today well over 80% of departments large and small have one. in the early 1980s, these agencies conducted approximately 3,000 deployment as year nationwide. today i estimate a very conservative figure of 60,000 per year. this is mostly for conducting drug searches on people's private residences. this is not to imply that 20 dptss are heading in this direction. but the research evidence along with militarized tragedies in modesto, georgia, ferguson, and tens of thousands of other locations demonstrates a troubling and highly consequential overall trend. what we saw played out in the ferguson protest was the application of a very common mindset, style of uniform, an appearance, and weaponry used every day in the homes of

private residences during s.w.a.t. raids. some departments conduct as many as 500 swat team raids a year, above it's the poor and communities of color that is most impacted. it is hard to imagine that anyone intended for the wars on crimes, drug, and terrorism to deinvolve into widespread police demilitarization. at the same time it's also hard not to seep7a"6wñi by declaring war, we have opened the door for outfitting our police to be soldiers with a warrior mindset. to conclude, i mention that police mill terization predates 9/11. this is not just an interesting historical fact. it's critical because it illuminates the most important reason or causal factor in this unfortunate turn in american policing and american democracy. it is the following. our long-running and intensely

punitive self-proclaimed war on crime and drugs. it is no coincidence that the skyrocketing number of police paramilitary deployments on american citizens since the early 1980s coincides perfectly with the skyrocketing imprisonment numbers. we now have 2.4 million people incarcerated in this country and almost 4% of the american public is now under direct correctional supervision. these wars have been devastating to the minority communities and the marginalized and have developed into a self-perpetuating growth complex. cutting off the military supply weaponry to our military police is the least we can do to begin the process of reining in police mill terization and intending to make clear the increasing employ blurred decision between the military and police. please do not underestimate the gravity of this development. this is highly disturbing to most americans on the left and the right. thank you.

>> thank you, dr. kraska. mr. lomax. you need to turn on your microphone. >> i'd like to thank everything members of this committee to have the opportunity to speak request you today. since its inception in 1983, the ntoa has served as a not at for profit-association representing law enforcement professionals and special assignments in local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. the mission of the ntoa is to enhance the enforcement of law enforcement personnel by providing a credible and proven training resource as well as a forum for the development of tactics and information exchange. american law enforcement officer recognizes probably more accurate lay than most that they're not in conflict with the citizens they serve to.

the contrary, the brave men and women of this profession willingly placed themselves between danger and the public every day at personal sacrifices to themselves and their families. this is evident by the law enforcement memorial walking distance from where we sit today. law enforcement agencies in the united states have taken advantage of the 1033 programs from its inception, but certainly at greater frequency after the terror attacks on september 11th, 201. dhs, doj grants, and the dod 1033 program alouis agencies to acquire the necessary equipment rapidly and at a considerable cost savings to the local tax-savings public. the 1033 program has allowed local agencies to acquire low duty heavy duty vehicles, forklifts, generators that improve operational capabilities and responder safety.

the threat that firearms pose to law enforcement officer and puppet incidents has proven that armored rescue vehicles have become as essential as individually worn body armoire and helmets in saving lives. more oth moreover, in the security document it is recommended that s.w.a.t. teams have tactical equipment including armored rescue vehicles in the event of a disaster. most tactical kmaernlds utilize these resources judiciously and are sensitive in a real and perceived appearance. however, it is not uncommon for agencies to take receipt and receive little or no training on,000 utilize it, when to deploy it, and equally as important, when not to deploy it. prior to obtaining equipment from the 1033 program or purchasing commercially

utilizing dhs grant monies, agencies are not mandated to demonstrate training levels for the use of that equipment. it is incumbent upon that agency to obtain the necessary training based upon regulatory or"#e voluntary compliance standards associated with such equipment. such training could take place at the requesting agency location. another challenge is that there are not enough specialized law enforcement teams developed specifically mobile field force teams in every jurisdiction around the country. consequently when a law enforcement administrator is faced with a disorderly event they often deploy the only resource they have immediate access to, the local s.w.a.t. team. it is important to note that 87% of enforcement agencies in the united states have fewer than 50 officers. with the exception of those who had prior civil disorder ee

sents, most have not invested in a mobile field force capability. there's also a general lack of training regarding civil disorder for tactic cam planners, public information officers and first line supervisors. this must change. the ntoa published an ntoa s.w.a.t. standards in 2001 which outlines the most base uk requirements for tactical teams in terms of operational capabilities, training, mamgts, policy vept, operational plans, and multi-jurisdictional response. the standard, however, is a voluntary compliance standard. subsequently many law enforcement leaders look -- view them as unfunded mandates. the ntoa's position, though, is that when an agency makes a decision to develop a s.w.a.t. capability it should also make the investment in training, equipment, and best practices that are required to support such an effort. again, on behalf of the 40,000 law enforcement professionals

that ntoa represents, i thank you for this opportunity to speak today on these current issues and challenges and look forward to answering the questions that the committee may have. >> thank you. mr. price. >> good afternoon. my name is why employ price. i'd like to first thank senator mccaskill for inviting me here today. the shooting death of michael brown, an unarmed teenager by a ferguson plefr on saturday, may very well become the turning point in moving forward in the way policing is conducted in this country, especially in neighborhoods of people of color. first, mandatory body cameras for officers patrolling our streets to ensure accountability for the way citizens are addressed during routine stops. this policy would allow us to

examine the methods police use during these steps. these are special challenges to policing in urban areas where there are strong feelings, often negative, about the conduct and the role of the police. there are strong feelings often negative about the role of the police. the uprisings in ferguson are an example of inemt police behavior at the heist decision-making level. it raises the question of how much force is appropriate to control a group of angry protesters armed initially with rocks, bottles, and later molotov cocktails. what police use to defend themselves at the early stage of the confrontation was a high level of military weaponry not often seen on the streets in the united states. what we saw were large military-style weapons including armored vehicles normally seen

on national news during conflicts concerning the middle east war zones. most americans would not be so shocked if this were a response to an overt terrorist attack on an american city. but not doing a spontaneous protest over the shooting of a young african-american male by a white police officer while walking in the street in the middle of the day. most believe that we can spend this kind of money on weapons -- i'm sorry, most believe that if we could spend this kind of money on weapons, why not use those same resources to better train the police in community policing and train them also in the best way to resolve conflict. if heavy military weapons are to be deployed they should be in the hands of competent high level police command. this show of military mite by

ferguson police only understood escalated the strong feelings that the police of the people are sworn to serve and protect. the days of unrest were followed by a growing protest from people who already felt disrespected and frustrated by the local law enforcement on daily 5grbasis. that concludes my statement. >> thank you, mr. price. mr. shelton.ç >> thank you very much, senator mccaskill, and thanks, senator harper and co-britain and all the others gathered here tore. i want to thank you for inviting me to testify on behalf of the nc ncaap on behalf of this important topic. the ncaap appreciates the needs of local government including law enforcement agencies to secure equipment as cost effectively as possible. we have supported increased resources in personnel for local police department since the founding of the association 105 years ago. over the last couple of decades

given the shrinking state and federal budgets and oftentimes increasing demands, the communities served by the ncaap seems to have suffered disproportionately from reduced state and local funding. our concerns are when military equipment, weapons of war are commonly used to vow avenge against those in our country with little or no oversight training and specific and clear integration when and how they are used in civilian circumstances. the tragic killing of michael brown in ferguson, missouri, the ensoaring protests and the result in demonstrations of force by local law enforcement attracted the attention of many to a future for a little known program the defense program's 1033 program by which the federal government transfers excess military equipment to state and local lawpi%a.fnpceme agencies. while many americans were rightfully upset by the ìc%

the race in america that this is a not a new phenomenon to most americans of color. the war on drugs and the war on crimes have been predominantly waged in ethnic communities and too arch against african-americans. since 1989 military equipment has been used by law enforcement agencies to fight the war on drugs, thus it should be nor surprise that they've grown accustomed of seeing weapons of war in our communities, on our streets, and even entering our homes. on saturday, august 9th. an unarmed college-bound teenager named michael brown was shot to death by a police officer in ferguson, missouri. according to every report the ensuing protest began peacefully. the people were angry admittedly and understandably outraged but initially peaceful. their protests were met by local law enforcement agents in mraps with military-style assault weapons aimed at them. the resulting impression on people in ferguson and

throughout our country and the world who were watching these events is these americans were being marginalized, that their concerns, anger, protests were not being valued or respected by local law enforcement. one cnn reporter said it looked more like belfast or the middle east than the heartland of america. thus the fact that population of ferguson is over 67% african-american has not been lost on many of the protesters nor on the u.s. or international observers. as a matter of fact, i was at the united nations when all this broke loose and they were asking me questions about ferguson. even people who could not speak english knew the word ferguson. so what steps does ncaap recommend in overseeing the association of law enforcement association. first we must change the paradigm which drives our criminal justice system. need to move away from the field of war on drug scenarios and law enforcement needs and be trained

to stop stereotype what they look like, the clothes they wear, and the neighborhood in which they live. if the program is allowed to continue it should be restructured and the equipment should be used not to pursue the flawed war on drugs or protests and demonstrations but rather it be used to promote the idea that law enforcement is designed to protect and serve the citizens who are within their jurisdiction. included the requirements must also be policies, training and oversight which includes the racial profiling act that's pending in the house and senate and that which is being prepared for reintroduction by congressman john conniers. secondly, all lawen forcement agency should develop their own internal policies and proof of these policies should be a requirement before any equipment transferral or funding occurs. and thirdly we need full

transparency and disclosure. state and local law enforcement agencies melissa also be required to publicly report on the equipment they have requested and received and the intended purpose. of justice's community policing, or cops program, and for increase in the funding of c.o.p.s. program. it's intended to incentivize better law enforcement practices through community engagement. it remains a primary vehicle through which the federal government awards on police transparen and accountability. in summation, american policing has become increasingly militarized through weapons and takttics designed for war. the lines between federal military force and civil law enforcement has become increasingly blurred. increasingly blurred. sadly the colors have born the brunlts of this. we need to correct this program,

not just check it. we need to continue to strive for democracy which also under americans can live and we shouln not allow any american community or government entity to be considered at war with any ereda other. i thank you again, chairman carper, co-britain, and hers h mcercaskill, and i certainly lo forward to your questions. >> thank you so much. go a i'm going go ahead and defer my questions and allow the other senators who are here go first.r senator coburn? >> thank you. thank you for your testimony. mr. buerrmann, at what point yoe do thing the federal lo government'sca enforcement of l. forcement begins? >> that's greats question. thing that one of the benefits of the federal government is trying to create a national co-heerns.ifficu that's a difficult place forlt e federal government to be. le there are leadership training os programs like the l national academy that the i puts on at the fbi academy that helps police leaders across the united states better understand these t

kinds of issues that we're ing b talking aboutou to, southward sd certainly that would be an gove appropriate role for the federal government. as somebody who used toed t be p police chief, i really appreciated the ability to acquire equipment in my department we used it primarilyr for vehicles and office offi equipment for oucer community policing stations or our tion recreation programs that we could not have afforded if the 1033 program hadn't existed. so from a local perspective, i e thought that was a wonderful wae for us to get a return on our da federal tax investment.with >> dr. kraska, i appreciate your coming. tell us the difference between n militarized and specialized military police force and a standing army. >> it's actually a bit of a complicated history i won't get

into too much but we have to osi remember the posse come tacy ac of 1878 had been in place for quite a long time until the t 1980s drug war and it wasn't until the 1980s drug war -- it d was the reagan administration that wanted to completely repeae the posse kamata ta as the, but what they did is allow it significantly for cross train g trainingtraining and weapons transference. we also have to remember the nt department of defense has been d very actively involved in training local police departments as well, not just providing them equipment but i' providing them training. -- gievet a great quote.ead it i'm not going to read it now bui if you ask me to read it will i will having army s.e.a.l.s and e rangers come to local police to departments and teach them and things. so it's notte just weapons transference. the federal government hasnt h g

increasingly sincely 9/11 playea significant role in acceleratini these trends toward mill terization. youand, know, the extent to whi the 1033 program, didn't of homeland security funds, et a, h cetera, have contributed to it,w i would certainly call it significant, but i think we have to remember that the militarized culture of a component of policing and it's just a component of policing, this sn't isn't a unified phenomenon in all of the police in the united states of america.a. hell, we havehe a police didn't right next to us, a lexington p.d., very smart, very wise, ery they don't do this kind of thine at all, and they would never doh it. so the policing community's a i bit split over this.er th and i don't want anybody to get the impression because of the e experts we've heard that policing is all for this stuff s because it's just not true. there are lots of folks that ren't.

anyway, back to federalization, i think the government's played a significant role in the last o 10 to 14 years. >> all right.s the rest of thei'll questions ie submit for the record so we can move on with our time. >> senator johnson? >> thank you, madam chair. my dr. kraska, what i have written down on my notes is versus operations. how much ofut it is about procedures responding to just events in society versus the acl actual equipment?m i mean what is really -- what's causing what? >> great question. of course,to difficult to answe. i do know that the mill began terization trend began as part of the drug war. it hasn't had anything to do ecn with that. it's had everything to do with h

prosecuting the drug war, and that's when we saw the precipitous rise in not only the number of s.w.a.t. units but the amount of activity. that's when we saw the departments doing 750 to a thousand drug raids per year ons people's private residences. we that's when we saw police he departments all over the country in small little localities sending off two or three officers to a for-profit training camp like smith & wesson or heckler and koch, epam gettingen training and coming bk to the department and starting e 15-officer police paramilitary unit with no clue what they were doing whatsoever. that all happened as a part of the drug war. have so i have a hard time making any sort of credible analyst that what we're seeing is just a reaction to an increasing insecure homeland situation. this stuff has been well in ll place and it's still absolutelyo

happening today in the same way it was in the 1990s and the >> 2000s. >> so, again, i'm coming from an manufacturing background trying to solve problems, going to the root cause.cau what i'm hearing because, againn in my briefing, this equipment transfer really first started from a defense authorization de billfe targeted at the drug war >> absolutely. >> we spent i know just the last three years because of a another hearing we spent $75 billion fighting the war on drugs. we're not conquering it, are we? so what -- what do we need to do? and i'll ask mr. lomax.max. i mean what do we need to do sou procedurally? what's the solution here? you, >> thank you, sir. the solution relative to the i equipment or procedures? >> if this is caused by the drut war, ifio the militarization isg

reaction to the drug war, you cs know, these no-knock raids are about drugs. what's the solution?l >> i think the solution starts at the top. leadership. the solution. comes from ecisio decision-making, policy, icy, procedures, getting back to what your initial question was to dr. kraska, the nexus between equipment and procedures, i think procedures comeoced first policy, dock men tarks transparency, decision-making. so, again, it's not the equipment per se. it's who's making those sions decisions on,000 use it, 000 deploy or when not to deploy it >> i mean is your evaluation -- are we making any progress on on the war on drugs at all?ed in we've been engaged this for decades now. ne again, that's a question that needs to be taken up by the th ledge laters in congress and the policy makers as far as how we're doing on the war on drugs. >> and i realize these questions

are somewhat removed from the militarization of the police force but again i'm looking on based on the testimony this is the reason this militarization began. mr. shelton, what is your solution? i mean, you know, on slis drugs have devastated communities. crime hass. devastated communities. >> it's got to change. the paradigm that we're par utilizing adnow, criminalizing the way that we are and actually putting people in prison along n these lines is outrageous. quite frankly it was mentioned by dr. krask. we've got 2.4 million americans in jail. most are nondrug violence u talk offenses. you talk about health care alth approach of the to drug problemn the united states and get away from much of the military mili approach to the dug problem in our community. i should talk about problems rsa with police officers and overaggression and police profiling. senator has a program called the profiling act that helps restore

the trufts and integrity. we know that will go many, many, miles toward the correction of fixing the crime problem in ourc society. it makes no senseie w to me tha have 79,288 assault rifles thatv were actually given by the department of defense to local police departments. 205 grenade launchers, 11,959 . bayonets. i'mo tryingfi too figure out w they're going to do with 3, 972m combaten knives.se. it makes no sense. >> again, war on drugs but now r war on crime. mr. shelton, a recent article written by mr. walter williams, he lists the statistic from 1976 to 2011. there's been 279,389 9 african-americans murdered. it's at a rate of about 7,000 per year. 94% of those murders are black on black. i mean that's a real crime problem that you have to be

concerned about. and by the way, i would think local police departments are tmn alsots concerned about. t. >> absolutely. as a matter of fact, the issue . of dealing with crimeue in the african-american community goes back to our founder 105 years ago, one of10 our founders, w.b dubois. it has to be addressed but it t cannot be addressed successfully if we have the distrust in police officers we see because i of programs like this one.we'r we're going to have to establish a new trust pattern in our y. country.very also i was very happy to hear a dr. kraska mentioned the issue.o those who are most affected in addressing the issues of crime e in any community throughout thi country are those that are reflective of those communities in which they're there to serve. all that has to be part of the paradigm.gm. the only time things began to , cool off in ferguson, missouri, quite frankly, is when the firnt can american attorney general of the united states went to show that the top law enforcement t officer in our country was theri and their concerns were taken very seriously. that works across the board. ka >> okay.

my time's running out. thank you, mad. >> thank youyi, senatorng t ayo >> one of the things i'm trying to understand is everything depends on the situation, would you agree with that, what is ppp appropriate in terms of a deploy, aal response and also i think it all comes down to appropriate training as to,000 respond to a situation because would you all agree with me that we're going to respond differently to a situation like the marathon bombing versus a rt situation like ferguson and part of that is training and what wet need to respond to those erent. situations may be different. [ inaudible ]po >> clearli policy in how to respond like that we experience in ferguson andover places.

policy, then training -- i'm rr. sorry., then policy, then training, and then accountability. those are the triangle that move this issue along. >> so one oftr the things i wand to follow up on this idea of, fw for example, s.w.a.t. teams because having been -- worked with the police in myhe state i, number of settings, they've responded -- they've had to respond to some pretty dangerous situations that did involve, for example, a drug -- a drug crimeu where you had, you know, high level individuals who were quite dangerous, quite armed, and tha it was the most appropriate thae a s.w.a.t. team respond because they had theca most training d of,000 deal with situation likee that versus sending, you know, r one patrol officer or a handful of officers that aren't oriented to dealing with a situation plea where you have, for example, an armed drug dealer, not t

necessarily user but somebody's who's profiting off the yo situation. then, you know , i've about bee to situations where we've had a hostage situation and we've hadm a s.w.a.t. team situation there where, you know, truthfully i m was glad that the s.w.a.t. teamy was there because they had h thg training and they trained particularly for hostage si situations thattu would allow t police to have the right training and to know how to negt negotiate, number one, to know how to handle a situation, not have bystanders harmed. so what i'm trying to understand is to make a broad brush of saying, you whknow, 60,000 s.w.a.t. operations, i think - that's a pretty broad brush, son i'm trying to get at from maybe all three of yu and the firnlt who have kmenled on this is when is it appropriate for us to -- t it seems like it's appropriate for us to have some individualsi who have this type of training because i've been there at these scenes with them where i would have wanted the right s.w.a.t.

team d trained to deal with the situation and we successfully ended situations because the th people thereha had the right training and weren't -- and trained for this specifically, f weren't just taking the patrol officer off the street to address it. so how do we discontintinguish that and this situation where, you know, the public is -- it'sr aot protest situation where it't people exercising their first is amendment rights and this isn'tu an easy question to answer but i think this is what we're grappling with here, particularly, you know -- particularly i think we've askep po post-9/11 in terms of what res response we've asked of them as first responders, and maybe we .ave sent mixed messages i know it's more a comment but . i'd like to hear your statement on some of those thoughts. >> senator, if i could start tia this off, what you articulated

-- it's great questiondi. ultimately it's the crux of thih discussion. because anybody who thinks're not going to have it is not to o paying a i tension to the realities of police officers. p as mr. lomax said, the memorialr not far from here has 20,000 00m names on it of heroic americans who gave their lives trying to protect their own communities. so there's a time and place for any one of these particular any tools. i think i made refr presence t the fbi's national academy.ounty one of the problems we have in n this country is althere's not ae national coherence about when w. should use these particular tools. you can find h out the hard way this is the rationale for doing critical incident reviews to understand those learning opportunities. but at the end of the day it comes down to leadership, whether that leadership is r ex expressed by the local city council that selected the policehimself chief by the police chief himself or herself that decides whether they should or should. have a tactical team and under what circumstances they should use that. if you leave it to the police

officers like any of us, they have a burning desire every dayo to go home to their families, and so much of their world is framed around the perception that what -- that what i'm about to do, the service of a search warrant could be dangerous. i have personally served lots o. search warrants.y >> not to interrupt you but in my own state in the last two years we lost one officer nt exercising a search warrant in n drug situation and we lost another one in a domestic an violence executing an arrest warrant. >> and i don't knowon' any polit officer who doesn't recognize ab thatod nobody made them become cop, that that is a voluntary occupation and they know the inherent risk in that.olunt the question comes in the balancing of this and i think many of the members of the panel have touched on this, that ultimately this leadership issut is ahe function of the relationship that the police dea department has with the community. professor kraska talked about t the police department next doore to him that has a great relationship thapd wouldn't do

certain things. at the same time, if they needed a tactical team, i have no doubo to protect their citizens or th their officers if they would employ that. it is when you use that in thatt common sense and that wisdom that comes from leadership and the proper training. that's where i think the federan government should spend a lot of its attention on,000 you stimulate that ability to do the right thing.>> >> oftentimes these kinds of conversations deinvolve into an either/or type of argument and g it's really critical to recognize that will are absolutely lots of situations, columbine, for example, where you have to have a competent inw professional response.have whatever you want to call them, you have to have that.wh no doubt, what i was talking i about was 60,000 deployments.plt i was not talking about 60,000 0 deployments for those situations. those situations are incrediblyo

rare. thank goodness.si they're incredibly rare. those situations absolutely require a competent response, active shooter, terrorist, whatever kind of situation. our research demonstrated conclusively that 85% of swat team operations today are pro active, choice-driven raids on people's private residences.85%. 85%. what that means ist that the og original function of s.w.a.t. in the 1970s was the idea that were s.w.a.t. teams were to save live lives. they were w to respond in a laudable way to very dangerous circumstances and handle the circumstances well. what happened during the 1980s and early 1990s' drug war is fle that functiodn flipped on its head. went from these teams predominantly doing reactive deployments, maybe one to two of

these in an entire municipality, one to two a year, smaller jurisdictions, probably something like that wouldn't happen in aen hundred years, b they were there to handle it. this has devolved now into what i'm talking about. widespread misapplication of the pair mi paramilitary model.wtma misapplication. unjustified growth, having many. many, many smaller police departments. most of these policese didn'ts e small. our research shows that 50% of these small police departments,h 50% are receiving less than 50 e hours of training per year for their s.w.a.t. team.ecomme thend recommended amount from t ntoa used to be 250.k they i think they've reduced it to 200.25 250 hours versus 50 hours. these are not well trained teams. these are a localized 18,000 police departments all doing ith their n own thing with no

oversight and no accountability, and that's why we're seeing and have seen hundreds of these kinds of tragedies that i've los mentioned but also lots of terrorized families that have eg been caught up in these drug operations and drug raids, thank you. >> thank you. anybody else? >> senator, just a couple of comments relative to the relati s.w.a.t. that you saw.ere there is a need like the panelists have discovered. the number one thing is to , mot preserve life, p number one whechblt you think of a s.w.a.t. team they thing of tactical ine s.w.a.t. team. as part of it you have securi intelligence, negotiator, security and so forth. goal again, the number one goal of s. the s.w.a.t. team, preserve life, whether it's the hostagesl civilians, even the suspect so, again, like what doctr. kra

said, the use has outreached this main purpose. but going back to the reason for the s.w.a.t. is those small particular situations that you u have personally observed where the training, the equipment, the expertise saved lives. >> thanks. >> thank you. senator ayotte? >> for mr. bueerm bueermann and lomax, i am very sensitive to os the cry that goes up about s. unfunded federal mandates, but n this is a little bit of a different situation. we are pushing in wholesale sh fashion military equipment to lo local police departments. sen do you sense that the police ule community would be offended if we put a few more rules of the e road on the ability to receive o these resources from the federal government? i mean why -- why wouldn't we

require that if you were going to get federal funding in this space that you would have to agh have 200at hours worth of trains and that the size of your polict department would be relevant too the decisions as to what you would receive and that a swats a team on a very, very small community, particularly one p 's that's a suburb where there could be regional access to specialists in the rare but ry, very, very important situation h where that kind ofat k training absolutely essential to protect life of innocent people and moss importantly the lives of the ffr police officers.s?why why can't we begin to do more with -- we're going to give youg money, with ee going to make you jump through a few hoops. is that something you think the police community would not accept and understand that thiso has gone too far? >> i've had this conversation with essentially police chiefs

since ferguson erupted and i k don't think that they would be alarmed by this. tlirng's an expectation that go there's going to be an the adjustment in the program and the thoughtful police chiefs and sheriffs that i've spoken to wol about this would agree with what you just said, that there needse to be some governing effect on the transfer of some of this equ equipment. i don'tip thifrg you have an objection other than the one you had earlier about the if you're giving away equipment you're neu buying it next year, how does that make sense.bout but certainly tactical ee kwumt whether that be armored vehicleh or gunsou should be connected a i made some suggestions. with a local public input public capacity, a i public hearing ab this. and some guidance from the go government relative to r accountability measurese like te body worn cameras or training issues because many of those arguments, local police chiefs would be making to their local l city councils and some of thosed

arguments fall on deaf ears.ea they can't get the councils to pay attention to them because there's a price tag attacked to that. i think you actually might bepr help manager police chiefs in the country elevate the level oe training they'd like to see their people receive. >> mr. lomax, and then i ool ask dr. kraska. >> yes. i agree with my colleague here that number one, for the vast mo majority orif chiefs and sherifs out there adding extra steps as far as documentation, policies, and accountability would not be a problem.oblem. i think in light of the fact afc that thist, program has done tremendous contribution to police departments in the last l 20-plus years, that right now t there definitely needs to be a paradigm shift, a way of ently. thinking differently because perception is reality and righte now the perception is there's a militarization of policing which becomes reality to a lot of people. tl added steps, whatever they may be for this 1033 program, i

think, would be a welcome sign l because also it would -- it it would kind of ensure training.tr and, aiagain, as jim mentioned,t will give them more power to say we need more training in order to procure this equipment. and also there needs to be local inp input. u believe senator johnson is mentioned this earlier, that this should be a local issue, ua from the local to the state, they should have information into the police departments about how they're properly equipped. >> dr. kraska? excuse me for being a professorr and talking on and on so i'll read the thing i had written before hopefully pretty quickly. if it were possible to reprovidl funds and programs that pro e provide add smalle tightly wreo lated component of u.s. police to obtain military grade equipment for the extremely rarc terrorist or active shooter situation perhaps these programs might be of some benefit.t.

however, the myriad and unavoidable unintended consequences of such programs render them not just dubious but dangerous. military gear and garb changes . and reinforces a war-fighting mentality among civilian police where marginalized populations o become the enemy and the police perceive of themselves as a thin blue line between order and tt chaos that can onto be gh controlled through military the modeled power. c the ethic, the massive policingd reform programs intend to that s instill in american policing, m, that is an ethic of empowerment. democratic accountability, all o those kinds of things have been smoothly displaced by military n paradigm. a recent edition in copps r magazine by the director of copps said very clearly, he e si said, we're seeing the growing militarization of american g iof policing lead to the destruction

of community policing. so it's a cultural prop. it's not just a regulation, you know, let's put a few tweaks and bumps here. when you hand these departmentsd this level of weaponry and thess goods, it changes their mindset. remember, most of these s have departments have 25, 30, 50 officers. 15 of them serve on s.w.a.t. team. now they have an mrap, an ier, armored personnel carrier, a $325,000 armored personnel carrier paid for by homeland d security. what do they sayecur to themsel? here's an example.ons we have racial temgss at the basketball game. we're going to bring the mrap ti the basketball game on fridayda night. that's a quote. changes their mindset. se so i can't see a way that the transference of military goods from war time to our civilian police agencies is ever a good idea. >> it's interesting you say that because just in preparing for

this hearing we took a look at a search fon amazon for police officer toys and what came up - and it's in the packet of of pictures that we're -- the next picture, the one with the -- yeah. this is theth first thing that came up. this is a helmet, a hand ficers grenade.s ar obviously nothing ha that we ft thought was traditional of plirch. this is what parents are buying for their children who are saying they want to grow up to be police officers., in so this is something that has gotten into our culture that is very, very damaging, and i -- i do not -- speaking of communityy policing, i -- i have watched an community policing has gone down and down and down.way, and by the way, the homeland ts security grants have not gone -

in fact, theho homeland securit grans are bigger than communityo policing. so why is it i that i don't hea as muc h from my police unitie communities and the lobbying organizations about the cuts to community policing like i do when there's any talk about yeus or homeland security grants. -- why doesn't there appear to be e the human cry?commun we need the voices of the police community lobbying for policingh money. i watch dmunltsli policing works a prosecutor. i watched it work with a drug problem, a serious drg problem, that and drug court were two things that really were working in kansas city. the so what do you attribute the fact that the policing communite doesn't seem to be as worried ab about the funding for community

policing as they are for some f these streams of funding that are buying all of this weaponry. >> this is a cultural aspect of policing. but it i also is the resp responsibility of every every american, quite frankly, to say to their locally elected people, this is what we expect from our police department. we expect our police didn't to b bee one that is fair and equitable, that treats everyone with dignity and respect as thei same time as they grapple with difficult and challenging th situations. the best counterterrorism strategy in the united states than do is cal police community policing. abs there is an absolute need and vy you've heard it from everybody f that's up here today in front o you to co-produce public safety between the police and the wi community, and that will never happen if there's distrust, if e the police departments don't te reflect the community they e serve, if we don't have a t constant discussion.. if there is any silver lining o

that comes outut of the events ferguson, it is that we begin u this discussion that should have happened probably in 1997, not in 2014, about how we use this equipment, whether it comes from a federal program or out of a city's general fund in an appropriate way that doesn't 't damage the relationship the po police have with the community.t if we d dot 'do not do that, th we shouldn't be surprised if we that becomes the norm sometime w in theha future. >> what about the idea that thie be in the active shooter situation or hostage situation i or terrorism situation that some of this equipment be housed on a regional basis under the control of the state and national guards to then as an access point that would provide more accountability as is utilized and would require that it wouldn't be utilized by anyone who hadn't had appropriate training and it would only be utilized in those circumstancess where it really would save livef and protect police officers as

opposed to the incredible change we've seen that these are now, e okay, we've got this thing in the shed. to let's figure out some way to get out and use it. >> i think you have just articulated the reason we should study this particular file moreo at the same time we're trying to work on solutions because we don't know enough about how this equipment is used. we heard that from the earlier w panel. >> by the way, the justice department said they do.. they just know that it's being bought. >> we should spend more money. i think you make aal good point about regionalizing certain ler kinds of assets and there are th lessons we can learn from other fields and this could easily be, i think, one of the guidelines t that's attached to this kind of programming that you have to demonstrate what the regional s approach is to using this kind of equipment and we see that already in some other federal da programs but this should be a regionalri asset and not necessarily a localized asset.e but the problem is there's depr 17,000 police departments in united states.

each one has a slightly ent different challenge inch front them and so there needs to be a thoughtful approach to this that ties this stuff together and thk think that t ensuring that the l locally the locally elected body weighs in on this.ocal local communities have an o community opportunity to voice their opinion, whether this makings sense or doesn't make es sense for us to have this more particular piece of equipment. means there's a much more greater likelihood that you're going to see a regional an aappropriate to this when you're going to see one officer department. >> or 13 assault grade rifles for one sworn officer. that obviously is almost comical, it's so out of balance. you know, one of the things that i witnessed in ferguson and i would like you to weigh in on en this mr. price, the chicken and egg situation that really occurred where you had a you

spontaneous demonstration, the vast majority of which was very peaceful, beginning on saturdays we didun have some looting on sunday night, but aside from thd looting on sunday night, the vast majority of it was peacefut up until the following weekend a when you began to see a whole n lot of people embedded among the peaceful protesters that were tr there for a confrontation.my and there's no question in my mind that the idea that all of this equipment was brought out early in the week, contributed u to a mentality among the peace peaceful protesters that they t were being treated as the enemy. >> that's correct. re >> that they were the enemy. >> yes.ct. >> thatth this was a military force and they were facing down an enemy. and these were peaceful protesters that in america weret supposed to beo celebrating as part of our constitutional heritage.nstitalk talk about, mr. price, how the

freedom of the press worked in here.in what were the challenges that you faced as you were there wita your camera day in and day out from being able to cover what of was going on because of that mentality that was almost a siege mentality that began really on monday following the shooting on saturday? >> well, senator, one of the bih problems i had with the police s was that sometimes they lumped the media in with the protesters. particularly during the daylight hours when they took on a polict of no standing protester or media could be found stationary. and the problem is, you have us locked into a two-mile plus t be radius and you want us to keep n in, motion. i was thinking once they do slow

down, you have a number of people in one location there's 80 or 100 people standing there, and you're being asked to move, and also they're asking the photographers to move along with them.e cn and there was a tussle from time to time. you can see a couple of c nrks nrn reporters getting in a skufl. st now you're going to keep them in motion and you want the media to go with them. and i felt like they were aggravating the situation as opposed to keeping it peaceful.t >> i'm assuming tactical officers received training about when putting in this kind of military presence when -- during daylight hours when you've got lots of children and elderly, i. mean, this crowd yes, there were some young people in the crowd.w

but it was the middle of the afternoon. and you had a mounted sniper weapon pointing at people that never, ever, envisioned having s someoneom point a sniper weapon this person was -- this happened on wednesday afternoon and it was about 3:00 in the afternoon. 3:0 that that occurred.in t so is there somewhere in the training that that would be appropriate under beat those circumstances? senator, i'm not sure the particulars of what was going on at that time. ho hopefully the doj investigation and other investigations will ih determine what was goingat on, t because a lot of times, there may be intelligence out there that something's going on that b maybe we don't know what's happening. so -- >> believe it or not, i was told

that the reason that happened was that he was using his scope in order to observe the crowd. have they heard of binoculars?w, you know? i mean, it seems to me there is a better way to monitor a crowds that is peacefully protesting than pointing mounted sniper th weapons at them under those moue circumstances. it mean iton seems common sense would tell you that's going to make the situation much worse, > not make it better. >> yes, you're right. >> i was told that he was up vee there in order to observe the crowd. >> correct. >> most police departments that handle civil protests correctlya know that the last thing you ng want to do is instigate. how you sit back and you don't antagonize, if you might, i'll h throw out one speculation, i'm

willing to speculate before the doj report comes out. i think what you saw is a high level of fear of victimization among the police.al and it's a huge cultural issue m right now in policing, where so many for profit training groups and training academies are teaching this survivalist warin mentality, and you never know who the next person is who's going to kill you, and you have to go home at night, so you take every possible precaution you can. all of that sounds wonderful, but itit d does lead to an inte fear of the other. of those people.ommunity of the community you're serving. >> and there were some looting on saturday night. lets be fair here.law it wasn't like this activity wal completely lawful. there was a lot of unlawful activity that i think really shook the bones of the law enforcement community in this arean that they would have that kind of lawlessness. so that is something that we have to be very fair, we have to

factor that in to their response. >> absolutely, butbs i would hao to say, you have to look at a situation, look at hurricane te katrina, where the initial response from fema was not not t what's been traditionally done in this great country, which is humanitarian aid. the initial response from fema,e under the department of homeland security, was this is a security threat. and they spent three, almost four full days supposedly securing the area, later of w which we found out was false. that there wasn't an area to secure.peop people were in dire need of help.help securing the area before. they gave humanitarian aid, that's the kind of mentality i'm talking about.that's it's a security first, aid second mindset. which is also what our good said friend said down the table. >> right, right.omething did you have something you wanted to add, mr. price? >> yeah, in the picture that yo just showed. the distance between the police and the

protesters was probably probaby 100 feet. >> very small. >> very small. so i mean, when they were st standing there, even when the police were -- you could clearl hear what everyone was saying pe fro the police department, as far as moving back, disbursing,h the useen of a scope, even whene that truck pulled up. all the batons are saying what h is this for. we k began to think something w going on behind the scenes thatr we didn't know about. >> you just assumed it wasn't for you?e, >> yeah. and we were wondering why the truck was there because again it brought up system that there wae something going on that we did not know.questi other photographers were questioning each other about what was going on.t and thison went on for three or four days. and again, the police aggravatel peaceful marchers when they were just standing there chanting, instead of just letting them an chant. and you have them in this ed stationary environment, they

moved them a around, we're tahir irritated e.them, that's all it did. >> i want to thank you for bein here, we will follow up with d another subcommittee hearing on this subject, and i would cert certainly ask for you to begin working on what you think based on you r knowledge of the police community in this country, what would be reasonable changes in policy that would begin to get us back to a place where we have not done -- where somebody, a young man who wants to grow up p to be a police officer think t what is he needs to get as part of his uniform is a hand grenad grenade. obviously that's a problem.e.y, and i would like us to work on that together, we will continue to work with all of you who have come today, certainly the naacp is part of this national discussion and obviously i'm ond the ground in ferguson, a lot, trying to figure out how we ver,

navigate through a very, very difficult road ahead as we to figure out how to regain trust n in that community with that tht police department.ment. the great people of ferguson, deserve to have a police ic department that they feel comfortable with.ehatable and so there's a lot of work yet to do. but the hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until september 24th at 5:00 p.m., fo. the submission of any other statements and any other questions for the iorecord.n o if there's any information you all would like to provide for the record, be sure and get it t to us before then and we will remain in contact with you as we work on this problem. thank you very much. coming up tonight on cspan

3, an oversight hearing on challenging facing ig investigations. then a discussion on u.s. russia relations, as followed by a panel on the israeli palestinian conflict. later a look at housing challenges caused by an increase in the aging population. next, the inspectors general for the peace corps, justice department and epa discuss the challenges they face in conducting investigations. the igs testified before the house oversight and government reform committee about a(dx let signed by 47 igs, outlining their concerns. this is two hours.5d the committee will come to

order. without o, the chair is authorized to have a recess at any time. the oversight committee's -- first americans have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent. and second, americans deserve an official, effective government that works for them. our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights, our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers. because taxpayers have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent. it's our job to work tirelessly in partnership, as citizen watch dogs and, yes, the ig watch dogs to deliver the facts to the american people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy, this is our mission statement. on august 5, 47 inspectors

general, 2/3 of the ig community sent an unprecedented letter to congress describing serious limitations on access to records, that have recently impeded the work of the inspectors general. section 6a1 requires agencies to provitd and i quote, full and timely access to agency records to their respective inspector general. anything less than full corporation of course is unacceptable. these government watch dogs play a key role in improving the government's efficiency, honesty and accountability. they conduct oversight and investigations and audits to

prevent and detect waste, fraud and mismanagement within government agencies. their work often protects life of federal workers and the american people. al they help congress shape legislation and target our oversight and investigative activi activities, but let there be no doubt, they are executive branch employees who in fact were created by an acts of congress and signed by a president so that the tools that they provide are available to the president of the united states to run our government better. the igs have proven to be one of congress's and the american people's best investments. in the last fiscal year, the ig community used their $2.7 billion budget to identify potential cost savings to taxpayers totaling about $46

billion. that means that for every dollar in the total ig budget, they identified approximately $17 in savings. access is key to that kind of savings. but i make it very clear, many of the investigations including some you will hear today are not about money. they're far more valuable. they're about liberty. they're about your government not trampling on your rights. so when agencies withhold information and their records from these watch dogs, it impedes their ability to conduct their work thoroughly, independently and most of all timely. it runs up the cost to both sides of the ledger, the inspectors general spent many, many, many millions of dollars temperatu simply trying to get access,

what your government spends millions and millions of dollars trying to impede. this is one of the greatest wastes we can possibly have. when agencies refuse or deny access to the agency's records, it undermines the intent of congress and the ig's abilities to oversee these respected agencies. today we're going to hear from three widely respected igs who have experienced challenges accessing the necessary records to what they do in their work. at the justice department, the inspect general cannot gain access to grand jury documents or national security related documents without approval from the deputy general of the federal courts. requiring such permission compromise s and impedes ig's investigations. at the chemical safety board, they have denied the epa

inspector general, mr. elkins, access to certain documents on the basis of attorney-client privilege. but who is the attorney and what is the privilege? mr. elkins is in fact the same entity that is in fact the client. he is in fact part of the defined client, which of course is the epa. further, several offices within the epa itself, including the epa office of homeland security have interfered with the oig's investigations themselves. and perhaps most disturbing to me personally, and i spoke to the vice president last night and i believe he was equally disturbed. at the peace corps, they have refused to provide the inspector general, ms. fuller, access to information related to sexual assaults on peace corps volunteers absent a memorandum of understanding.

let's understand, last night, we honored and celebrated the 20th anniversary of the enactment of violence against women, designed to do just the act opposite, to ask women to come forward and report their assaults. if in fact the ig cannot oversee a possible pattern of failure to protect women, then we need to ask women to come forward with the record of their assaults. but in all instances, it is the committee's position, that these agencies should and must cooperate with the inspectors generals request for information. during the 113th congress, the committee has investigated several instances including the ones facing these watch dogs in which agency leadership undermined the effectiveness of the inspectors general. the committee has held several hearings on this issue and facing these inspector generals

over the past year. the committee has also conducted a deposition of the peace corps general consul to address the access issued -- the access issue at the peace corps. and quite frankly, i look forward to the departure of the general council as part of the problem. neither this committee nor the ig community should be wasting time and resources attempting to gain access to records, which the igs have not just a legal entitlealment to but a sworn obligation under the igf. for nearly six years we have seen this efforts, it says to fight transparency and block investigations by journalists, congress, but that's not what we're here for today.

we're not here because the press washl wants to snoop. we're not here because article one, the congress, is trying to look over the shoulder of the president and his administration. we're here because the more or less 12,000 men and women who work for these igs and the others not here today, part of this president's team for efficiency, transparency and an honorable service by all has not been getting what they wanted. it is my intention upon the end of this hearing, to write with my ranking member, if at all possible, a letter to the president urging him to use his executive order capability to resolve this question once and for all. notwithstanding that, i want to thank our three witnesses here today. and i want to assure you of one thing, after you testify here

today, and for all 47 igs who wrote, i will be looking, i know my ranking member will be looking to make sure that in fact no retribution, no punishment is allowed for your coming forward and expressing your concerns under your importa responsibility under the ig act. we do have a response from the executive -- in response to my letter and i'll place it into the record at this time without objection, so ordered and we recognize the ranking member for his opening statement. >> i want to thank our witnesses for testifying here today, i want to also thanning mr. chairman for calling this hearing. let me start off by saying, what the chairman said with regard to retribution, i agree with, you have come, you do a phenomenal job, a very important job.

and every member of this committee, both sides of the aisle, if we hear about any repercussions from you being here, we will be on it. and deal with it effectively and efficiently. regarding waste, fraud and abuse is a central tenant of this committee, and we take this mission very seriously. i'm a staunch defender of the igs and the authorities. for example in 2013, i sent a bipartisan letter to the president. i was joined by chairman issa, and the ranking member of the national security subcommittee. in that letter, we pressed the president to finally nominate an inspector general at the state department, a position that had remained vacant for five years. i have also supported

legislation to help igs do their job for effectively and efficiently. such as the ig reform act of 2008. last month after receiving the letter from 47 igs, i co-signed a letter with chairman carpenter and ranking member coburn and in the government affairs committee. and chairman is a, we expressed our concern about access issues raised by three igs testifying here today from the peace corps, the department of justice, and the environmental protection agency. when congress passed the inspector general act in 1978, section 6 of that legislation authorized igs to have very broad access to agency records. this provision was intended to give igs wide latitude to

conduct their audits and investigations. congress -- in addition some contend that other federal laws make conflict with this broad random authority and that that is also a concern that we will be discussing today. first we have the peace corps, in 2011, congress passed and the president signed the volunteer protection act. this law requires the peace corps to establish a confidential system for volunteers to report sexual assault crimes. when the ig sought access to this data in order to prepare a report, also mandated by congress. the peace corps raised a question about providing the personal identifiable information of sexual assault victims which was supposed to be confidential.

the agency signed a memorandum of understanding, provitding the ig with access to all information, except personally identifiable information and explicit details of the sexual assaults. i understand that this agreement does not address all the igs access concerns. but i believe it is a very good start when we have two potentially conflicting factors like this. next the department of justice and inspector general has expressed concern that when he seeks access to sensitive law enforcement information, such as grand jury and wiretap information, he must go through a lengthy approval process at the highest levels of the department. the igs testimony for today says the department has granted access to the records in every case. but it contends that the lengthy delays erodes his independence.

according to the department, several other statutes restrict the release of sensitive information such as grand jury and wiretap material. so they must be carefully analyzed and we have to look at that. my understanding is that the department has now asked the office of legal council to review the issue. i applaud the ig for working through this process with the agency and i look forward to olc's review. finally the environmental protection agency ig has raised two concerns. the ig reports that the epa's office of homeland security has been denying the ig access to classified threat material. and failing to recognize the igs statutory authority over trugss into epa computer networks. democratic staff has been working with both sides to mediate this issue and on june 19, epa administrator mccarthy

proposed a frame work for better cooperation. at this point, my understanding is that the ig still has issues with the proposal. so i hope we can spend some time today hearing about those concerns. lastly, the dispute between the epa ig and the chemical safety board seems to me the most problemat problematic, the ig has been trying to obtain documents from the csb chairman, but the csb still has not furnished all the requested documents. all throw the csb had compiled substantially with requests, documents still remain outstand. i hope we can work with you closely on a bipartisan basis, to solve 24 issue. let me close by making one observation. as we have seen, many of these issues involve several laws that appear to conflict.

and some have raised the possibility of legislative fixes. i believe this idea should be considered very carefully. i will not hesitate to pursue statutory clarification if necessary, the last thing the igs need is for legislation to be introduced and fail which could have the unintended effect of diluting their authority. for these reasons mr. chairman, i appreciate your commitment to work with me and my staff in developing bipartisan and widely supported legislative reform proposals, my staff and i have done a -- to try to solve the challenges constructively and with that i yield back. >> i think the ranking member, all members will have seven days to submit opening statements for the record. we now welcome our distinguished panel of witnesses, the honorable michael b. horowitz is the inspector general of the

u.s. department of justice. the honorable arthur a. elkins jr. is the inspector general of the u.s. environmental protection agency. and the honorable ms. kathy a. fuller is the inspector general of the peace corps. lady and gentlemen, pursuant to the committee rules, would you please rise to take the oath. raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you will give today will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? please be seated. let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. since you're all skilled professionals, and mr. horowitz, since you're less than 24 hours from a similar event, you know that we would like you to keep your opening statements to five minutes, summarize in any way you can and that your entire opening statement will be placed into the record without objection.

with that, mr. horowitz, you're up. >> thank you, mr. chairman, congressman cummings, members of the committee. thank you for inviting me to testify today at this very important hearing. goes to the heart of our mission to provide independent and nonpartisan oversight. that is why 47 inspectors general signed a later late last month to congress expressing their concerns about this issue. i wants to thank the members of this committee for their bipartisan support in response to that letter. the ig act adopted by congress in 1978 is crystal clear, section 6a of the act says that inspectors general must be given complete and timely access to all rorz. by some agencies have not read section 6a and therefore have refused our request during our reviews for relevant grand jury,

wiretap and other information, a number of our reviews have been significantly impeded. in response to these legal objectations, the department attorney general granted us permission to access the records by finding that our reviews were -- in future audits and reviews. however there are several significant concerns with this process. first and foremost, the process is inconsistent with the clear mandate of section 6a of the ig act. the attorney general should not have to order department components to provide us with access to record records that congress has made clear we have a right to review. second, requiring the inspector general to obtain permission from department leadership seriously compromises our independence. the oig should be deciding which documents it needs access to. not the leadership of the agency that is being overseen. third, while current department leadership has supported our ability to access records, agency leadership changes over

time and our access to records should not turn on the views of the department's leadership. further we understand that other department components that exercise oversight over departments programs and person nell, koochbt to be given access to these same materials without objection. this december per rat treatment is unjustifiable and results in the department being less willing to provide material to the oig presumably because the oig is staff forly independent and -- lack of independence from the department's leadership, which can only be addressed by granting the statutorily independent oig to investigate all the alleged misconduct at the department. indeed, the independent -- made the same recommendation in a report in march of this year and bipartisan legislation introduced in the senate would do just that this past may the department of leadership asked

this council to address an opinion addressing the legal objections raised by the fbi and other department components. it is imperative that the olc issue it's decision promptly because the existing practice at the department seriously impairs our independence every stay we do our work. more over, in the absence of a resolution, our struggle to access information in a timely manner continues to seriously delay our work. it also has a substantial impact on the morale of the oig's auditors, analysts, agents and lawyers who work extraordinarily hard every day. far too often they face challenges getting timely access to information. including even with routine requests. for example in two ongoing audits, we had trouble getting organizational charts in a timely manner. we remain hopeful that olc will issue an opinion promptly saying that oig -- however, should an

olc opinion conclude otherwise and interpret the ig act in a manner that results in limits on our ability to access information, we will request a prompt legislative remedy. for the past 25 years, my office has demonstrated that effective oversight saves the department money and improves the department's operations. access to information have substantial consequences for our work and lead to incomplete, inaccurate or significantly delayed findings oreck men dayses. i cannot emphasize enough how critical it is to get these pending access issues row solved promptly. hopefully olc will issue shortly an opinion finding that 6a of theng what it says. this concludes my prepared statement and i will be happy to

answer any questions you may have. >> thank you and you'll yield back the one second. >> i'll yield backs the one second zblvm good morning, chairman issa, i an arrethur elkins. thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. i would like to take this opportunity to publicly commend the office of inspector general staff across the federal government who work hard each day to carry out our important mission. as the committee is aware, for more than a year, this oig was con fronted with the denial of access by the csb. the csb's leadership asserted that the denial is based on attorney-client privilege. we countered that -- inspector general act. with that impairment of my office's ability to provide oversight of the csb continued. we resorted to the rarely invoked seven-day letter. this committee held a hearing on the seven-day letter and related

issues on june 19 at which you stated the csb to turn over the documents to the oig within a week. the csp has since sent several documents to the oig. the csp has not fully ---there are aadditional documents within the scope of our request, that csb officials have not provided. in addition to the csb matter. the epa office of homeland security continues to impede the investigations of this oig. we provided testimony on that subject before this committee on may 7. while there are multiple facets to this problem, the crux is this. the epa asserts a belief that there is a catory of activity that is defined as quote unquote intelligence to -- only if the epa determines the oig access is permitted. this impairment by the epa was ongoing when i arrived four

years ago and it is still not resolved. i wouldlike to discuss how well the ig act is -- accomplishing goals that congress set in passing it more than 35 years ago. on august 5, i joined with 46 other igs in sending a letter to this committee as well as other congressional members discussing the troubling push back many of us have been experiencing from our respective agencies wen we seek mandated access to employees and records. we asked congress for a strong reaffirmation of the original and still existing intent of the oig act, that igs have unfettered access to information that assist us in obtaining kplomt and -- questions about whether the ig act is accomplishing congress's goals and whether the act needs strengthening or clarification are not hypothetical to me. they are questions with real world impact on my ability to

carry out my mandated functions. you might think therefore that i would say without reservation that the ig act requires some enhancements on access and agency cooperation. however, i want all of us, igs and congress included to be very careful about what i am saying and what i am not saying on this issue. the act as written is quite strong and quite clear. it provides access to all agency information and all agency employees. there are no exceptions. not for material that an agency asserts can not be further released outside of the oig once the oig does receive it and not for some piece of activity that might happen to involve classified information. no courts, no congressional committees and no opinions from the department of justice's office of legal council have given any cause for concern that the requirement for access to all information means anything other than all.

any attempt to clarify or strengthen that authority suggests that it's not already strong and fullably encompassing, the ig act hinges on the cooperation of its agents with an ig. if there is not prompt and complete cooperation, the work of the oig is stifled. in there regard, the ig can be compared to a house of cards, if you pull out the agency cooperation card, the entire thing collapses. access and cooperation already required. the ig act is fine as wring. the agency's ability to ignore the act without consequence is the problem. this oig will be happy to work with your staff on solutions to address or address concerns. i believe that congress can send a strong and needed missaj through legislative enhancements that such impairment will not be tolerated. mr. chairman this concludes my

prepared statement and i will be pleased to answer any yeses you or the committee may have. >> thank you and you yield back four seconds? >> yes, i will, thank you. >> ms. fuller. >> chairman issa, ranking member cummings, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to be here before you today and allowing me to give my prepare # statement. i testified about this issue before your committee on january 15. and while progress has been made, thanks in part to your efforts, some challenges remain. our access issues stem from the peace corps's interpretation of the volunteer protection act of 2011 which congress enacted after serious reports that the agency failed to adequately respond to volunteer victims of sexual assault. so enhance the peace corps's response to sexual assaults, the act mandates the creation of a stricter reporting mechanism so

volunteers can confidentially disclose the details of they assault and get the treatment they need. without offering any personal information. peace corps's general council has written a legal opinion saying that their -- causing the agency to establish policies and procedures that deny oig access to information. in the case of restricted reports, the agency argues that the act prehints the agency from disclosing to oig any details of a sexual assault or the victim's pii. however the act authorizes disclosure when required by law and the law mandates an extensive oversight role to my office. ma in may, my office -- on take some information from restricted reports f agreement can be terminated by either party at any time. but we signed it so that we could get some information while continuing to seek agency or congressional action. although the agreement improves

our access, i am concerned about my office having to enter into an agreement to get information we are entitle to by law and that we need to do our job. i am also concerned that the agency's legal opinion authorizing it to withhold information from the oig remains in place. this legal opinion sets a dangerous precedent whereby an agency may interpret a law as overriding the ig act, forcing it's ig to spend it's limited resources and time wrangling with the agency to on take information. many have squd why we need full access to restricted reports. the answer is simple. without full access we cannot properly inform the agency or congress whether the agency complying with the act and whether the agency's response to swaumts is getting better or worse. further more the act mandates that my office conduct a case review of a statistically significant number of cases

without full access to information, it's very difficult for us to complete this review and ensure that volunteers a ss receiving the services that they need. on august 5, 47 igs signed a letter to congress expressing concern over our access issues, recognizing the implication of agencies refusing, restricting oar delaying access to ig's access to documents. peace corps told "the washington post," it is, quote, committed to working with the inspector general to ensure rigorous oversight while protecting the confidentiality and privacy of volunteers who are sexual assaulted, end quote, suggesting that privacy and oversight are mutually exclusive, they're not. my office is bound by the same confidentiality rules as the agency. it is trained and experienced in handling sensitive information and there is no cited reported of my office ever handing such

information. the agency has also suggested that fewer volunteerings would report sexual assaults if oig had access to the information. but when pressed for a factual basis for this assertion, the agency had none. as a daily beast reported, quote, it's hard to imagine a case where volunteers decline to report sexual assault because the agencies internal watch dog will be provided information to determine there is no negligence or wrong doing, end quote. the agency argues it's policies and procedures are victims seng trick. but what could be more victim centric than provooitding independent oversight of victims care? we ask that congress reaffirm what is said in the ig act, the ig act we also believe is very plain on its face and the legislative effort also strengthens that intent.

but there are individuals like our general council who have taken it upon themselves to introduce another piece of legislation to overr50id that act. we request that congress and this committee take a look at reaffirming what the igf says, and make sure that everybody is on the same page. thank you for asking me to testify before you and i'm prepared to answer any question. >> and you yielded back 12 seconds, so i have never had a more professional panel. i commend you all. we do a lot of hearings here that are partisan. as you know, this isn't one of them. so one of the challenges here is asking the first and most difficult question, which is from each of your experiences, when did this begin and what do you think the source is? and to the extent that you can say time and date and if you will, accountable individual,

who you think is the decision maker or the impediment, i would like that answer as sus fingtly as possible. >> in my case i think it's very easy to pinpoint the time and the person. the passage of the act mandating the restricted reporting, the person was the general counsel. basically he's taken the opportunity to interpret the act to impede our access. >> mr. elkins? >> in my case, i have two agencies that i overski, the csb and the environmental protechation agency. in both cases i have to say that -- issues relative to access starts at the top. with a clear message from the top that access will be granted, it will be granted. to the extent that there's a mudled message for the message

is not clear, you end up in situations that we have here today. some of the -- on the csb side of the house, the issues started back in 2010, 2011. on the epa side of the house, some of the issues that we're dealing with today actually started before i even came on board. so this has been an ongoing sort of matter. but to answer your question directly. it starts at the top. clear message from the top, what the expectations are, that's the way the rest of the troops will march. >> thank you mr. horowitz. >> our issue started in 2010, it started in 2010 with the fbi, raising objections, other components have now joined in and there's a long list of them that have stayed me too in interpreting that section 6a doesn't mean what it says. >> so with the fbi, thinkings they can beat your oversight,

but with any infection, you're being shut out systematically? >> if there's a way to do that, that's what happen. >> we were over with the judiciary along with other members. i think you testified that on six occasions, the attorney general or the deputy attorney general has intervened when you have been denied and 8-multimat allowed use to get some of the information? >> yes, sir. >> so in your case, it's delay and impeding and in fact some of the benefits of an expedient investigation more than outright denial, is that correct? >> that's correct, it also compromises our independence. >> mr. elkins, in your case, you continue as i understand, in spite of the ranking member and his staff's efforts to not get information and that is a decision being made by the agency head, is that right? >> well, it's -- i can't say emphatically that it's coming from the agency head. >> i should say the agency head

has not intervened in some of these letters, ask her to do so, that's what i was saying. >> and i they's a fair characterization. >> but ultimately, that's the person who could intervene? >> absolutely, absolutely. >> mr. fuller, in your case, you cite the general counsel, but the general counsel is a referral point, there's an agency head that also has not intervened? >> yes. >> and if i can take mr. elkins and ms. fuller, and bring your two statements together which i think are important for mr. cummings and myself both. you cautioned us not to attempt to clarify if you will and maybe some up short and diminish what already is the law. while ms. fuller, you clearly said this review which is also going on at justice, begs the whole question of is 6a, does

notwithstanding other laws mean what it means? mr. elkins, i'm coming back to you for that reason. if either through executive action of the office of the president or through congressional action, if we say, because we believe that notwithstanding other laws, 6a and the ig act means what it says it means, does that both meet your test of not writing new law on top of already good law, but at the same time, clarify the question so that they're not the endless review by agency ads, general counsels and referrals to legal review? >> yes, i think that would be -- i think that would be quite helpful. that message, clearly, without any wiggle room, coming from the president, would help. absolutely. >> thank you, and with that, i used 12 seconds, i yield to the ranking member. >> go back to what the gentle n

gentleman -- chairman was just asking. ms. fuller, as i listen to you and i ahead your testimony and i thought about the issue here, the personally identifiable information, it just seems like we should be able to work that out some way, have you gotten any further than the memorandum of understanding? >> we have the memorandum of understanding in place and we are hopeful that we can continue to do our work with that memorandum of understanding. but there is -- we -- with the legal opinion that's still in place, if there's another dispute that comes up, regardinc details of the sexual assault is, we're going to be right back where we started going back and forth with the general counsel's office trying to figure out

that. >> mr. elkins, during your tenure as inspect general, you have identified ways that the agency can improve it's management. for example your office released three reports in the past month suggesting ways that epa is save money by improving it's contracting oversight, is that right? >> that is correct. >> and your recommendations have led to many stuck sessionful reforms, for example on july 22, 2014, your office reported that the epa implemented corrective action on the nationwide monitoring system that protects us from exposure to radiation, is that right? >> that's correct, sir. >> congress has also charged with you overseeing the chemical safety board, which i want to ask you about. you discuss in your testimony a long-term dispute with the csb. you also identified, in june, testified before the committee in june, about that issue.

your office is investigating the use of personal e-mail accounts by senior csb officials to conduct official business. is that right? >> that is correct, sir. >> on september 5, 2013, you sent a seven-page letter to the csb seeking e-mail records but the csb refused to provide. but this is the only seven-day letter you have issued in your tenure as inspector general, a is that right? >> that's correct. >> how long have you been inspector general? >> over four years now. >> the epa provided some documents, but on july 8, you informed the committee, the csb still had not fully complied with your request. you said the document, you said the documents they provided were not fully responsive, the attachments were not provided and some documents were redacted, is that right? >> that is correct. >> more recently, csb has

provided additional documents including unredacted copies and on september 8, 2014, you sent a letter to the committee and i quote, oig concludes that the csb has substantially complied with our document request, however, the evidence that we have gathered demonstrates that there are additional documents within the scope of our request which csb officials have not provided to the oig. end of quote. it sounds like the csb improvings it's cooperation following the committee's hearing in june, but even that was like pulling teeth, is that a fair statement? >> that's a very fair statement. >> i got to tell you, i think this is totally unacceptable. can you tell us now specifically how you know the csb is withholding documents? >> i would like to think i got a crack team of investigators that ask good questions and we track the documents, we track the

questions and it's really just matching it up. we ask certain questions, we look to see if we get a response and if the response is not there, there's a void. that's pretty much what we have got. >> can you identify categories of documents that you believe are being with held for the record so that we can follow up directly? >> i can give you somewhat of a characterization of, for instance, there was of course the instance of using, you know, e-mail that's not government e-mail to conduct agency business. at one point in the process, it was conveyed to us that there was a directive to csb staff not to do that. and then subsequently, we found e-mails that suggest that after that date, it was still going on. so in our mind, that suggests that there's a disconnect there. so that's one example. >> last question, in the letter

you sent on tuesday, you said you will bei issuing a report o investigation in the near future. what will the scope of that be and when do you expect to issue it? >> well, it will be a compilation of what we have determined, you know, based on the facts. of the case. at this point, it appears to us that the csb leadership was using means other than federal communication means to subject agency business.x= 0 so that's where the report is, % it's likely to hit. in terms of when that report is going to be issued, i can't give you an exact date, but i would say very shortly, maybe within the next 90 days or so. >> thank you very much and we will follow up. >> ranking member, to clarify, ms. fuller, did you ever ask on this personally identifiable

information and the details of these sexual assaults, did you ever ask for in camera review for your people to look at the document without receiving them? >> no that wouldn't have been permitted dinner general counsel's legal provision. >> did you skrks did you attempt to have something that you would respect the fact that you wouldn't take possession but you at least would review them. >> no, we did not. >> just to follow up. you know, as i listen to your testimony, one of the key -- when i think about the conflict, the -- and you said that your agency has been used to handing very sensitive information and keeping it confidential. i'm sure you made those same arguments to the peace corps. >> yes. >> and what was the response? i mean because we have got government public servants who want to do the right thing, and

the last thing your agency would be doing would be going against united states by revealing information identifying somebody who may have been sexual assaulted. so i'm just wondering, what happened there? do you follow me? is it that there's distrust? >> the way that the act is drafted, there are two exceptions on the disclosure, one is for one of the exceptions that is enumerated and the other is that if the person files a restrictive report, it won't automatically trigger an investigative process. our general counsel basically interpreted the receipt from my office as doing that, automatically triggering an investigative process even though we assured him that we are required to follow the law, that if we got any restricted reported information, we would

not use it to trigger an investigation. it didn't seem to make an impact on him. and he is the object person who has concluded that the two laws conflict. when you read the two laws, there's a way to interpret them that they don't. >> very well. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. micah? >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing and i appreciate the inspector general's testifying. i guess with being the senior member of the committee and having gone through almost all the -- half a dozen or so chairman and hundreds of member who is have been on the panel, you get a little bit of institutional insight. i have never seen an instance in my 21-plus years, 47 inspector generals coming together, and saying that they're oversight was being obstructed. mr. horowitz, do you know of any

instance similar to this? >> i don't. >> mr. elkins? >> this is the first of my recollection. >> ms. fuller? >> i don't recall any. >> each of the instances which you've come here to cite before us have different parameters. some of them, you know what, there could be questions and i've seen your -- some of your recommendations for possible changes in legislation, and that would be one way to resolve some of the issues. i think mr. horowicz, you have some recommendations about some exemptions that are currently allowed that should be excluded. i think you, ms. buller? just answer yes, ms. buller? >> yes. >> mr. elkins, with the epa, it

appears that the action taken by epa in really ignoring you and allowing whistle blowers and others to be intimidated, this has undermind your position as inspector general to conduct your legitimate investigative oversight responsibilities. would that be a fair statement? >> yeah, that would be a fair statement. >> the other thing that would concern me is using some language or exceptions that are in the law and the case of justice and the peace corps to obstruct the investigation or even worse, to cover up, particularly concerned about the sexual abuse instances. now, some of these cases staff have told me may be like peace corps worker on peace corps

worker or some locals on peace corps volunteers, is that the case? >> yes. >> and, again, it appears that it is sort of a blatant coverup of sexual abuse cases that some might embarrass the agency. i guess you expose yourself when you send people to foreign lands or on any mission to locals or foreign nationals taking advantage of american personnel, but i think how prevalent is the case of problems with peace corps workers being involved in these instances? >> usually it's a host country national involved in the assaults. from what we gathered, the information we gathered, it's usually volunteer on volunteer or staff on volunteer in 4% of

the cases. >> in how many? >> 4%. >> not huge but it's very embarrassing, i would imagine, to the agency. you know, again, i think we have a particular position of responsibility to deal with that kind of action. and also i think you should have that authority to again uncover what's going on and expose it. a couple of questions because the inspector generals have been under attack for a number of years now. several ways of attacking, and one, get rid of them. we went through that in the beginning. i remember gerald walpin, and he was removed. i think the committee let it be known that that was not going to be tolerated, although they did get away with that particular instance. then not appointing attorney generals. i'm told there is a -- 13

vacancies, 7 presidentially appointed, about 15, 20% of the inspector general positions are vacant. is that about right, mr. horowicz? >> i think that's correct. >> you think? mr. elkins? >> i don't have statistics. >> again, these are the numbers that i have. you don't appoint them, you try to get rid of them. and then you don't cooperate them, you obstruct them. i appreciate you bringing the matter to the committee. i'll have further questions later on. >> the gentleman yields back. we'll go to the gentleman from virginia, mr. conley. >> thank you for holding this hearing. i find myself in firm agreement with yourself and with the ranking member in your opening statements. ms. buller, in my other committee, the house foreign affairs committee, we had some legislation dealing with the peace corps and a whole issue of

sexual assaults and how best to handle that. there were a series of investigations and investigative stories really than highlighted how poorly historically the peace corps had heretofore frankly managed cases of sexual assault among volunteers. we introduced legislation to try to address that, so i'm particularly concerned to find that today on the subject at the peace corps there isn't full cooperation with your office. so that's the context in which i -- i look at particularly the peace corps issue and the -- and the role of the i.g. in january you testified before this committee and raised concerns about access to peace corps information, is that correct? >> yes. >> what was the nature of that

testimony? >> it was allot -- it was the same issue. >> could you speak into the microphone? thank you so much. >> it was the same issue that i am testifying about today, it's the lack of access to restricted reported information. >> specifically, in 2011 we passed the kate paluzzi volunteer protection act to which i just referred requiring the peace corps requiring restricted information to report sexual assaults on a confidential basis. under this they're required to conduct a case review of a number of sexual assaults to evaluate the effectiveness of that policy and a provider report to congress, is that true? >> yes. >> due to the peace corps intags of that act, the agency, however, withheld from the i.g. certain personal information about victims as well as sexually explicit details about

sexual crimes, is that correct? >> yes. >> on may 22nd you and the agency signed a memorandum of understanding. under that agreement the agency agreed to provide you with access to all information related to restricted reports other than clearly defined personally identifiable information and explicit details of sexual assault, is that correct? >> zble sinyes. >> since that mou has been in effect, has your office requested any sexual assault case information under the mou from the peace corps agency? >> we have requested crime incident reports for program evaluation that we were going to -- >> did you say five? >> no, two. well, we had one program evaluation and we requested all of the crime incident reports, including restricted reports, for that country before we went into evaluation. there were two reports.

we did get both reports with redactions. >> so -- with the appropriate redactions. >> yes. >> from your point of view? >> according to the mou, yes. >> right. so since that mou has been put into effect you have had requests and you have had full compliance of the agency? >> yes. >> is it your expectation that the case information that you did receive is useful to the work you're undertaking? >> it's useful to the particular program evaluation we're doing at this particular point in time. the problem that we have is when we are going to do our case review for the puzzi mandated work, it requires a statistic sampling to do that, and the case -- the peace corps has no case management system so that everything is compiled in one place. we have records in medical, we have records in the victim advocate office, we have records all over the place and we don't have any way to track how a

volunteer is treated after they've been assaulted because there's no case management system. >> even now? >> even now, yes. >> and would that case management rubric also include legal actions? so, for example, if somebody's been sexually assaulted, presumably there's a legal case pending in the host countries. >> if there is, it should be included in the records, yes. >> but it's part of the case management problem, i assume? that's also somewhere else. >> if the case was actually taken into court, it would no longer be a restricted report and we should have access to that information. >> do you? >> yes, we do have access to noon restricted reports. the problem is the default position for peace corps is every report of sexual assault that is filed is automatically restricted until a volunteer determines to make it otherwise. so the universal restricted reports is quite large. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i just want to end

by saying, this is a particularly troubling case since congress on a bipartisan basis actually addressed this topic, the peace corps and the incidence and management of sexual assaults of volunteers abroad, and to find three years after passing that act that we're still finding problems internally with the peace corps that directly affect the victims because their cases aren't being managed sufficiently and properly and sympathetically and the i.g. has not had until the mou full cooperation from the agency is troubling, indeed. to me, circumvents both the letter as well as the spirit of the law congress passed to try to address a very sensitive but real issue affecting our peace corps volunteers. thank you, mr. chairman.