>> i yield back, mr. chairman. >> gentleman yields back. mr. barletta, you are recognized for four minutes. >> secretary burwell, my district is home to businesses that sell cigars to adult consumers. they are concerned about the expansion of the fda's regulatory authority under the tobacco control act. their shop serves a distinctly adult clientele. i don't believe this category was the intent of congress in 2009 when the law was passed. can you tell the committee what steps you are making to ensure such businesses which are a staple of main street america are not regulated out of business? >> with regard to -- right now as we are in the middle of a rule making process i think you probably know that we actually proposed two different alternatives as part of the rule. to gather the evidence and

information with regard to the question of premium cigars and how they are or are not sold to children. that was a part of what we are trying to do. and we are reviewing that. and we are in the middle of that process now. having said that, as we are in that process, a part of your question was the recognition of small employers. and that is something that will be taken into consideration no matter where the rule ends, it's something i think is very important that we do as we think about implementation. and so wherever the rule making comes out, as we are in a process. but i do want to recognize the point that you've made, which is making implementation for small employers and small institutions possible, whatever it is. it's something we consider a real priority and something we believe no matter where you are we can work on as part of the implementation. >> the proposed deeming rule has been under consideration for more than a year. regulatory uncertainty is exceptionally challenging for small businesses who are trying to plan for the future, as you

know, open new stores, hire more workers, serve their customers. when do you anticipate this rulemaking to be finalized? >> i'm hopeful we will do it as quickly as possible. i think yours -- the issue you've raised is one of many complex issues we have been faced with. trying to do it as quickly as possible. we appreciate the point you made about uncertainty again in terms of recognition of what this means for the business community, especially small layers. >> thank you. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> gentleman yields back. ms. bone -- bonamica you are recognized for four minutes. >> thank you for your testimony and thanks to you for your work in the department precision medicine mental health services, thank you for your work on community and family support programs. i want to spend my short time talking about the older

americans act. which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. and i want to thank chairman cline and ranking member scott. i know they are working together with my colleagues and me to successfully reorganizing. and thank you for calling out the issue of elder abuse, which includes physical as also financial abuse. i have three questions. what i will do is tell you what the three are to save time. first, as we know, the population of older americans is changing rapidly. can you talk about what steps you are taking to modernize the administration for community living programs as our older population is becoming increasingly diverse? secondly, when i talk to people about the older american's act they know about the nutrition programs, especially programs like meals on wheels. we know that the population of seniors is expected to double by about 2050. so we all support investments that will yield greater efficiency. can you talk about what your department is -- how the

department is promoting evidence-based practices among nutrition providers and how you plan for innovation in those essential nutrition services? we know that oftentimes that's the only social contact seniors have as well is with that meal. my third question has to do with family care giving. 77% of caregivers say that family caregiver support services make it possible for them to continue to care for their loved ones and keeps the seniors at home. but of course it's hard work. and training and respite care services for caregivers is very important. many of the caregivers are in the sandwich generation where they're taking care of parents and children at the same time. what is the department doing to prepare and support the large diverse community of caregivers? >> i will quickly try to work through each of these. in terms of the modronization, part of the modernization how we

went about doing the white house conference on aging and getting that -- because it was a different approach in terms of being out in the community. using technology. including the white house conference on aging people could participate through technological approaches. changing the way we think about our work in terms of technology. and the fundamental idea of people's engagement in our programs and their feedback, being more customer friendly and doing it in ways that use technology are two things in terms of the modernization. in terms of the evidence based practices around nutrition and meals i think that's a broader category of what i would consider prevention and preventive care and making sure we are doing that correctly. that i think is actually centered less in acl and more with cms. and it's also a part of the affordable care act in terms of people knowing they can do preventive and wellness visits without copays. those numbers are increasing. we need to increase them more so that the people accessing these services are not increasing.

they are improving but it's a place we need to spend more time. nutrition and wellness come into that as well in terms of how it fits into the broader thing that i think changes that and the larger piece. the last piece is the family care giving and encouraging that staying in community at home. you have seen our most recent rule making at cms which is an important part of reforming the delivery of our health care and paying and encouraging ways of providing that care at home. the rule making are probably our most effective tools because those are the ones that scale broadly and because payment is an important part of how people are making the decisions about staying in a community versus making a change. >> thank you so much. my time has expired. >> mr. carter you are recognized for three minutes. >> ms. burwell, earlier this year you received a later along

with secretary lou from a group of employers, work forces with variable hours. it was specifically to address the employer notice and appeals process because it's very important for employers to get notification about employees who have received subsidies. otherwise, those employees are going to be facing tax penalties if they declined a more affordable employer plan and accepted the subsidies. so this is very important. it's my understanding that as of yet, none of those employers have received anything from hhs. can you give me an idea, just a date, of when you expect to give notification to employers? >> mr. carter, i -- this issue is one i'm not specifically familiar with. but my understanding of what you are talking about is it is a treasury issue because what you are talking about is tax information on the individuals in terms of if they have received an aptc. and that's a matter that is -- >> can you get back to me with a date. >> i'm happy to raise with

secretary lew the question you have raised. >> fair enough. photo fix to the employers. you would agree that those employers who have multistate locations it would be better if they got one notification as opposed from every state. that's also i'm very concerned about. i will hope you will look into that as well. you do agree obviously that it is a burden on these employees when they have a tax penalty at the end because they didn't accept employers more affordable plan. so that's what we are trying to get at now, right? >> what we want to do is make sure that where employers should cover as appropriately they are providing a choice and. >> it would help if the employers got notification. that's what we are trying to achieve here. right now you are using a paper system. do you have any idea when you will be going to a computer system. >> a paper system i'm not sure what you are referring to. i'm sorry.

>> i will get clarification on that and send you a letter later. >> okay. >> in your opening statement you said over $100 million would be given to states and used in prescription drug abuse. i am the only pharmacist currently serving in congress. i have witnessed firsthand people's lives, families, careers being ruined as a result of prescription drug abuse. one of the limitations on that for pharmacist, medicare limits pharmacists in what they can do about this. in the way of compensation. there is a bill, 592. i hope you will look at that. this is something that needs to be addressed. this is an epidemic. it is the biggest drug problem, prescription drug abuse. it has gotten out of control. in georgia i sponsored the prescription drug abuse prevention program that is now law. this is something we really need to work on. we can help you in our

profession. we want to help you. please look at that law hr 592. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. pocan you are recognized for three minutes. >> i'll go quickly. thank you for being here secretary burwell. first i'm glad to see the nih increase in the budget. the funding, as you know it has been especially hard. i have the university of wisconsin in my district which has a lot of research going on. one of the things we have noticed because of the cutback of funding is that now the age of the average first time grant recipient is 42. used to be 36 in 1980. a lot of young research are looking at other areas to go into. and we want to want to keep the talent there. we have introduced a research act trying to address those concerns. i'm wondering how you would address how to help the younger researchers in terms of funding? >> in term of the years we have

been through recently with regard to everything from sequester to shut down. it's just like the ability to create the certainty for the small businesses. people having certainty knowing how things are going to run is how they are making their decisions. if you are making decisions to get a ph.d. in a particular area, that's a long period of time, you are making a financial commitment and you want to know there is certainty at the other end. i think we can create the certainty that the funding for this research is going to be there. that's one of the things we want to work to do. which is why we have in this budget a billion increase. >> working with those younger scientist we have had ideas too we would like to propose at least while the sequester is still out there. secondly. around the states that haven't done the medicate expansion, unfortunately, states like my state, wisconsin, where governor walker is in the increasingly smaller number of states that haven't done this.

we would save $400 million in the next two years in our state. 85,000 people would have additional health care. as you look -- i'm glad you met with governors about this. as a member of congress this is frustrating. i tried everything i can to get funds back to my state and see something like this. what can we do for states that have governors who refuse to expand this. >> that is where the decision as you know it is with the governors and the state legislators. it's continuing to work. but i think one of the most important things is articulation of the benefit, both the economic, job creation, and what it means in terms of state budgets as well as the individual. obviously, that's the place where we focus our most attention. >> i'm going to wrap this thing up. if you also need names of people who have told us they benefitted from the affordable care act -- i go into little towns in my district, small business they come and they grab their husband from upstairs, their wife to

tell me this is the first time they have had health care. i've had caregivers stop me in the grocery store crying because this is the first time she has had healthcare. if you want those things recollect, contact my office. >> gentleman's time has expired. mr. russell you are recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman. i would like to thank you madam secretary for your service to the nation and also to your charitable work. as a small business owner that has a small work force well under the 50 threshold, i've seen a 68% increase in health insurance that i provide my employees over a two-year period. do you believe increasing the cost of insurance will encourage or discourage small businesses providing insurance? >> with regard to the 68% increases, is it people taking it up or is it the cost itself? >> it's the cost itself.

we are part of a pool, being a light manufacturer. and so we don't -- we can't do the groups on our own but we can pool with others and we have seen a 68% increase in two years. >> have you seen, is it particularly incident driven, having worked at the small employer at one point in time when we would have -- we had a couple very large cancer cases or a number of pregnancies at one time. was it those types of thing? what we want to do is get to the issue. what you are describing is a case that is not the experience we've seen for most so i want to understand so we can understand why it happened. >> we have not even filed claims. we have been in business for five years. my second question is in the hhs's 2011 report entitled drug abuse warning network, it cited that 455,000 emergency room visits were directly associated with marijuana use. further supporting documentation shows multiple adverse health effects.

do you believe the president's policies in not enforcing federal law on illegal marijuana states that violate the law promote or prohibit hhs's goals on emergency care reduction and drug abuse prevention? >> with regard to the hhs role in this space of marijuana, we are the research, the regulator, the educator and the treatment. with regard to the issue that you've raised in terms of the question of the health impacts of this, it's something we are spending time -- you may know we recently changed a rule that will lead to increased research that we hope will afford us the opportunity to do more and better education in the space of the damage. >> my final question, and you certainly don't have to comment on the ongoing investigations that will be necessary and that sort of thing. but given that hhs provides significant title 10 funding to planned parenthood, do you believe personally that the harvesting of infant body parts to be moral?

>> as i said, this is an issue that has an important issue that has strong fashion and strong beliefs about the importance of the research and other beliefs. what i think is important is that our hhs funding is focused on the issues of preventive care for women, things like mammograms and cancer prevention screenings with regard to our relationship there. with regard to the other issues, the attorney general i think has right now is under review to make determinations on what is the appropriate next step. >> i yield back my time. thank you mr. chairman. >> gentleman yields back. ms. adams, you are recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you ranking member scott. madam secretary, thank you for being here. and some of my questions have already been answered but let me first of all say that i have, over the years, appreciated planned parenthood's good work in promoting health care for men and for women. and i'm a little bit disheartened by all of the attacks undermining the good work that they do.

having said, that let me move on to affordable care. my state of north carolina is one of those 24 that did not expand medicaid. we are looking specifically with all of the great benefits, i'm still perplexed why our governor and our legislature decided not to do that. 317,000 or more north carolinians would have had it. i know you have met with the governors. my question is when we look at north carolina having one of the highest rates of uninsured adults in the country, standing at 24%, it is critical that we take a serious look. and what are the options? are there options for folk in my state or in other states that have not expanded medicaid, who may want to consider it in the future? are there options that they have? >> with regard to the options for the individuals, i think that is why community health centers are going to continue to

be extremely important in terms of ensuring that people who don't have coverage have care. they are an important part of that. with regard to the options in terms of states making decisions to do that expansion we want to work with states. we want to provide them with different options and opportunities. that's when the 1115 waivers are about. we have done that. we've done that with governor pence in indiana. that program is up and fully running. there are other governors i'm having the conversation with. we look forward to understand what are the core consideration of the state in terms of moving to reduce that corbverage gap that you have described in north carolina which is one of the largest states in the nation now. >> thank you very much. for somebody in my position -- i did surf serve in the legislature for 20 years. i'm still at odds with the governor and the state

legislature about it. can you give me suggestions how to push them along and to get closer to insuring the low income people in north carolina? >> i would defer to you on how to you work with your own state and state legislature. the only thing i will say is when you look at kentucky and the analysis that has been done -- in the state of kentucky -- and this is by an accounting firm in the university of louisville. 40,000 more jobs and $30 billion flowing into the state by 2021. and so that, from an economic perspective just is -- seems to be an anchor of a place to talk about. >> yes, ma'am, it makes great economic sense for us to do it. i'll certainly continue to push those folk in north carolina. thank you madam secretary. mr. chair, i yield back. >> thank you gentlelady, mr. allen. >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you madam secretary. i -- you have got a tough job. it's hard to -- it's hard to deal with some of the issues that are coming out of this process. but i tell you in georgia, obama care is not real popular. we are having major problems down there.

in fact, most physicians i meet with says that nothing has changed. emergency rooms, people show up still without health insurance. they see very few patients. you might check with some of the hospitals, you know, their elective surgeries are off something like 80% because of the high deductibles. it's just one problem after the other. but what i want to zero in on is this planned parenthood thing. and i would like some commitment from you here today on when your department will conduct an investigation on this very, very serious matter. not only is it unconscionable, but they're breaking the law. and it's -- it is a big issue with the people of this country. i mean, it's -- what i hear about every day, what are we going to do about this? can you tell me when are we

going to do something about that? >> i do want to -- just one moment on your affordable care act and that issue. in the question of expansion in a state like yours. we have seen the percentage drop of the number of uninsured coming into emergency rooms we have seen a drop there. as a part of the issue and how we think about rural hospitals which are an important issue ipyour state as it is in my state. with regard to the planned parenthood issue, as i have said, this is an important issue and one that there is passion and emotion and belief on many sides of the issue. i want to respect that. with regard to our funding, i think you know we do not fund aborgs as the federal government except for the exceptions which have been place for many years. our funding for planned parenthood is no another issue space. with regard to the issue you raised which is the question of whether it is a legal issue -- and there are laws and there are statutes that guide the use of fetal tissue that are in place and should be enforced.

with regard to investigating or looking into those issues, as i said, because it is a statutory legal issue, the department of justice and the attorney general has said she has taken those issues under review and will determine what the appropriate next step is. >> and that will include your investigation? i mean it should be like all hands on deck on this thing. >> with regard to the question of a legal matter, and i defer to our colleagues from the justice department. we will support them in anything they need or want from us. we always do that. but with regard to making those decisions of the question of an investigation of a legal matter -- >> so you don't have personnel that can look into this? >> with regard to what we do have at department of hhs, is this is not an issue in terms of us funding this specific issue. when we do have issues -- >> you deal with medicare fraud. >> the gentleman's time has expired. mr. desaulnier. >> thank you mr. chairman. briefly on the issue of planned

parenthood. as i understand it, there are multiple investigations in california. the state attorney general is investigating the issues, including if the people who actually took the film violated the law. but i have two areas for questions for you. one is your work on prescription drug abuse, as my colleague from georgia mentioned. it is a very large issue. 45 americans die a day, according to the center for disease control. the u.s. has less than 5% of the world's population but consume over 80% of the opiates in the world. that's a huge cost issue, both financial and from a human side. so in california, we are switching to an electronic monitoring system. it's been getting up and even people who questioned it were starting to support it. my question is what are things you might think -- i'll ask both questions and let you go given the time constraints that we might be doing on the federal level to help states like california and new york and georgia. secondarily, coming from a high cost state where we are very proud of the aca in california, sort of the opposite of what one of my colleagues brought up

being from the bay area attracting physicians. if you could address those two things for me. >> i'm sorry, the second issue? >> the second question was the opposite side of high cost states and reimbursement rates. and because of that, we are having a difficult time attracting primary care physicians in california, particularly young people to go into that field. >> on the primary care, let's start there. in terms of how we are structuring our graduate medical education proposal in this budget, it is actually to focus funding on gme on places with rural districts where we have shortages and other specialties. what we are doing is using our tools to encourage people to go into those specialties and create a pipeline to go into places. with regard to prescription abuse, 250 million prescriptions every year in the united states. that's enough for every adult in the country. this is an acute problem.

one, prescribing. we are going after prescribing. monitoring programs are essential. get those up and working in the states. that's a lot of what i'm spending my time and conversations with governors. whether governor hicken in colorado. second is access to noloxone. that is the drug that when someone is in overdose actually saves their lives. the question of how that's accessed is an important thing. the third is medicated assisted treatment. and for all those who are addicted, trying to get that transition. i met a woman in colorado who has been clean four years. and her journey there from having her wisdom teeth taken out, becoming addicted and going to heroin is a journey we don't want people to travel. so getting that medicated assisted treatment and those other things in place are three specific evidence based approaches. >> thank you madam secretary. thank you mr. chairman.

>> thank the gentleman. mr. bishop you are recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you madam secretary for being here today. i appreciate your testimony and discussion. i know there are a dozen windows open right now. i want to talk about the exchange enrollment issues i'm seeing in my office. it is an ongoing concern with constituents and i want to make sure while i have your attention i address this concern. the government accountability office put out a report highlighting various shortcomings of healthcare.gov which resulted in numerous fictitious enrollees gaining access to coverage and subsidies paid by the american taxpayers. in the meantime, as i've said i've heard from an even number of my constituents, one anecdote after the next, very frustrated with regard to how this is working. purchased or tried to purchase on the website insurance only to have their coverage canceled

because of a minor mistake they made on their application. and by the time they get to me, they are furious. and i can't say that i blame them. as a parent who has a family and is expected to provide for my family, i -- my heart goes out to them. but it becomes my -- me being the reason why. they also have problems getting the issue corrected. and lackluster communication with the department, how we can correct the issue, long wait times. there are just so many issues with regard to this. and the gao's information suggests that significant fraud is being rewarded while at the same time some of these minor mistakes are being punished. i i'm wondering, what we can do to address that. if you've had this same communication from other

members. if we are addressing them and you can quickly comment on that. >> first of all with regard to the communication coming into your office, reach out to me directly. let's work on those individuals and work through those individual issues. reach out to us. our office, we will work on those. with regard -- actually, it's both sides of the coin. the gao, we don't actually know, we don't know when they falsified whether they falsified social security. the small issues. what we are trying to do is program integrity and that's your folks are getting caught in. they have done that. we are doing it in a strict way. that's what people are feeling. we are trying -- if you don't provide the data that's required to say that your income is x or to say that you are of a certain status, that's what is happening to the examples. actually we don't exactly know because the gao hasn't told us what are those examples. those are two related things in terms of us doing the program integrity that we are being

asked for. we don't know that the examples of the gao are more than the examples that you are talking about. when we get to recommendations we may know that. at this point we don't. so we are trying to do program integrity. but we want to make sure if there are individuals because many people, we don't have the right information but still may be eligible. pleat let us know about those examples. >> thank you madam secretary. >> ms. wilson. >> i ask unanimous consent that the office of the assistant secretary for planning and evaluations research brief showing that increases in cost sharing can discourage low income individuals from assessing necessary medical care which can have negative health consequences be entered into the record. >> without objection. >> secretary burwell, thank you for being here today and for

working with florida, especially and headstart and elder care and all of the other things that you do. i appreciate your testimony on how obama care is working for the american people. and i call it obama cares because i believe that obama cares about the people of this nation. and that's why we have this health care law. it's here to stay. it's the law of the land. the people of florida are much better off because of this. we have led the nation in new enrollments through the federal exchange. my district 24 has a third highest number of people in the nation who benefit from subsidies. unfortunately, we have not expanded medicaid. but i thank you for your commitment to working with the florida legislature and the governor to expand medicaid. and consider me as a partner in this pursuit. and hopefully for a better outcome in the future. i also want to thank you for help in securing low income pool

funding for florida. that was very special to us. i want to thank you for your testimony on the importance of investment in high quality early learning. so i commend you and the president for your commitment to expanding and investing in early education. i have several questions i want to try to combine them in one. the president budget includes an additional $1.5 billion to improve quality headstart. why is this crucial? what is headstart doing to ensure that all headstart children in early child care are eligible, have access to high quality early learning? what is at stake if our nation ignores the ever growing body of research? and can you describe how the revised program performance standards will help? and can you please speak to the negative impact of spending caps? >> so i will try to get through as many of those as i can with our time.

one is with regard to the changes, there are a number of changes that are a part of the proposal and they are about using the evidence with regard to extending the day. and the question of extending the year. but there are other particular changes in terms of what curriculum should be used in terms of the teachers. and those participating. there are also a number of safety issues, making sure that the grantees and others that are doing the services do it in a safe way. we are also trying to reduce the bureaucracy to make it easier for people to come in and apply and be a part of that system. so we have put the money in the budget to match the changes that we have proposed as we go forward. with regard to the -- >> i'm sorry. the gentle lady's time has expired. mr. messer. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you secretary burwell for being here. i would like to talk little bit about the 49er phenomenon under the affordable care act. the fact that it only applies to businesses of 50 or larger. so there have been question of

businesses staying in that 49 threshold not willing to hire that 50th person because they would make themselves subject to all the mandates and requirements of the president's health care law. the administration has helped ease that burden somewhat by delaying that 50 figure up to -- making it up to 100. so that businesses that were 100 and less wouldn't be forced to require -- wouldn't be required to comply with the law. could you talk a little bit about the rationale of lifting that to 100? why was it businesses 100 and less that the administration said wouldn't be subject to the law up until 2016? >> so, i think there are also two different issues in terms of application proportions of the law. and some of those have to do with what benefits, but also what category. and so i'm not sure this is a question of -- >> you are not forcing the employer mandate under your delay for business of 100 or less until 2016. i'm just trying to get at it what was it that made you decide

to lift it to 100 from the 50? >> with regard to that issue. it is 96 --s we look at the number of employers. and even when we go to those higher levels, i think we we look at the number of employers. and even when we go to those higher levels, i think we believe that employers at this level tub providing that type of care and can do that. and you can do that if there are pooled markets and affordable ways. that's what we believe can be done. we want to make sure -- >> to the precise question of why you lifted it from 50 to 100, why was it that you said businesses 100 and less could be delayed until 2016? because the law says 50 and less. >> i just want to make sure you are referring to which piece? because we've already had a conversation earlier, i think you heard, about a particular question of the provision of whether or not 50 to 100 applies to whether those small businesses, which market they will be in. and those are two different things. >> i only have so much time, i think it's clear that you guys have acknowledged that businesses of 100 and less are small businesses that make it difficult to comply with all the

elements of the law. i have introduced legislation, hr 2881, the small business job protection act of 2015 that would make that level of 100 -- businesses of 100 employees and less the permanent standard under the law, just essentially continuing the delay that you guys move in to 2016. it's not really a trick question. i think that the reality is that there are a lot of very small businesses that have 50 or less employees and the mandates and requirements this law are difficult to comply with. i think businesses of 100 and less would like to see the mandate go away entirely. they are at least a different kind of business than a business of 50 and less. appreciate your testimony. >> thank you. >> gentleman's time has expired. mr. polis. >> thank you madam secretary. back in april i had the opportunity to visit the headstart program at the wilderness early learning center

in boulder and i have seen firsthand the benefits that headstart can provide for communities. as you know, head starts are given to nonprofits, community centers and traditional public schools no. charter schools have received such grants and very few have applied. can you explain what you are doing to ensure that charter students know they are eligible to apply for head start grants? and understand how to meet headstart requirements? >> this is an issue i am not familiar with in terms of charters and application for headstart. >> we would be happy to hear from you about a specific plan to make sure the charter schools are aware of the opportunity to apply and what they need to do. >> the policy change eliminated the lifetime ban and replaced it with a one year deferral policy which on the margins can save a few more lives. while it is a positive step forward i'm hope you can speak about your opinion whether the policy reflects the reality.

a large majority of gay men don't engage in risky behavior and are at no higher risk of contracting hiv than the rest of the population. in fact, the fdc's own blood draw survey found the prevalence of hiv in gay male blood donors was .25%. lower than the regular population, .38%. would the hhsa consider a term of risky behavior rather than blanketing gay men. >> as well as the penetration of hiv in particular populations. we are always welcoming additional. >> i believe it's self reported abstinence, not self reported monogamy. is that correct? >> i would have to check what the self report. >> would you supportive of moving to self-reported

monogamy? >> what we are open to is reviewing evidence in term of the decisions we are making in the space. we believe the decisions we have made at this point are evidence based. if there is additional evidence we should know about we always welcome it. >> i'm looking forward of your implementation of the self reported monogamy recommendation which i'm certainly in strong support of as an indication of risky behavior. certainly those who are in married or monogamous relationships would be at less risk than those who are not. and i yield back. >> ms. stefanik. >> thank you mr. chairman, madam secretary, thank you for your testimony today. the current -- section 1511 of the health care law requires employers to automatically enroll new employees and continue enrolling current employees into their health care coverage giving employees only a very small window to choose to opt out.

this mandate takes away the ability for the employees to choose coverage that best meets their needs and could result in a loss of take-home pay to cover possibility more expensive health insurance than they would have otherwise would not have chosen. i've introduced hr 3112, the be open act to eliminate this harmful and unnecessary provision. could you specifically discuss whether mandatory auto enrollment can trigger penalty for employees receiving subsidized exchange coverage? >> that is an issue that i would defer to my colleagues at treasury. the implementation of the tax portion that i think is within the context of what you are referring to is a treasury issue. we have guidance out for comment right now. with regard to the specifics of that that's a place where i would defer to my colleagues with treasury. we can take that question and give it to them. >> let me ask this question in a different way. what about those employees who become enrolled in double coverage because this mandate and they miss the 90-day window in which to opt out.

should those employees be penalized by paying penalties? >> with regard to the specifics of this question in term of the detail of how it would be implemented i would want to know and understand what the implementation is that the treasury is thinking with regard to this issue. i would want to coordinate with my colleague at treasury. >> i look forward to the response. but i believe this is dueplicative and an unnecessary mandate. so i understand you want to defer to the department of treasury. but i think it's an important broken aspect of the aca, where i'd like hhs's feedback on. i yield back. >> gentle lady yields back. mr. jeffries? >> thank you mr. chair. and thank you madam secretary for your testimony here today as well as for your tremendous leadership. i want to begin by asking a

question about sort of providing care to some of the most disenfranchised and economically isolated individuals. many of the constituents that i represent over the last couple of years, we've had a crisis throughout brooklyn with the closure of several safety net hospitals and in other instances significant financial distress that many of the safety net hospitals have experienced largely as a result of perhaps the over utilization of certain aspects of the hospital, the emergency room, for issues that could be taken care of in a primary care context. for instance the fact that traditionally in many soci economically disadvantaged communities you have a mix of individuals that are either on medicaid or totally indigent and uninsured. or the access to private

insurance traditionally has not been a healthy mix. it's created a situation where many of the safety net hospitals are under severe financial stress. that is beginning to change this is an effort to begin to direct individuals more into the primary care context and away from the overutilization of the safety net hospitals can you speak more about what the administration is doing and where you think we need to go? >> there are many people who are underinsured. the population has many -- access to many new services in terms of prevention. cms, one of the things we were working on was something called coverage to care. it's for those who are in an insurer based market to help people how to understand how to use the coverage to access a physician, to get a help home so

we can solve some of the issues and do things such as understanding your bill. those kinds of things are often complicated and difficult to do. at cms we have a program, we're working on it. we want to make sure we're moving the information. it comes to the medicare point i raised earlier. many people in medicare don't know they can get access without co-pays. >> is enhanced medicaid reimbursement for services also part of what can be helpful moving forward? >> it is. as you know we've proposed to extend that. >> thank you. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back, mr. brat. >> thank you mr. chairman, thank you for being with us today. i guess i got dinged from tooivfive minutes to three. obamacare, productivity claims it's good for the economy. the basics in 2014 cbo reported they expect obamacare will

result in a 2.5 million job reduction in full time employment by 2024. if you do the math, 2.5 million people times 40 hours a week is 100 million hours. you do that for the year and you're at 5 billion hours in labor productivity gone due to the single program. and that's the response i kwetget when you talk to people on the street. we can't hire anybody, this is devastating us. i'll ask your prarkremarks on that. so the claim that the program is good for the economy, i struggle with. and secondly i'll ask a quick one and ask for your response, i have constituents have asked

about premium cigars. the tobacco control act were to limit youth access. neath erof which apply to premium cigars. shouldn't the fda leave this category out of regulations by the fda's own estimation again over half of premium cigar stores will be shut down if fda chooses option one and the proposed regulation. so on this level how do you justify the regulation when it's eliminating so many jobs and will have such a great impact on my constituents? >> with regard to the premium cigar issue one of the things we asked for was evidence evidence to child use. that's why we put out two different proposals. as we review that it's about the evidence we receive. with regard to the question of premium cigars and child use. getting to the core part of the statute you articulated. we'll continue to work on that. to the broader economic issues,

in that same report,ing what we do know is the reflection of what happens with the out years with the affordable care act in terms of why there is long term deficit reduction and it's about productivity as well as cost. as that works through the system -- i think the other thing is we think about the issues of job and job creation. we know we've had the longest stretch of job creation as a nation in terms of job creation. the other thing we see in that is we have not seen any rise in the number of people who are looking for, you know, at that 40 hour level. >> let me ask you on that. the generic phrase we've seen increase in jobs isn't consistent with the clear evidence that the work force participate rate is at its lowest in history. we're gaining jobs the population is bigger but the labor force participation rate is at an all time low. can those be squared? >> the gentleman's time has

expired. we're jamming against the clock. mr. o'connell. >> madam secretary i understand my colleague from california asked you about graduate medical school education. i want to associate myself with the remarks. in riverside county there are 34 physicians for every 100,000 people. half the number of doctors needed to provide adequate access to care. i understand that the gme levels have been frozen under the medicare and medicaid budgets since 1996. so i associate myself with the exchange. i hear from many of my colleagues about rising healthcare costs. and mr. courtney of connecticut commented on the slow rates of growth. there in that case it's a good thing.

the affordable care act has been in the cost curve last year. costs grew at the slowest rate since 1960. just this week. as you mentioned your testimony california released its premiums for the 2016 plan year. state-wide the average increase in premiums is 4% that's lower than last year a far cry from the years of double digit premium growth we had before hca. covered california announced if consumers shopped around they can reduce their premiums by 4.5%. can you share more about how the aca is containing healthcare costs? >> i think you have outlined a number of the places that it is in terms of that downward pressure on premiums. and also what happens in competition. you point that people can go on the marketplace and shop in the individual market. we have seen the downward pressure in overall price. the only other piece i would

mention is i think it's important to reflect we've had a reduction of $317 billion in the projected medicare spending from the period of the passage. >> how many years has the trust fund been extended? >> i want to say 17. 2030. when we came in it was 2017, 2019. >> we have increased -- >> 13 to 17 years. >> by 17 years. >> 13 to 17. i want to check. it is 2030. i think the previous number -- i don't know what the previous historical number was. >> the cost containment seems to be working. i congratulate all of us for standing by the law. i know there's much more we need to do to fix it. i'm running out of time. i'm pretty sure. madam, mr. chairman i yield back. >> gentleman yields back ms. clark. >> thank you mr. chairman. and thank you madam secretary for being here today. i appreciate your leadership in so many areas, especially early

childhood education. and access to affordable high quality healthcare for all americans. for all americans. i want to focus on a topic that's come up around the opiate crisis. i commend you for your krent announcement and hope that congress will support the $100 million you want to invest in this crisis. as you know, it doesn't matter when it comes to opiate abuse whether you are rich or poor your level of education attainment, but an area where we are seeing growth is in women using heroin which has more than doubled in the last decade. i introduced legislation called protecting our infants act which focuses on care for babies that are being born dependent to opiates, but it also looks at the effectiveness of programs

specifically aimed at women and helping with substance abuse disorders. can you discuss any efforts that you have made to evaluate and respond to the circumstances of unique populations including young women and others in addressing this crisis? >> with regard to i think it is especially important for young women, especially pregnant young women, to get into medicated, assisted treatment quickly, and actually just a week ago i was in colorado visiting a clinic that did this work, and they do it -- obviously they do medicated assisted treatment but they're an integrated facility, so a woman can come work on these issues at the same time she gets her prenightateal care. the emphasis and importance of medicated assisted treatment is a key part with this type of population, especially the pregnant women, so we're protecting that newborn.

>> another area, shifting gears but still talking about pregnant women and new moms, is the issue of postpartum depression. >> yes. >> i just dropped a bill today looking at this hoping to expand grants to states. one in seven new moms are going to experience this depression. can you talk about your efforts in this area and what you think we can do to improve screening and access to treatment? >> we believe that this is an essential part of prenatal and maternal care. we believe it's part of the full integration of behavioral health, and that's something that was done through the affordable care act, in terms of the mental health parity act. so it's all about maternal scare. it's not about one or the other. this is an element of maternal care. making sure we have the right wellness visits and the right questions being asked as part of the wellness visits, and that is the integrated care we believe is part of deliver system reform across the board. >> thank you.

i yield back. >> and we are wrapping up here. you are recognized for three minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and thank you madam secretary for your time and for your testimony here today. the rising cost of health care coverage remains a major issue for people in my community. i'm talking employers and employees. and one issue that's starting to come onto people's radars is the cadillac tax the 40% tax on so-called high cost plans has resulted in many employers already making changes to their plans to avoid hitting the tax in 2018 because at the same time we also have to offer minimum value coverage to avoid an employer penalty. so it's a careful balancing act that a lot of employers are trying to make. according to towers watson, 84% of large businesses surveyed eded expect to make changes to their full-time employee health benefits over the next three

years. we hear stories now of how employers are making planned design changes such as increasing cost sharing and narrowing provider networks. miami-dade county public schools, the second largest employer in the state of florida, reported to me that they could see devastating effects as a result of this tax from an estimated $500,000 impact in 2018 up to a $10 million impact in later years. madam secretary if we are concerned about the cost of coverage, wouldn't it make sense to get rid of this excise tax because it's forcing the cost of coverage to go up for employees? shouldn't the answer be to get rid of it and allow employers to offer the health benefits their employees are requesting and willing to pay for? i really see this as one of those examples where the government actually ends up hurting the people who most need the help. when you're talking miami-dade county public schools, it's a lot of teachers.

it's a lot of low-income earners, and now they face losing their health insurance or seeing fewer health care benefits as a result of this tax. could you share some of your views on this issue? >> yes. one of the things is that for those populations and for those communities, the types of increases we were see in terms of the percentage increase were already existing. those things were occurring already. by having the downward pressure of the excise tax in terms of the question of people's interest and companies and other employers' interest in trying to control their health care cost, we believe it puts downward pressure on overall cost. the other issue we have to consider is the federal deficit and the question of any changes in how it interrelates with the federal deficit. so those are the two issues that come to the fore. the question of whether or not

it has down downward pressure. >> do you have concern for the low-income earners that don't make a lot of money but at least for many years and i can speak as a former board member of miami-dade public schools, they knew they had a good health care plan, that they and their family members to rely on. they may lose those plans is that a concern? >> i'm sorry, the gentleman's time has expired. we are exceeding the hard stop time. i'd like to recognize mr. scott for any closing remarks that he has. >> thank you, mr. chairman. could i ask one question? >> please. >> just a brief question. my distinguished colleague from virginia asked about people who may lose their job because of the affordable care act. can you make a quick comment about the fact of job loss and how that creates the situation he referred to? >> just that the question of job lock and those numbers have to do with many people are going to make a choice to start their own

business. i think the other thing in terms of job creation as i said with the medicaid numbers, what we see is increased jobs because of some of the changes. >> and so when you talk about people leaving the job, that's because they were only working on the job because they had a pre-existing condition and wouldn't have insurance before and count that as a bad thing, that they now have the choice to leave their job i think is not looking at the positive effect that the affordable care act has. i want to thank you for talking about the president's priorities, especially health care early childhood education, the effect of sequester on all of your programs and i look forward to working with you as we go forward with the budget. >> thank you. >> thank the gentleman. madam secretary, i just have a quick follow-up to clarify an earlier question you were asked about plant parenthood. it came up a couple times. as you pointed out, there's an issue that there's a lot of passion. i want to be clear is it your

testimony that the department of health and human services has no intention of looking into this matter? >> what the department of health and human services will do, and we didn't discuss it today, is with regard to the issue of our grantees and in the department of nih the part of hhs that does our research, there is funding with regard to grantees, and some of those grants actually use fetal tissue. with regard to that what we are doing is making sure that what we do have in place which is clarity around the issue of the fact that for any of those grantees that are going to do that research, that as they come through the process and before we do the grant making, there are terms and conditions that clearly list what the law is with regard to fetal tissue. they need to assert and certify that they understand the laws and that they will abide by that, and then on an annual basis with regard to when they reup the grants, we ask them to certify again that they will obey the laws and the terms and conditions of which this is a

specific place. so with regard to the piece that interacts with the department these are steps that we are taking to make sure that we have appropriate procedures in place to make sure that people know the law and certify that they are abiding by it. >> and so the activities which have been so abhorrent to so many of us that have been revealed in these videos that are the actions of planned parenthood you believe that is a matter solely for the department of justice. >> with regard to the determination of if a law has been broken, that is the department of justice. if there are concerns with the grantees, we would want to refer that to our ig or the department of justice depending on those circumstances. >> thank you. i really want to thank you -- you were very indulgent here. we've gone over by eight minutes. i appreciate your patience. we very much appreciate your coming today and there being no further business, we're adjourned. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

here is what's happening on c-span3 tonight. first, we hear from the commandant of the coast guard on the service's anniversary. then a report on whether legislation is moving on capitol hill or if congress is still gridlocked. later a couple of different perspectives on the obama administration's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. after that, a discussion on college affordability. president obama urged support for the iran nuclear deal while speaking at american university in washington. he outlined the agreement and said only one thing can happen if congress rejects the deal. >> now, because more sanctions

won't produce the results that the critics want, we have to be honest. congressional rejection of this deal leaves any u.s. administration that is absolutely committed to preventing iran from getting a nuclear weapon with one option, another war in the middle east. i say this not to be provocative. i am stating a fact. without this deal iran will be in a position however tough our rhetoric may be to steadily advance its capabilities. it's breakout time, which is already fairly small, could shrink to near zero. does anyone really doubt that the same voices now raised against this deal will be demanding that whoever is

president bomb those nuclear facilities? and as someone who does firmly believe that iran must not get a nuclear weapon and who has wrestled with this issue since the beginning of my presidency, i can tell you that alternatives to military action will have been exhausted once we reject a hard won diplomatic solution that the world almost unanimously supports. so let's not mince words. the choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war. maybe not tomorrow, maybe not three months from now, but soon. >> house and senate leadership plan debate and hearings on the iran nuclear agreement in september. after members return from the august recess. president obama has said he'll veto any legislation that tries to stop the deal, and the vote

counting of congressional lawmakers is already under way. some reports saying there are enough democrats in favor of the deal to block any effort to override a veto. the coast guard celebrated its 225th anniversary this week, and the postal service commemorated that by unveiling a new forever postage stamp. it shows a coast guard rescue helicopter and a three-masted sailing ship known as america's tall ship. the commandant of the coast guard, admiral paul zukunft spoke at the national press club today discussing the challenges facing the service including budget constraints cyber security and maritime transportation security. from the national press club, this is an hour. >> welcome to the national press club. my name is jeff baloo, i'm news ed for forage agel al jazeera.

first, i'd like to introduce our head table guests. i'd ask each of you to stand briefly as your name is announced. from the audience's right natalie de blasio, run heche and a member of the national press club speaker's committee. max letterer publisher, "stars and stripes." lieutenant commander natalia best united states coast guard. jen judd dorn, defense reporter at politico and co-chair of the national press club young members committee. master chief steven cantrell. master chief petty officer of the united states coast guard. skipping over our speaker right here, kevin wensing retighted edretired navy captain. and information systems

technician second class riota jenai. >> john donnelly congressional quarterly and co-chair of the national press club press freedom committee. will watson deputy commander of the national press club's american legion post and john gallagher senior america's reporter ihs maritime and trade fair play magazine. [ applause ] i also want to welcome our c-span and public radio and online audiences on press.org and i want to remind you you can follow the action on twitter using #npclunch. as 25th commandant of the united states coast guard admiral paul

zukunft leads the largest component of the department of homeland security. the nonretired coast guard boasts some 88,000 personnel including active duty reserve, civilian, and volunteers with a budget of about $8.1 billion. down a bit from last year right? members of the coast guard operate icebreakers in the arctic ocean and help mitigate recent events like the migrant crisis coming over, the greenpeace blockade protests against the royal dutch shell, excuse counter drug operations in the caribbean and provide security in the u.s. and even some places as far away as the south china sea. they respond to natural disasters such as hurricane katrina, more on how we are marking that event here at the club a little later, and human caused disasters such as the deep horizon oil spill in the gulf of mexico. additionally, the coast guard rescues more than 3,000 people each year and searches for

boaters who go missing such as the two teenagers who disappeared off the coast of florida recently. as the smallest military force and the only one with law enforcement authority, the coast guard has had a role in the defense of the united states for 225 years. in fact yesterday was the coast guard's birthday. today admiral zukunft will discuss the challenges for the coast guard such as congressional budget struggles a well-debated cyber security plan, maintaining a zero tolerance for sexual assault and a fleet in high need of modernization and sheer numbers to tackle the next 225 years. please give a warm national press club welcome to the commandant of the united states coast guard admiral paul zukunft zukunft. [ applause ] >> jeff, thank you for the

flattering introduction, and i had a chance to meet many of you before, and i just want to thank you. there's a lot of places you could be right now, but i'm just delighted that you're here to learn a little bit more about what i would say the little engine that could, the united states coast guard, whose roots trace back to august 4th 1790 and i will tell a little bit about our history talk a little bit about the present talk a little bit about the future and then really open it up to question and answer and just have a very spontaneous dialogue recognizing everything we say is on the record. so this has been a phenomenal week for the coast guard. i just returned from grand haven, michigan. it's called coast guard city usa. it's a city of about 10000, but this weekend it was a city of 200,000 here to celebrate the united states coast guard. and every coast guard man and woman walking the streets of grand haven michigan young teenagers not giving us flack but saying we love the coast guard. you cannot come back to washington, d.c., with a better

feeling than after spending a little bit of time in coast guard city usa, grand haven. yesterday we unveiled the forever stamp in commemoration of the united states coast guard. 15 million stamps printed because many times most folks don't realize what the coast guard does on a day-to-day basis. i'm honored to be here with you today. tomorrow i will be on the pitching mound of nationals stadium to throw an opening pitch, but more importantly on saturday i'll be in boston, massachusetts, as we commission our fifth national security cutter, which is really paying huge dividends and i'll tell a little bit about one of those national security cutters a little bit later on in my remarks. monday i'll be in san diego for the ship that's going to return and i will tell you that story later, and this is going to be a big media event, a very big shoe if you will. and then on thursday i'll be in havana, cuba, and so we'll be opening the embassy the following day.

i will be involved in bilateral discussions with the government of cuba with our u.s. interest section there and then secretary kerry, as you may know will be there on the 14th as we open up the embassy in cuba. so a little different than the coast guard that alexander hamilton envisioned 225 years ago as i rattle off what's on my schedule for just the next two weeks, and the good thing is this is a slow two-week period. it actually picks up after that and it's going to cover the asia-pacific region as well, cover the arctic. we have a lot going on over there as well. the coast guard many times we find ourselves on all seven continentses across the globe, including antarctica. today we have two special people who are with us here today. right now we're only on five of the seven continents, but we'll get back to all seven of those. join us first of all, is lieutenant commander natalie best. she was a commanding officer of a patrol boat serving for

central command in the straits between iran and bahrain. so she was the commanding officer of that cutter and i just want to make a point that since 1978 every military occupational specialty in the coast guard has been open to women, and they literally hit the ball out of the park deployed for a year. young child at home, and it's great to have you back and we brought her back to washington, d.c. [ applause ] and you also heard introduced petty officer riota jenai. he's an information specialist. he works at an area where we can't say a lot about what they do behind locked doors but he's also a linguist, and he served on the coast card cutter "melon" that was involved in a multilateral operation. not an exercise. working with china, japan

korea, russia canada, and the u.s., but really u.s.-led and he was our linguist, our japanese linguist because it's really hard to do combined operations if you can't speak a universal language, and we've been operating in this domain now for a number of years under the auspices of what we call the north pacific coast guard forum, and it really is a model of collaboration and effort with some of our key asia specific partners. thank you for your work over there. [ applause ] so imagine if you will, it's august 4th 1790. the continental navy was disbanded. the last ship was auctioned off in 1785, so while we emerged as victors from the revolutionary war, we were very much a bankrupt nation. and our first secretary of treasury alexander hamilton, probably a champion of the

understatement said, if we had ten sentinels posted at our ports, might they do some good for the prosperity of our nation? a tariff act was passed before that, but you had pirates, you had people bypassing our tariff laws, and so quite honestly we were a maritime nation but without any maritime governance whatsoever, and so alexander hamilton had this vision that we would charter ten revenue cutters, and then he wrote a letter to each one of those commanding officers. he wasn't so big on the specifications of those ten ships. he said somewhere between 36, 40 feet, and by the way each one shall cost $1,000 a piece. he sent these commanding officers out to build them. the first one came in at $2,500 2.5 times its initial acquisition cost. today our acquisition program our total acquisition portfolio, our growth is less than 2% and

so we won four of eight of the federal acquisition awards last year. we've come a little bit -- some way since 1790 but the most important piece that alexander hamilton charged those commanding officers is to be mindful that we are a country of free men and we are impatient of those who don't have a temperant attitude and abuse the rights of our citizens of the united states. and it was that letter to those commanding officers that really lives within the dna of the coast guard today and it's reflected in our core values, honor, respect and devotion to duty. last year we used aviation use of force where we used sniper rounds to disable outboard engines, and we did that nearly once each week last year. and there wasn't one person injured during those interactions. just yesterday there was a boater in seattle shooting weapons at police officers.

coast guard came in we surrounded him and we used the most powerful instrument, the strongest muscle in our body which has the least restraint our tongue. and we were able to talk this person down. if you go back to alexander hamilton's charge be mindful that we are a country of free men, i am very mindful of the fact how heavy handed law enforcement tactics play out on cnn, and so you do not see the coast guard of yesterday or today involved in any of these heavy-handed law enforcement tactics. it's not me, but it really gets back to the dna of our people serving on the front lines of our coast guard today. so i could not be more proud of what they do. fast forward to present day, and i talked about one of our national security cutters. we have been a member of the national intelligence community for some time now so we're not only an armed service, a law enforcement service, we're also a member of the national intelligence community and when i'm in san diego this monday, i

will meet the coast guard cutter "vatton" "stratton "stratton." they're coming off a 4 1/2 month deployment. they have to come in because right now they're probably -- their load line is below water because of the 32-plus metric tons of cocaine that they have interdicted on one patrol. not one bust. these are multiple interdictions over a 4 1/2 month period. all of this driven by intelligence. last year when i came into this job, we had awareness of about 90% of the drug flow ultimately destined for the united states. it doesn't come here directly. it comes into countries like central america, honduras, el salvador, and guatemala. coincidentally, those are the same countries of origin where unaccompanied minors were entering the united states. so violent crime, drug trafficking activity, but all of it targeted towards a demand in the united states, so there's a clear nexus between regional

stability and drug trafficking but we have awareness of 90% of the flow. before coming into this job, we were able to target about 10% about 10%. now, some of this intelligence comes from confidential informants. they're not paid a lot of money from their host nations. it could be a fisherman, and he might be paid $300 to provide us very actionable information. now, if he's found out, he's going to be assassinated. not only will he be assassinated, his family will be assassinated. and yet when we get that information, i just don't have enough ships. i don't have enough assets to act upon that information. now, the good news is we've closed that gap by nearly 35% in the last year, which means we're not doing something else somewhere else, and i can't tell you what that is but we've doubled down on the transit zone, and it's making a huge difference today. we're up in the arctic and i don't think alexander hamilton envisioned the arctic. last week we had protesters in

portland, oregon, as one of shell's ships was departing. we had repellers jump off a bridge and we actually held the ship up to strike a balance of you really can't be protesting here, but eventually that ship is making its way up to the arctic. shell is actually drilling as i speak today. not into formation but five years ago today i was down in the gulf of mexico where i spent seven months which were like dog months as a federal on-scene coordinator of the deep deepwater horizon oil spill. make no mistake, a major oil spill. we need to be mindful that shell is responsible in carrying out their responsibilities in the arctic. we will have five ships and we already have several helicopters operating up in the arctic. this last winter we saw the record low sea ice extent up in the arctic region, and as that ice starts to retreat we may

see a record retreatment of sea ice as well. 2012 was a record year. 14 of the 15 warmest years in the arctic have all happened in the last 15 years. what i do know is that there's a lot more water than where there used to be ice, and not only that, but about 5% of this region, 5% is charted to what i would say modern-day standards. i was in iceland a month and a half ago. i was on the icelandic coast guard vessel "thor" -- what a great name that is, "thor." so i looked at their charts and the datum is from 1915. that's when the most recent survey work is. so when the "thor" is operating up there, they send their boat up in front of them with a side scan sonar so they don't stumble against anything. this year we will have 200,000 tourists that will venture into the arctic. many of the cruise ships go

flying by at 20, 25 knots through the same waters that "thor," very used to operating in this area -- and the reason i say that, when i met the captain a little crusty. i said how many years of sea duty do you have? 58. more than magellan. and so he is uncertain about what's up there, but what happens if one of those cruise ships were to find a pinnacle in 39 degree water temperature? we knew what happened with "titanic" 103 years ago. we know because we're still flying the international ice patrol to the warn mariners of any icebergs that drift into the shipping lanes, but fufif you have a mass loss of life up in the arctic, the coast guard will be pressed in service. we're in a very active campaign, i am during my term as commandant, as we look at recapitalizing the coast guard. when you look at an icebreaker it's a national asset. it's not just a coast guard

asset, and it serves multiple stakeholders interests not just coast guard, national science foundation, department of defense, department of interior the list goes on and on, but it's not like passing the hat or passing the plate at church and say, okay everyone donate, we'll give our tithes and offerings and we'll have an icebreaker. there's violent agreement this is a national requirement. we just have to come up with a way to fund this. the next big acquisition for the coast guard is going to be the offshore patrol cutter. i took a ranking member from the senate down to visit one of our ships, and when he went on there, it was a 210-foot cutter. it's 50 years old. we're now on the nearly fourth generation of coasties that have now served on this very same ship. it doesn't have dedicated ballast, which means as it burns fuel, it rocks around a little bit, so we're having lunch and this member said it's probably a good time to go out and look at the horizon. and so we're only on the ship

for 90 minutes and he's already uncomfortable, but we're sending our crews out there for months on end to serve on this very same ship. then i said, let me just show you the engine room real quick. we go down there and we look at the two main diesel engines that were dropped in there back in 1964. and the engineer of the watch says, senator, welcome to the one platform in our inventory in the united states that is impregnable against a cyber attack because there's not one digital system on this ship. so, yes, we do need to recapitalize these assets and that's why the offshore patrol cutter, as many may have heard me say, is our number one priority going forward. but when you look at cyber i was over where raito works and i was over there yesterday to wish him a happy birthday but in one of those vaults there was a very aggressive nationally sponsored cyber track that took place. it was a spear phishing attack.

i can't say a whole lot more about that, but it's had a significant impact on a federal agency in u.s. government, and i'm not talking about the opm hack. this is highly classified but it was our cyber watch standers that were able to kill that spear phishing attempt before it even reached our recipients. had those recipients opened it we would have had to take them off the net and it's no coincidence that many of the targeted recipients were very senior officers in the coast guard. fortunately, they can't spell zukunft, so they couldn't get my e-mail. i said there's some advantage to having a name you can't spell or pronounce. but we're very active in the cyber dough nanmain as well. i released a cyber strategy and we pushed it out last fall and industry is now coming to us. we regulate the maritime industry and post-9/11 probably one of the most sweeping pieces of legislation was the maritime

transportation security act of 2002, and it required vessels and it required our maritime facilities recognizing that 90% of our global trade moves by sea, that they needed to implement safeguards, physical security at their facilities, so they've done a great job of that. i happened to be down at an lng facility being built out in louisiana. wount i won't give that you name because it would be an insider trade secret but this facility when it's fully up and running will move more liquified gas than there are gas carriers in the world to move that product. what a great time to do this at this point the united states sits on the largest reserves of lng as well and the panama canal expansion project when i was in there last november by all indications will open up probably on or about the 1 bsst of april of 2016.

it's 180 feet wide but initially it will take ships up to 160 feet wide. it means lng carriers from the united states can supply the asia-pacific market with lng and do so in a timely fashion, which is good. when i talk to the facility operator, and you know you're in southern louisiana when the road kill shifts to alligators. and they have the fences, they have the cameras, they have the physical security, and i said well, what are you doing about zeros and ones? zeros and ones. i'm not following. i said what are you doing about the invisible attack? he said who would want to attack us? i said you're supplying the asia-pacific market. there's another pure competitor and it's called russia. if you think the ground rules haven't changed when it comes to cyber these days might someone like a national targeted attempt try to shut you down so you don't take their market share away?

what's the coast guard's standards for cyber? we don't have those. but industry is now very incent incentivize incentivized of how do they get smart on cyber. we need to be able to leverage cyber as well. four weeks ago we had six drug interdictions. these are 30-foot pangas each loaded with about a ton of cocaine. but over an area from canada, united states, mexico, central america. six boats after anover an expanse that large in the open ocean and we got all six of them. we would not have gotten any of those if we were not able to leverage the cyber domain and investigator our ships to where we knew these threats were operating. many of you that have worked in the intelligence community probably can figure out how we do that, but if someone compromises our ability to do cyber, then we're not able to do that, and when you just look at search and rescue i only wish those two teenagers had an

emergency distress beacon. we would have found them in a matter of minneapolis,utes, not even an hour. that signal goes up to a satellite, comes down near real time and we're ready to launch within 30 minutes and we would have been onscene within 30 minutes of that eperb being activated. nothing is harder for me as a commandant when i tell a family member that one of ours has died in the line of duty, but all of our sector commanders, they make those notifications to first of kin, and when we make those notifications, it's as though we have lost a member of our family as well. we don't do it callously. we do it in the spirit as alexander hamilton reminded us, that we are a country of free men, and so we gave it our best effort. we searched an area of over 44,000 square miles from florida all the way up to north carolina. we didn't find these two young boys, which we always take personally, but cyber is a big enabler in our ability to do that. so a little bit about the past a little bit about the present and i'm very excited about the

future of the coast guard. the future of the coast guard is really represented by two of the people sitting here at the head table. this is the best educated coast guard that i have seen in my -- if you count my academy years, 42 years i have been around the coast guard. i clearly know that i would not get into the coast guard academy today. the new leaders that are coming out of the coast guard are by far superior than where i stood and obviously i did okay in the coast guard, but you're going to have many more capable future leaders of our service. not only that but they're fully empowered. i talked to bm-2 russo on the coast guard cutter "stratton" yesterday. he's a pursuit coxian. he was able to interdict a ton of cocaine. and his voice went something like this. well admiral i had watch. i went out and we stopped the boat. i said there's more to the story.

come on. highlights. i said tell me a little bit more about the "stratton." then his voice picks up. these are the best people i have ever served with. this is the best ship in the coast guard. i said what are you going to do next year? he said my tour is up, and he's going to be serving on the "stratton" and they're deployed for 230 days out of the year. he goes i'm going to ask my detailer if i can get a one-year extension because i'm going to be a qualified under wayo o ood which is usually reserved for officers. i have 88,000 bm-2 russos in the coast guard. so with that when people talk about budget i said really the bedrock strength of this service, our backbone as it was going back to 1790 is our people. we just got a little bit more complex mission sets than we did in 1790, but alexander hamilton's vision is alive and well because his letter to those commanders resonates with each and every person in the coast

guard. i'll now read my notes -- no actually i'm done with that. and what i'd like to do is open it up to question and answer. [ applause ] >> and now the fun part. some of the questions have been quite interesting, admiral. let's see. senate armed services committee members are concerned that russia has 40 arctic icebreaker ships and america has one. is that going to change and when? i know you addressed that a bit earlier. >> yeah. so as i stand before you today i have one of my vice admirals is with the national security staff up in the arctic to see firsthand what some of the challenges are up there. when you're up in barrow, alaska, you now see berms being built because you used to have a

natural berm a barrier, if you will, by all of the ice. so you're seeing a lot of coastal erosion. you're seeing a nearly threefold increase in human activity up there, but you look at the inventory of the united states and the united states has one heavy icebreaker. we have a medium icebreaker and the coast guard cutter "healy," but "the polar star" is nearly 40 years old, and so this past winter when "the polar star" was coming back from antarctica, it is the most powerful nonnuclear powered icebreaker in the world. it is an awesome ship but it's 40 years old. and so on the way back, there was a new zealand trawler that was beset in ice 150 miles into an ice field. some of that ice in excess of 15 feet thick. so the only ship anywhere in that hemisphere that could

rescue them was "the polar star," and they did. they did a great job but when they got 150 miles in, and i'm thinking this is a 40-year-old ship, god forbid they have a casualty, who is going to come to their rescue? we do not have a u.s. rescuer for the rescued, if you will. no buddy system. so we really do need to build out our capacity in the arctic. this is drawing a lot of attention. i have been working very close with the national security staff, with both house and senate authorizers and appropriators. as i said earlier, how do you fund it? that is really the billion dollar question right now. but this is really generating a lot of interest, and i am optimistic that on my watch we will see, no fooling, forward progress as we look at building a national fleet of icebreakers. we had seven when i came into the coast guard as an ensign. we are down to two right now. so we've moved in the wrong direction over the last nearly 40 years.

>> you talked about the phishing attack. when was it? did it target the coast guard? can you say anything else? >> this happened in the third week in july. we were not directly targeted, but the coast guard is on the dot mil do main asmain. we hide lined the lead curtain for all of dod when it comes to information protection. there are a number of other higher level officials than -- well, i wasn't on the list but you can imagine. there were some pretty high targets on that and some of those attacks were successful, which means those individuals, their files had to be taken down completely, and it takes a while to build those back up again. so it does cause a disruption. good news is we were not disrupted, but we were not the primary target. >> continuing along on the cyber questions, some critics are saying that the coast guard cyber security strategy lacks

potency, personnel, cyber hygiene, originality, and funding. >> is that a question or a statement? >> do you agree or disagree? >> actually i disagree. yeah, we have a company if you will, of 70 cyber experts. i call them experts and i don't call them warriors because their first job is to defend our cyber domain. just as we did with the spear phishing attack, and we've seen a number of others, and quite honestly, you know, there are attempts to infiltrate your data systems on a daily basis. at the same time they're the ones that keep an eye out -- i mean near realtime if someone says i need to charge my iphone i'm going to plug it into the domain alarms go off and when it comes to cyber hygiene, the next step is accountability. now, i have to be careful how i word that because then it's considered undue command influence, but we need to look at accountability standards if

we have training and the like when it comes to not plugging unauthorized devices into our network, but it still happens. so right now our biggest threat is in the cyber -- is cyber hygiene. it's not just us. there was a mobile offshore drilling unit that drove off the site it was drilling on because the control systems that operates on a network, somebody on that drilling unit had plugged in a device that had malware and all of a sudden that signal couldn't communicate with the thrusters and now that mobile offshore drilling unit drove off the site. fortunately, the blowout preventer kicked in didn't have a spill. this was over off the coast of nigeria, but it cost that drilling company millions of dollars to get back on the site and then re-establish it. so cyber hygiene is a big piece. we're part of u.s. cyber command. we have a coast guard flag officer in there. he's in the j-3 directorate.

it's where the coast guard belongs because we operate in the dot mil, dotcom domain. we're a unique instrument when it comes to cyber security. it's an opinion but let me counter it, point counterpoint but that's my retort to that particular question. >> thank you. what given veto threats over the homeland security, what figure dollar figure, given veto threats over the homeland security budget does the coast guard actually need to tackle its mission going forward and why? >> our total budget is actually about $10 billion and last year for the second consecutive year the coast guard had a clean financial audit opinion. i talked about our acquisition program. less than 2% growth across our entire acquisition portfolio and then when we buy stuff, we keep it. we maintain it very well. the fact that we have ships 50

years old, i was on one up in grand haven this weekend that's over 55 years old. still doing coast guard business. so, one, we mind our checkbook. two, we drive a hard bargain when we buy stuff, and when we buy it we take very good care of it. what we haven't had over the last several years is a reliable and a repeatable acquisition budget. we've seen swings as wide as nearly 40%, and so when i'm challenged that my program of record is not affordable, it's like saying your mortgage is not affordable either when someone just took 50% of your disposable income away from you. yeah, you're going to have to foreclosure, but if you didn't cut me 40% this is a very sustainable program of record. but as we've seen wide swings and right now we're seeing a shift in direction where the value proposition of the coast guard, some examples that i gave you when i talked to you earlier earlier, is fully being appreciated and a number of members, both sides of the

aisle, both chambers, are saying we need to invest in the coast guard. so on that note, people aside i am very optimistic with the markups we've seen so far, i can't share those with you, but it may very well bring the largest acquisition budget to the coast guard in coast guard history. so i'm pretty excited about that. >> one quick semi follow-up to that. in fact, one of your recent hearings some members criticized the coast guard for a lack of timely delivery of your capitalization plan. how would you respond to that in terms of your acquisitions? >> there's a two-part story to that. one is a five-year plan and the other is a 20-year plan, and it's very difficult to chart out to 20 years, and if that is going to be, you know a bold statement that you're going to make 20 years from now, we know that 15 years ago we didn't predict 9/11. when the qdr was released a year and a half ago, we did not predict the rise of isil, we did not predict ukraine, we did not

predict ebola and we live in a very dynamic world today where if you walk your way across from east to west and around the world, i challenge you to find a region of tranquility if you will. so it's a very complex operating environment so it's very difficult to predict out 20 years what the world is going to look like 20 years from now. but if you look at the systems that we've acquired when you look at the hamilton class cutters that were brought online in the mid '60s, we modernized those as we went along. we make sure that whatever you buy is -- has space, weight, and power availability to accommodate new systems for new threats that are somewhere over the horizon, and so when you look at the national security cutter that is an optimal cutter to work in what is a very probably opaque world if you start to look 10, 15 years, but those ships are going to be operating well after i cross the

bar. so i think we've made smart decisions on what we've acquired within our program of record recognizing they will be around 20 years from now as well. >> facebook is building drones that are man-free and solar powered. they can fly for three months consecutively. could that technology help the coast guard in the future with constant coverage, and i want to add one little thing to that question. when you're engaged in drone technology, there's always the debate between civil liberties and actual deployment and personnel and force use. how do you deal with, a, the technology of lengthy usage of drones and, b, the ongoing debate over usage of drones in terms of civil liberties. >> fortunately, out on the high seas it gets pretty lonely out there. in that we're the only entity that has really a unique xend

comependium of authority. we have over 60 bilateral agreements that deal with counter drug that deal with proliferation security, that deal with fishery regulations. as i stand before you today, we're using drone technology on the coast guard cutter "healy" flying out looking where there's leads in the ice, has thermal imaging look to see where there might be mammal activity so we don't disturb it. it's easier to use drone technology in sometimes marginal weather you would otherwise put human beings at risk that can do the exact same thing and can do it persistently. so drone technology we've only seen, no pun intended, but the tip of the iceberg and we've used it in counter drug operations as well. in fact, we used it in one intervention where normally the ship comes charging over the horizon, blew lights screaming. this case one of our national security cutters launched a drone, and they realized it was a refueling vessel waiting for that super panga loaded with

cocaine to get refueled and congress on its way. so instead of charging over the horizon, for the next 36 hours, kind of like sitting in a deer blind and you put a salt lick down there as well. so they stalked this thing for 36 hours, and then as soon as that go fast showed up, they bring the drone back and then launched the armed helicopter. shot out the outboards and we got several tons of cocaine out of that as well. more importantly we got the bad guys, and they're now in a safe house, if you will providing us very valuable information. none of that would have been possible without drone technology. are we going to own the upper edge technologywise on that? probably not. commercial off the shelf our adversaries, organized crime is a $750 billion industry, so i'm going after that with a $10 billion budget. so their biggest challenge is how do you launder $750 billion? there's no budget control act. there's no sequestration with these ill-gotten gains. so there's a little bit of a

mismatch as we try to match technology against our adversaries and i think when you look at drone technology i see that as a challenge as we look 20 years out and probably less than that. probably in the next five years. >> you mentioned your coordinating role in the deepwater horizon spill and there have been a few spills in the news lately. given your experience as the on-site coordinator for five or seven months how -- what are the lessons learned from deepwater horizon as permits are now opening up and more drilling is opening up ten years later that the coast guard can apply? >> tip o'neill probably said it right. he said as in politics, all things are local. and it's no different with the oil spills, and if you're not engaged first and foremost at the local level, so what we realized very early on during deepwater horizon as it impacted the gulf states, very

hurricane-prone part of our country that is very accustomed to operating under the stafford act. you declare a national emergency, then under the stafford act, the governor reigns supreme. under the clean water act and with an oil spill the federal government reigns supreme, and this impacted five states. not only did it impact five states, it impacted five republican states leading up to midterm elections. if you're looking at an oil spill, you need to kind of look at it like a rubik's cube and look at every angle behind it. one, it's a huge media event. it was my job to get it out of the national press at least get it on the back fold of "the washington post." how do you work with the media to tell your story? i was never going to win the day over a tar ball on the beach. but what i could win the day when you looked at the daily release rate of all the offshore relief well drilling just offshore alone was probably in the neighborhood of $50 million a day being expended by bp as we

wrote out here is the incident action plan and what you need. we had 47,000 responders, bigger than our active duty coast guard, 1307ndresponding to this as well. but getting the media out to where the heavy artillery was, getting to the source of this oil and where we were the most effective was offshore and then getting all of that out into social media. we worked with noaa and we created this application called erma environmental response management application, and we pushed it out onto the one once we got it fully up and running. the first day we had 200,000 hits. on day two it was 2.2 million, and it just went viral after that. so rather than people waiting for the news cycle, they could go to this near realtime, look at jpe g encrypted photos, what was happening with the response. they could manipulate the data and draw their own conclusions. the final piece was we had 70 coast guard offices detailed to every parish president, every

governor, so if they didn't like the way their county, their parish, their state was being allocated resources, you go to that coast guard person first. you don't go to cnn and try to, you know steer the ship through national media but let's work together on this and build unity of effort, but if you don't have unity of effort this will become a media event, and at the end of the day the environment is going to suffer as a result. so a lot of good lessons learned for what proved to be probably one of the most complex responses the coast guard has had to deal with. >> a freedom of information act lawsuit was recently filed to require that shell make public details of the safety of their arctic drilling equipment. do you agree those should be made public given the coast guard's mission to make the arctic safe? >> certainly when it comes to safety there's a need to know. there's clearly proprietary information when it comes to oil spill leases. the auctioning of these leases is actually one of the largest sources of revenue generation in

our federal treasury. so without divulging, you know, the expanse of a given reservoir, but the safety standards that are in place, they're shared with us, they're shared with the department of interior and clearly i believe there's a need for the public to be informed of what safeguards are in place to mitigate any impact to the environment. >> you spoke a lot about budget constraints and all the challenges. at some point some priorities are going to win, some are going to lose. you talked a lot about what's going to win, what's going to lose. >> what can't lose is force structure. all the service chiefs are grappling with the same dilemma. how do you modernize and maintain force structure at the same time? our active duty coast guard component among the 88,000 is right around 40,000 people. of that 88000, 31,000 of them

are all volunteers coast guard auxiliary. i can't even call them a force multiplier because i pay them nothing. whatever you multiply by zero you get zero, but they provide millions millions of free man hours supporting coast guard missions that don't involve putting themselves at risk. mostly our recreational boating community, but i can't cut force structure. maybe you make those very difficult decisions of what operations that you would have to cut. and we've also -- always defined ourselves by 11 statutory missions and some may say just get one of those missions. well, each one of those missions has a funding line a program element assigned to it so when you divest of a mission, you divest of the funding that goes with it and all you have at the end of the day is a smaller coast guard. 100 years ago is when the coast guard, the name coast guard first came into being. and the first commandant of the coast guard was under attack by

the taft commission. when they did the study they realized it was going to cost the navy over 40% more of what it cost the revenue cutter service to do what it did on a day-to-day basis. if you're looking for efficiencies, you're not going to find it because quite honestly, many of our platforms are swiss army knives that can operate in a multiple of domains and mission sets including working side by side with our navy, with our department of defense service members as well. so people are the most critical asset but you may have to trim operations. you may have to slow down an acquisition. as painful as that is, you can recover from that but there's a check valve. when you get rid of people it's very difficult to bring them in absent a major contingency like a 9/11. so my approach to our human resource capital is to hold fast on the human resource capital that we have and look at where there's opportunities for further growth, especially in

the cyber domain. >> on climate change and alaska, how is -- since the president gave one of his commencement speeches speeches at the coast guard academy. how is climate change going to change the coast guard's job in the next few decades? >> that's a tough one. i use the open water versus ice-covered water comparison. we're seeing large expansions of open water. it is widely agreed that the seawater temperature is rising and sea level is rising. i just go back to -- the phenomenon with that is you have more frequent and more severe typhoons. we're just clearing out a category 2 typhoon that just hit sipan. two years ago a super typhoon hit the philippines with the highest ever recorded winds of

nearly 200 miles an hour. if you can imagine a tornado 60 miles across. if one of those hit the united states we might be convinced that what is going on with the world's climate today. but rising temperature, and as water expands it rises as it well. so we have low-lying islands in the pacific islands that are inundated with water at extreme high tides right now. those are some of the challenges that we need to look at. when we look at infrastructure that's being built today that's going to be around 100 years from now did you factor in a rise of five or six feet of seawater? an area that doesn't get a lot of attention is greenland. so when you look at greenland as those glaciers melt it is fresh water around it sinks. as it sinks it displaces warmer saltwater that rises to the surface. now you have warm saltwater and you've got cold ice and you have

this temperature gradient that usually cause is more severe winds that being aaccelerate more erosion. you can't put this on a linear model. if you don't at least plan for that, we're very much a coastal nation but we need to take all of these factors into account as does the coast guard as we look at some of the challenges. but you can't plan this in two, four, or six year windows of time. we need to be thinking 10 15 years out. on my watch i need to make sure three commonandants from now say they're glad we at least paid attention. >> how much of navigable waters increased in the arctic? >> i wouldn't say it is

increased. there is a lot more activity up there. there is a cruise ship to carry over 1,000 passengers next year through the northwest message. there's no aids to navigation up there. much of this area -- 5% is chartered to what we o would call 21st century standards. charting void that's up there is of great concern because if one of these ships does find a pinnacle -- we have a sea mount named after the coast guard cutter healy because they found one. fortunatelily with their sonar, not their hull. we're also looking at a traffic separation scheme in the baring strait to assure that you don't have collisions at sea up there as well. >> couple of similar questions.

should the navy take possession of the coast guard's ice breakers, what would you say to giving up that mission? how important is it to have more than just a few ice breakers and to modernize the military assets in the arctic region now? how is the mission changing given russia's new build-up there? >> we made probably once a week i see the cno in the tank. i have a seat with the chairman and other service chiefs. each year we have staff war fighter talks. we've had lengthy discussions about the arctic. i am kf dentconfident the admiral doesn't want to take on an ice breaking mission. russia is militarizing the

arctic. they turned the arctic into an area of access denial. if you look at an ice breaker as you look into the future if you look at modular systems, make sure you can put navy type systems in an ice environment to protect u.s. sovereignty up in the arctic doe plain. those are the discussions that we're really having. not to pass this off to one or the other but you look at future requirements of a heavy ice breaker, it has to be more than just break ice, support sibs. it has science. it has to do a multitude of things. >> moving to another part of the world -- the south china sea. some in the coast guard would call this a success story. you hear a lot in military parlance about the asia pivot. what specifically is the coast guard's role given its limited

resources, given its shrinking budget, given its trying to shoot -- rob peter to pay paul, what's its roll in the diplomacy in the south china sea and anything else in that region? >> next month i'll be in the philippines. i'll be in vietnam, then i'll be in a six-way discussion with five other nations, including russia and china japan, korea, canada will be at the table as well. china has created a china coast guard. they used to have five sea going services called the five dragons. now four of those services come under the us a spiauspices of the china

coast guard. if i sent one ship over there, china can tend ten to my one and japan can send tix to our one. if it is a numbers game, i'm never going to win. if you look at the one ship offense there, to me i look at real opportunity costs. this fall we rode out a strategy for the western hemisphere. the last of the perry class frigates to be decommissions. it was doing the lion's share of the drug interdiction activity law enforcement teams. there are some trade-office being made there as well. if they're vacatesing one region, i need to make sure i'm doubling down on the void created by the navy. opportunity costs significant if i send one ship to the east and south china sea. the dog that catching the bus, what is our policy going

forward. then the void that i've left behind as well. we've written a cooperative strategy for the 2 is1st century. i look at the coast guard as filling some of those vacuum spots created as the navy rebalances. where account coast guard fill some of those requirements as a sea going service. >> does the coast guard currently have a strong ability to share resources in real time in multiple homeland security partners like customs and border patrol. >> we've come great strides. for a department that's only been around over 12 years, it wasn'tful fuluntil 1986 that we came to jointness among our armed services. we we do have today three task

fors within the department of hufrt. joint task force east primarily maritime, west that deals with the southwest border, one for investigations, really the intel piece of this. you have coast guard, cvp, immigrations and customs enforcement oohworking side by side. a department that looks at joint requirements in this case of navy and air force of the department of homeland security. coast guard an cvp. we're using a dod enterprise. this really works. this is a great system. we're also looking at interoperability and commonality of systems. makes it more affordable, makes parts more reliable.

we have come pretty far in a very short time within dhs building unity of effort across the various components. >> do you ever see a time coast guard returning to the department of defense and out of homeland security? >> probably not. one value we bring to dod is we can go title 10 we're title 10 service which means we are a military service but we also do title 14. if you look at any campaign plan, there's probably some embargo provision written in into that that may require a law enforcement authority which the coast guard can bring to the table. then if we have to go to title 10 we can just as easily do that on the fly as well. our systems are interoperable. i think that's a key part so we don't come with systems that can't speak with dod zips terms so our new platforms have navy