've learned the faa has missed its own controller hiring targets in each of the last six years and as a percentage of controller trainees being is that your record levels in some of our busiest air traffic control facilities in an effort to right the ship, and ms. bristol, you said you've revamped your controller hiring process and in twice in less than three years this is happening. i am very skeptical and doubtful that with a record of six years not being able to meet, the latest number i got is you are behind in hiring type in the facilities. i would like our witnesses, at least mr. hampton, rinaldi and babbitt, if you would get the faa on a scale of age to have a performance at hiring place in training over the last five

years. mr. hampton, which he belonged to them? >> dangerous thing to ask and igt give a grade. over the years some long-standing would have to get them in complete. we think it is a long-standing issue that needs continued management attention. i'm sorry about that. incomplete. >> sounds like you're a politician. i would've expected you to come down hard one way or the other. >> i'm going to go with incomplete also if that's appropriate. you know, the self-employed vera craddick processes that they put in place i still can't consciously figure out why they would decide to do such a thing. at the end of the day, they are trying to make changes in the series is a roundtable discussion we are seeing some changes. keep in mind, not that i would grade this great body, stopping

the funding that's impacted. >> i would do that. i would be in a politician are asking the questions. i would give congress a d- on what we've done over the last 20 or 30 years on the funding level, the different pieces of legislation that we passed, that we have not enforced with our oversight of the faa. that gives us a d. since his larsen's birthday i'll be a little bit easier. mr. babbage. you are the trickiest position evolved because you've got to deal with the faa every single day. >> so i'm going to default to the sail past voting method. giving a passing grade, but as a good teacher mentor might try to do, i say that with caveats. i think it is unfair sometimes in the situation to anathema to perform without the adequate tools they need for the performance about the best thing

to do. the funding, changing of any number of external circumstances being forced to furlough. all of that is detracted from their grade, but not their fault. i guess i will default to the point of stabilizing the funding, having a clear path in the ability to put your hand up occasionally and say we need more money to do this. this is a critical piece and we can't do it with the funding in the budget you have set for us. all of those would help them improve their grade and get into a good college. >> ms. bristol, i won't ask you to grade yourself. again, why should we assume after six years of failure, the last two to three years, tell us the metric we need to look for the next couple of, several months, to prove that you are moving forward in a positive way. >> thank you very much. so i think the first metric to

make is to make our hiring targets each year. we are on track to do that this year. we will probably exceed our goal. >> when will he say that? >> we have argued that the goal and we expect to exceed it by any number of applicant probably in the high 1600s for this fiscal year. i think that we have had some challenges over the years and i think sequestration played a part in that. i know there have been a number of changes and i think we are making progress. i think changes that we have put into place, both process and tools i think will continue to bear positive results as we move forward now and into the future. my organization, the air traffic organization is working closely with other parts of the faa, including my colleague, mr. ricky cannon.

our folks are working very closely together in hiring and training is one of our highest priorities in the agency. we are also working very closely with my colleague, paul rinaldi and his team. we put in place a number of changes in the way we are working to gather on how windows people throughout the system, ensuring that we address the highest need facilities first and foremost and really focus on putting our new hires in the lower-level facilities. >> we are watching closely. i know this problem has to be solved now because the real damaging effects come down the road if it not address today. again, thank you for being here. >> mr. defazio. >> banks. i will move on quickly to the controller reissued. i just want to correct the record gave mr. babic committee served on the 93 commission. that is correct? the 93 commission is served on that, looking at changing the

ato governance. >> i believe that was the 92 commission. was the conclusion to go to a private corporation nor was the conclusion to establish an independent government corporation? >> iowa played a fair amount of distance between 1992. >> i have it here and although ms. rowe biden and others say we were there. it came to the conclusion it should be an independent government corporation removed from the federal budget process. let's move on to air traffic controllers. thank you. ms. bristol, why was this ea created? my understanding is that had been compromised and thus part of the rationale. mr. cannon? >> mr. president, i will attempt

to answer your question. the biographical assessment was created to provide an initial screening as african matriculated through the process. when we decided to change the process -- >> it's not because the outset have been compromised? >> we can talk about the outset of little later. >> let me just get to my point. i met a person at the event here on the hill who went through the cti, working as a military controller, they can't come aboard with the faa because she can't pass the ba. this seems to be designed to determine whether you have the temperament to be a can color or not. if someone is gone successfully completed the school and is working without reservation, without problems as the military air traffic controller, is that test ballot? >> yes, sir. the test is valid. both versions --

>> i thought you had to go out -- you have invalidated the first one with the workforce and then you read did the ba and it has been somewhat validated, but they're still questions in my mind about the validation. why would you then want to screen out a person has fully qualified working as an air traffic controller training. i would you want to screen her out but the biographical assessment? >> i don't believe we won't green. >> what is the goal? if the goal is to get people, you know, because it becomes more expensive as you go through the process. by understanding of the cost of $139 compared to 45 bucks for the s.a.t. i am really coming in now, kind of wondering about the whole process. whether we need to pass these or whether we should have one simplified process, which is the skills necessary, yes or no and

we are going to keep it secure so it doesn't get compromised in terms of answers. maybe we can get princeton to do it for us as opposed to $109. this whole process is aggravating. i think we are screening out potentially at least one qualified people from becoming controllers. i mean, you are totally confident in this process that the best way to go. >> yes, sir. i am. it is producing results. we will exceed our hiring target this year. >> ms. bristol, why is the target less than 2000? the academy -- and we have a severe shortage in any of our critical centers and it will take people for years to get there. why are we hiring less than 2000? >> as we step from 15 to 16, we

transitioned to a new controller training contract. we wanted to ensure that we didn't have more trainees in the field then could go right into training. in other words, we track to the individual where they are at and how many training resources are available. >> you are saying that you put through your target because of restrictions in terms of supervision of entry-level controllers. >> it was one consideration. as a move into next year, we are looking to bump that and look to max out the academy is well in addition to bringing on previous experience controllers over and above that number. >> efa as a target minimum headcount, which is said by some sort of map monocle algorithm by defendants people come it doesn't sound ideal to me because the green eye shades probably have something else in mind. and then we have the cpc working

group, which came up with much more robust levels. so if we had actually applied working group to drill down into each center and came up with higher numbers, why do we even bother with the map and medical algorithm that popped out of the finance department with a target minimum headcount? >> that? >> that would be the controller workforce plan put out every year. it's a tenure document strategic, very high level. the ato were with natca in the controller resource working group. it was ato and natca. >> it was practitioners working with your crass to come up with real numbers as oppressor numbers created by a mathematical algorithm. >> it doesn't take into account everyone in a facility. it does average out certified recessional controllers and we set targets and how we are going to staff to that level and move

people through the system for a more healthy to less healthy facilities. we have to account for developmental is also in the building. so in working together, i am very confident that is how we have laser approach on who we are putting into which facility. >> mr. rinaldi, can you comment on this ba process? when they did the control, do you know how many controllers took the task and what their pass in belgrade was with the ba actual working controllers? >> sure, thank you, sir. the first one in 2014, 20,507 applicants took the btu. 2407 past. so roughly 10% past. and then we found out later ron -- and i'm not a scientist, but all you have to do is read the first page about a biographical assessment that says the test must