on an estimated basis that would be a coming release this year where by the end of this year they'll begin to get paid and a policy level basis and next year continued automation will occur to tie everything to do with the back end of cms' systems. >> have the right people been paid the right amount of money? these are taxpayer dollars. >> we'll follow up with questions. we'll probably reconvene. our votes will probably take us to 11:30. this will be in brief recess until 11:30. and we are back. thank you very much.

so a series of votes on the house right now. the house working on a number of bills trying to get ready for their august recess including a bill for border security. a bill that changes the law that deals with child immigrants. also highway and transportation funding. live house action right now on c-span. a series of votes. this may take a few minutes. while that's going on what we would like to do is catch up on the latest in the conflict in the middle east. we had representative keith ellison as our guest on this morning's "washington journal."

first guess of the morning keith ellison, democrat from minnesota, progressive caucus co-chair talking about several things. >> thanks for having me again. >> a recent piece in "the washington post" taking a look at the gaza blockade. headlines to end the gaza blockade to achieve peace what prompted this? >> as you know, there has been this horrible conflict raging there in the holy land. 2/3 of israelis live under fear of indiscriminate rocket fire. people in gaza, you've seen the four kids killed on the beach, 15 people killed when a shell hit a u.n. shelter that has been noticed to the idf, israeli defense forces that civilians were in there. we had a power plant blown up, over 1,000 civilians, i think 1,300 civilians on the palestinian side killed. about 52 israelis killed. this is a dreadful situation. i thought i needed to weigh in

because i had been to gaza three times since 2009, which is what this first cycle of conflicts began. been to israel and palestine. other parts of palestine many times before. i thought it was important to just point out one basic truth. that is there are many, many people in gaza who have no connection to hamas at all who view return to the status quo as unacceptable because gaza is completely quarantined. it's confined. you cannot leave if you are a person from gaza and you find yourself in the west bank and you are picked up by the israeli defense forces, they will bring you back and the goods and services are tightly constrained, and just freedom of movement is tightly constrained. these people cannot leave the bombing they are enduring. it's one of the most densely populated areas in the world, which explains why you have these huge numbers of civilian

casualties. they're almost unavoidable even if you had a very precise campaign. of course, there is evidence existing now that indicates that the bombing, the israeli bombing has not been particularly precise in all cases. i felt like i had to weigh in because of course, the public mind is being formed right now about how the united states should engage this conflict. i thought i would offer my own views. >> in the house yesterday, a resolution, some of the resolution said, passed by a voice vote denouncing hamas' use of civilians as a human shield during combat. what do you think about this resolution? >> there were a number of things in the resolution i found problematic. one is that there was really no mention of the suffering of the civilians. it didn't talk about how the ordinary people who live in gaza were real why i suffering, too. it denounced a u.n. human rights council investigation, which has

not begun. it's not the proper role of the u.s. congress to denounce an investigation on both sides, which has not begun is the proper role of the u.s. congress as a citizen of the world to say this should be a fair investigation, not to denounce it from the outset. then i think it tends to undermine the diplomatic efforts by the administration. john kerry has been running all over the globe trying to get the parties to stop shooting at each other. here the u.s. congress weighs in from a particular tied. i just think it's not the right thing to do. >> what about the human shields argument? do you agree with that? >> well, i think that's one of those things where the place is so densely populated that it's almost impossible to avoid hitting civilians. if there are cases where -- when i think human shield, i think of a combatant putting a civilian in front of them and marching the civilian in front of them as the combatant is carrying the

gun behind them. i'm not aware of any situation like that. i will say i certainly wouldn't rule it out, but i don't think the reason we have so many civilian deaths is because -- i think the reason we have that is because of the dense population and the fact that the palestinians who live in gaza cannot leave gaza. i think that explains it. look, i've been there three times. i talk to people there. i was on the phone with people in gaza just this week. i just think that you can define human shield a number of ways. i think israelis argue there have been bombs planted in civilian establishments like mosques and schools. that's certainly possible. if that happened, that is absolutely deplorable. i think a human rights violation and a war crime, but i think the greater bulk of the casualties has a lot more with the density of the population and the fact that you cannot leave gaza. >> the resolution also says, according to this story, slams hamas for its refusal to agree on a cease-fire with israel.

>> that is deplorable. we need a cease-fire and need it now. that's one part of the resolution i think is right. i agree with that part of it. i wasn't called upon to cast a vote because it was a voice vote. so often with these resolutions, there are parts of it that i think are good. there are parts that i authentic leave something to be desired. on the whole, i thought that resolution needed a whole lot more work. >> you didn't participate in the voice vote? >> no. for people who don't want congress proceedings, there are voice votes and maybe only about ten people are on the floor at the time. >> keith ellison our guest to talk about current conflicts in israel with gaza, specifically in gaza, taking a look at these issues and others. your thoughts and questions welcome.

here is boca raton, florida. >> caller: good morning, gentlemen. mr. ellison just as aside, i have a question. you referred to the human rights organization. you know, sir, that in the history of that organization where iran and syria have been on that particular council and israel is denied to be on that council. they are not allowed to be on that council, that they have never brought a war crime against any other country. china, libya, all of the other, they have never brought a charge against anyone other than israel. next door in syria, 150,000 people are dead. and are refugees. in iraq, isis is telling the

christian population of mosul in unless they convert to islam or pay the penalty for not being islamic, they will be beheaded. they will be killed. obviously, in the history of the middle east and jordan in '72, king hussein killed 10,000 plo and transferred them to lebanon. >> okay, ken, thank you. >> i want to thank him for his point. i think much of what he says is absolutely right. the human rights situation in syria is deplorable. what assad is doing are nothing short of war crimes, crimes against humanity. iraq, what is going on in mosul. that is inexcusable assault on human dignity. there are many others. i think if ken were to check my record, he would see i'm very consistent. i have called out human rights violations in pakistan, in saudi arabia, in the united states. i've always been somebody who

stands on the side of human rights, but i done think that simply because there are other countries where there have been human rights abuses that we cannot simply investigate human rights abuses in this situation. in fact, israel itself investigates human rights abuses. it was an israeli inquiry, court of inquiry that looked into the role that ariel sharon played. that was an israeli tribunal that came to the conclusion there was neglect there. we shouldn't fear an investigative process. we should pursue that it would be fair. we should insist that it be fair. we should make sure all parties have a right to participate in it. to simply say we are going to condemn it from the outset i think it imperfect as the record of the human rights council has been. it's just wrong to say we are not going to participate and we are going to condemn and inquiry

from the very beginning before we even begin. >> next up is ken, boca raton, florida. >> are there two kens? >> apology. this is margaret from leavenworth, kansas. >> caller: good morning. thank god you are speaking out about this. it's brought me to tears several times, as with pope francis and the u.n. people trying to help there. this is a genocide. our name is in it. we are giving money for their protective shield in israel. that's the country that should be progressing with its neighbors. it's more educated. they shouldn't have balled in people there like the warsaw ghetto and they are doing it in gaza. we seem to accept it around the world that these people, these palestinians or jesus is coming

back to a place they believe in. there is all this support from the u.s. that makes us around the world look horrible. we need to stop giving money to people doing these things in israel. these people might not have any control of hamas and we are just slaughtering them. it's the same as watching syria get killed and not helping them. >> margaret, thank you. >> i do want to say marring res is absolutely right about the people of gaza not being in control of hamas. that's so true. that's one of the reasons why i wrote this op-ed piece. in this op-ed piece, since i've been to gaza, i know one of the things i saw, pedro, when i went to gaza the first time is a whole mess of kids. you see children everywhere. there were so many that i asked one of my guides from the united nations, what's the percentage of children in gaza? the person said at least half. then there's 6.5% senior

citizens, more women than men. then there's a lot of people who don't favor hamas and who are aligned with fatah, then other people who aren't aligned with any party. to say that you are going to punish gaza because of hamas is really punishing people for circumstances they have no control over. so i think that point is very well taken. i just think though it's important for people to understand yisraelis suffer wit this situation. i've met with israelis who don't have any animosity toward the people of gaza, yet they have to live under this rocket fire this really is a situation that calls for the international community to say the fighting must stop, the cease-fire must take place now and move within the blockade to set up free flow of goods and services with inspections, then move back, resume final status talks so we can end this

conflict for good and for all. >> what do you think about u.s. funding the iron dome missile project? >> i voted for the iron dome because i don't want people to get bombed. i don't have a problem with trying to protect people from being bombed. i'm not trying to protect palestinians from being bombed. i think both sides need to be protected this conflict needs to come to an immediate end right now. ed from georgia. >> caller: i would like to tell the representative from minnesota that i know he tends to lean towards the palestinian opposed to the israelis. >> actually, i don't. >> caller: well, okay. it sounds like you do. anyway, you know, this whole problem that we have in the middle east between those two countries or between the palestinians and the israelis could be solved real simple.

everybody knows it. one side is not going along with it and that's hamas, no mat ware happens. they just don't want to take any proposals that are going to end this thing and make everything right. to blame the israelis is crazy. >> well, i appreciate your right to offer that view point. i'll simply say this. if you study the israeli/palestinian conflict and the history of it, one thing you will find is there are better actions each side could have taken. i'm not saying everything is the same or everything is equal. i'm simply saying when you are dealing with human beings, usually if you want to pass blame around, you know, everybody would get a little bit of it. i think that it's important for the united states to try to be an agent to bring the parties to a resolution. i just want to say for the gentleman, the reason i called for the end of the blockade is

because hamas charges money for transportation of goods and services through the tunnels. if you can move goods through the check points, you deprive them of a source of revenue and control. also through the tunnels, no one has any ability to know what's going through the tunnels, rockets, rice? who knows? the bottom line is, it could be either one. we know it's been both and many other things. if you have a checkpoint system where is there a free flow of goods and services and the only goods that can't come in are weaponry, you will diminish the tunnel economy, you will diminish the smuggle economy and you will make everyone safer on both sides. i want to say, look, one of the problems with this whole conflict if you speak up and try to make a point on behalf of israel's position, people say

you're just for israel. if you speak up for palestine they say you're just for palestine. >> we want peace for both peoples. that's the space i'm trying to occupy right now. i know i could stay out of trouble with some people by simply staying out of this debate, but i don't think it would bring light to the conversation. i jumped into it. >> staying out of trouble, to that point you were quoted in "the daily beast" about clarified comments, democrat support for israel. given the nature of what happened as far as peace is concerned and your role in it. >> let me tell you, i am a tremendous supporter of the professional journalism, but just like any profession, politics, whoever, there are some people who abuse the privileges that they have. this individual literally chased me down the hall and then didn't introduce himself, didn't say who he was and just jammed a

microphone in my face and asked me has israel gone to far. my position was look, i wrote a op-ed, read that. i don't know who you are. i don't know what you want. i don't know what the point is. all my office if you want to talk about it. then i told him i have multiple constituencies in my district who are very, very concerned about this issue. i'm not going to make some off-the-cuff, out-of-the-pocket comment because someone is rudely chasing me down the hall. i think the journalist is unprofessional. that is not reflective of the "daily beast." it is a very good institution. there is always a bad apple in the barrel. >> the headline said left wing politicians can't quit israel. >> it's inflammatory, not productive, not constructive. this particular individual had a very specific story they wanted

to write. they were impervious to the facts and tried to exploit me to get clicks on their website. i'm sorry that happened. i just want to be clear, i'm happy to talk to the "daily beast" any time, but not that particular journalist. >> the independent line, this is donald. >> caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i would love to ask the congressman what we are all struggling with is to find some common solution. he appears to be trying to find that middle ground. my question is something has been a cross around my mind and maybe he can shoot it down. what we see in other conflicts in syria, lebanon, wherever there are civilians being placed in harm's way of war, why can't we, why can't israel open one of the check points there in gaza and allow the women and children to become real refugees?

set up a tent camp somewhere near the border and allow them to leave? women and children. make the men stay behind. maybe 17 and under can leave or something. why can't we get the women and children out of danger? other conflicts, they are allowed to do that. >> you raised a good point. israel has a commitment to human rights. i know what i just said is going to inflame some people on the palestinian side, but israel is a nation that understands the importance of human rights. i think this idea you've thrown out there is, lawrence, real study. israel and hamas have agreed to a humanitarian pause. what about a humanitarian exit

for a little while so people can at least be out of the harm's way. i guess i'm not ready to say i adopt the idea because i haven't had a chance to think it all what it through, but the idea is certainly worth study. >> from oklahoma, michael is up next. democrats line. >> caller: good morning, sir. >> good morning. >> mr. ellison, i have been following your career the last couple of years. i think that you are an extremely well-informed individual, for one. >> thank you, sir. >> caller: i'd like to ask you to get off things here in israel for a moment. have you noticed the charter for the tea party is almost a

duplicate of the charter for the ku klux klan from the '30s? >> i haven't had a chance to study the charter so i can't speak to that. i will say this. our country has always been the land of opportunity. we all believe in the american dream, whether you are a white southerner or a black northerner, whether you are latino or asian no matter hour, whether you're straight, gay, muslim, christian, jew. we all believe if you work hard you can make it in america. unfortunately we had 40 years of wage stagnation and mounting debt. some people on the far political right are upset by these circumstances, but they blame other americans. what i say is the tea party and the other folks need to have a conversation about how to re-establish the american dream for everybody. it's not about hating the government or hating obama. it's about looking very carefully at how we make sure that all americans can prosper.

that's why i stand for increasing the minimum wage, having fair trade standards, not just free trade but fair trade. that's why we are happy the president is signing the executive order today ending the practice of wage theft, making contractors, federal contractors who have a demonstrated history of wage theft calling them into account in a new way. that's why i'm proud the president raised the minimum wage for people who work for federal contractors. we've got to have some real opportunity. i just feel when i see the tea party folks out there, that these are folks who don't have much health care, who don't have much good pay, who have a lot of problems and it would be great if we could get together and discuss not democrat, republican, left, right, but how to re-establish the american dream for everyone. >> there is a story stemming from the vote that took place in the house on the lawsuit against president obama. it's about, says the house democrats campaign raised about $8 million off of appeals. won't take on fund raising because of this measure.

>> it's the predictable result. think about it. if somebody says, we're going to sue the top of your party, wouldn't you then appeal to your base and say, we need your help to stop them from doing it? it's predictable. i think it's self-defense measure, actually. it is unfortunately we've got to waste our time this way. we have not reauthorized the xm bank. we have not reauthorized unemployment insurance. 3.5 million people kicked off unemployment insurance since december. we haven't finished out the highway bill yet. we are worried about running out of money on the highway trust fund. >> what is the likelihood that will be done before break? >> extremely low. yet we've got time to deal with these lawsuits. this is absurd, in my view. the president has been told, we're not going to confirm your appointees. we are not going to pass any bills that you want.

we are going to stop you at every turn and this congress has been the least productive since any one in modern history. when he says i'm going to do what is in my purview to do, they say now we are going to sue you. it is beyond the looking glass, man. it's ridiculous. it's obstructionism at its worst. if americans feel this is ridiculous and want to do something about it and feel they want to volunteer or support a party that will actually try to get something done, i can't quibble with that. >> as far as the border is concerned, do you see changes of the 2008 law? >> we all want to do something at the border, but how do we do it? militarizing the border more and reducing the due process rights of people who are potentially victims are human trafficking is not the way to go. i like the plan that president obama laid out.

i think there should be more judges to process the cases, more lawyers to process the cases and deal with these children in a humane way. any who have a legitimate claim for refugee status should be allowed to be given the same accommodation that any refugee would get. the ones who don't have a legitimate claim to stay, they need to be humanely repatriated to their nation. that's what the president's advocating for. that to me seems the right thing to do. yet the bill that the house republicans are offering, 2/3 of it is militarizing the border. then it's reducing the due process protections of people who have been victims of labor or sex trafficking, which i cannot ever vote for. the bottom line is another very disappointing situation where they don't meet the president halfway. they basically just turn their back and fold their arms and we are getting ready to go out for the august recess and not much

is likely to be done. >> our guest representative keith ellison, co-chair of the progressive caucus from wisconsin. here is james, republican line. >> caller: hello. thank you for taking my call. >> good morning, james. >> caller: i've got a really good solution to the problem. easy. since we are allowing everybody to come in from mexico, south america and everything, that's good, okay. let's take palestine, bring everybody from over there that wants to come to america. why aren't we jumping on the bandwagon on that since we are so concerned using up our tax dollars down here in south america. here $3.7 billion they are asking for, like we've got all the money in the world. let's just add everybody on to the list. >> thanks, james, for calling. we are not allowing everyone in. we don't have all the money in the world. so thanks for participating in the discussion this morning. >> would you want to see the

president take executive action on specifically dealing with the border? what would you like to see from him? >> what i'd like to -- that is a good question. i think i'd like more time to think it through. let me tell you what i think i'd like to see the president do is make sure we have more judges, more people to help process cases, then i'd like to see the president appeal to all 50 states to say how can we humanely accommodate these children as we process through to figure out which have a legitimate refugee claim and which of them do not? that's what i think we should do. the president also can use his executive authority to try to work out issues on the ground in guatemala, honduras and el salvador to say, look, what is going on in your country fuelling this exodus of your children? how can we work with you to make sure these children can stay with their families where they belong? that needs to be actively pursued. i think it's a regional problem.

we need to be talking to the mexicans and central american countries and south american countries to come up with a solution to allow them not to have to flee their own nation for fear of death. the progressive caucus had a wonderful hearing covered by c-span, thank you. where we had three children who were actual refugees from these three countries who told hair-raising, frightful stories about how their lives were in jeopardy. >> jeff from massachusetts, independent line. >> caller: good morning, thanks for taking my call. the congressman made some comments about congress. house has passed a lot of bills this year. nothing has been going on in the senate. i was wonder if he could comment to address the lack of any, really anything going on in the senate. seems like they are going on vacation what they are doing playing politics.

also if you could comment, i heard nancy pelosi make a comment about hamas being a humanitarian organization. how many other rockets does she thinks takes to consider them to be a humanitarian? >> i didn't catch the last part of the question. the unproductivity of the house of representatives under leadership of john boehner. i have to say i'm there every day. i know what's going on in my job as well as most americans know what's going on their job. we got nothing on the xm bank, nothing on extending unemployment insurance, nothing on raising the minimum wage, nothing on a whole lot of things. republicans passed bills that have absolutely, positively getting nowhere in the senate. they are designed to send a message, but not to pass. i stand by the statistics which prove conclusively this house of representatives is incredibly unproductive. let's take immigration for a moment. the senate on a bipartisan basis

passes a bill, an immigration bill. the house doesn't have to take it, but john boehner gets up and says he doesn't trust president obama so they are not going to do anything. i urge and appeal to my friends and neighbors from both sides of the aisle to look objectively at the lack of productivity of this house majority. it's appalling to me. if you look at immigration reform, xm bank, highway trust fund we see political messaging but we don't see much action designed to serve the interest of the american people. >> one more call. this is howard. leesburg, virginia, republican line for representative keith ellison. >> caller: hello. okay. i really appreciate you taking my call. i'm a veteran from vietnam all

what it through desert shield, desert storm. i retired in '95. i have so many itty-bitty questions i'm not sure people are thinking about. that is do we believe israel when they say there are tunnels made from lebanon into israel and that they were trafficking like they could be doing here in the states? do we believe that if they didn't have the weaponry to protect themselves that israel would exist even today? and that israel sits in a melting pot of nothing but anti-israel jews, and do we think back to world war ii what the nazi germany did to the jews

that we had to save the jews even though that wasn't exactly the reason we entered the war, of course. >> howard, we have to leave it there. >> let me say, howard, first of all, i think you said do we believe israel, do we believe israel when we say there are tunnels into lebanon. there may or may not be tunnels into lebanon. the issue is tunnels from gaza to israel or gaza to egypt. of course we do. i've seen the tunnels. they are there. nobody disputes the issue of those tunnels. i don't dispute israel's right to block those tunnels so people can't go through there. that's one. number two, does israel need to be able to have weaponry to defend itself? of course every nation has a duty to protect its citizens. that's not in question. the question is, have the civilian casualties been more excessive than they needed to be? that is a fair question to ask. israel has taken steps to avoid some civilians casualties.

there are still others that it's just hard to explain how they happen. third, israel is in a region where there are people who are very hostile to it. that's a fact. egypt has a peace agreement with egypt. jordan -- i mean israel has a peace agreement with egypt. the syrian border has been quiet many years. the lebanese border, the last big conflagration was 2006 there have been small things since then. the arab peace initiative engaged the whole arab world in which there was a peace offer to say if there was a return to 67 borders with swaps then there would be a full exchange of diplomats. that's there. it's been a conflict zone. it doesn't need to stay one. the united states needs to continue to work for peace. i think most israelis and palestinians want it. we can be the agent to help it happen. it's going to take a lot of

persistance but it is doable. >> representative keith ellison, thank you. live back on capitol hill where the house energy and commerce subcommittee on oversight is holding a hearing today looking at the

implementation of the health care law. as you can see, the members still not back from a vote break on the house floor. several votes still to go. we will continue our live coverage here when members return to this hearing. should mention that vote break extended a bit for a speech by eric cantor the outgoing majority leader gave his last speech on the floor. today his last day serving in that role. you can watch the house live on c-span. you can watch that speech shortly. it will be available at our website c-span.org. again, this hearing on cspan3, live coverage of a hearing looking at the implementation of the health care law. it should resume shortly after several more votes on the house floor. until then, from today's "washington journal," republican congressman tom rice of south carolina joined us to talk about the lawsuit against president obama. we'll show that to you until the

hearing resumes. representative tom rice, republican of south carolina and member of the budget committee, and representative rice, good morning. >> thank you for having me. it's a real honor to be here. >> tell us about the house vote that took place yesterday on the lawsuit against president obama what do you think the merits of this lawsuit are? >> i think it has a lot of merit. it's something i've been working on for about a year. it's something i didn't come to congress planning to be involved in. i take to congress to work on economic development in jobs. when the president started making his own law in clear violation of constitution, i got sidetracked into trying to bring the proper balance back to the executive branch of the government and the legislative branch. >> aside from mr. boehner's actions, you had your own efforts on executive power? >> i did. the bill got passed yesterday, israeli evolution of a bill that i filed in december called the

stop resolution that had about 120 co-sponsors in the house that said president was violating his duties under article section 3 of the constitution that says he'll faithfully execute the laws. i had named four separate areas where he had done that very clearly. one of those is the one that the house ended up passing yesterday. >> so the elements of that bill are? >> the elements of that bill? >> what are the high points? >> by a majority vote of the house, the house as an insulation will bring a lawsuit against the president to require him to comply with article 2 section 3 of the constitution that he faithfully execute the laws of the land. >> the paper this morning ticked on the question of whether a court will pick this up because if it has standing as it's known in legal terms. do you think that will be the case, and if so, what makes you think so? >> there's a lot of questions going back and forth about standing. there have been a number of

cases in the past where standing has been upheld and turned down. most people who oppose this action cite the range decision where a group of disaffected congressman, not the house, a group of dismexicoed congredisan who lost a vote brought a line item veto against president clinton. it was a group of congressmen that lost a vote. here the house as an insulation is bringing a lawsuit for basically vote nullification. if the president has the power to change the law unilaterjunun or decide what parts of the law he is going to enforce and what parts he doesn't, really, there is no need for a congress. somebody who can make the law and enforce the law is not a president, they are a king. >> our guest representative tom rice.

come ron from texas, you are up first for representative tom rice. >> caller: yes. on the lawsuit towards the president, i just think it's not fair they've been doing this for year and it need to stop. >> i agree it needs to stop. the constitution very clearly sets out the roles of the executive branch and the legislative branch. in article 1 the power to make laws is reserved to the legislative branch. in article 2, the power to enforce the law is reserved to the executive branch. the president has decided that he's not bound by that. he's decided that he can make the law. he's clearly said that.

he has said if congress refuses to act on my priorities, regardless of their priorities, if they refuse to act on my priorities, i've got a pen and i've got a phone and i'll enact the law on my own. unfortunately, he's not given that power under the constitution. our forefathers fought and died to break the bonds of monarchy and to have freedom. a person who can make the law and force the law is king. a person who unilaterally makes the law and enforces it is a king. my friends argue we shouldn't be spending money on a lawsuit to sue the president to return our government back to what the constitution designed but my answer is our forefathers paid a lot for that freedom. they paid a lot for that framework that protects our freedom.

a lot paid everything they had including their lives. >> those are part of dana milbank's piece. it's a political loser to champion impeachment. one man can make the law and enforce the law is a king, not president. do those code words mean impeachment to you? >> they are not code words, they are the truth. no, they don't mean impeachment to me. the constitution gives us various tools to react to the president, the congress. some are blunt and some more accurate. this is the sharpest, least-damaging tool we can use. all i'm asking is the judicial branch is supposed to resolve conflict. we have a conflict when the executive says what i'm doing is constitution.

the legislative says, no, it's not. we are asking the judicial branch to decide if the president has the power to do what he's doing. these things affect people in their everyday lives. people don't realize they hear about the congress suing the president. they don't realize what the president has done affects them every single day. the president's expansion of the environmental laws, the war on coal costs the average consumer $4, $5 a month on the utility bill. he decided to make his own law and that costs everyday taxpayers, middle class people, $40, $50 a month. the expansion of the clean water act. all these things run up the cost of gasoline over the price they would have been. when the president took office, the day he took office the price of gasoline was $1.80 a gallon. now it's double that.

they want us to use alternative energy. gas is, $2, these alternative energies don't make any sense. they are willing to drive the cost up to the point that they do. the president is unilaterally making law. it's costing you out of your wallet every month. i don't know what the affordable care law is today because the president hasn't told us. he changes his mind every week. i'm a tax lawyer and cpa by profession. what got me started down this road was when the president said i'm going to unilaterally delay the mandate. the supreme court ruled the

penalties under the mandate are taxed. so the president is going to say i have the power to decide when and to whom i'm going to apply a tax. clearly, he has no such power. if the president has that power, he can simply say, you know what? i don't like the highest tax bracket. i'm not going to apply it or maybe i want it to be higher or apply it to my friends. i mean my enemies, but not my friends. that's tyranny. that's where we are. the president issued 1,300 exemptions to these mandates. this is a tax. he is saying i want to apolite tax to this group of people here but not this group of people over here. he has absolutely no power to do that. that's why that is the one issue that is being put forth in this lawsuit. i'm very, very anxious to see how the courts rule on it. >> cecil, north carolina,

democrats line. >> caller: hello. i have a problem with sending children back over the border. and on the other hand, children over there in the middle east are being slaughtered. and where is our humanity? where do we apply truth and justice in this world now? it seems like i'm very, very disturbed over a number of issues. but how in the world do you treason enter to into this and other things that apply to the president? i think the president is handling the job very good. >> well, cecil, i agree with a lot of what you said. i don't agree with the last part that the president is handling

his job very well. i think it's the opposite. i think he has shown a startling lack of leadership, but going back to the issue at the border that you started your question with, i absolutely agree with you, my heart goes out to these children that are there, but this again is precisely why this lawsuit is necessary because this is the direct result of the president ignoring the law, making his own law, specifically making his own law in violation of the constitution that has attracted all these children to the border. the congress considered and failed to act upon the dream act years ago that would have made children, people who came here as children, giving them a pathway to citizenship. so the president decided unilaterally, really, it's not my concern whether congress acts on it or not.

i'm going to unilaterally change our immigration law and allow these children to stay here. and i'm going to give them the ability to work in the united states legally. he has no power to do that. but when he does that and he gets on the television and says i've got a pen and vote and i'm going to do it anyway, and he attracts people from all over the world primarily central and south america who live in poverty and want to come to the united states regardless of what our immigration laws, this is an entirely foreseeable process. of course these people are going to come. he says i don't care what congress does, i'll make my own laws. if they come as children they can stay and work. he created this crisis. this is judge just one more w way -- it is directly affecting

your pocketbook in the health care, directly affecting your pocketbook in fuel prices, utility prices and the president created this border crisis because he acts as a king. he doesn't act within constitutional norms. he wants to create the law and enforce the law. we are seeing the chaos that results from it. >> miami, florida. this is pablo,ing republican line for representative tom rice. >> caller: yes, hello. there is a simple solution. the republicans hold the house. all you have to do is have the guts to defund a couple of things and everything will straighten out and the president will cooperate with you. if you don't have the guts to defund. >> what would you defund? >> whatever. whatever you don't like, you defund it. if the president don't cooperate keep defunding things until he comes to his senses.

>> well, pablo, we tried that last october and the public didn't think much of it. defunding is a very blunt tool. it ripples through the economy and it's very, very expensive. so i think that what we're doing here is far more targeted and far more effective. this will have no negative effects on the economy. all we want to do is we want to return the president to the constitutional framework that the founders set forth. basically, the founders set forth a fairly weak executive. cities and counties and states across the country have the same type of frameworks in their constitution, and areas can locate, they can decide whether they want to have a strong executive or a weak executive. george washington, thomas jefferson, john adams, early presidents all complained because the president's office was such a weak office, and over centuries, you know, a lot of it

comes back to congress ceding authority to the president, but what we need to do at this point is gradually or we need to return to constitutional norms, where congress makes the law, and the president enforces law. >> the president as executive yesterday was speaking in kansas city, missouri, and spoke not only about the economy, but he also addressed the lawsuit and what he thought of it. we'll get your comments or at least his thoughts on it and get your comments on it. >> happy to. >> but think about this. they have announced they're going to sue me for taking executive actions to help people. so, you know, they're mad because i'm doing my job. and by the way, i told him, i'd be happy to do it with you.

the only reason i'm doing it on my own is because you don't do anything, but if you want, let's work together. now i mean everybody recognizes a political stunt, but it's worse than that, because every vote they're taking like that means a vote they're not taking to actually help you. when they had taken 50 votes to repeal the affordable care act, that was time that could have been spent working constructively to help you on some things. >> so representative not only saying that it was a political stunt but every vote, similar vote like that takes away the vote helping the american people. your thoughts on those statements from the president? >> i think that was a political stunt and it's a complete fabrication to say that i want to do it with you, and the only reason i'm doing it is because you don't do anything is just

absolute untrue. i mean, the house passes bill after bill after bill. there's close to 350 bills that have been passed by the house in this congress. you have them on harry reid's desk right now, 50 of those deal directly with jobs and the economy, and i think harry reid and the president talk weekly or daily, i don't know, and they're the ones who decide that nothing is going to happen. they're the ones who the senate refuses to take up any of these bills and i think they talk on the phone and say you know what? we're not going to do anything and blame it on the house republicans. it is absolute nonsense, and it is absolutely a political stunt. it is a complete fabrication. i promise you, of those 40-odd bills, 50-odd bills that the house has passed on jobs and the economy, there's got to be one of those from harry reid and president obama can say we have some common ground here. let's talk about this, but no, they don't want to do that. they don't want to push anything forward for the american people. what they want to do is get up and give speeches like that and say oh well the house didn't do

anything, so i have to act on my own. that is just plain nonsense. >> here is debbie from philadelphia, independent line. go ahead. >> caller: yes, good morning. excuse me. your name again, sir? i'm sorry. >> tom rice. >> caller: you know, a lot of times the politicians come on here and quote polls, you know, they like to use polls and they say the american people. i'm not sure who they are either, but you know, i didn't hear any polls on how the "american people" feel about this lawsuit. i mean i didn't hear you talk about it. the polls say the people want wages increased. the polls quote/unquote say that people want unemployment compensation. the polls say that people want jobs. the polls say that the republicans' popularity is worse than the president of the united

states. also, i've been watching, and it's not about president obama for me. i don't care about any of that, but i've never heard president obama say that he doesn't care. i've never heard him say it, and pedro, i would love for you -- you just had representative ellison on. i would love for both of them to be on at the same time. i want to hear both sides of the argument, because this partisan stuff, i mean the callers, they call in, they all pat san, pro, con, whatever. i want to hear them both sitting there together and see how that looks. thank you. >> thank you for the suggestion. representative rice? >> yes, ma'am. well, i agree, again, with a lot of what you said in terms of people thinking that jobs and the economy is the most important thing. i'm absolutely on board with that. that's what i came to congress to work for, this lawsuit thing is something that, something i

feel like i was forced into by the president taking these far overreaching actions that threaten the fundamental freedom in this country, and that freedom is what gave us our prosperity and if we threaten that i think that has absolutely direct effects on jobs and the economy. i think what the president has done with his unilateral actions are hurting our jobs and the economy right now. the president changing the affordable care act on a weekly basis, i don't even know how many changes he's made at this point, thousands, thousands, employers have to plan. they're not like the government, which is working basically on a six-month time horizon now. sophisticated cases are planning years in advance. and they have to know what the rules are. well, they don't with the affordable care act which is one of the most significant regulatory expansions in decades. they don't know what the rules are, because the president changes the rules unilaterally every week. how can these businesses possibly plan for that?

and if you don't think that has adverse effects on our economy, and adverse effects on jobs, then you have blinders on, and you know, the affordable care act specifically with the 50 employer limitation or the 100-employer limitation, whatever the president decides it is this week, has disincentives for people to hire with the 30-hour limitation has disincentive for companies to allow people to work full time. if you don't think those things affect our economy, you have blinders on. when the president drags his feet on permitting for oil exploration or permitting for pipelines that would transfer oil, or puts new regulations on railroads and all these types of things, that absolutely affects the supply of fuel and absolutely drives the price of fuel up. well, the effect of that is, it takes money out of your pocket. it takes money out of your pocket. in times when -- every year

since the president has been in office, household incomes have declined, every single year. that has rarely, if ever, happened in the american economy. for six years in a row, household incomes have declined, and at the same time the president's unilateral actions, not going through congress, okay, his unilateral executive authorities that he's issuing have raised the price of gasoline, have raised the price of utilities at your house, have raised the price of your health care. so at the same time his policies are driving down your income, they're also increasing expenses. food cost, you know, those are related to energy. the president wants us off of fossil fuels. he's driving up the cost of fossil fuels to force us on to alternative energy. this directly affects you. i know that it's not -- you have to go to a to b and c to d, and d to e, to see how it affects

you, but this action is necessary to protect our economy, to get our -- i fought every day to get our economy going and to create jobs. again the house has passed over 40 bills for jobs in the economy, sent them over to the senate and the president and harry reid have a plan that they're not going to allow these things to come up, and then they point and say it's a do nothing congress. it's just nonsense. >> when it comes to the lawsuit, what's the end result? what would you ultimately like to see a court decide? >> whether the president's actions or constitutional or not and i can tell you they're not constitutional. >> so if they were to rule in your favor, then what? >> then i presume that the president is going -- they can, the courts have mechanisms through, through their orders to enforce those laws. to hold people in contecht ampt the stuff about standing, the house has been allowed standing and the courts have enforced house orders before and

specifically in subpoenas where, like with the irs scandal or the benghazi scandal, the house issue subpoenaed executives. i'm not going to honor that subpoena, clearly they have and enforced those routinely. >> representative tom rice joining us for a few more minutes before the house comes in at 9:00. sandy, south dakota, democrats' line? >> what a pleasure it is to be here, really is, thank you for having me. >> thank you for coming on. sandy, go aahead. >> caller: i want to say the guys from the south come on and they talk about obama, obama, obama. they have the poorest states in the nation so why would we ever listen to anything they say? they can't fix their own states. i live in a republican state, and it is not the poorest in the nation. so tell me that they're not doing right, they're just thinking about hate and stuff and that's their motto. thank you. >> really don't know how to respond to that. i don't hate the president. i'd love to work with him. the president loves to talk

about working with people but he takes no effort to do it whatsoever. with respect to south carolina, south carolina is one of the most competitive states in the country. lot of states are doing what they can to make themselves more competitive. that's my focus in the congress is american competitiveness. i think that if you look at places like texas, like south carolina, like wisconsin, that have changed their tax structure, changed their regulatory structure, and done tort reform, they're tracting businesses from around the world. it was just announced yesterday boeing is building the entire 787 now in charleston, south carolina, because of the actions that south carolina has taken to make themselves more business-friendly, and the problem that these states have is that they're competing with the other states for a declining pool of jobs, because the country is not competitive. now we could take actions, i worked extensively with a

professor from harvard named michael porter. he is an expert in competitive theory and national competitiveness. he represents countries around the world, and he has a menu of things that we need to do to make our country more competitive at the top of that list is corporate tax reform. dave camp, house ways and means committee, issued a proposal for tax reform a couple months ago. we haven't taken it up yet. i'm anxious to take it up. i think we'll see some action on that early in the next congress. i wish we'd take it up right now. there's a lot of people say we shouldn't do those big overarching controversial things right before an election. i think if we do the right thing for the country we don't have to worry about the election, just my opinion. >> the headline from "the financial times" this morning talks about the u.s. economy, it says a 4% growth in the second quarter, this prompts a statement from peg oshia off of twitter. "representative we had the best growth in the decade and lowest unemployment in six years. what do you do with those numbers?" >> okay, that's wonderful, and

i'd love to see that continue, and grow from there. the stroout, it follows a 2% retraction, so i guess you average that out, it comes out to about 1% over the last two quarters, and the employment rate everybody knows is very misleading. record numbers of people have given up trying to look for work and are no longer in the workforce. we had the worst recession since the depression since years ago. we should have had a huge snap back. every recession that occurred in the last 60 years we should have had a huge snapback. we haven't, the growth is muted and it's been muted by washington, d.c., it's been muted by vastly expanded regulations, it's been muted by dodd-frank and the affordable care act and the president's unilateral actions with the

environmental laws. item after item after item. >> i'd now like to introduce the witness on the second panel for today's hearing, mr. william t. woods, is the director with acquisition and sourcing management team at the government accountability office. he provides overall direction for gao's review of contracting activities at defense and civilian agencies. you are aware the committee is holding an investigative hearing and has the practice of taking testimony under oath. do you have any objections? >> none whatsoever. >> the chair advises you under the rulings of the house, the rules of committee you are entitled to be advised by counsel. do you desire to be advised by counsel during your testimony today? >> no, i do not. >> in that case please rise, raise your right hand. do you swear the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. >> yes, sir. >> i are under oath and subject

to the united states code. you may give a five-minute summary of your written statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ranking member toget it's a pleasure to talk to but healthcare.gov and the work we've done looking into that system. when the website was launched in october of last year, there were, of course, a number of problems. we got a lot of requests from the congress to review what happened and why. those requests came from both the house and the senate, from both sides of the aisle. we got requests from committee chairs, from ranking members congressmen, across the board. and what we decided to do was to combine all of those requests and conduct a body of work that

addressed all of the issues that were raised in those various requests. we have a number of engamingments undengamingment engagements under way to address the issues. one we'll be talking about today is contracts but let me mention we have one that is nearing completion on privacy and security concerns with respect to the website. we also have a report that is on track for issuance later this year on information technology management. that report will look at the use of best practices in the development of this information technology system. but i'm going to be talking today about our first report that was issued, publicly released yesterday, that is on the contracting aspects of healthcare.gov, and i'm going to be talking about our three

objectives. the first thing we reviewed was the acquisition planning by cms for the website. secondly, we looked at the oversight of cost, schedule, and performance of that system, and then thirdly, we looked at a range of contractor performance issues with respect to healthcare.gov. we focused on the largest task orders and contracts that were involved here. our report mentions that cms had spent about $840 million for development of the system, and that was through march. obviously the spending has continued and that number is likely higher today, but as of the time that we completed our work, it was $840 million. and we focused on the largest. we reviewed in-depth two task orders, and one contract.

just briefly, those task orders are one two, first to cgi federal for development of the federally if facilitated marketplace. that's basically the website itself as well as some back office systems that support the enrollment process, the financial management process, planned management, et cetera. we also looked at a task order awarded to qssi, and that's for the data hub. the data hub is a system that interfaces with other agencies. there are roles that other federal agencies need to play to make this system work, the internal revenue service, the department of homeland security to verify immigration status, et cetera, so lots of agencies have a role here, and the hub data

system is that system that allows for communication among all of those agencies. and then the third contract that we looked at is one with accenture. that was awarded on a sole source basis in january of this year for continued development of that federally facilitated marketplace. before i get to our specific findings, i just wanted to make an observation that there really are some common threads that run through all of the work that we did here, and those threads are first of all complexity. this was an enormously complex undertaking. as i said, there were lots of federal agencies involved, a number of states involved, industry partners, health care plans, lots of players. there were also lots of systems

that had to interact with each other and that added to the complexity. another thread that runs through and you'll see that when we get to the findings in a moment, is the pressure of deadlines, that the affordable care act itself set january 1st, 2014, as the date when the enrollment took effect, the department of health and human services backed up from that january deadline, and set an october 1st, 2013, time for when the system needed to be ready to go when they could throw the switch, the goal live date, that sort of thing, they needed to have things in place by october 1st of 2013, and that drove a lot of the decisions that were made by cms. and then the third thread that runs through all of our findings is the changing requirements.

things were constantly evolving, which made it difficult not only for cms personnel to keep things on track, but also for the contractors to keep up with those changes. some of those were anticipated changes, things they knew going in. they did not yet know but others were, they were learning as they went along. let me get into the specific findings in the three areas that i mentioned. in the area of -- >> could you summarize, because you're already a couple minutes over. we want to ask you a number of questions so if you could summarize your final findings. >> sure. in the area of planning, our bottom line assessment is simple yet sobering, and that is that cms began and undertook the development the the

healthcare.gov system without adequate planning, despite facing a number of challenges that increased both the level of risk and the need for oversight. in the oversight area, we saw increasing costs across the instruments that we looked at, both of the task orders experienced, cost increases, and the new contract awarded to accenture also saw cost increases. those cost increases were due to a number of factors, as i said, some requirements were unknown at the time they awarded these instruments, when those costs became known, when those requirements became known, the costs increased. the cost schedule and performance issues were

exacerbated by inconsistent and sometimes absent oversight, and then in the third area, about contracting performance, we saw primarily in the cgi federal task order an increasing sense of frustration on the part of cms of the contractor's inability to be able to comply with contract requirements and meet deliverable schedules. that frustration grew to the point where they decided not to renew the contract with cgi and instead to move to a different solution, which is to award the contract to accenture. so those were our three findings. we have a series of recommendations to address some of the issues and i'd be delighted to get into the specifics of that as the hearing moves forward. >> thank you, mr. woods. we appreciate your thoroughness and your candor in this.

as you described things like inconsistent or absent oversight, you said oversight weaknesses, a lack of adherence to planning requirements, compounded by acquisition planning challenges, and when mr. slavitis testified earlier, fortunately or unfortunately the ga report wasn't news. as you're going through this, with regard to the oversight, did people within cms know these problems were brewing? >> we saw some indication that the problems were known, particularly with the cgi issue that i mentioned earlier. that was well documented what their concerns were. other aspects, though, mr. chairman, were not quite as visible, and let me point out one area. we found a number of instances and our accoucount was about 40

where changes were being made to the contract requirements at the direction of people that did not have the authority to do that. >> within cms? >> within cms. these were largely -- >> when you say did not have the authority, did you mean they had not discussed with mr. cohen or miss tavener? >> well the only person within cms has that the authority to change the can are the in a manner that increases the government's obligations is the contracting officer. >> who was? >> i'm sorry? >> and who was that? >> i don't have the name right at my fingertips. >> what i'm wondering here is, do you know if -- so the problems with the website, it took longer to develop it, the security was under question, people had problems signing up, and with inconsistent or absent oversight so i'm wondering in some cases you're saying there was actions taken without authorization, several dozen of these i believe that's documented. so people were making change

orders and that was leading to some problems, but there was also absent oversight, so some people in charge were not meeting, were not paying attention, were not monitoring this contract, or they were monitoring some things and making the wrong decisions. was it both or one or the other? >> a combination of things. there are a number of people with different roles to play, as i mentioned there's the contracting officer, but there was also on the program side a governance board review process, and that process was designed to provide high level management oversight, and what we found there was that that process simply did not work as intended. >> now we also had heard that there was a mckenzie report commissioned by then secretary sebelius which made it pretty clear they weren't going to meet their deadlines. did they know within cms these

deadlines couldn't be met and that under the pressures which you had listed such as the january 1 deadline or the complexity of this, did they know this really wasn't ready for prime time? >> we found some indication in the files that we reviewed that, in the springtime frame, the spring of 2013 that estimates were made the federally facilitated marketplace would only be 65% complete by the october 1st deadline. >> so they knew then in the spring. did they know that in august and september? >> there was the state of knowledge continued to progress from the spring through the end of the summer, and they became increasingly concerned that the deadline would not be met. one of the principal oversight functions and processes that we

saw and that we were very concerned about is there was supposed to be, according to the original schedule, an operational readiness review conducted in the spring of 2013. that operational readiness review was moved from the spring to the fall, to september of 2013, just weeks before -- >> when they did that review, did they know it wasn't going to work? >> well, as i said, there was some indication in the files that they thought only 65% complete. >> so when -- >> the purpose of that operational readiness review is to either confirm that the system will work or find out what's wrong. so there's enough time to fix it. >> when miss tavener or mr. cohen came before this committee within days of the launch and said everything would be fine by october 1, what you're saying to this committee is, there was ample evidence to say that was not true? >> we saw some indication that

there was progressively increasing knowledge that there were problems in meeting that launch date. >> and did mr. cohen know that? >> i don't know that. >> but either through lack of oversight, he should have known it, or he knew it and reported this committee under oath that everything was fine on august 1, it was going to be ready for launch. what you're telling us is there's ample evidence in what's reviewed that people within hhs knew it was not ready and people under oath told this committee something entirely different. >> i don't know what specific individuals knew or did not know, but we saw evidence in the files that we reviewed that there was knowledge within the agency that the operational readiness was in jeopardy. >> thank you. i'm over time. >> this is an important issue. so you're saying people within

the agency knew that the website was not ready, correct? yes or no. >> we saw -- >> you saw it that people -- do you think that people in the agency knew that the website would collapse on october 1st? yes or no. >> i can't speak to that. >> you don't have any, do you have indication from the files that people in the agency knew that the website would not work on october 1st? >> yes, we saw that, yes. >> can you produce that to this committee, please? >> there was a series -- >> no, can you produce it? >> absolutely ma'am, yes. >> thank you. my next question because miss tavener and mr. cohen did come in and testify under oath several days before as the chairman has said that the website would work. do you have evidence in your files that miss cohen or miss tavener knew this website would not work? yes or no. >> no, i can not speak to the

knowledge of any individual. >> in your opening statement you talked about some provisions the gao was coming up with to strengthen the website for some recommendations for privacy and security concerns. is that correct? >> well, this particular report that we're speaking to today, just deals with the contract. >> right, but you talked about -- >> not for security and privacy. >> okay so you're not looking at privacy and security? >> other teams within gao are looking at and that work -- >> are you aware of any security breaches in the websites? yes or no. >> no, i am not. >> okay. now the gao made five recommendations you referenced in your opening statement, to cms to avoid the mistakes that you had identified. is that correct? >> yes. >> and i just want to go through those recommendations, because you said we should, and i think it's important to know. the recommendations i think are good recommendations, but they're a little vague, and so

i'm going to ask you about each one of them, if you have specific details, but then also i'm going to ask you, mr. woods, to supplement your testimony and provide to this committee and to cms specific details on each one of them, because i think it's important for the kcms to actually be able to implement these recommendations and our last witness said he agreed with the recommendations and he did want to implement them. the first recommendation is that cms should take steps to assess the causes of the increase in costs of the continued development of healthcare.gov, and the delays and functionality of the website, and develop a plan to mitigate those costs and delays. can you briefly give us a little more detail on what steps the gao believes cms should take to make those assessments? >> certainly. we did see cost increases in the accenture contract, the current contract. >> what steps do you think cms can take to rectify these

problems? >> we think that they need to step back and identify the causes, the reasons why costs continued to increase in that particular contract. >> okay, and do you have any thoughts what should be included in a mitigation plan? >> they need to make sure that costs are under control and that the schedule can be met. >> yes, i think those two things are key. now the next thing the gao recommends is that quality assurance surveillance plans and other oversight documents are collected and used to monitor contract performance. how can those documents be effectively used to monitor performance? >> the quality assurance surveillance plan is a standard document that's required in most efforts of this size that provides a road map for how the agency, any agency is going to

oversee the contractor's performance. >> right, does the gao have thoughts on how it can be used to do that? >> yes. >> okay, if you can give us that information, that would be great. i want to go through your other recommendations. >> certainly. >> briefly, while i still have time. the gao also recommends that kr cms formalize existing guidance of responsibilities of personnel assigned oversight duties. the roles and responsibilities were spelled out in some way. how would formalizing existing guidance prevent confusion about the responsibilities and authority going forward? >> this gets to the issue of unauthorized individuals making changes. >> okay, great. >> and when they learned of that, there was internal guidance provided to all of the people, but that has not been institutionalized. it has not been made part of the permanent guidance at -- >> okay so they already have a way they're doing it, that just

needs to be formalized. >> it needs to take the next step. >> the next thing you recommend giving staff direction on acquisition strategies, and developing a process to ensure that acquisition strategies are completed on time. can you flesh that out a little bit for us? >> that was a very important deficiency that we identified. >> yes. >> is that there were a number of steps that cms took to expedite the rollout of this healthcare.gov, but each of those individual steps added risk to the process, and the purpose of the plan or the acquisition strategy is to first of all identify those risks, to be able to come up with a plan to address them, and we found that that acquisition strategy was not prepared. >> so does gao have some ideas what this process could look like if it done appropriately? >> the process is already in place. >> okay. >> the regulations at hhs are

very clear. in kt ffact there's a template. it wasn't done in this specific case. >> they need to follow the existing regs. >> exactly. >> perfect. last, you recommended ensuring information technology projects adhere to the requirements for governance board approvals before proceeding with development. what exactly does that mean? what governing board are you referring to? what are the requirements, and why did the board approval process fail the first time around with healthcare.gov? >> the agency had a system in place that provided for an oversight board to review the progress of the system. the problem that we found is that those governance board meetings were held with incomplete information and that decisions were not made as we would have expected to either approve, disapprove or make modifications. >> so what you're saying is once again, this was a failure to follow the existing rules that they had. >> there was a process in place

that did not follow. >> thanks for your indulgence. >> north carolina for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. woods, for being with us today. as i'm sitting here listening to your report findings, i am incredibly amazed by the inefficiency that went forward with a plan of action that was in place, and i keep coming up with the same question of why. why were these steps taken? why was action taken the way that it was? why were there unauthorized individuals making decisions. i think one of the most glaring questions that i have based on your findings is that, and you use the word, that they expedite, they took measures to expedite the rollout, that that added risk, obviously, and it

was a failed strategy essentially. why, in your opinion, based on your findings, did they stay with that october 1st rollout date, when they knew based on what i'm listening to, that it was not going to be accurate and successful and that it would be a failure? >> well, the law itself, the affordable care act set a hard deadline of january 1st, 2014, and they needed to have some period where consumers could determine their eligibility, look at plan availability, and make decisions about what plans they wanted to choose by that january 1st date. >> so they stuck with the october 1st date, knowing that their time was running out, and that they -- so now this is me just again trying to process why

they would go forward with something that obviously was not put together well and steps were taken, it wasn't an efficient system and yet they were moving forward, so based on your knowledge, they had to go forward with that october 1st date, so that they could have the enrollee numbers that they were looking for by january 1st. regardless of the fact that it wasn't going to work? >> that's been cms's position is they needed to stick with that october 1st. >> they had to stick to that date because they needed those numbers of individuals signing up essentially. yes? >> well, they needed to comply, to have a system in place by october 1st, by january 1st in order to comply with the affordable care act. >> okay. so i'm going to go back to some of the questions also on the tech surge, when the tech surge

was implemented. to the best of our knowledge and based on the report findings, we understand there was a tech surge in october to fix the site after healthcare.gov's failed october 1st launch. based on your investigation, what actions did cms take in october to fix the site? >> in october, they continued to work with cgi federal, but the level of frustration reached the point in november of 2013, where they sent yet another letter detailing the shortcomings of the contractor, asking for corrective action plan. cgi responded to that and clearly disagreed with cms's assessment at that point. >> okay, so they were disagreeing with it. there were other contractors involved, too, is that correct? >> there were many other

contractors involved, right. >> but particularly it was cgi that, where the frustration was, where the disconnect was. >> they were responsible for the heart of the system, if you will. >> okay. >> and that's where most of the dollars were in terms of contract expenditures. >> so to that point based on the fact that cgi was the main contractor for that, were there other contracts, was their contract extended? were there any new issued contracts based on the frustration that cms had? >> the cgi contract had been extended earlier until february of 2014. >> and that was before october 1st? >> i believe that was before. >> it was already extended before october 1 as soon as. >> that's correct. >> okay, so then to that point,

were there any other, again, getting back to this, were there any other contractors that were selected knowing cgi was not doing necessarily what was necessary for the repair of the website? >> the only contract that i'm aware of is the new one to accenture to continue with development of the federally facilitated marketplace. >> and can you refresh my memory on when that actually took place, when the new contract went forward? >> that was january of 2014. >> that was january, okay. okay. well, mr. speaker or excuse me, sorry, mr. chairman, i have gone over on my time and i apologize. thank you, thank you mr. woods. >> thank you. now going to recognize the gentleman from virginia, mr. griffith, for five minutes.

>> thank you so much for being here today. i appreciate it very much. the report indicates that cms did not engage in effective planning or oversight. what do you recommend they do in the future to make sure they have proper planning jeempb sight? because they apparently dropped the ball. >> they have the tools in place. >> okay. >> one of the primary tools is a strategic plan, an acquisition strategy is what it's called. there's actually a template in the hhs regulations for each of the areas that needs to be addressed, and fundamentally, it's a tool designed to identify the risks that the agency is undertaking and to be able to come up with a plan to be able to mitigate those risks, but they did not follow it. so the tools are there, they did not use the tools that were there. >> i want to ask you an open-ended question because i think it's important that we get this perspective from time to time, and that would be out of

the report what have with he not asked you about that we probably should have asked you about or the people watching this at home, something they ought to know about your report that you haven't already covered in your testimony here today? >> one thing that comes to mind is the next enrollment period. i think people are wondering are we going to experience similar problems or are we in better shape. that's why we have one of our recommendations that's focused on the current contract with accenture, where we've seen some cost growth, and we think the agency needs to make an assessment of why that cost growth has occurred, whether they are in fact on schedule and whether there are any risks to the 2015 enrollment period. >> my hearing is not as good as it should be. you're talking about the cost growth? what was that phrase you used? >> cost increases. >> okay. >> and we have somewhat of a

disagreement with the agency about the term cost growth, and that's why i'm reluctant to use it. their position is that any cost increase since about april of this year is totally based on new requirements. so it's unfair to call that cost growth. our position is that when you look before that, when they initially awarded that contract at an estimated value of $91 million, and now it's at 175, that the agency needs to make an assessment about why that, why those costs increased from the 91 to 9the 175, and that is not the end of it. there are, that contract continues in place today. our numbers are dated in terms of, you know, we completed our audit work a couple of months ago, so costs on that particular

contract are almost certainly higher today than they were at the time that we completed our audit work. we think the agency needs to make an assessment about why costs continue to grow. >> well i think they do as well, and i appreciate you raising that point, and it's kind of interesting that it would seem to me some of those new requirements are probably because it didn't work the first time around. wouldn't you agree? >> there are enhancements to this system. they're constantly changing and trying to make improvements to the system. the ones early on i think you're right, that those are related to the inability of the system to function as intended originally, but the agency tells us that the more recent cost increases are due to enhancements. >> all right. well i appreciate that, and i appreciate your testimony here today, and i'm happy to yield my last 55 seconds to whomever might want it.

>> i will, thank you. thank you. i do have one follow-up question, and it has to do with the conversation you were just having with my colleague. when we're talking about the cost increases, you had mentioned the enhancements are what has been cited as the reasoning. my question for you is did cms get congressional approval for the additional funding or spending i guess i should say? >> i'm not aware of what that process was at all. >> so to your knowledge, based on the report, you did not see any effort put forward to come to congress for additional funding for spending? >> i can't speak to that. we didn't see it, but that wasn't part of our review. >> okay. thank you, mr. woods, and thank you to my colleague for yielding. >> thank you. i'm going to do a second round with ms. dagett and i. follow-up here. are you saying that cms is not

analyzing why the contract with accenture is growing in cost? >> we don't think that they have done that fully yet. >> this original contract which was a cost plus contract, who signed that contract? who is responsible for that? >> those contracts are signed by the contracting officer, and as i said, i don't have that name. >> those have to be approved by mr. cohen or miss tavener in the chain? >> i don't know. >> is that something your study encompassed to find that paper trail or look at that? >> we did not review that, no. >> let me ask you, too, you talk about the pressure of deadlines, january 1, 2014, but a number of delays were put into place, employer mandate, or the retirement issue, enforcement of canceled plans, individual mandate to the shop plan. should the rollout have been delayed as well? >> i'm not sure about that but your observation about delays is

accurate, when they realize that they would not be able to be fully functional by october 1st, they did make some tradeoffs, and pushed projects that they thought they were initially going to be able to complete by october 1st, pushed that off into the future, and the small business program that you mentioned is one of them. the financial management module was also pushed off until a later date. >> but none of those delays caused a delay on the website. none of those -- many of those things i mentioned, they didn't cause a delay in the website readiness. these several dozen other changes internally which were one of the factors in the delay, in the website readiness, though, am i correct? >> well, the website was launched, i'm not sure -- >> but you had said a number of decisions made during i guess it was 2013 to 2012 were part of

the complexity. one there wasn't proper oversight of the contract and second a number of internal changes were made by someone who didn't have the authority to make those changes. >> that's correct. >> so do you know or can you find out for us in terms of someone making these changes, who approved the decision for them to make these changes, or who gave that person the authority to be in that position to make those changes? do you have that information? >> there are a number of people working with the contractors on a day-to-day basis, and the 40 instances of changes or direction to the contract was made by multiple individuals. some of these were technical people, as i said, working side by side with the contractor, some of them more and more senior officials. all of the changes, though, ultimately, were ratified by the person with authority to do that, and that is the

contracting officer. >> but what did it go to the level of miss tavener or mr. cohen? >> i don't know. >> is that something your records to review? we need to know if your records show or if you can find out for us. you have an excellent investigation but it's very important to know this, if they knew or should have known in terms of approving these changes or being aware that the website wasn't ready or, well, let me ask that part. do you have any information on those? >> well, as i said, we'll certainly review our materials and provide an answer to that question. >> because it comes to this point, this committee, members of each side of the aisle have different points with issues with regard to health care reform. that's fine, part of what makes our nation great, people have differences of opinion, they move forward on that. there are certain standards within a committee that i think she with you be unified in

understanding that if someone comes before the committee under oath and claims that something is ready to roll on october 1, thatter should be able to sign up, knowing full well that it's not, it's either incompetence, it's dereliction of duty, it's sloppiness, it's lack of supervision oversight or it's perjury to this committee, perjury in terms of making a claim they know is not true or making a claim they have no business of making. the only answers to questions like this is the website ready october 1 is yes, no, or i don't know. anything beyond that, when the claim was made by mr. cohen to this committee under oath that october 1 everybody would be ready to sign up, it's clear from your investigation and your testimony that people within the agencies knew it was not ready. so any information you could provide us that tells us if they knew and made false claims as committee or if they didn't know and made false claims to the committee it's important for the integrity of this committee to let us know, and if you could

submit those, that information to this committee, i'd be grateful, your paper and other reviews. miss dagett recognized for five minutes. >> thank you very much mr. chairman and mr. woods, i can understand why the chairman is concerned about this, based on your testimony today, so i want you to think very clearly about what your investigation found, and what you have testified to this committee today when i ask you these questions. because i don't want the record to be confused, and i don't want a misimpression to be left. are you aware of either miss tavener or mr. cohen coming before this committee and lying about whether they knew the website was not ready. >> no, i cannot speak to that. i don't know. >> you don't know. do you know mr. miss tavener or mr. cohen personally knew the

website was not ready? >> i do not know. >> you don't no he that. do you know whether miss tavener or mr. cohen specifically approved those changes? >> no, i do not know. >> you don't no he thknow that ? >> no. >> do you know who within the agency did approve those changes? >> ultimately those changes were ratified and approved by the contracting officer. >> the contracting officer so you could give us that information through that list? >> absolutely. >> thank you. i just think, and i know the chairman agrees, we don't want to loosely be throwing around allegations of perjury or anything else, when we -- we don't want to put words in your mouth either so i think we're clear on that. there's one more thing i wanted to clarify about your testimony today. your first recommendation that, in your report on this topic, as we discussed, was take immediate steps to assess the causes of continued ffm cost growth and

delayed system functionality and develop a mitigation plan designed to ensure timely and successful system performance. is that right? >> that's correct. >> and that's the one you're concerned about cms following as they look at the implementation of the 2015 program, is that correct? >> the effort that's under way by accenture is to move the development forward to be ready for --? right. >> -- the 2015. >> and that relates to that recommendation? >> yes, it does, we -- >> and huh? >> we think that cms needs to make that assessment in order to ensure itself -- >> right. >> -- it's on track for that enrollment period. >> for next year? >> right. >> now, you were sitting here i believe when we heard the testimony of the previous witness. is that correct? >> yes, i was. >> mr. slavitt. and i specifically asked mr. slavitt if he had reviewed the five recommendations gao had

made. do you remember hearing that? >> yes. >> and do you remember hearing mr. slavitt say that cms agrees with all five of the recommendations? do you remember hearing that? >> i remember hearing that, yes. >> so i would just, i would just, you know, sometimes i like to have both the agency witness and the gao, so that they can answer each other's issues, but i just want the record to be clear that mr. slavitt has said that they recognize this recommendation, they intend to comply with it and i think mr. chairman we should follow up and make sure that happens. thank you, i yield back the balance of my time. >> i recognize dr. burns for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chair opinion. mr. woods, thank you for being here and i commend the general accountability office on great work. this has not been easy and i appreciate how difficult it's been to be here today and i appreciate your forbearance. along the lines of what miss dagette was just asking you, do

you know whether or not the center for medicare and medicaid services is adopting your recommendations right now? >> what they told us is that they fully agreed with four of our recommendations, and they partially concurred with our fifth recommendation. >> have you any evidence that you can point to that shows that, in fact, they are taking steps to comply with four of those recommendations? >> we've seen some indication. >> you have their assurances but is there anything that you can point to in data, in fact, that they are taking those recommendations? >> what they told us is, what they told us is they are providing additional training in certain areas that they plan to implement those recommendations, we're hopeful that they do. we have a normal regular process for following up with agencies to make sure that if they tell us that they're going to implement recommendations, that they, in fact, do so.

so that process will continue at gao. >> i look forward to the follow-up hearing we have about that implementation. now, you know, a lot was written in august of 2012 about the lack -- cns's or hms's lack of production on rule-making as it related to the essential health benef benefit.s's or hms's lack of production on rule-making as it related to the essential health benefit.ms's or hms's lack of production on rule-making as it related to the essential health benefit. in fact that rule-making was delayed, the rule actually came out about a week after election day that year. i don't know if you recall that. in your work, was there any evidence that that delay was politically motivated or am i just being overly sensitive and overly cynical by the rule coming out a few days after election day 2012? >> we found no indication of that, sir. >> so your inference is i'm being overly cynical? >> we can't -- we found nothing to -- >> let me point out to shayou, s

came up several times today. mr. cohen was here i think it was about 10 or 11 days before october 1st, and i asked him a very direct, very specific question. in fact, i tried to do what john dingell said, yes or no, the website will be ready on october 1st. he gave me what i presume to have been a well-rehearsed and studied answer, because he repeated it verbatim twice, and it essentially said on october 1st, consumers will be able to go online, see premium net of subsidy, and make their purchase. now as we know, that didn't actually turn out to be the case. so it is a valid question to ask. he must have known that ten days before the launch date, because it sounds like from your report that it was pretty clear that things weren't going well. am i wrong about that? >> i simply can't speak to what he knew or didn't know at any particular point in time, but i can say that we found

indications in the documents that we reviewed that the system was projected to be only 65% wa only 65% complete by that october 1st deadline. >> if you had been asked that question and answered it unoath, would you have answered it the same way mr. coen did? >> i can't -- >> you have written in your report october 21st deadline for establishing enrollment through the website, cms identified significant performance issues involving ffm, facilitated federal marketplace contractor but the agency took over only limited steps. can you provide for the committee what correspondence, evidence relied on to make that statement? >> absolutely. we can summarize what led us that conclusion and we'd be

happy to do that. >> as a part of making that statement, did you have access to internal e-mails within the center for consumer information and insurance oversight and cms? >> we reviewed lots of do you mean, contract documents, e-mails, memos. so we had very good access to cms. >> i would ask that be made available to the committee, transcripts, make it available to the subcommittee. >> i believe we already have that information in the subcommittee. >> lets find out. >> it's been produced already. >> again, i would ask we be certain you have the information the committee asked for. >> we'd be happy to work on t t

that. >> let me ask you, open enrollment is going to be shorter than last time. in your opinion, are they going to be ready for second open enrollment period? >> i'm not in a position to make that judgment. that's why we had the recommendation we did is that we think cms needs to make that assessment of cost and schedule to make sure that they are on track. >> we said in the record that's the risk, some impact on the 2015 enrollment period and that's why we had the recommendation we did. >> thank you for you answers. thank you for being here. >> without objection the documents entered in the record. thank you for your thorough and candid report. all this committee requests is honestness, thoroughness and reputation of organization is

based on that ability to honor and thoroughly provide to a candid world. we appreciate that members have skefrl questions for follow-up. we ask that you respond to that in a quick manner. we also ask your commitment, majority and machine ort staffs so they can revee and ge get details. participate in the hearing, remind members 10 business days to submit questions for the record. with that i adjourn this hearing. thank you.

that wraps up this house hearing on the implementation of the health care law. reminder, if you missed any of it, we'll have it for you again in our program schedule or you can watch it c-span.org.

we have more live programming coming later today with remarks from the palestinian authority. talk about gaza and middle east. the atlantic council gets live under way at 3:30 eastern time. there's been alternative theories regarding september 11th terrorist attacks. join us tomorrow when we explore some of those. richard gage, architects & engineers for truth will be joining us to discuss his position. he'll take your calls starting 9:15 eastern time. tomorrow part of washington journal live on c-span. and on saturday, more about various conspiracy theories with "newsweek's" kurt eichenwald. plots to destroy america. he'll talk about that and take your calls saturday 9:15 a.m.

washington journal, again, live on c-span. >> this weekend book tv and american history tv take you on a trip across the country literary lives in various locales, point roberts in washington and oyster industry of olympia. the history of macon's r&b music, super saber jet fighter. laboratories of thomas edison in ft. myers and hear the voices of mormon tabernacle tire saturday 2:00 eastern on c-span's book tv and saturday afternoon at 2:00 american history tv on c-span3. with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate on c-span 2, here on c-span3 we compliment the coverage showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and public affairs events. then on weekends, c-span3 is the home to american history tv with programs that tell our nation's story including six unique

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and injured on both sides of the conflict. this is about 20 minutes. >> mr. president, thank you for the opportunity to brief counsel on the situation in gaza. the current crisis in gaza takes place against the backdrop of decades of instability, poverty, and vulnerability resulting from repeated outbreaks of hostilities and ongoing blockade and land, air, and sea. the blockade leads only two crossings for limited pedestrian movement and one crossing for the movement of goods. as a result over 0% of gaza's population of 1.8 million, more than half of them children under the age of 18 relied on humanitarian aid before the outbreak of hostility. restrictions apply on land use in the gaza strip. 80% of fishing waters are

totally or partially inaccessible. around 67% of gaza is estimated to be food insecure and unemployment remains high at 43%. the economy is moribund. it has been exacerbated by 40 days of conflict. 1,000 palestinians killed and 6,000 injured. over 80% of those killed are civilians. 251 children. israel faced rocket fire. 59 people have been killed, three civilians and 56 soldiers. dozens injured. up to 440,000 people in the gaza strip are now displaced. almost 24% of the population. over 240,000 h