we have the notice. at this time, they haven't sent anything out. >> this chair will now recognize the gentleman from michigan for five minutes. thank you very much, mr. chairman. if any of my constituents were not as fourth coming as the irs, there would be a presumption of guilt, they would be fine d and have their wages garnished and/or liens on their homes. when i go back to the district, i had the opportunity to talk to many irs, former employees of

the irs, now retired. and i asked them what they thought of what was going on at the irs. i heard despicable behavior every step of the way. the irs, no longer credible. i think, at this point, mr. chairman, i'd like to yield back. >> thank you, chairman. in regular order, this is helpful to have a second round. commissioner, there's been approximately a year of production of e-mails. in your earlier hearing, i remember it might take two years sort of an estimate. well, let me ask you a question. have you reviewed the timeline when this committee issued lawful demands for lois ler lois lernere's e-mails, have you reviewed the timeline of who did what and when? >> no. >> would you be prepared to

deliver to us a timeline, meaning calendars, activities of individuals who were charged with going out and finding those e-mail sns. >> with over 250 people doing that work -- >> no, actually, you've had people redacting and legally reviewing. i'm only talking about who went and got the information, the e-mails, who accumulated them, the gathering. >> that's not just one or two people. it's a set of them. >> here's the inquiry i'll ask you today. and, again, you know, we appreciate you coming, but you're not the i.t. guy or any of the 200 people, per se. it is clear now from this side of the dayous, two things were to o can you recall. one, that the moment we issued

our first letter, it required that you preserve information. they've not sure whether they exist or not. they've undercut your claim. that means that nobody went out to say where are the tapes? what are the tape sns are there any? additionally, in order to know that lois lerner had this extensive gap, either you missed one of the steps or, people just didn't want to admit that they weren't going out and looking for e-mails by, essentially, what we expected, which was to do a keyword search on a server and deliver the data.

the irs was adding key words that allowed them to deliver the false negative that progressives were being targeted. this committee had a reasonable expectation that you were searching the entire data base. you were searching not six months worth of e-mails. not 6,000 e-mails or less, but you were searching the historic e-mails.

at some point, they must have started searching -- okay, who has psts? send us your psts. or did they -- and this is why we have to ask directly, did they send out one of these? do you have any information relevant and please send it to us. the keyword "search" would imply that they were accumulating all of these downloaded, local files and then searching them. if in fact your pred cess southerly was delivering data from the last six months of things still preserved, we need to know that.

there has been an absence or willingness to disclose problems. we would like to know, as i said in the beginning of this, who went looking for what, when? not interested in who read them or who released them. so we know whether her e-mails were of any relevance.

>> chairman yields back and the chair now recognizing the jentle lady from wyoming. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have no doubt mr. kosiken, that the morale at the irs is low. let me tell you about the people i work for. they all feel targeted. they think the irs is out to get them. they are lower than a snake's belly about the irs. they know that lois lerner was brought into the irs from the federal elections commission where she had a history of political targeting. political bias. they know she was tapped to increase the largest force in

history, obamacare. after she targeted conservative groups. they saw her come to this committee and then subsequently take the fifth. she did break a law. and they know that 10 far, 14e's gotten away with that. that the justice department isn't doing anything about it and she got away scott free. they know when they get letters from the irs, that they're being targeted. i have a constituent who got a letter and an investigation from the irs that has cost her 50,000

tlars just to close her e sfat. because they kept asking her what make and model is your bed? your bed? incidentally, she is a very active member of the republican party. she feels targeted. this is a legitimate investigation. i hope it continues at length. i hope it goes on until we get to the truth. the people we work for feel like the government is getting away

with tax exempt status that they deserve. they feel like they can't trust the irs. that's why you're here and ask the same questions over and over. i'm sure it's frustrating. we're frustrated, too. they don't feel we have the ability to do it ourselves. so with no apologies for the morale at the irs and no apologies for how many times we're asking you the same questions over and over, mr.

chairman. while i thank you for your attendance, i do yield back the balance of my time. >> i mentioned the time line in interest in that. let me just sd you one other question. when you look at this investigation and you look at the fact that a federal judge is now ordering you to show certain things, you look at your ig's investigation, are you aware and do you recognize the three sprat channels are perceived and, in reality, are very different as to what your responsibleties are and how you approach them? >> my response is the same. we have an obligation to respond to them in response to -- >> i appreciate that.

but the ig does, in fact, work under you. he has limited authority. he has testified that he may ask for information and not always get it. he doesn't have the authority to demand things, isn't that true? >> i've never had, in my time here or other places, an experience with an i dwrks not able to get information he needs. and i am committed, as mr. jordan knows, this whatever information he wants in any investigation, he's welcomed to have. >> we'll hold you to that. thank you. >> i thank the chairman and the other member who is do want to do a second round, we will do that.

i'll kick back myself. grant it, a lot of the things that were happening was before you were there. when they see some of the spending going on, 50,0 0 dlarsz for a strak trek video. it really irks a lot of folks and i think our constituents. i think the same goes for the targeting. i think that hurts their morale.

it's not what you actually knew but what you should have known. clearly, there were people at the seep i don't recall leadership in the irs who knew that the problems were more substantial than when she ind kated to us that you personally knew. so the question is going to be, you know, why did you not know more. and i think that goes into what i and some other folks have raised. and just soo we're clear, i don't want to be lobbying charges that right-hand turn true, here's the transcript from last week's hearings with james cole. the fact that the commissioner, mean you, at the internal revenue service delayed telling congress the american people, the f.b.i. and the justice department as a matter that you were going to investigate.

mr. cole replied we are going to look at the circumstances around that, yes. we're concerned about it and i think that's important to know. technical witnesses about what, in fact, happened to the hard drive. and so they told ways and mean that is the hard drive was scratched. and that data was likely recoverable from it. and, of course, the irs last week in federal court has filed a declaration consistent to what you've testified to that the hard drive was destroyed and, in fact, no data was recovered. so what's an american to think when they've seen some witnesses telling a congressional committee a scratch may be rekovble, but, yet, the irs is

representing in federal court that it was destroyed. >> the technical people would be the ones. >> all i know is that i've testified that there were efforts made by ms. lerner and the i.t. department went to the contract investigation division. they said they were not able to retrieve from that hard drive. clearly, you can't be telling the court one thing and then having people in the organization who are on the ground and maybe having

knowledge telling the congress the other thing. given right now that there's a circuit split saying basically, it was close call error you have the d.c. circuit saying the irs didn't have the authority to issue that ruling. are you going to rescind that rule? what's the irs's position. >> the rule about that in the granting of advanced premium tax credit, our regulation said that it was apreep rat and acceptable to two through the federal marketplace.

we have no plans to rescind that rule. >> i'm fully supportive of the swrus tis department decision. >> i am out of time and i will now yield to the ranking member of the full committee, mr. cummings.

republican members of the committee asked you a number of questions regarding the committee's investigation into the irs treatment of applications for tax kpempt status. at the hearing, i saw some e-mails regarding rs houston messaging system. republican members repeatedly question you about the specifics of ocs. commissioner, now that you have learned of this, can you describe what ocs is?

basically, it allows people around the country as primary uses to have teleconference with the same information up on the screen and everybody looks at it at the same time. it's a way too have a tell kmugs cases gathering in the committee. it's sometimes a faster and more efficient way to communicate. >> despite the fact that the e-mail exchange occurred on april 9, 2013, nearly two years after ms. lerner's computer crashed and more than one year after the inspector general's all it began.

on july 11th, ocs messages posted telephone calms and the irs does not current ly preserv communication. is that accurate? that is accurate. i ask napgs consent. >> commissioner, does the

federal records act require rescinding of the ocs? >> it's my understanding. in effect, it's my understanding that now we've reviewed our record kekeeping process. we are meeting with nara. we can improve our official records keeping. we're very anxious to do that. >> are you aware of any evidence that loislerner intentionally. >> to the best of your knowledge, has any irs employee use used ocs to hide from inspector

general? >> after receiving 00 dleds of thousands of documents, the committee has not identified any evidence supporting chairman's allegations and ms. lerner or what any irs employee uses the system basically employed by the american people. with the money we spend, it's ultimate lid money that comes from the american people.

and we have an obligation to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and the same. to the extent that people lost trust and confidence in the irs, one of the major challenges is to restore that trust. we will continue to contact and audit people. some will be democrats. some will be republicans. some may not belong to a party. some may be active in politics. when they need to be confident a about hearing from the irs,it's because of something we've seen in their tax return. we have an obligation and commitment to treat everybody fairly and everyonely across the board. i have met with over 11,000 irs employees across the country and i have never seen a mr dedicated work force dedicated to

enforcing the irs code. we need to be cautious about what we say in e-mails. i didn't know and i told them i would get back to them. i just think it's important to try to evade congressional oversighted. >> does the irs have an

obligation to show taxpayers? >> we actually are -- i think we have an obligation to keep taxpayers informed about all aspects of the internal revenue code. we have a program of public information. it's a policy issue of how to deal with it. my general assumption 1 people will and should continue to operate as they have, thus far. the courts have not indicated

that anyone should do nigd differently. one of the things they say is, it says ichb house professionals at the irs recommend the agency seek outside assistance in recovering the data. is that something the irs is going to do? >> as you know, my understanding is that that hard drive is a normal process.

ga p. >> i was not aware at the time. >> so even though in-house professionals say ewe know what, this might be a little above our pay scale, we should go get the outside tech experts who can do this stuff. we should bring them in. >> they rorted they could not restore the hard drive. but i have no information that we did, the irs at that time did do anything else. >> they did not. it's your understanding that there were no professionals that

did that? >> you don't think it was done and you don't think it was asked for. that i mean're reporting that it was asked for and -- >> it wasn't done. >> it wasn't done. which is a problem. it's a big probable when your tech experts say we need tech experts to come in and get the data. in fact, the irs had already taken extraordinary -- >> that's the point.

they knew in february there was a problem. february 4th, there was a big probable. mid february, nude it was unrecoverable. we learned the data stored on her computer hard drive was unrekovble. you knew in mid march. the irs and february, and then if i document in 2011.

mid march review, 2014. that was what the irs knew. >> mr. cain says on february 4th, he knew. you indicate mid march, it was unrekovble. march 26 to this full committee. in those hearings, you were asked about ms. lerner and different things you had four different opportunities in front of congress. so i'm wondering. in the back of your mind, were you wondering when you were answering these questions, were you going to produce all of these e-mails. in the back of your mind, were

you over the time period when you've already learned significant facts. even though you sort of knew that it was pretty darn likely you lost them all for good. in the back of your mind, did you think, you know what, maybe i should fully disclose what the real status is of ms. learner. >> as i've testified several times in the past, i didn't know that there were e-mails lost. i personally didn't know. that's what i was testifying about until the middle of april. when i testified on march 26th, i did not know that her e-mails were not rekovble. recoverable. >> but this is your testimony right here. in the mid march 2014 time frame, we learned the data

stored on her hard drive was determined to be unrecoverable. that's certainly before the march 26th hearing and the april 8th hearing in front of the senate finance committee. you had two opportunities where you already know it's unrecov unrecoverable. you' you're only going to get what's there. >> i take responsibility for the agency. when i said in trying to report to people whey they knew, that's what the irs knew. if you told me now that tom cain said in february, i would say we, as the irs knew in february. so this goes right to the chairman's point. when your chief council knows in february, mid february, that it's unrecoverable.

>> i didn't know and you're exactly right. i have not hidden behind the fact that somehow this is somebody else's responsibility. i am perfectly prepared to take full responsibility for exactly what we did with production of nfrgs to the congress. >> but you didn't tell us that in your testimony. you didn't tell us, you know what, march 26, you didn't tell us that -- it would have been nice if we would have known at that point. but somehow, they didn't tell you. >> at that point, we were spending most of our time trying to spend all the determination process.

noo wonder there's a distrust. that is unbelievable. >> can i just add one point? and you have to -- you're the chief council who knew. >> she'll tell you what she knew or didn't know. >> we already talked to tom cain and told us that she knew. >> the hard drive had a significant problem. we did not know what e-mails we had. when he says unrecoverable and

they come back and you don't disclose that, you should have known and you should have told us. and then when you do find out, you wait two month sns come on, we're supposed to buy that? i yield back. >> i thank the chairman. i would point out before i recognize my friend from pennsylvania is, you know, here we are in se february, march, you didn't know how many e-mails were out there. we've been asking for these things for over a year now. the irs dragged its feet oon that. don't tell me nine, ten months after we we request this stuff and somehow you just don't know how many e-mails you have.

>> i ask the chairman of this full committee who the witnesses are supposed to be next wednesday from the irs. he declined to tell me. he declined to tell me whether he even knew who the witnesses will be. but i didn't ask you, mr. kosiken, have you been informed by anyone on this committee who the witnesses for next week's hearing will be? would you agree with me that those are among the thing that is would be nice to know? >> its's always nice to know in advance whether we're supposed to show up for a hearing.

>> i don't know whether i'm supposed to show up for next wednesday's hearing. there were comments today about scratches to hard drives. we did have john minsack, an an lisz from the irs criminal investigations unit to meet with weighs and means staff on monday. he told them he did not find anything suspicious about how a scratch got on ms. lerner's hard drive. am i correct in that? >> that's correct.

>> and the c.i. analysts, mr. minsack, told ways and means committee staff that he gave his colleague in the irsi.t. shop, the name of a third party vendor that he used on rare occasions to recover information. do you know if irs officials con sulted with it experts a second time in 2011 to recover ms. lerneer's e-mail sns. >> i do not know. >> finally, i want to touch on something that the gentle lady from wyoming mentioned. he just said that her constituents are going to take manners into their own hands. i say this because about an hour ago, somebody walked into the cannon house office building.

knowing that there are over 4,000 staffers and interns at risk here on the house side of the capital an recalling the horrible gabby gifford's story, i would ask that members refrain from making statements that could even possibly be misconstrued by the public as an invitation to do anything like that. i think it behooves all of us to be very careful about the way we phrase things. there are people out there ready and able to misconstrue things.

with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. we still continue and people ask why are we continuing to do this? it just looks like, you know, there is something you come down all of the time. one request will say this. and then another question. and it was asked earlier, i had to leave and come back and said, you foe, how much paperwork that you put to the committee and how many hours are being worked on. to restore trust, in a relationship whether it is between two people or the government it serves, it should really be of no limit to restoer that trust, especially with the irs.

so because of the issues that have been trusted that something new has come up. i think that is an issue of trust that has to be maintained here. frankly, the plausibility story is just getting to a level of unbelievable, in a lot of ways. there responsive to the e-mails from august 2nd, 2013 to february 14th, 2014, have ewe gathered all of those e-mails.

>> we provided all the e-mails with regard to the determination process. and, again, pursuant to the agreed upon experience and i totally agree with the investigative series, we select 83 are the ones most likely to be involved. does that just not boggle the mind? i'm not a mathematician, neither are you. but in that subset that deals with the answers that it's able to do? >> we will continue to find out

how many e-mails we had. if we hadn't been able to do that -- >> we'll get away from lerner. i asked about holly. >> to the extent we can provide the full story, your point, it's a lot easier to know and we can disagree about it. but it's a lot better to know when you get to the custodians, we don't know what the answer is. so it may be 10, it may be 20, it may be 25, i don't know. and, at this point, we aren't able to investigate that. we're hoping the ig, when he completes his investigation, we'll conclude the custodians as well. it's part of the problem with doing this in dribbles and drabs and every day having a press release about some aspects of some interview. >> thank you for saying dribbles and drug and alcohols. that's what this investigation seems like. this is the problem we have

because i'm going to assume from your question, i'm an attorney as well, that that's a no. so you've not gathered all of the e-mails. >> we have not yet provided all of her e-mails. my first priority, in march, we provided all of lois lerks lerner's e-mails. all is all. obviously, thanks to the system, we can't produce it all fwuns. it takes us a long time, part of the background on the june 13,

public report was to try to explain why it takes so long to produce this stuff. we should have a better system. there's no doubt about that. i wanted to ask, he said we confirmed. and you said i don't know who told me. and there's been a lot of meetings in which you were told information but you don't remember who was in the meeting. or you don't know who told you that. and it hit me as i was sitting here. maybe there were local people in the room and you're not sure who said it first. so i'm going to ask it differently.

i want to know who was in the room when we were told all of that. surely, you're a very bright individual. you would know at least who's in the room. i have 12 meetings in a day. and those meetings average probably 8-10 people. i can tell you who was likely in the room and that is the 350e78 working on production with your staff. obviously, my counselor was in the room. probably my chief of staff was in the room. we were reviewing the document. >> your question was whether we could confirm. >> but you're dealing with a bigger issue. is that not significant? >> i'm actually running an agency that has to deal with filing seasons, we have

voluntary tax returns we've been putting out. even oaf years of making fun and everything else, the irs has had in the past, it's not just the fact that they have to send their money in. they're now in an issue with party line irregardless, they're not sure about the irs because they don't trust the irs anymore. when that is an issue, everything should be focused on that. we keep getting dribbles and drabs. i appreciate what you said. that's the problem we have right now. >> i just make one point clear. that is nobody has a greater interest of getting you all the information you need and getting closure on this than i do than the people of the irs.

we're delighted to take those remit dagss. the relevance of the 960,000 pages, it takes a lot of time to get all of that done in our system. the one thing that we agree upon is the end result so we can get through all of this and restore the people's trust. >> this is round four? >> noo, no. when people yielded me time under our arcade yan rules, that doesn't count. but i'll be brief. commissioner, we have a history. and i want to make sure that i get the history straight today because it does matter to this committee.

were you aware that we considered that the irs was stone walling us and giving us information that we didn't want and giving it to us in anmay, j july of 2013? >> i was not ware of that. >> we have a number of letters basically showing your dissatisfaction, includesing what we now know to be erroneous information, including progressives with false nary they've continues to be used at times. on may 22nd, 2013, lois lerner took the fifth. shortly after that, she became a person of treejs interest for this committee because, in fact, she had made statements outside of oher assertion of the naift she'd broken a rule, broken a regulation, additionally authenticated earlier testimony and statements again after she

took the fifth, she then went back on the record. we became very aware lois lerner was an active participant in washington of targeting conservatives in addition evaluating her history, we became very aware she did not like conservatives and she had that sort of predisposition, plus her public speeches made it very clear that on behalf of the president, quote, they wanted to fix this and certainly the president had been the outgoing spokesperson against citizens united, that we had every reason to focus our investigation as her -- on her has the hub in a hub-and-spoke system of deliberately targeting conservatives for their values. therefore, i issued or the ranking member issued a unilateral but pursuant to the committee rules i issued a subpoena and made it very clear our first priority was to have

all of lois lerner's e-mails and that was the priority. are you ware of that? >> i'm ware of that subpoena, yes. >> are you aware that was our goal? >> that's the -- you have eight items on that subpoena and that's at the top of the list. >> very good. therefore, when we interviewed thomas caine and we asked him, "so is it fair to say this subpoena" -- the subpoena of august 2nd -- "this subpoena had no impact on the process that you were following or the documents that you were reviewing?" that was our question. his answer -- "it didn't impact our production process, that's correct." question -- "did it have any impact on which documents were chosen to review?" answer -- "no." additionally throughout that transcribed interview you all met, had a discussion, if you will, and decided you were not going to prioritize anies a p pekt of the delivery of lois

lerner's documents even hoe thoe she had taken the fifth before this committee, even though she clearly had public statements and she had been a person who had already unlawly leaked by planting a question the outcome of an irs investigation. all of that is undeniable. why in the world should the american people believe that you're cooperating with us when i issue a subpoena, our committee makes it clear in multiple letters that these are our priorities, and now we have sworn testimony that -- or testimony under penalty of perjury that it didn't make any changes? you basically continued business as usual, which was delivering us based on you call it mutually agreed but they were your criteria, primarily, as to search terms and never disclose to us that those search terps were searching but a small portion of what should have been the entire database. do you have an answer for that? >> i wasn't there. my understanding is there are five other investigations that

are now going on and were going on then, that there were a wide range of requests for documents from the senate finance committee, ways and means, permanent -- >> did any issue binding subpoenas? >> i don't think anyone else had a binding subpoena, and my understanding, and i wasn't there -- >> but after february 2014, we issued another subpoena. did anything change then? >> at that point we were, as i've testified before, we began to pull the rest of lois lerner's e-mails. we started with the analysis of the e-mails already produced and that's where it was discovered that there were fewer e-mails in the 2011 period. we completed one of the priorities at that time, one of the competing priorities was to complete the production of the determination documents that everybody was interested in. there was kind of a -- i gather a process by which with all of the conflicting questions to try to respond to documents that met as many of the requests as possible and most of the requests for certainly for

finance and at that time ways and means were for documents around the determination process. that was completed, and then since that time the full-court press has been to produce all of lois lerner's e-mails. >> i asked you for a discovery process of who was looking for when throughout a time line and your assistant took it in copious notes there. i want to add one clarification to that process. obviously we're interested in what you did during subpoenas, but we're getting that. you have delivered some -- i guess we're looking at an exorbitant number of documents that you constantly and many people constantly site, what we don't understand that i think the committee has an absolute obligation to understand is in this process of what you looked and where you looked, understanding the soucunderstand ing sources this has come from.

we look at you spending the american people's money properly. it appears from this side of the dais as though the process is very fragmented, that, in fact, you're looking sort of under cookie jars, to use an expression of my youth, that you're providing large amounts of data from certain periods that, based on a six-month backup and a very small server capacity, wouldn't exist. so that means that they probably came from other places. and we need to understand all the places they came from, where they went. you've sent us in many cases hugely redundant e-mails, in other words, the same e-mails from multiple places. understanding that so that we can figure out how to prevent it in the future is important, because this is not the last time that a federal judge, an ig, or a congressional committee is going to want to know dee tails. i think we can all agree to

that, just as corporate america receives countless subpoenas for document production, so much so that they've developed software explicitly to do these kinds of searches and retention policies for that reason. can we have your agreement we'll receive an accounting that that happens? >> we'll be glad to talk further with your staff and make sure you have exactly what you need. you're absolutely right. we looked in logical places and under every cookie jar, dedicated to making sure we found every existent lois lerner e-mail on her account or anybody else's so we would be able to say these are all the lois lerner e-mails we have, and that's led to 67,000. >> andly make a rather unusual request in this case. we're more than happy to have a small group brief meeting, bipartisan meeting weather the individuals who have been involved in this so that separate from the investigation,

which is important and ongoing, the question of efficiency, the cost effect of fragmented data, the cost effect of having -- i held it up several other times -- individual drives like this that people have, notebooks thaf that have been taken off lines, all the things i suspect this is one of the reasons this has become so expensive and difficult. that meeting is not exactly on course with this investigation. but it is separately a question from a standpoint of the management of the $82 billion worth of funds that government spends to see if, in fact, policy changes with omb and others should be instituted and funding allocated so that this kind of fragmentation doesn't happen in the future. as one person who's worked in private america to another, that's something that your briefing can be informal, off the record, doesn't have to be definitive, but our committee i

think really has to have an understanding so we can be part of policy formation because what i know about how corporate america does it and what i'm beginning to glean you have to do are very different. >> they're very different, as i've said pip asked that question some time ago that we should not have to spend $18 million in this amount of time responding to documented e-mail requests. it's clear, sir. but i think if we could kind of get two birds with one stone we could, as you say, have that briefing that would answer your questions about how did this discovery process go and then what are the problems of that going forward, because it is my understanding that there's been a tremendous amount of effort made to make sure that we found every document responsive to the committee. it is a lengthy process. again, the june 13th report starts out trying to explain to all of the investigators what the process is and why it is so anachronistic and difficult. i agree with you totally. going forward, it would certainly help all of us if we had a more efficient system for

sprefshi i preserving and finding documents and e-mails. >> thank you, commissioner. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. and that concludes our hearing today. i thank you, mr. commissioner, and the hearing is adjourned. on thursday, a house subcommittee looked at marijuana use, its legalization in some states and its relation to transportation safety. issues included the ability to operate vehicles, testing for marijuana use, and the challenges in-in creating a federal standard for donald rumsfeld -- driving under the influence of so-called recreational drugs. witnesses include a representative of the center for substance abuse prevention. this is an hour and 40 minutes. it's chaired by florida congressman john micah.

good morning. i'd like to welcome everyone to the committee on government oversight and reform and our subcommittee hearing this morning. this is the subcommittee on government operations. welcome our ranking member, mr. connolly, and other who is may join us this morning. the title of today's hearing is planes, trains, and automobiles -- operating while stoned. this, i believe, is our fifth hearing on the subject of the impact of changing laws on increasing use of marijuana in our society. and our subcommittee in particular has jurisdiction and part of our charter is the difference between federal and state laws and the relationships and whole host of issues that

deal with, again, federal/state issues. and certainly in our most recent history there's probably been nothing that has provided a greater difference in, say, current federal statutes and changing state and local statutes than the marijuana issue, so it's an important matter and we try to approach it and look at all of the aspects and impacts. the order of business this morning will be opening statements. i'll start with mine. yield to mr. connolly. i see we have mr. fleming. i don't believe mr. fleming is a member of the committee, but ask unanimous consent that -- and without objection that he be permitted to participate in

today's proceedings. and other member who is may join us. right now there are a number of conferences going on around the hill. with that, after the opening statement, i see we have four witnesses, we heerl from them. we'll withhold questions until we've heard from all our panelists and get to introduce you and swear you in after the opening statements. so with that, let me begin. again, i have an important responsibility to look at changing laws. this subcommittee has, in fact, been investigating the federal response to state and local government, legalization and change of laws relating to marijuana and examining the administration's sometimes chaotic and inconsistent policies on marijuana. in fact, most of our proceedings since the beginning of the year

have been based on a statement that the president made, and he said that marijuana was no -- not much different than alcohol. and i think one of our first hearing was to bring in the office of national drug control policy who differed with the president's statement. we looked at that issue. then we heard from the law enforcement agencies, dea, they disagreed with that statement. then we saw the conflict in colorado and other states, department of justice had issued some guidelines and statements relating to enforcement. as i recall from the u.s. attorney from colorado who testified about some of the problems, we heard from dea and other agencies, as we are doing one other hearing, the district of columbia changed its law,

possession, tampering down the fine to $25 for one ounce of marijuana. and i illustrated by holding up a fake joint. some people thought that was entertaining, but it was also designed to illustrate you could have 28 of those joints now in the district and that would be the results on the $25 fine. then i held up in the other hand a list of 26 federal agencies that were charged with enforcing conflicting federal law, and it does create a serious dilemma and situation. and again, i think today is very important because, having chaired transportation, and you see the results of the

devastation just, for example, on our highways, probably in the last dozen years we've had a quarter of a million americans slaughtered on the highways. think about that. over quarter of a million. we've gotten it down -- it was down in the 30-some thousand, but it was running in the almost mid-40,000, and that's fatalities. and half of those fatalities are related to people who are impaired through alcohol or drugs. and as we embark on this new era with many more people exposed to what is now still a schedule one narcotic and more potent, as we heard from some of the scientific folks, we are going to have a lot more people stoned on the highway, and there will be consequences.

we do have federal agencies, and we'll hear from the department of transportation, to see how they're going to deal with both vehicles, both passenger vehi e vehicles, with commercial vehicles, and then also -- and i don't know if we could put up some of those charts to see some of the devastation, but -- or the photos -- aviation is another area. maybe you could put some of those up there. we haven't gotten into commercial, and we'll talk about that, but these are civil aircraft. just keep flipping them. every one of these were involved with people impaired. and the way we find out right now if they were impaired was, in fact, by testing the corpse, the blood, and this is some of the results we see. the worst train incident that we've had, probably, in recent

memory -- keep flipping that -- this is the metro link. look at that. 25 people killed, and the engineer was impaired with marijuana. and then automobiles, again, i think we have one on -- i just showed one on automobile. but there are thousands of accidents that involve some just marijuana, some a deadly combination of marijuana and other drugs taking lives. so there are consequences to what's being done in our society. today i want to -- want to also focus on the aspect of not only the number of crash victims but

also those who are the most e vulnerable in this whole process. right now, listen to this, from 1999 to 2010, the number of crash victims with marijuana in their system has jumped from 4% to over 12%. and that's actually as some of this has been kicking in. furthermore, the influence of both alcohol and marijuana they say is now 24 times more likely to cause an accident than a sober person. and i can cite some of these studies in a study. 20% of the drivers seriously injured tested positive for marijuana. again, one of my major concerns is the impact on the most vulnerable in our society, and the trend is most troubling for our young drivers. most recently, one eighth grade school senior admitted driving

after smoking -- 1 in 8, i'm sorry, high school seniors admitted to driving after smoking marijuana, and nearly 28% of the high school seniors admit to getting into the car of a driver who recently had used marijuana or other illicit drugs. at night, 16% of the drivers under age 21 tested positive for drugs whereas only 7% of the same drivers tested positive for alcohol. half of the drivers injured fatally in car accidents are under the age of 25. that slaughter i talked about on the highways is impacting no other group as much as our young people and those particularly our teenagers and those under 25.

as much as 14% of fatal or sustained injury drivers pested positive for thc in 2012. however, we don't have to have data to understand the full scope of the problem. data collection policies are set up by states and generally testing only occurs unfortunately with drivers with fatalities. drivers who have used marijuana do not exhibit the same intoxication e effects as drivers who have used alcohol and traditional field testing is not always effective to identify and remove intoxicated drivers from the road. in fact, we have no standard test for marijuana for drivers. there is no standard test. we don't have federal standards of limits of thc since right now

at the federal level any level of thc is illegal. it is a schedule one narcotic. and supposedly zero tolerance. but we have no way of testing that. currently, there is no roadside breathalyzer for marijuana. but technology is advancing, and some countries have started to use a roadside oral test. now, this is -- this is one of those testing machines, and this is used actually in europe. and as i understand it, it takes a swab. i was going to have our -- swab the panelists, but i thought i wouldn't do that today. but you can take a swab with this and it can tell you if anyone has used marijuana within four hours. but, again, we have no standard, we have no acceptable test, and

we have no way of tell eing if people are impaired. most of the data we're getting right now is from, again, fatalities. you have to take -- you i they are have to take an individual to a hospital for a blood or urine test or, again, the worst situation is to the morgue where we test their blood. in the past ten years, marijuana was a factor in nearly 50 aviation accidents. i shared some of the civil aviation. we haven't even begun to think of what can happen in the commercial market as more people are exposed to marijuana. we now have 23 states with medical use and two states who have knocked down most of the barriers, and more people will have, again, exposure to use of

marijuana and very little means of testing them. the national transportation safety board has investigated different accidents and found, again, the use of thc in a number of these accidents. but, again, all of their testing is done after the fact, and usually where a fatality is involved. the witnesses today will tell us what, if anything, the federal government is doing to combat drug-impaired operation of any transportation mode. and, again, we have a whole host of modes that the federal government takes responsibility over e vehicular simple

passenger cars, commercial vehicles, cargo, of course rail, both passenger and cargo, and of course aviation, civil and commercial aviation. wheeler from christopher hart from the national transportation safety board, jeff michael from the national highway administration, patrice kelly from the office of drug and alcohol policy compliance, and mr. ronald -- what is it, flagel? mr. flagel of the substance abuse and health administration. i look forward to today's further and continuing discussions on this issue that has a great impact on all of us and yield now to the ranking member, mr. connolly. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thanks for holding today's

hearing to examine the effects of marijuana on the ability to operate plane, train, and automobiles. i'm going to particularly focus in on the automobile but not to the exclusion of everything else. this hearing addresses an aspect of marijuana policy where i believe there's general agreement over the desired outcome -- reducing the incidence of vehicle accidents resulting from driving while under the influence of any drugs. across the political spectrum there's widespread opposition to allowing driving under the influence of any drug that impairs an individual's ability to operate a vehicle safely. where differences merge are over the most effective policy to achieve this widely shared outcome, which i think we can all agree remains a national challenge. according to the national survey on drug and health use -- drug use and health, excuse me, approximately 10.3 million people have admitted to driving

under the influence of illicit drugs in the past year. the centers for disease control and prevention report that in 201010,228 people were killed in alcohol-impyred driving crash, accounting for 31% of all traffic-related deaths in the united states. these statistics are alarming and unacceptable. our nation must continue reducing the incidence of any drug-impaired driving death. a key component of this long-standing effort will be improving our knowledge base through better data and research. with respect to the focus of today's hearing, there's been very limited research actually conducted by the federal government addressing the relationship between marijuana usage and driving safety. reports from the national highway traffic safety administration include the thc, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, has dose-related impeering effects on driving performance. for example, as previously

reported, quote, the impairment manifests itself mainly in the ability to maintain a lateral position on the road. but its magnitude is not exceptional in comparison with changes produced by many medicinal drugs and alcohol. yet nhtsa also found intoxication is shortly lived. peak acute effects are typically achieved within 10 to 30 minutes with the effects dissipating quickly after about an hour. according to nhtsa, drivers under the influence of marijuana retain insight in their performance and will compensate when they can, for example, by slowing down or increasing effort. as a consequence, thc's adverse e effects on driving performance appear relatively small, unquote. meanwhile, the national transportation safety board held a public forum to discuss the most effective data-driven science-based actions to reduce accidents results in

subs-impaired driving. in may 2013 it reelised a safety report entitled "reaching zero -- actions to eliminate alcohol-impaired driving" in which it reiterated a recommendation for nhtsa to develop a common standard of practice for drug toxicology testing. scientific analysis and technological advancements have standardized the use of a breathalyzer to determine alcohol intoxication. however, states beginning to implement marijuana decriminalization, and there are now the 22 of them plus the district of columbia, must act swiftly to address the fact that there really is no legal limit set for driving under the influence of marijuana as there is with alcohol. for instance, field sobriety test es may be accurate and effective at dee texting marijuana impairment. a study of the uk examining the accuracy of field sobriety tests in gaining the amount of marijuana participants had consumed concluded that there

is, quote, a strong correlation between cannabis dose received and whether impairment was judged to be present, unquote. of course anecdote must not substitute for rigorous scientific data. that's why i believe we must support further research in this field to inform the development of effective public safety policies regulating marijuana. and my friend dr. fleming and i had a discussion of one of our hearings on this very matter, and i think we agree that that has to be the basis for moving forward. it's got to be based in science, and we need more of it. my concerns over the utter ineffectiveness of our nation's existing federal policy of absolute marijuana prohibition is no more of an endorsement of its recreational purposes use than opposing prohibition of alcohol is an endorsement for drunk driving. our nation proved with respect to policies regulating the use of other potentially harmful substances, the discouraging the

inappropriate use of drugs need not, perhaps should not involve total prohibition and criminalization. i've long believed that the federal government governs best when it listens and learns from our states which are the laboratories of democracy. right now those states are undergoing a great experiment with respect to this subject, and we need to learn from their experience and hopefully emulate them in regulations of policies in the future that address both use, appropriate use, medicinal purpose, and of course the issue of criminalization. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank the sxwlagentleman and recognize mr. fleming if you have an opening comment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to thank chairman michael and other members of the government operation subcommittee for allowing me to participate in today's hearing. i would allegso like to thank t chairman for holding this series of hearings that are so vitally

important. you know, it took us centuries of alcohol in our culture, and it took a new organization, then a new organization, mothers against drunk driving, to realize that we were losing americans wholesale by the tens of thousands as a result of driving under the influence of alcohol. it took us approximately 400 years to figure out that tobacco was similarly killing tens of thousands of americans every year. in fact, as early as -- or as recently azzs the early 1960s there were commercials in which doctors were actually recommending certain types of cigarettes, saying that it was good for your throat. i worry that we're not in fact in the same situation in this case when it comes to marijuana. drunk drivingi inin ining is a

problem according to the statistics compiled by the national survey on drug use and health, about 10.3 million people 12 and over reported driving while under the influence of an illegal drug. marijuana's active ingredient, thc, is the most common drug found in drivers and crash victims alike. staud studies indicate between 4% and 14% of drivers involved in accidents, fatal or otherwise, had thc in their system. marijuana decreases a driver's response time, awareness, and perception of time and speed, all of which are necessary for safe driving. another concern of mine is the combination of drugs and alcohol. you see, whenever you hear this debate, you often hear that marijuana is innocuous to begin with and, number two, it's either/or. either someone smokes marijuana or they drink alcohol. that's not the way it works. individuals who are driving

under the influence of marijuana will have little inhicbitions fr drinking beer and alcohol and other substances as well, smoking a joint behind the wheel or whatever it takes to get high or feel good. the rocky mountain high intensity drug trafficking area which works closely with the white house's national drug-controlled strategy, is collecting data on the impact of colorado's legalization of marijuana. an august 2013 report indicated that in 2006 colorado drooimps testing positive for marijuana were involved in 28% of fatal drug-related vehicle crashes. that number increased to 56% by 2011. and understand that in states that are decriminalizing and legalizing marijuana and certainly we know as marijuana

is destigmatized, as the threat to use is reduced, that use goes up, it finds its way into homes, into candy, into cookies and baked goods, and once it gets there, it finds its way into the brains of teens. and we know from statistics that marijuana has a 9% addiction rig rate among adults. but those who start as teen, that rate doubles to 1 in 6 so, it's very important what's happening in these states who are legalizing and even decriminalizing or medicinalizing marijuana. this year rocky mountain report on 2012 data is also very alarming. using data from the national highway safety administration fatality analysis reporting system, fars, this year report due out in october will show

between 2007 and 2012, while colorado's overall traffic fatalities decreased by 15%, over that same time marijuana-related fatalities increased 100%. earlier this year, the university of colorado released a study confirming that colorado drooimps are testing positive for marijuana and involved in fatal accidents is on the rise. there is no hard and fast way to determine whether an individual is driving under the influence and there's yet to be established a uniform amount of marijuana which constitutes drunk drive, and that is very important because you see in the case of alcohol, when you arrest someone for -- if they've not been in an accident, you just caught them driving under the influence, with so many episodes of that arrest, that person loses their license, they're taken off the road. that's not happening with marijuana. we don't have a way to do that yet. while driving under the influence is unquestionably a

problem, it is also concerning that pot smoking american youth may also have trouble finding a job. this is especially true in the transportation arena. the u.s. department of transportation requires mandatory drug testing on pilots, air-traffic controllers, railroad employees, and commercial drivers. and that can include buses, it can include 18-wheelers, anything that requires a cdl license. these individuals are responsible for numerous lives and it is critical that they are and remain drug free. marijuana will also become more pervasive as states continue to embrace permissible laws on medical marijuana and the recreational use of marijuana and kids in youth will have easier access to a dangerous addictive drug. and again, back to the medicinal marijuana, there's no reason why we can't use components of

marijuana for disease treatment. right now we already have a schedule three which can be used under the monitoring and observation of physician, closely monitored the dosage precisely prescribed, and can be done safely just like hydrocodone. it has the same activity and benefit that the plant marijuana has. it is the synthetic thc. we have that already. there is some claim that there are extracts, oil extracts of cannabis that can be used to treat certain rare seizures in children. well, it has little or no thc activity. there's no reason why that -- and it's under fast-track fda approval right now -- there's no reason why that can't be taken out as well. but there's no reason to deschedule or to make legal marijuana which is now schedule

one for those purposes. all these thicks can be done without reducing the schedule or legalize the marijuana plant itself. mr. chairman, it's no surprise to you or to anyone here that i'm opposed to the legalization of marijuana. what is surprising, however, is "the new york times" editorial board is fully supportive of the leaguization of marijuana. mr. chairman, i have two response pieces to "the new york times" that i would like to submit for the record, one from the white house office of national drug policy, and another opinion piece by peter weern published in "the wall street journal" on tuesday. legalization is not the answer, nor is it a prudent decision for america. marijuana remains a dangerous highly addictive drug. even science will tell you that. >> without objection, both of those articles, statements will be made part of the record.

there being no further opening statements, members may have seven days to submit opening statements for the record. now let me proceed and recognize our first panel. the first panel consists of christopher a. hart, and he's the acting chairman of the national transportation safety board. mr. jeff michael is the associate administrator for research and program development at the national highway traffic safety administration. miss patrice kelly is acting director for the office of drug and alcohol policy and compliance at the department of transportation. and mr. ron flagel is the director for the division of workplace programs at the center for substance abuse prevention at the substance abuse and mental health administration. welcome all of your panelists.

this is an investigative and oversight subcommittee of congress. we do swear in all of our witnesses. if you' stall stand, please, ra your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give before this subcommittee of congress is the whole truth and nothing but the truth? >> i do. >> i do. >> all of the witnesses, the record will reflect, answered in the affirmative. a gave a misinformation on a statistic and i didn't realize it until after i said it and i want to clarify that for the record. i said nearly a quarter of a million people had been killed in the last dozen years on our highway. nirtsly a half a million people, a half a million people. think about that. and half of those people died.

that's nearly a quarter of a million with they are alcohol or some substance in their system. i'll get the exact numbers and we'll put them in the record, but i didn't give rest of the story, as paul harvey would say. with that correction for the record, let me first welcome and recognize mr. hardy. welcome and you're recognized, sir. >> good morning, chairman michael, ranking member connolly, and members of the subcommittee. thanks for inviting the ntsb to testify today. the focus on marijuana policies affecting transportation is timely. we've been working tensionively for many years to address alcohol used by drivers, but that still kills almost 10,000 people every year on our highways. now we're becoming more concerned that our investigations also illustrate the problems of marijuana use in transportation operations.

among the more egregious drug-involved accidents listed in my written testimony are a recreational boating accident in florida that killed five, a daycare van driver in memphis, tennessee, who was high and crashed, causing five deaths, and a railroad accident in chase, maryland, that killed 16 that's already been referred to. but we don't have a good idea of the number of drug-related fall fatalities. we're not surprised by the increased this drug use by pilots and others give than many states have authorized medical marijuana programs and two states have decriminalized recreational use of the drug. recent news reports have noted pressure to decriminalize march at the federal level as well. perhaps most disturbing is evidence that marijuana use among teenage drivers is increasing and their perceived risk of marijuana risk is decreasing. in 2013, wecompleted a yearlong

review of substance-impaired driving including drug use and concluded there is not enough data on drunk driving. consistently, we asked nhtsa to conduct this study. we understand that nhtsa is working on this recommendation. lack of data about drug impairment is not only a problem in highway accidents but other transportation modes. in general yaichgs, our investigators sometimes see evidence of drug use by pilots involved in accidents. so we decided it was time to look at this issue in greater detail. in september we will meet to discuss drug use in general aviation, examining toxicology testing results conducted on fatally injured general aviation pilots. we will look at over-the-counter prescription and illicit drugs in pilots. we're missing important data on the role of illegal drugs and not only that but the public is pretty much unaware of important information about how legal drugs may also affect their performance. we will also examine drug use in general aviation pilots as

compared to trends observed in the u.s. population in general. information that we obtain in this september meet willing help us evaluate whether there is a need for additional recommendations or other advocacy efforts on our part. fortunately, shifting state laws have not resulted in changes in illegal drug use policies for commercial operators. you'll hear on this panel today that the department of transportation has stated that it continues to have a zero-tolerance policy for drug use -- illegal drug use by commercial operators and the ntsb fully supports that policy. what is clear is that operator impairment places the public in jeopardy. impaired drivers share the roadways with other roadways. impaired pilots share the air space with other pilots. impaired mariners share the seas with other mariners. across all modes many operators have passengers that may be placed at risk. too many people die on our roadways from alcohol-impaired driving before strong action was taken that has reduced fatal

days but there are still too many alcohol-related deaths and every one of them is entirely preventable. hopefully we will not wait for more people to die from drug-induced transportation accidents before we take strong and decisive action. hearings like this one will help effective laws be crafted and robust education efforts can be accomplished in all modes of transportation and we look forward to working with you to draw more attention to this issue. again, thank you for inviting me to testify. i look forward to responding to your questions. >> thank you, and we will withhold questions until we've heard from everyone. now let me recognize jeff michael with the national highway traffic safety administration. you're recognized. >> good morning, mr. chairman, ranking member connolly, and members of the subcommittee. i appreciate this opportunity to testify before you today on the national highway traffic administration's research on drunk driving. nhtsa takes tremendous pride in

our 40 year record of protecting americans by partnering with states to enforce strong highway safety laws and by working to make vehicles safer. since 1970 highway fatalities have declined by 36%. traffic deaths have fallen by 22% in the past decade. but with more than 30,000 fat fatalities on america's roadways each year, we must continue looking at new and innovative ways to save lives. working with our state partners and other safety organizations we've made substantial progress with critical safety behaviors including drunk driving and seat belt use and have applied the same successful approaches to emerging concerns such as distracted driving. the legalization of marijuana under state laws poses new concerns, and we are actively working from our foundation of experience to understand these risks and develop appropriate countermeasures. available evidence indicates that alcohol is the most common source of drive impairment. in 2012, more than 30% of all traffic deaths involved a driver with a blood-alcohol level at or above the legal limit.

with more than 40 years of research, several decades of data collection, and a well-established criminal justice process, traffic safety professionals have a good understanding of the scale and the nature of the drunk driving problem. much more research is needed to gain a good understanding of the e effects of drugs other than alcohol on safe driving. in 2007, we obtained the first nationally representative information on the plechbs of drug use by drivers by including drug testing in our national roadside survey. although this survey had been used to track driver alcohol use for several decades, this was the first time that information on drug use was collected. this survey, baseeds on information from voluntary and anonymous participants, found that about 12% of weekend drivers were alcohol positive and about 9% were marijuana positive. we repeated the national roadside survey in 2013 and are in the process of analyzing those data. to understand how state-level

lesionization might e affect the prevalence of marijuana by driver, we partnered with the state of washington at their invitation this spring to conduct a similar roadside survey. that is two-phased study that will assess the change in marijuana use by drivers before and following the date at which the state allowed retail sale of the drug. in addition to plechbs research, we also need information on the degree of risk associated with drug use. we are in the process of completing a new study which compares the crash risk of drivers using drugs to those with no drugs in their system. this is the first such investigation of drug crash risk in the united states and more research of various types will be needed to get a full understanding of the role of drugs in crashes. as we prepare to release these results of this new study, we plan to reach out to stake holders including committee staff to inform them of the findings. strong laws and law enforcement are cornerstones of our efforts to address alcohol-impaired driving, and we are looking to the same solutions for drug

driving. we work closely with experts across the nation. these trained officers can significantly facilitate the successful prosecution of drug driving cases. we are also looking closely at procedural barriers to effective drug driving law enforcement and recognize the challenges presented by drug testing methods. while the prosecution of impaired -- alcohol-impaired driving cases is complex, evidential testing for alcohol can typically be done at the jurisdiction by local officials with a moderate amount of training. testing for drug presence among suspected impaired drivers is often far less convenient, requiring that a blood sample be drawn, sent to a remote lab for analysis by highly trained personnel. the cost and delay of such testing can be a disincentive for criminal justice officials to pursue a drug driving charge. in conclusion, nhtsa is committed to reducing both

alcohol- and drug-impaired driving. we e support the development of effective education and development programs based on sound research. much progress has been made. however, impaired driving still claim mrs. than 10,000 lives per e year. thank you again for invite megatoe testify before your committee, and i'm happy to take any questions you may have. >> thank you. we'll now hear from miss patrice kelly, and she's acting director of the office of drug and alcohol policy at the department of compliance at the department of transportation. welcome and you're recognized. >> thank you, chairman michael, ranking member connolly, members of the subcommittee. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the potential impacts on commercial transportation of recent state and local legislation that allow recreational and medicinal marijuana use. the transportation industry drug and alcohol testing program for commercial operations is a

critical element of the department of transportation safety mission. airline pilots, truck drivers, subway operate or thes, mariners, pipeline operators, airline mechanics, locomotive engineers, motor coach drooiive and school bus drivers among others have a tremendous responsibility to the public and we cannot let their performance be compromised by drugs or alcohol. todayly provide you with a brief history of our program, the scope of its application and finally an explanation of our policy regarding the use of marijuana for medical or recreational purposes by individual who is work in federally regulated testing -- transportation industries. the alcohol driving program was first established in 1988 following the department of health and human services drug and alcohol testing for federal employees. the d.o.t. program was initiated

in response to transportation industry fatal accidents that occurred due to illegal drug use. in 1991, congress enacted the omnibus transportation employee testing act, oteta, which required the d.o.t. to expand the application of its program to include mass transit to address the statutory requirements. the d.o.t. program always has required transportation industry employers to have drug and alcohol testing programs that require their employees to be removed from performing safety-sensitive duties immediately if they have drug or alcohol violations. throughout the history of our program and consistent with congress' direction in oteta, we have relied on hhs for its technical and scientific expertise for determining the types of drugs which we test, the testing methodology we must use in our program, and the integrity of the hhs certified laboratories in testing the specimens and reporting the

results. we are limited to testing for the controlled substances included in the hhs mandatory guidelines. currently, those substances include schedule one illegal drugs and schedule two legally prescribed drugs. the drugs and classes of drugs for which we test are cocainoca opiates, amphetamines, and marijuana. if an employee tests positive for any of those substances the employer must take immediate action to remove employee from performing safety-sensitive duties until that employee successfully completes treatment and additional testing. there are 5 million d.o.t. safety-sensitive employees subject to our alcohol and drug testing program. the department's policy on the use of schedule one controlled substances has remain unchanged since our program began in 1988. there is no legitimate explanation, medical or otherwise, for the presence of a schedule one controlled

substance such as marijuana in an employee's system. in december 2009, following the department of justice's issuance of guidance for federal prosecutors and states that enacted laws authorizing the use of medical marijuana, we issued a reminder to our regulated entities that under the d.o.t. testing program, medical marijuana use authorized under state or local law is not a valid medical explanation for transportation employees' positive drug test result. although there has been recent movement by some states to allow recreational use of marijuana by their citizens, the d.o.t. program does not and will not authorize the use of schedule one controlled substances, including marijuana, for any reason by any individual conducting safety-sensitive duties in the transportation industry. in december of 2012, we issued a notice explaining that state and local government initiatives allowing the use of recreational marijuana will have no bearing on the department of

transportation's drug testing program nor any individual subject to testing. it remains unacceptable for any safety-sensitive employee subject to the d.o.t.'s drug testing regulations to use marijuana and continue to perform safety-sensitive duties in the federally regulated transportation industries. chairman michael, this continue clulds my testimony. i would be happy to answer any questions you or your colleagues have. >> thank you. and we'll hold questions. ron flage slshgs the director for the division of workplace programs at the center for substance abuse prevention, substance abuse and mental health administration. welcome and you're recognized. >> thank you. good morning, chairman micah, ranking member connolly, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. my name is ron flegel. i work at an agency of the department of health and human services.

i am pleased to speak with you this morning about our role as it pertains to the issue of drug testing for marijuana, particularly as it relates to drug driving. our mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on america's communities. we strive create awareness that behavior health is sennial for health, sprengs works, treatment is effective, and people recover from mental and substance abuse disorders. driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol continues to pose a significant threat to public safety. the administration has focused on four key areas to reduce drug driving -- increased public awareness, enhancing legal reforms to get drug drivers off the road, advancing technology for drug tests and data collection, and increasing law enforcement's ability to identify drug drivers. these efforts ree main the administration's focus for the upcoming year. samsa has several roles as it pertains to the issue of drug

driving. we conduct surveillance through the national survey on drug use and health. we provide funding for drug driving efforts, offer technical assistance, and evaluate focused efforts on the program. we administer the federal drug-free workplace program, which inclulds the random testing of national security, public health, and public safety positions within the executive branch agencies. currently, nine states are focused on drug driving prevention efforts using our grant funds. we also provides technical assistance, science, and training to states and communities and addresses drug driving if states and communities choose to make this a focus of their efforts or if the data suggests that drug driving is an issue in their state or community. our division of workplace program has a unique and nationally important regulatory role and technical assistance role and responsibility for

federal and nonfederal workplaces with respect to their drug-free workplace policies and programs. dwp has oversight responsibility of the hhs certified laboratories operating under the mandatory guidelines for federal workplace testing program requirements. the hhs certified laboratories conduct forensic drug testing for federal agencies under executive order 12564 in the federal drug-free workplace program issued by president reagan in 1986. and the supplemental appropriations act of 1987 public law 100-71 as well as specific federally regulated industries. the federal drug-free workplace program was established as a deterrent program incorporating detection as well as referrals for treatment as needed for federal employees in safety-sensitive positions while protecting national security and public safety. public law 100-71 directs hhs to

publish mandatory guidelines using the best available technology to ensure the reliability and accuracy of drug tests and to specify the drugs for which federal employees may be tested. established the scientific and technical guidelines for federal drug testing programs and establish standards for certification of laboratories engaged in drug testing for federal agencies and the regulations industries. currently 157 federal agencies are affected by the guidelines based on public law and executive order. the executive order covers approximately 2.2 million executive branch employees and job applicants. the department of transportation and nuclear regulatory commission use the samsa guidelines in their regulatory testing programs requiring testing in over 5 million safety sensitive employees and applicants in d.o.t. regulated transportation related industries nationally and in

additional 2 million employees and applicants in the nuclear industry. in the private nonregulated sectors, it is -- we have approximately 20 to 50 million americans that are tested as applicants or employees using some aspect of samsa's guidelines. currently urine is the only specimen a federal agency may collect under the guidelines for its workplace drug testing program. a federal agency must ensure that each specimen is test forward marijuana, cocaine, and is authorized to test each specimen for opiates and amphetamine. the guidelines are specific to testing of federal employees for the purpose of workplace vettings and do not directly govern issues related to drunk driving. however, the revised guidelines may impact testing for drunk driving through the provisions of scientific standards for oral fluid testing. the proposed revisions, the mandatory guidelines are still being finalized and will be posted in the federal register for public comment once completed. as i stated at the opening of my testimony, the issue of drunk driving continues to be a priority for samsa and the administration. samsa along with other federal

agencies continue to collaborate with state and local governments, nongovernmental organizations and federal partners to raise awareness of the dangers of drunk driving and meet the president's goal of reducing drunk driving in america. the administration continues to advance the work an this important issue and we look forward to continuing work with congress on these efforts. chairman mica, thank you for this opportunity. i welcome any questions from you or your colleagues. >> thank you. thank each of our witnesses. and we'll start a little round of questions. just again to give folks the most accurate information on the number of highway fatalities from 2001 to 2012, and this doesn't include 2013 but during those dozen years that i spoke of, 468,743 highway fatalities.

that's nearly 500,000 people and i'm sure if we include 2013, we would top that. that's just a phenomenal devastation. and that's fatalities. that's not injuries, property damage and everything that -- everyone in this room can probably name someone who has died or a family member in an automobile fatality. and again, with the changing laws, there are significant consequences. so mr. hart, again, where do you see us going as far as reaching some positive steps and one containing the issue and also adjusting our federal laws, our regulations, adopting standards

for tests. the whole spectrum of addressing these changing laws. maybe you can comment generally. >> thank you for the question. at the accident investigators when we investigate accidents and see indication of impairment, and as we have in every mode, then we are very concerned about the need for strong and decisive action. typically that will mean as you've heard from the other panelists, strong legislation, strong enforcement and good education and in addition, technology to help us with the detection. so we see that -- >> some of that has to be based on data. some of what we have is really not that up to date. and i think mr. michael testified, they started collecting some data as recently as 2007. and than you said 2013 data we had collected which we're going to do a comparison of.

but that has not been calculated. and when do you expect us to have that data? >> that is correct, mr. chairman. we have collected information in 2007 about the presence of drugs and specifically marijuana among drivers an the roadway. and we repeated that same data collection during 2013. we are now analyzing that, and it will be compared. >> my question was, when will we see that completed? >> we expect to have that information by the end of the year. >> well, if you could check even closer and advise the committee and maybe we could ask that question. i'd like to find out when we'll have that data. the next thing that comes to mind, most of the 23 states, my state may follow. florida has a initiative referendum coming in.

and other entities, state entities that may change their laws. do you plan or will there be a plan to check some of these states? now florida will change the law possibly and others have already changed the law. some have changed the law for some time. i am getting back reports on california that are -- a news reporter told me he went out and he said, it's a whole different world. again, much more dramatic than you would expect. it's not just medical marijuana use but it's spread. and he was telling me just the societal change in behavior change. so it's having impact. but i think we need to look at doing testing. those are the medical marijuana states. and each one of the languages may be a little bit different allowing more latitude.

but then you have colorado, which we have had some experience to date. but i think we ought to go in and look at colorado. washington is more recent. but where you have a change in law, if it's medical marijuana and again, change is brought about by that law. and then you have a much more lax use or legalization, as you have in colorado. do you have plans to go in and do some testing there? >> yes, sir. we are working with the state of washington currently. and using the same roadside data collection process that we've used across the country. looking specifically at washington before and after their legalizing the sale of marijuana to assess what affect that may have with the levels of use on the roadway.

>> again, i think we need accurate data. and than we need to adopt our federal regs and get to ms. kelly now. you have a whole host of areas in which we do some testing, but most of the testing is periodic, is it not, for marijuana use? >> our program covers pre-employment testing to start with. before someone enters the -- >> right, but then -- >> and then random. and then there is reasonable cause testing. there is post-accident testing. and then if someone is being positive -- >> the other thing again, too, in some of these states. and the marijuana medical use, there's again different language. and it's allowed more latitude than some states. people have taken advantage of that. are you going in and doing more testing, say in colorado or washington?

for example, pilots would be more exposed. commercial drivers would be more exposed. it's states where you have, again, the possibility of -- with liberalization of the law, are we taking some steps to try to ensure the safety of the public? and again, the transportation -- an airline pilot, a commercial one can be taking a couple hundred people in the air. a passenger rail. we didn't get into, in our headline here, pipeline safety or maritime or others, but they all pose different risk. tell us where you are going with these modes that put public safety at risk. >> we feel our program is effective. and the way our program is structured through the -- >> could i ask you to put that microphone closer to you? thank you. >> yes, sir. under the regulations, our

program is administered through the individual employers. >> it's historic. it's been developed, but it was -- and it's applied, but you're mostly talking in terms of how things have been in the past or -- but not how things are most recently and where we're going with this. >> we don't conduct the testing ourselves. we require the employers to conduct it. >> right. >> so many of our -- >> have you changed any of those requirements? >> no, sir, we have not. we've maintained under the regulations the -- >> the same old, same old. but see, that's my point. i think we're -- you have to go to risk base when you are doing most of these approaches to try to ensure safety. and pre-employment is one. we've done that in the past. we're doing that. now we have a new situation with much more of this la