months, and of the 276 children contracting meningitis b. last year, over 100 were under one year of age. she makes important points. we need to look at all the evidence as to the expert bodies that advise as recognizing britain has taken important steps by being the first coach to vaccinate in this way. >> order. budget request. later, it's prime minister's questions in the british house of commons. on the next washington journal, we will take a look at the february jobs report. also, eleanor clift with the daily beast talks about campaign 2016 and what's next for hillary clinton and bernie sanders as the two try to out compete one another for delegates in the remaining democratic primaries. and alex marlow discusses the conservative political action conference this week in maryland

and the media's role in covering the presidential race. washington journal, live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. march is women's history month. we're honoring it with a discussion with presidential historian richard norton smith. he sits down with c-span's ceo susan swayne to discuss "first ladies." focusing on the unique partnerships and ambitions of the first ladies. that's saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. the future of space exploration was the focus of a discussion at the national press club in washington, d.c. today. we heard from members of the coalition that released a joint report called, ensuring u.s. leadership in space. this is just under an hour.

welcome to our news maker this morning. i'm the chairman of the news maker committee here at the national press club. we're delighted to have you here. i'm also delighted to say that, david hogue who is here in the front row, not only a journalist but just became the deputy chair of our committee. glad to have you here. this is a very special news maker today. during the year we've been looking at issues that we think will become issues not only for the next -- during the presidential campaign and certainly for the next

administration, and perhaps a critical issue in that area is space, space exploration has been the great human adventure of modern times and during the next administration we'll be celebrating the 50th anniversary of when we landed on the moon. and what happens from 50 years beyond that. i think our speakers today are kind of discussing that and discuss how the u.s. stays the leader in space. we'll allow time for questions. besides the reporters i want to welcome those watching us live on c-span and a large number of reporters on the line who are calling in from the united states. so i'm going to keep the introductions of our speakers relatively brief and following their remarks we'll open it up

to questions for probably about a half hour. so, first, our first speaker is going to be elliot pulham, who is the ceo of the space foundation and be followed by dr. sandra magnus who is formerly a space shuttle astronaut and currently executive director of american institute of aeronautics and will be followed by stallmer. i'll be back when we get to the q and a period but i think i'll let elliot take it from here. >> well thank you and thank everyone for being here this morning. it's great to see friends who are familiar and some new friends. this is a day that we've been looking forward to for quite a while, this coalition of groups to put together this recommendation and it's all about ensuring the u.s. leadership in space continues.

we all know we're in the middle of an election year. you can't ignore it. you can't escape it. and we thought it would be a good time to have a platform of information out there that all candidates could refer to, learç from, and take to heart as they plan their campaigns and those who were successful plan their policies, administrations going forward. the space industry is something that is just terribly important to the united states for a number of reasons. it is an instrument of technology development that has given us the technology base that we enjoy today. it's helped us to be a technology leader in the world. it provides the advantages that we need to keep the nation secure in a military and defense sense. it provides opportunities for students wanting to advance their careers, wanting to learn more about what's out there in the great unknown and it is also the essential infrastructure of our time.

most people don't think of it that way but all of the communication that's happening right now through our friends at c-span, our friends on the phone lines and so forth, all these networks are interconnected. and everything that runs the world for the united states is essentially on the backbone of the space systems that were put in place. and so we wanted to be sure that there was appreciation for the great importance of space as we go forward into these next several months. and to do that we did something rather unprecedented and that is to gather a group of our organizations in a way that hadn't been done before. the idea for doing this paper, by the way, comes from a very surprising place, i think, from most of you. it actually came in a board meeting at space foundation from p.j. o'rourke. many of you know p.j. and i'm proud to have him on our board of directors.

he said, you know these people have a really short attention span and we really ought to put something together that's short and concise and i think if p.j. would have had his way we would have a one sentence paper saying space is good, keep investing. period. paragraph. however with all the number of organizations that we do have involved, we wanted to be more specific than that, we wanted to lay out greater rationale than that and it's one of the great achievements if you look at the dozens of organizations that are involved in this project, all of us took to heart that this needed to represent the entire space community. and so all of us went back to our very large boards of directors and all of these organizations and their board members and members had a chance to have their inputs into this document. so what we have is a rather unprecedented consensus of the

space community in the united states from academia to corporate to government office. it's a splendid energetic community. we have crusty old aerospace ceos, we have upstart young whipper snappers entrepreneurs and everything in between and despite the competitive tensions and so forth, we've all managed to come together and put together this document which we're now in the process of sharing with the presidential campaigns and we'll continue to share this as we go forward and move this out into campaigns of people who are running for the house and the senate and for governors offices and so forth to try to have a good base of understanding on a national level just how important space is to us. there have been, as there always are in these things, some people who have really, really

shouldered a big burden as you can imagine trying to coordinate input from that many places. my colleagues here, i want to thank sandy and eric for the leadership of their organizations as well as frank slaser here in the front row for aia's leadership as well as jim kirkpatrick who i don't see in the room. he's been a stalwart as well and especially my team, gillian ñ brendan curry with the suave double breasted suit standing in the back of the room for making this all happen. we think that the paper speaks for itself. it is a paper that addresses in just 4 pages pretty much every influence of space touches. thank you for your interest in the project, for you being here today. look forward to having your questions and with that to talk more about the content.

i would like to turn it over to sandy. >> thank you, elliot. i'm delighted to be here. we've been working hard on this for many, many months getting a product like this hasn't been easy, we had a lot of inputs from all over the industry and it's been really helpful. as elliot mentioned we wanted to come together to create a strong consensus across the industry about what we feel is important, because the way our political process works we have new ideas coming in every two, four, six years. and we really want the momentum that's been gathering in the space industry to continue. we feel we're like on a good track. there's some really exciting things going on. i'll kind of describe it the way i do with -- i talk to the population. it's sort of a big bubble. nasa has been contributing a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience, a lot of operational knowledge over the last 50 years since we started launching in the '60s and that baseline level of knowledge is out there and available to college students.

doing amazing things, just fundamental level that was impossible when i was in college. so because of this baseline level of knowledge and this fundamental understanding of what it's like to create technology, fly in space and operate in space it's enabling a larger population to wren gage. the way technology has developed over the last 50 years such as you think about what your smartphone can do and the five shuttle computers can do it's completely -- it's a complete leapfrog. that's also creating accessibility. then this entrepreneurial sector that understands the risk/rewards and thinks there's something there. so leveraging all the great experience of the industry and nasa that's been leveraged for 50 years that's allowing nasa as a government agency to expand the bubble of exploration. that's what government's job is. to expand, create new

industries, create economic advantages for people to come along and so now we have a situation where we were 50 years caught in lower orbit and that was intelligent of the bubble. the edge of the bubble is now expanding. as the bubble is expanding we're getting people engaged behind that expanding bubble in ways that isn't so connected directly with government funding. we're in this transition period and this is a very fragile transition. transition will take 10, 15 years, could take 20 years. we don't know. we need to continue on a momentous straight line target. we can't keep moving left to right, left to right. we want this momentum to continue. i want to bring enterprises into the lower orbit. allowing companies, and entities and students and individuals to access space in a new way. this is good for everybody. this is an industry that's just exploding and we're very excited about it. i think what you see in this paper is the consensus of the

industry that we want this bubble to continue, we want this bubble to expand, we think the investment is important for the country and we need to it be stable. we need to have a long term commitment. and with this paper we're hoping that we will kind of convey how important this momentum is to keep expanding in the direction that we have. so i would like to invite eric to the stage. i think he'll talk in more details but i just want to say we're finally bearing the fruits of our 50 years of labor and investment in our space program and we should continue that investment and continue onward and that's what we're very excited about. eric. >> thank you so much, sandy. tough act to follow coming from elliot and sandy and talking about the organizations that we're doing. as we got together as elliot mentioned there are a range of different organizations and it really is quite the diagram of the overlap of what all of our organizations represent and the different interests.

and coming together and bringing this paper together on all of our varied interests and having this general consensus that we believe, what all of us believe when we go to work every day that space is a great place to be involved in and great opportunity for so many and i couldn't think of a better industry to be in, not just now but into the future. that's what we're really talking about on the investments that we're making in space today, long term, you know, the investments not just what the federal government is doing but also, you know, the private-sector and the investments they are putting forth almost $3 billion in private-sector, angel investment alone in companies and ideas and ideas that ten years ago hadn't even thought about. so it's extremely exciting. as we discussed earlier, you know, space always had that place, where not a lot of people said, i'm just adamantly opposed to the space and development and everything like that. it's always garnered great consensus on both sides of the

aisle. no matter what candidate shapes out, and that's certainly an interesting question as we go through this process of picking a candidate we want to make sure among all the other issues they have to deal with space is at the forefront of ideas they are focusing on because the way we see it, all of us collectively as we see, space is really the gateway to the 21st century. the innovation, technology being developed, it's propelling an industry that there's really no boundaries for what we can do and it's very exciting. it's exciting for me, you know, with an organization that is looking at these new ideas, asking the question of why not instead of why. and doing, breaking through on technological barriers that haven't been touched and also over the last 50 years as sandy was mentioning the bubble that

we had this, you know, space program, the tremendous accomplishments, some people felt left out and that we could do more, especially on the anniversary of the lunar landing coming up the 50th anniversary that we should be doing more. it's exciting to see a lot of companies across the board working on these fantastic innovative ideas and projects and it's great to work with all the associations that we work with because it brought forth the interest that we all have and from different perspectives and different corners of the industry. so it's very exciting. we tried to cover as much as we could. i don't know we left much out. we want to energize the youth, the industry and certainly we want to energize the decision makers that really can have an impact on what we do in the space industry and keep the path forward and keep the path upward and with that i turn it over to jamie to take questions. thank you.

>> so we're going to go to our q and a part of the news conference now and i've done a lot of news makers. i never made it a family affair. my son william is on break from college today so he's going to pass around the microphone so what i would like to do is for the reporters in the room if you have a question raise your hand and then i'll ask you to identify your name and your news organization and then we'll go to some of the questions from the phone as well. so, yes, down here. >> lots of white papers written about space policy over the years. what are you doing to get this to the candidates particularly the presidential candidates who said very little about space policy in the campaign so far and get them to at least take more of a position on what they would do as president in the

area of civil, commercial, military space policy? >> so, as i mentioned in my remarks, we really do want this in front of the candidates and so one of the strengths of having a dozen different organizations working together is that there's no one organization here that can reach all the candidates. but among us we can. and so we have -- we have already begun the process of socializing this with the campaigns. each of us have different contacts so we figured out how to work those and i think the last candidate that we're having trouble getting to was the very last candidate, i won't name the person, should be receiving a copy today. and so we'll continue to follow up with their staff as well to keep this alive but it's an interesting question, jeff, because, you know, to some extent, the purpose of this is

not to have space become a big presidential issue. i would be perfectly happy if nobody on the campaign trail said anything stupid about space. we love everyone to understand that it's important, that it's assumed this is part of being american and being a candidate for the highest office in the land is that you embrace the space program because it is quintessentially american. >> kind of to follow up on that. space has become kind of a joke in presidential politics at least once before that i can recall. and i notice in your presentation, elliot, you didn't mention the presidential candidates, congressional and governors. how do you avoid this serious issue being drawn into the more -- what's the term -- clown car debate that's going on?

>> this is for any particular panelist? >> for anybody. >> well, as elliot mentioned the reason why we got together we wanted to create a very, very strong consensus about what was going on in the industry, such that it became a non-issue. that because space typically doesn't come to the top of national politic when is you have presidential campaigns one way to take it off the table but stress its importance is to have a broad industry coalition. this is what's important. we have these great things going on. and, therefore, it sort of continues on its own momentum as it were, right? because the bus is leaving the station and let's not mess with it. since it's already typically, unfortunately, not a national issue, we chose to turn that into an advantage to make sure

that the momentum continues and we don't end up with discussions that take us off into left field or right field especially when there are so many things on the horizon that i want to keep moving forward with. >> you know, just to add on to jeff's question. too often when space is an issue it's a regional issue. what does it mean for jobs in florida. i know frank's organization has some fantastic statistics that can tell you space touches all 50 states and it's not just, you know, whether you have a nasa center there or whether you're launching or building. it really touches all 50 states. it touches the universities. it touches the students. it touches the innovative fabric of our country. it's not just this one program or this specific program and as elliot said someone coming out when a whacky idea. it's what's going on right now and what do we see in the future

and not just as i said thinking regionally. it's a national space program. that's not limited to government programs it's across the board programs. that's how i want to address this. >> other questions for the room? yes. >> what do you see as the biggest threats -- i'm sorry. i'm with aerospace space magazine. what do you see as the biggest threats to ensuring the country's leadership in space that you talked about earlier? >> so, threats come in a lot of different forms and i would say that malaise is probably the chief threat that we're trying address here, we don't fall in some sort of malaise that allows us to stop investing in our space programs.

there are, of course, threats from around the world to u.s. leadership in space, but i would tell you that most of those are also tremendous opportunities. one of the great aspects of space leadership is what i guess political scientists would call soft power, the ability to -- the ability to create an atmosphere where other countries around the world want to work with you and they want to cooperate with you and they want to learn from you. and so i think that it's also a great opportunity for defusing some of the threats that might be out there. so, conquering any malaise, allowing ourselves to be driven forward by the optimists and the visionaries and not by just people who are bitter and, you know, being strong enough in our space leadership to be confident that we can use it in ways that benefit us tremendously as a nation but can also help with

peace, with political understanding, with humanitarian relief and other things around the world, which i think also raises our stock as a nation and we can be leaders in those areas. >> yes, sir, in the back. >> what do you think are some of the reasons for that malaise that you just referenced? >> actually, i think that the malaise is starting to take on a secondary role to the interest and enthusiasm. you know, you talk about -- one of the things that my friend talks about is being trapped in lower orbit for 25 years going around and around and expand the orbit as sandy and eric were describing we're expanding that bubble.

that helps to address malaise. the other thing that i see and this is way out there, socially if you look what's going on with this new generation of kids coming up. they are essentially the first generation to grow up and through all their lifetime having had access to all the information in the world on the internet. and they are excited about what they can do with the knowledge they have. they feel they don't have barriers. they feel they should be able to do anything they want to do. and i think the recent call for applications for astronauts at nasa is a really interesting new barometer. we had 18,300 something applications, the largest group of applicants for nasa astronauts in the history of the space agency. i think as long as we don't mess this up, again let's not undo

anything that doesn't need undoing. i think that the trajectory is there. and we just want to keep it going. >> i would just like to second that and comment more on complacency. we landed on the moon and that sort of cemented in our heads we were leaders but there's a lot going on around the world and at the national level making sure that our leaders in government and decision makers are paying attention to that and we don't establish this complacency since we did this great thing once that will automatically guarantee we'll be in the lead. there are great activities in space going on around the world and people in the industry here in the united states understand that and there's a lot of the energy that elliot is talking about. at the national level we need to pay attention and make sure we're investing the appropriate amount in research and development across the board and not sort of resting on our laurels and there's a lot of

good momentum out there and we don't want to disrupt that. >> you know in the area where you mentioned what are some of the threats. we see some of the greatest threats is the uncertainty and what we really would like to see from the government is the government be there to help not hurt. whether it means stable budgets for programs in lower orbit or beyond lower orbit next exploration as well as regulatory issues where the government has been in the past with some legislation they have passed. they are trying to work with industry. we want to see that consistent. a lot of people plan ahead, you know. industries and companies plan ahead on what some of these programs are. when there's that uncertainty on the programs, that can be challenging, especially on the policies and if i want to shift from policies that we, had you know, immediately with a new administration, radically shift it, it can be disruptive.

i think -- knowing budget certainties -- nasa isn't the only game in town but a big game in town but they should be equipped with their budget as well as the faa who is at the tip of the spear in helping the commercial space grow. i want to work with the government and this partnership with the government and not be too disruptive. >> i want to encourage some of our reporters here on the phone to ask questions. do any of them want to ask right now? i know because of the marvellous amount of technology i know actually how many of them are on the phone. yes. go ahead with your question. >> okay. good. >> could you identify yourself, please. >> hello. okay. i'm from space.com. all right.

anyway, what i wanted to sort of curious about, this is a sum up question of some sort, but i'm trying to get a read on what you think this sort of fundamental role of something like an agency like nasa is relative to private space industry because i'm thinking, you know -- excuse me -- you said you wanted for example stable budgets for nasa to do exploration, i guess but also, you know, you want the regulatory framework to encourage the growth of the space industry. so i'm trying to get a read on what you sort of see nasa doing going forward and i would be curious how you propose making sure nasa's budget stays stable as you see this acting as a more consistent agency role.

i'm sort of curious as to how you go about that. if you have your druthers what would you like see from the presidential candidates. one thing that's plagued nasa is whatever administration is in office or congress over a two year period. >> who would like to -- >> so, you're exactly right in that nasa has been hampered by the whims of administration changes or quite frankly things that happened in congress too. it's not just an executive branch issue it's a legislative branch issue too. what we're hoping for is stability of purpose that allows us to project out over, let's say a decade and, okay, this is what we're going to do. we're going stick to our guns. we'll do this despite whether it's a republican or a democrat or an executive or a legislative branch. this is our plan. we'll execute the plan. we'll do budgets yearly to

support the plan. having said that i realize that's a pipe dream. that's something we should strive for because you never know until you try and this is an effort to try to achieve that kind of sense of the industry that this momentum is important and we want to continue this. such that we're sort of dampening the whim factor if you will. as far as the role of nasa, i mentioned earlier in this expanding bubble paradigm that the reason why we can do the things we're doing today is because nasa has been investing -- the government has been investing for 50 years in developing the know how and technology it's so widespread the risk/reward equation is somewhat understood that private enterprise is trying to do things that are new and innovative and exciting and maybe not dependent on government funding and that's all good because that's what government funding should do.

it should create new ideas and opportunities for people. government should do the investments that keep expanding that knowledge bubble, that operational bubble, the technology that you need to go further. industry can't invest in all of the technology they have to make a profit, right? government doesn't have to make a profit. return on investment for government investment is to bring industry along and to infuse new technologies across the country so people can take that and do innovative things with that. that's the role of government and will continue to be the role of government. if it's done correctly what you're doing is allowing this experience to accumulate across the industry and this technology fuse across the industry. so people with great ideas and really creative minds and known invest can come do things kind of behind, if you will because ideally 15 years from now and i'm just making a number up the government bubble will moon,

mars, asteroid and lower orbit people engaged in activities that nasa may not be engaged with any more and that's a perfectly good paradigm. you want to keep investing to expand the bubble and bring people and industry behind you. that's all appropriate. eric, do you want to add to that? >> just briefly. the partnership with nasa and other government agencies with the commercial sector, it's really critical. as sandy said the investments that nasa has made over the past 40, 50 years and to transfer that technology over to the commercial sector so we're not re-inventing the wheel and we're able to push boundaries and not take steps backwards. so i think that's a really critical relationship that government and the commercial sector need to have to leverage each other's strengths and understand the strengths and weaknesses and how we can push the envelope forward in the

technology realm. >> before we go to any more questions either in the room or over the phone i wonder if one of our panelists might be able to explain where this white paper that your circulating, people watching on c-span or listening in might be able to find on the internet. is there a website people can go to? >> sure, thanks, jamie. each of the organizations that's involved will be posted to their website and as we go about our business in the coming months we'll all be armed with this, we'll have a copy in our pocket and out trying to carry the gospel of the space industry to anyone who will hear the message. go to my website, sandy's, eric's, you'll find it. >> other questions in the room or on the phone? yes, sir. >> what sort of the future of this coalition of organization.

will they continue to work together at least through november to disseminate this paper or any long term plans to continue cooperating? >> i think that we have really learned a lot from each other and about each other through this process. as sandy mention this is many months of hard work and involved not just, you know, five people at the heads of the five leading organizations involved, people in all of these organizations. and i don't know that we're going to build a political coalition and run stallmer for president next year, which would probably be a bad idea, but i think that it has opened lines of communication so that we will be communicating and collaborating more than we have had. we already had collaborations and they tend to be project

specific but the fact we were able to reach a broad consensus on a broad set of issues tells me we'll be doing a lot more in the future. >> before we go to other questions i would like to ask you a question myself. in this document that you're circulating in the room really the last point has to do with trade policy. and whereas i find a lot of issues related to space as you describe this bipartisan or nonpartisan trade is a hot button issue and in your paper you discuss -- you discuss having trade barriers to make it more possible to sell more american products abroad, et cetera. but isn't it really a double edged sword? doesn't it also open the door to more outsourcing of work that has historically been done in

the united states and hasn't outsourcing of space program work to russia been an issue for us? >> so, what's actually happening is the outsource -- the outsource is happening anyway. companies that are u.s. based companies set up laboratories in other places around the world in order to develop technology that they then can use in systems that they are selling around the world. for example, because of some of the restrictions and things like that. what we end up doing is handicapping ourselves and encourage other people to develop technologies that we could develop here. so i think clearly you have to be aware of the balance, but to some extent where i think we're hurting ourselves by not acknowledging that there is technology development going on around the world and we need to be engaged in that worldwide

effort because some of the laboratories that our companies have around the world are already doing technology that they can sell abroad. so, it is a tricky question but we certainly don't want to handicap ourselves unnecessarily either. eric, do you want to add anything? >> i'll step in there. really one of the things that often happens to us is through all the best intention we get unintended consequences. we did go through a period about 20 years ago where there was this vast tightening of export controls on u.s. made equipment and so since our allies could not buy from us, they instead developed their own industries and since we could not sell to them they found out how to buy from each other. there was a time not all that long ago, i want to say about 17, 18 years ago when 75% of the launch capability in the world was built in colorado.

0% is now built in colorado. not, i want to say 15 years ago 75% of the commercial satellites built in the world were built in the united states. today that's less than 25%. so we need to recognize the unintended consequences of things we set up that we thought were going to protect us that ended up hurting us where other countries now have their own technology, they don't need to buy from us. a lot of people would like to buy from us. so if it's something that's widely available in the world why wouldn't you want an american company selling it? >> yes, in the back, please. >> yes. this is not a question, more of a comment. i'm the executive director of the aerospace states association and i just like everyone to know that we have circulated this paper to every state governor and lieutenant governor as an association of elected officials

we support this wholeheartedly, and we applaud the industry for all its work and for the group that represents them here today for all your hard work to get the message out of how important the space program is to america and to every state. thank you. >> other questions from the room or over the phone? >> something you mentioned was, i think it was eric speaking at that point that one of the things that was unintended consequences, some of it was export tightening. i get you want to be selling stuff that's widely available. i'm curious how you square that with some of the issues regarding restricting technology sales to the chinese. the last huge issue just ten years ago over whether or not

they were copying satellite designs and the like or, you know, there's some countries that you would be upset if they had a launch capability. so, you know, i'm sort of curious how you reconcile those two things. you're talking about indigenous technology. it will happen. >> that's a great question and it's often a challenging question. to echo what elliot said. we went through 20 years of second marshal plan for europe with the amount of business that was literally handed over to the europeans to help develop. it's not a bad thing, it's a competitive thing and they capitalized on it. we do want to capitalize on the u.s. industrial base. we think it's critical. we want to see more and more launches coming from the u.s. we understand there's quality foreign competitors from europe and elsewhere. we embrace that.

we want to see and hope the capacity in the industry is so great it will open up new markets. again i'm partial to see a lot of this happen and develop in the u.s. i would like to see our companies that we all represent be able to export our products and services around the globe and we see that. the world is shrinking. it's a global market and the u.s. has fantastic products and services that we should -- we are and should be selling more of abroad. so the issue with china and some of the other countries, you know, those get into a much deeper national security issues and you need to tread gently on some of those issues but be aware that they have national space capabilities much like us and we'll need to work with them and foster the dialogue to help, help the industry and help keep space as peaceful as it has been and not

any outside actors. >> we have time for one or two more questions. do we have another question on the phone? >> we do. we have a question from the christian science monitor. please proceed. >> thank you very much. following up on the unintended consequences i wonder where you folks see striking a balance between wanting other countries to be using our launch services and take advantage of our technology. it sort of strikes me and developing their own. it strikes me one of the unintended consequences of the unintended consequences is these countries developing capabilities to the point where when we're talk about, perhaps, you know, international cooperation beyond mars or the moon, they've got something more to bring to the table other than just money. they've also got sort of the tech end and we've seen this both in unmanned space exploration as well as things

like the international space station and now with orion. where is that balance between wanting to maintain a robust, if you will sort of technology export for space, you know, from the u.s., with helping these countries actually develop their own capabilities that they can, you know, then have something to really substantial contribute to international when that's needed. >> peter, it's elliot. good to hear your voice again. the current nasa program is a good baseline to look at in this. we have a requirement for a launch vehicle that really can only be met by sls so we have a domestic effort going there. we have a requirement for astronaut safety in a deep space environment that we feel nasa is the leading expert at so nasa is managing the orion effort. if you look at the other parts

of the system, i was in germany not too many months ago where the first test article for the service module for orion is being built and being built, part of it are being built in italy, parts in germany they are being integrated in germany and then they will come here. so one of the thc2pr to recognize is that other people have technology that we should want to get our hands on as well and people can bring more than just money to the equation. so we should want to be able to sell what we're really good at. want to able to free to buy so we don't have to make it ourselves things that other people are good at. and we should integrate those. peter, you and i talked about the idea about a lunar village on the moon and the expertise that they have with public-private partnerships in europe that's more successful sometimes than the expertise we have in the united states.

so there's a lot of expertise and it's not all in technology. some of it is in politics. some of it is in fundraising. some of it is in finance. some of it is how to build these unique partnerships. the barriers certainly -- some barriers for true national security concerns. but they should not be erected so high we can't do common sense work together. >> also to your question, i don't think it's up to the united states to tell other countries what technologies they should be developing. they have to think just like we have to think strategically about what are our technologies for either national security purposes or this is the expertise we want to develop, other countries also need to figure out what technologies they want to develop and bring to the table. canada is focused on robotics and made a strategic decision we'll be the guys that do robotics. they bring that technology to

the table and offer that as their way to integrate into whatever project we're doing. i think that's sort of every country's right and privilege to figure out how they want to engage and what technologies they feel are important for their population and national purpose. that's the other half of that equation. >> i think we have a couple more questioners calling in. >> we have a question from marsha smith. please proceed. >> thanks so much. you mentioned you had gotten this to all but one of the campaigns already. can you tell us what reaction you've gotten from them? >> at this point the staff who have received these have expressed gratitude and interest and we'll be carrying it forward as their campaigns move along. honestly i think where we are in the campaign process, these

types of serious policy issues are probably only now becoming addressed, so we'll keep in touch with them and continue to work with them. we're free to answer questions and hopefully keep it in front of them just enough so that everybody is smart about space policy going forward. >> one more on the phone. >> and we have a question from the line of patrick host. please proceed. >> hey, guys. so i was reading this and it says restore american access to space. the u.s. must regain the ability to launch its own astronauts into space and bring an end to the practice of buying astronaut seats on soyuz. makes perfect sense. but then in the next breath it says fully fund and vigorously pursue sls. sls is a joke.

there's no legitimate game plan for this. nasa won't say when em 1 is. there's no game plan. it exists to basically satisfy powerful influential lawmakers, key contractors and constituents. sls might not even fly, might not last until the next administration. doesn't fully funding sls hamper u.s. leadership in space? >> well thank you for the question. i think that if you go back to what we discussed earlier about the appropriate role of government investment, it's the idea that the government needs to expand the bubble and i think that is the expansion of the bubble, that system and what we're trying to do with that and so i don't think we necessarily agree with the assumption that

bubble, that system and what we're trying to do with that and so i don't think we necessarily agree with the assumption that it's not helping the whole program because you need to continue to push the boundaries of what you're doing, you need to bring the technologies to bear that can push us out further and then that knowledge then rolls out into the general industry and the technology transfer and people learn from it. so i'm not sure i will accept your hypothesis. but thank you for the question. >> frank, i think you have another question. william, hand him the microphone, please. >> thank you. i just wonder if you have plans at this point to follow through as candidates become elected officials, as they move through their transitions both at the federal level and the state level. are your going work with transition teams to keep these policies in the forefront or at least up there as they formulate their policies for their terms.

>> yeah, thanks, frank. the answer is yes. and part of doing that, it has already started in term of meeting with other people on the hill in congressional offices. and having them take up this torch so that it's not just limited to the presidential candidates but something that becomes widely circulated and understood on the hill. frankly in terms of our game plan we have lots of aggravate ideas going forward for how we don't push this information out there and how we continue to follow up with people. it's difficult to start executing on a lot of it until we know the staffers are. in some cases we do and already having conversations and in some cases just hasn't become clear yet because it's not high enough on the candidates' radar. we'll stay in contact with the

campaigns as best we can and, you know, hopefully you'll be hearing about this in the general election as well. >> i'm sorry. we had discussed trying to do at least monthly through the prime election in november. some sort of activity that revolves around this, whether it's at some of our individual events or as op-eds, which hopefully you'll see out there. so i think we want to keep the ball rolling. we want to keep this issue continue to be a nonissue as it were and and just keep the information out there that we think this is, you know, important momentum we've generated in the industry and we really don't want to see it fail. we were working on plans to who can do what each month as we move forward. beyond that we haven't gotten that far, but certainly anything to continue the momentum will motivate us to keep working together. >> i would just say, you know, we're not just other organizations. we're also good colleagues and friends. and you well know and the washington circle, frank, names start percolating on who's

advising and who's helping, and we certainly want to be in front of those names and faces, and that many are friends and colleagues as well. we'll still continue this discussion deep into november and beyond as the transition begins, the leadership. >> well, i think we're about to end. i just want to say that if anyone's interested in becoming a member of the press club or if you ear interested in more information on our newsmakers, we'll have several coming up in march and april where our speakers lunches. please visit our website, which is press.org. and with that, i want to thank our speakers for being here. i want to thank our audience, and i want to thank our audience on c-span. thank you very much. >> thank you.

our road to the white house continues sunday from columbus, ohio, where republican presidential candidate john kasich will be joined on the campaign trail by actor and former california governor arnold schwarzenegger. we'll take you there live on c-span. book tv has 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend and here's some of the programs to watch for this weekend. on saturday night at 10:00 eastern. >> the first sentence of the book is the history of american conservativism is a story of disappointment and betrayal. >> afterwards with syndicated columnist e.j. deon. in his book, why the right went wrong. conservativism from goldwater to the tea party and beyond.

he's interviewed by juan williams, co-host of fox news channel's "the five." coming up sunday, in depth, live, with author and investigative journalist jane mare. her most recent book is dark money, the hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the radical right. join in the conversation. we'll be taking your phone calls, tweets and e-mails from noon to 3:00 p.m. eastern. watch book tv all weekend, every weekend, on c-span 2, television for serious readers. housing and urban development secretary talked about his department's 2017 budget rekwecht quest at a hous appropriations subcommittee this week. he took questions on affordable housing, homelessness, long and short term grant programs and internet access for low-income americans. this is two hours.

>> the subcommittee will come to order. before we get started, i want to take the time to recognize our minority clerk, kate hallahan. today is kate's last hearing. [ applause ] i'm not sure if they're applauding -- yeah. [ laughter ] kate, i'm not sure if they're applauding because you're leaving. i'm not sure what to say. but she has now, again, after 29 years of federal service, i will tell you personally, i have thoroughly enjoyed working with

kate. she's incredibly knowledgeable on transportation issues. her dedication to this committee and to the members of this committee has been unwavering. i have -- again, i consider her a friend, and kate, you will be deeply, deeply missed. now we should be able to applaud, right? [ applause ] and i do also want to congratulate joe carlisle. he'll be taking over as minority staff director. we all obviously know him. he's been a valued member of this team, with deep understanding of this bill and so, joe, congratulations. all of us look forward to continue working with you and i know you have big shoes to fill, but we know you're ready. so with that, kate, love you and miss you already. mr. chairman. >> let me add to that. she has been a stalwart worker in this cause for a good while.

and we are going to miss her. in the next chapter of your life, good luck. god speed to you. >> absolutely. thank you. [ inaudible ] >> why don't we do something very briefly. why don't i yield to the ranking member and then to miss lowey very briefly. >> i'll have sming something in my statement, mr. chairman. >> all right. >> well, i had something in the statement, but i think it's so important, i'd rather begin at this point, because i have known kate hallahan for a very long time. in fact, my middle daughter was deputy of the department of transportation years ago, and she told me all about kate. 29 years -- 29 years of

government service. she is dynamic. she is hard-working. she is dedicated. and she has spent an incredible portion of that career dedicating herself to this subcommittee. i always say, kate, you're the answer woman. you ask her a question, she knows the answer. and if she doesn't, boy, she gets it for you quickly. how fortunate we have all been to have the counsel of kate and, kate, i just wish you good luck, and i know we will all stay in touch. we will all miss you, and i know you will continue to succeed in whatever you decide to do, even if it's just enjoying the day in the sunshine. [ laughter ] so, thank you so very much, kate. we love you, we appreciate you,

and we support you in everything you want to do in your future. thank you. >> thank you, miss lowey. mr. secretary, thank you for your indulgence and to each and every member of the subcommittee, because it's a bittersweet day for all of us in the subcommittee. today we welcome secretary julian castro from the department of housing and urban development to discuss the 2017 budget request. they're requesting $49 billion in new resources in fiscal year 2017, about 3.5% above 2016. this is not a dramatic increase. there are, however, so many accounting gimmicks in the budget as a whole that it makes it difficult to frankly take any of it very seriously. we don't need to look further than frankly other agencies

funded by this subcommittee to demonstrate that point. as we saw on the previous hearing, the department of transportation's budget uses gimmicks to cheat the budget by nearly $10 billion. however, the appropriations committee must abide by the agreement. so the administration is only frankly cheating itself out of the opportunity to communicate its priorities. the appropriations committee must pass bills within the discretionary caps that we have all agreed to in last year's budget deal. and we cannot depend on accounting gimmicks to do so. so even in the hud request itself, we find evidence of the administration gaming the system

and breaking promises made just last year. like d.o.t., harp proposes billions of dollars in extra spending by classifying new programs as mandatory. spending is spending, regardless of how it's categorized. just because you call it mandatory doesn't mean that it won't increase our national debt. even more frustrating, however, is the lack of specifics. mr. secretary, your request makes a commitment of over $11 billion in new programs, for which you provide no details, no legislative language, and really not much more than frankly lofty talking points and wishful thinking. so don't get me wrong, i represent low income and urban areas and i totally support the spirit of hud's mission and the desire to always try to do more. my mayors and city councils and community leaders and constituents all rely on hud programs. but that's why it's so important that hud is real, gets real about its resource challenges, to help us, to help the subcommittee identify which programs must be made priority in this next year. in addition to targeting the right priorities, it's so critical that hud be a good stewart of its resources, as

nearly all of what hud oversees helps the most vulnerable and deals with the most vulnerable. yet i continue to receive reports. i continue to receive reports that hud has tremendous difficulty with basic management. the number and seriousness of negative inspector general reports is frankly astonishing. poor financial controls, possible anti-deficiency act violations, lacks program oversight, major risks to i.t. systems, major gaps in cyber security -- the list goes on and on and on. now, you see, i want to work with the administration to make hud the high-quality, high-functioning organization that it must be to oversee these important programs. if the department remains this dysfunctional, frankly, what hope is there that we can tackle

homelessness, that we can tackle economic stagnation and all other major challenges that are part of hud's mission? i look forward to working with you, mr. secretary, and i think we enjoy a great relationship and great communication. so i look forward to working with you as we make the hard choices necessary to meet our nations housing and economic development needs. all while being accountable to the taxpayer and respectful of last year's bipartisan budget agreement that, again, we are bound by. now, before we go to your opening statement, mr. secretary, i would now like to recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from north carolina, mr. price, for his opening statement. mr. price, you are recognized, sir. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i want to join you in welcoming our secretary of housing and urban development,

julian castro. glad to have you with the subcommittee. now, i also want to say a few words about our retiring democratic clerk, kate hallahan. we really hate to see her go, as the remarks of other members have indicated. you've heard about her past 29 years in public service. i think of kate as the model of what public service is about. she started on the hill in the office of representative al swift of washington state, worked at the department of transportation and at the senate appropriations committee before she joined us and settled down for a while in 2006. kate simply has an expertise in transportation policy that's unmatched. she also knows the hill very well, and the appropriations process very well. she is -- and she knows everybody. everybody knows and likes kate and admires her and respects her.

she has that network of personal contacts which let her be very effective and find out the answer to any question that anybody raises just very, very quickly and effectively. she's tireless, she's determined. she's creative, finding ways to get the job done, even against formidable odds, as they often are formidable. she does it all with terrific good humor, and a cooperative engaging manner. so i'm really sorry to see kate go. we all are. we wish her well. she's earned this retirement. still, we're going to miss her. so, congratulations, and god speed. now, turning to the request before us, the fiscal 2017 hud budget request, provides $38 billion in resources, that's

$628 million reduction from las year's level. the lower level comes from higher anticipated receipts, although i think that receipt number is likely to change once cbs scores the request. as was true with the department of transportation, the constraints of the budget agreement, which only partially corrects the distortions of sequestration, mean that it's likely the bill we put forward will not sufficiently address the known needs of housing in our communities. an estimated 3 out of 4 eligible low-income households do not receive federal rental assistance because of funding limitations. and it's well known that most public housing authorities are overwhelmed with multi-year wait lists for access to subsidized housing. so the resources available to this subcommittee make it virtually certain that we can only address the most pressing needs, rather than thinking boldly about the future of housing in this country. underscoring this reality, more than 3/4 of this budget request is dedicated simply towards

maintaining current tenants in housing. and this budget, simply keeping pace with our existing obligations is a challenging task. we know we have a maintenance backlog of over $25 billion. that's 25 billion in our nation's public housing stock. unfortunately, in this era of fiscal fundamentalism, providing the budget resources to eliminate this backlog is impossible. even the more manageable goal of simply keeping up with the annual accrual needs, about 3 billion for the public capital housing fund each year, that remains out of reach. our states are struggling to provide housing and opportunities for people with disabilities. yet this budget would provide no additional resources to build new housing for this extremely vulnerable segment of the population. similarly, we've build no new section 202 rental housing for the elderly for years. this budget wouldn't change that. even after the disaster in flint, which exposed the dangers

of underinvestment in our infrastructure and the persistent threat of lead in many communities, this budget requests flat funding for lead hazard reduction facilities. that despite the clear need for more resources. in fact, in fiscal 2014, the department could only fund about half the applicants seeking to remove the presence of lead from their local housing stock. i hope this budget reflects that congress intends to deal with this issue, rather than a belief that we do not need increased resources to address this health hazard. simply put, this budget request lays bear the difficulty of housing priorities. especially when the majority continues to insist on misguided and arbitrary constraints on discretionary spending. meanwhile, and this is the irony -- meanwhile, mandatory spending and tax expenditures, which are the primary drivers of

our long-term deficit, remain unaddressed. now, there are a few bright spots, and i'll close with those, despite these concerns. the choice neighborhoods initiative, for example. a program that revitalizes and transforms communities, by modernizing aging public housing, that receives a modest increase. and there are new resources for homeless families with children. and to confront the challenges of housing in indian country. the request includes targeted increases in programs for native americans to improve living conditions and provide economic opportunity. and the budget request proposes to update the statutory formula for the housing opportunities for people with aids, to ensure that our limited federal resources are allocated to jurisdictions with the most need. i'm hopeful hud will continue to work closely with me and members of the authorizing committee to ensure that an updated formula is passed into law during this congress. so, mr. secretary, i look

forward to hearing your testimony today, working with you on all of these important programs. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, mr. price. it's always a privilege to be able to recognize the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from kentucky. >> thank you, thank you for the introduction. mr. secretary, welcome to the kate show. [ laughter ] we're delighted to have you with us to talk about your budget request, which as the chairman has said is $48.9 billion in discretionary funds, which is a $1.6 billion increase over current levels. but additionally, as has been said, you requested $11 billion in funding for new programs, on the mandatory side of the ledger. the amount alone is shocking. but the fact that the administration is proposing new mandatory programs, with no

specific information or details as to where it goes. that's especially disturbing. unfortunately, this has been a troublesome and recurring theme across the budget and i've conveyed a similar message to your departmental colleagues in the past two weeks. in december, we came to a bipartisan agreement with the white house on spending caps for the fiscal year, and we simply can't afford and cannot and will not tolerate efforts to circumvent those caps by putting these funds on automatic pilot in the mandatory column, over which we have no control. although it required many difficult decisions, congress followed the law and stayed within the caps for the 2016 omnibus bill.

i hope the message is clear, that this committee is committed to staying within those caps for fiscal 2017. if these programs are truly priorities for the administration, we'll need to find a way to make it work within the agreed upon framework. we look forward to working with you in that regard. in eastern kentucky, in my district, we've been working on a regional community development initiative, known as shaping our appalachian region, s.o.a.r, to help my area, that's been hit hard with a loss of over 10,000 mining jobs, since the president took office. one program that provides a true benefit to struggling regions like mine, is the community development block grant program. incredibly popular and effective, because it provides flexibility to address unique

community development needs from town to town, county to county. and these dollars are often leveraged over many times to projects that otherwise would never get off the ground. in my rural district, small communities have used these funds to help create jobs, through the expansion and retention of businesses. because of the significant impact this program has in my region and across the country, i was disappointed to see the cuts proposed in the administration's budget proposal. i would be remiss if i didn't mention my concern over the self-help home ownership opportunity program. for the past few years, the administration has recommended moving shop, and congress has repeatedly kept it as its own line item. this year again, you propose moving it under home. this program allows low-income home buyers to contribute

significant amounts of their own sweat equity toward the construction or rehab of their homes. this allows many low-income families, the otherwise out of reach opportunity to own their own home and provide their children with a safe and sanitary place to live and play and grow. the huge impact this program has across the country justifies it remaining an independent program. so mr. secretary, we look forward to working through the budget process with you these next few months. we want to be helpful. we appreciate the service that you're giving your country. and we look forward to working with you. i yield. >> thank you, mr. chairman. also, we are privileged to recognize a ranking member of the full committee, miss lowey. >> and thank you, mr. chairman.

i want to join my colleagues in welcoming you, secretary castro. thank you for joining us today. mr. secretary, hud's budget request does include some bright spots, including 20.8 billion for tenant based rental assistance, a 6.2% increase over fy 2016. $200 million for the choice neighborhoods initiative, a 75 million or 60% increase over fy 2016. and $88 million for a new program that would fund 10,000 new vouchers for homeless families with children. these increases are essential to these programs, to keep pace with actual need. however, i was disappointed by not only a 1% decrease in hud's overall budget of $328 million decrease from fy 2016, but also

some significant cuts to programs that our constituents depend on, like a $200 million cut to the community development block grant program. the request also flat-funds the home program at $950 million, as well as the lead hazard control and healthy homes programs, at $110 million. with $83 million for lead hazard control grants, and $25 million for the healthy homes program respectively. this funding, as you heard from my colleague and the ranking member, is just not adequate or sufficient to meet our country's actual housing needs. lead hazard control has made huge strides in eliminating household toxins that affect our communities, resulting in lower

lead poisoning rates and better educational and behavioral outcomes for children. work remains to remove lead from the homes of millions of families. now is not the time to flat-fund it. many communities throughout the country lack adequate, safe, affordable housing for all income levels. the housing sector must play a big role in strengthening and growing the middle class, empowering hard-working families and providing economic opportunity for all americans. i look forward to working with you, secretary castro, and to listening to your testimony today. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, miss lowey. mr. secretary, your full written testimony will be included in the record and so with that, you are recognized for five minutes. thank you again for being here. >> thank you very much, chairman diaz-balart, to the ranking member price, to chairman rogers, ranking member lowey,

and members of the subcommittee. thank you for inviting me to discuss hud's proposed budget for fiscal year 2017. our request honors the president's commitment to provide more americans with the chance to secure quality and affordable housing. and to use housing as a platform that sparks greater opportunity in people's lives. this proposal comes at a time of tremendous momentum for the american economy. the unemployment rate has been cut in half since 2009. over the past 71 months, businesses have added 14 million jobs, the longest streak of private sector job growth in our nation's history. now we must ensure that this progress reaches every corner of our nation. and expanding housing opportunity is a vital part of this mission. today, one quarter of american

renters spend more than half their incomes on housing and for every dollar that goes toward a rent payment, one is taken from a family's grocery budget, a child's education, or a couple's retirement savings. that's what the president's budget calls for increasing hud's funding to $48.9 billion. $1.9 billion over the enacted level for fiscal year 2016. 85% of our budget would go solely toward renewing rental assistance for nearly 5.5 million households. but we've also taken strong steps to maximize our remaining resources. investments that would support our nation's most underserved communities and empower more hard-working americans to lift themselves into the middle class. six years ago, the president set forth a bold vision to end homelessness in america. and since then, we've made great strides. the best example of this, a 36% decline in veteran homelessness, between 2010 and 2015.

i want to thank the members of this committee for funding hud bash over the years and with your support, we can fully achieve the president's vision and help the next generation to escape the cycle of homelessness. are the most effective solutions for families with children experiencing homelessness, so we've asked for historic $11 billion investment in mandatory spending over the next 10 years that would use these tools to assist approximately 550,000 families. we've requested $20.9 billion for our housing choice voucher program. an increase of $1.2 billion from the enacted level from fiscal year 2016. this would provide 2.2 million low income families with a chance to move into neighborhoods with better schools, safer streets and more

jobs and stay there for the long term. but hud's mission also extends beyond housing mobility. too many communities remain segregated by race and by income and too many americans see their futures limited by the zip code where they were born. and hud's proposed budget reflects our duty to revitalize underserved communities. our program has already leveraged nearly $2 billion for crucial repairs in housing and other hud assisted property. we've asked congress for $50 million to make targeted investments in 25,000 new units and eliminate the remaining caps on the number of units eligible for conversion. which improves infrastructure, rehabilitates housing and creates jobs for folks with modest means. and $200 billion for folks in choice neighborhoods which helps to transform areas of concentrated proverty by

creating quality mixed income housing and sparking neighborhood small business growth. finally, the president knows that many native american communities face significant barriers to opportunity. this budget requests to improve housing and development on tribal lands including 20 million for native youth programs like community centers, health clinics and head start facilities. the proez p president's budget reflects his determination to promote inclusive opportunity for all americans. i look forward to every american can live in a home that offers them pride, progress and hope. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. secretary. we will proceed with five-minute rounds. recognizing members in order of seniority as they were seated at the beginning of the hearing.

please be mindful of your time and allow secretary castro the time to answer it within that five-minute period. >> mr. secretary, as i alluded to in my opening statement, the hud office had to express a disclaimer on hud's financial statements. billions of dollars improperly accounted for at cpd and tens of billions in other problems at jeanie may. it would be bad enough if it was one year but it's terrifying a financial institution as important as hud can't get a clean bill of health from its auditors two years in a row. please, as simply as you can, can you just explain what's going on with hud's financials?

>> the audit you're talking about is one we take very seriously. let me begin by saying we have a close working relationship with our inspector general. we meet on a regular basis and this is of course one of the items that we have been working on together. you're correct that we had a disclaimer in 2014 and in 2015. i'm pleased to tell you that ginnie mae has been working. it has filled key leadership positions. it has revamped several of its processes. improved the way that it does business. i also want to assure you that i have made it very clear to all of my staff that we take the recommendations of the inspector general seriously. in fact, i know that ya'll are going to have an opportunity to meet with the inspector general

soon and he and i meet on a regular basis. it's fair to say that there are very few instances at hud, whether it's this audit or others, where we are out of sync with the inspector general. and in those instances where there is a difference of opinion, there's a concrete reason for it. so in 2014, we had 11 material weaknesses in our audit. in 2015, we brought that down to nine material weaknesses. we believe in 2016 we'll be able to bring that down further. we're making progress and we'll continue to work with the inspector general, with gao and others to improve our systems and ensure the awe disimproves as well. >> hud is operating without a permanent cfo. any idea on when you think that might be -- that critical position might be filled by somebody who can, you know, again address these issues?

>> you bring up an issue we have been working on. this is something our deputy secretary herself has been attentive to. and we very much are working towards filling that position. we believe it's important. i don't want to give a time line right now in the sense of -- we believe in the next several months but hopefully sooner that position will be filled. it's something we work on. >> the first in, first out, fifo accounting is one of the biggest reasons for the audit disclaimer. it appears hud is violating requirements because of this faulty accounting. the ig believes these accounting mistakes meet the definition of a violation. which would mean you're frankly

spending money you don't have. have you been able to investigate? have you investigated the aig's findings to determine whether hud's breach is in fact -- of the home statute is in fact an anti-deficiency act violation? >> you know, we over the last year in fact have reported from the past 14 se rat anti-deficiency violations that hud had engaged in in the past. in an effort to get beyond those, we've improved our processes. in fact, i think it's fair to say that today in 2016, the challenge at the end of the year is often -- at the end of the fiscal year is often trying to ensure that money that has been appropriated is spent because of the anti-deficiency act situations that were encountered in the past, many of our program

areas are shy about spending towards the end of the fiscal year. we're improving our processes so we both hit our mark but do not commit a violation. i'd be glad to get your more information on the specific one you're talking about. >> appreciate that, mr. secretary. again, sticking to the time limit, mr. price, you're recogni recognized, sir. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, let me ask you about -- oh, i'm sorry, yes. i'm reminded that our ranking member of the full committee has another engagement. i'm to yield to her. before i run my mouth any further. >> it is a good thing for you to remember. >> we have a partnership here. and i know the chairman and i need roller states these days, there's about five or six hearings a day, but you're very gracious. thank you so much. and thank you, again, for your testimony, mr. secretary. mr. secretary, the criminal

incompetent that resulted in tens of thousands of american citizens in flint consuming led contaminated water is shocking. historically, lead paint has been the most widespread source of lead exposure. much of the success we've had in reducing, spoe ining exposure t been in a partnership. each providing expertise and resources. however, of the past few years, funding for the lead has a control and healthy homes programs has been flat funded at $110 million with $83 million for lead hazard control grants and 25 million for the healthy homes program respectively. down from $140 million just five years ago. and we know the job has not been done. with millions of american homes still containing lead based

paint, i'm concerned your budget just does not address the serious need. are the resources that have been provided in this bill such fishant to fund the need for this program? for instance, how many grant applicants are turned away due to the lack of funding? how does the department pry prioritize who receives these grants? and what other sources of funds are available to remove lead paint from homes? >> thank you very much for your focus on this miss lowey. what happened in flint was a shame. at the same time, we know this administration has marshalled a lot of resources to try and do what we can to address the needs of the residents of flint. hud, in fact, is involved in

that response and has had somebody as part of the strong communities program on the ground in flint for over a year. but let me just address more specifically your questions. i wish that i could say that the resources that hud has received in the past met all the needs. as you heard earlier in testimony i believe that we're able to serve about half of the eligible applicants in the program, the lead hazard control program. in fiscal year 2015, there were 47 eligible applications. about $141 million of requests that went unfunded. so you're correct that the need outstripped the resources that we have. there are other resources aside from this grant that are -- that can be used to address lead issues. one of those, for instance, is

cdbg, community development block grants can be used. i wish i could give you the impression that these resources can meet that need. they cannot. it's true that we've had to make tough choices in the budget. as i mentioned in my testimony, 85% of our budget rekwechts is just -- is reupping the folks we are already serving. what that has done over time is put more and more of a crunch on everything else. what it's been cdbg or lead hazard control grants. we continually look for more ways to make these resources go further, for instance, whether through reaching out to philanthropic organizations or providing technical assistance to local and state communities. you also asked about the process itself. being, it's a competitive process. so in terms of prioritizing, we look for those communities that have the greatest need and also

put together compelling plans on how they would address lead based paint in that community. >> now, you have about 56 -- maybe we should talk about the healthy homes program another time because you've been so gracious to give me the time and i thank you and thank you, mr. account is, i appreciate it, i look forward to working together. >> thank you, miss lowey, again, for being so consideration with your time, it's greatly appreciated. general rogers. >> i don't thing he got k he go finish -- >> i'll take the time that miss lowey would have, that's fine. >> found that there are more than 25,000 high-income earners

living in public housing. these overincome families are taking up very valuable spaces, while over 500,000 qualified families are stuck on a waiting list. estimated that taxpayers will shell out over $100 million a year to keep these people in public housing that are not qualified, thatter there making more money than allowed. what's being done to check that? >> yes, thank you, chairman rogers for the question. of course, this did receive a lot of attention and i want to let you know very plainly this is a concern we share. i'm pleased to report we're working hand-in-hand with the inspector general to address this issue, and so we've done three things. first on september 3rd of last year, we sent a letter to all public housing authorities strongly encouraging them to adopt policies that would

transition out, extremely over-income individuals like some of the ones highlighted in the inspector general's report. on september 8th, just a few days later, we published the fiscal year 2015 flat rent notice which is going to result in a rent increase for most families playing flat rent and may lead them to choose market rate housing, give them that extra incentive to move on. and on february 3rd of this year, we published an advance notice of rules making. to strengthen oversight of overincome tenancy in income housing and ensure people residing in public housing continue to need housing assistance from hud after admission. and this may be the most important part of our response. this advanced notice of proposed rule making gives us the opportunity to seek feedback and to ensure we go forward with a rule that will address the concerns the inspector general

raised. if i may, the last thing i would just briefly say is that while i do agree that these housing authorities need to be tougher, especially in the cases that were highlighted in the report, i think through conversations with the hill, with i think staffs of different congressional representatives, also as reflected in chairman's bill. sometimes get barely over that limit. they become self-sufficient. you also want to encourage folks to work their way up so they can get up and out. and so we need to encourage them to work harder and increase their pay so they can move out, but not cut them off the second that they do that.

and disincentivize them from actually getting a pay raise and becoming self-sufficient. there is some nuance in here and i think that's reflected in the legislation being considered and the conversations we have. we hope that will be reflected as well in the final rule. >> is the 25,000 a fair figure? >> the inspector general did find just over 25,000. out of 1.1 public housing units, yes. >> but you have no argument with the number? >> we don't have any argument with that number. what i would point out though is the vast majority of those were barely over the income limit. and some of them fall out of the income limit and back into the income limit. and this is i think what we need to address successfully in crafting a rule and we welcome the feedback of members of this

committee and also have been enjoyed working with others who have asked, including chairman luchameyer and his staff. >> what's the -- >> for which part? >> the new rule you're talking about. >> we anticipate that -- we've done the advanced notice of proposed rule making and so the next step will be a notice of proposed rule making later in 2016 and i anticipate that in 2017 we would have a final. >> well, i understand your point about not cutting them off the next minute, but that income rule is there for a very real reason. and there's 500,000 qualified families according to the inspector general waiting to move in that are qualified under the income level. so it's not fair to them. you agree? >> no, you and i -- we don't

have a disagreement there and that's why as you can see from these steps we've moved forthrightly on this to address it. >> thank you. >> mr. price, you're recognized, sir. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, let's turn to the choice neighborhoods initiative. this is a program that transforms aging public housing developments into vibrant communities. it's a unique program in the hud portfolio in terms of its reach and scope. builds on the success of the hope 6 program which i know firsthand made a dramatic impact, particularly in raleigh, our capital city in north carolina. congress has provided fund for choice neighborhoods since fiscal 2010. of course been proud to support it but want to ask you to rue flect on how we can improve this program, what kind of a success we've had so far. i wonder if you would cite

particularly successes, either now or for the record. are there particular cities, communities, that demonstrate how choice neighborhoods can work and how, in your view, it should work? secondly, how -- how close are we coming to meeting the demand for this program, the meritorious applications that would make good use of these funds? how many applications apply for each round of implementation grants? how many were awarded? what's the level of meritorious applications not awarded? can you give us just some sense of what kind of demand you're dealing with? also with the implementation grants. the grants that actually carry out the transformation we're talking about, what kind of success have you had and have grantees had in leveraging outside funding to supplement this? that was the hallmark of many hud programs of course.

and wonder how it works here. and finally if you can address the smaller grants, of course they're much more numerous, the planning grants, much smaller, much more numerous, talk about how that's working, what kind of outcomes you've seen there. some presumably lead to implementation grants but all cannot. there's no way all those planning grants could lead to a full implementation grant, so what do they lead to? what kind of evidence you have about the kind of leverage the planning grants give? and what have we seen there in terms of the ability? even if a community doesn't get a limitation grant, the availability to carry forward with the planning grant and nonetheless carry forward for serious work? >> thank you for your past support and your vocal support of choice neighborhoods. the value of choice neighborhoods really is that it's place-based work and it's

breaking through silos. so as you know, building on hope six, this says it's not just about housing, it's all about housing and transforming a neighborhood. what can you do on housing and transportation, housing and education, housing and the availability of fresh food? housing and the environmental conditions around the housing? a couple of good examples of this, i visited neighborhoods in boston. i believe the name was roxbury, roxbury heights, but i'll check that. they were one of the first choice neighborhood grant recipie recipients. they revamped their public housing. close to the public housing site, they also have an incubator that works on incubating small food-related businesses.

folks who sell and package food are able to take up space there and grow their business. it's helping to improve that neighborhood in boston. a second example is the woodland neighborhood in chicago which is not too far from the university of chicago. they've partnered with the university of chicago for instance to help provide some safety, police protection. they've included recreational activities for young people and also opportunities for seniors it they've done it in a way which is great because again it's not just about providing housing but improving quality of life. you asked about leveraging of other dollars. maybe the best example of this is that in new orleans for instance, in the first phase of the buildout of the choice neighborhood, implementation grant that they got for the

housing, tend of tat the end of only 16% of those funds came from that choice neighborhood grant. so obviously they were able to leverage other financing to get that housing done. the planning grants, which traditionally have been $500,000 planning grants, are important. and a number of those planning grantees have become implementation grantees. although as you say, not all of them. but they have been a good base from which those communities have either successfully gotten implementation grants. a good example of this was san antonio, my hometown. or they've been able to leverage philanthropic support or other programs. >> thank you, mr. secretary. mr. joyce, you're recognized, sir. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good afternoon, mr. secretary. >> good afternoon. >> prior to my arrival here, i was a prosecuting attorney for 25 years in jog county.

responsibility to represent the county and the townships in how we adapted to local zoning. i have great concern with you permanently furthering fair housing rule or affh rule. using your authority like a hammer. robbing communities of their rightful say in zoning laws. this has caused great concern throughout my district and is what i believe one of the grossest current examples of government overreach. examining this rule and how in the eyes of your department is equipped. which area of the budget does your department plan to utilize researching, gathering the opinions of local stakeholders? >> are you referring to the work that we already done or the work that's going to be done as part of each community's assessment of fair housing as it's rolled out now? >> yes, going forward, where in

the budget do you have that plan to take into consideration these concerns? >> as you probably know, phas are able to use operating funds. there may be local or state resources that they're able to use. so there are a number of potential funding streams that they could use. >> okay. how is your department's research process structured so that its data establishes an accurate and thorough level of knowledge of each of the local community's wants and needs? and who ultimately will execute the programming from the federal level? >> thanks a lot for that question. this is an important one. this is being done -- the process has been done jointly. this has really been a collaboration across hud to make sure we get it right, because historically within hud there has been this tension between our fair housing office sometimes and our community planning and development. in other words, cpd giving out thecpd giving out the grants and fair housing

sometimes having to clamp down because of noncompliance with the fair housing act. so in order to get this right, we went out and got i didn't want input from local communities, that was part of the process. you asked about the data, for instance. the tools that we're going to give them. that was a collaborative process. on december 31st of last year, our tool effectively went out to these communities that are the 22 communities that are in the first round of respondents for affh. it's the latest data. it's more specific than they've ever had. it's more comprehensive than they've ever had. i just want to point out, congressman, you asked a question that i think a lot of people are asking. >> sure. >> and there is this impression among some folks that hud is going to be very prescriptive. we can't tell a local jurisdiction you have to adopt this zoning law, planning law,

or land use restriction. that is not what affh is about. it's about giving these communities the data that they need to make prudent decisions about how they invest these federal taxpayer dollars. and how they also live up to the fair housing act requirements. but we're not telling them specifically you have to do this here or else. we cannot do that under the law. >> to be specific, though, can you give me an example of where this research process has already been employed and touch on its level of accuracy? >> yes. actually there was a pilot program that touched on -- i want to say it was about 30 communities, that was a kind of precursor to affh, where communities drew up these plans with data and stated their own aspirations along fair housing lines and also how they connect the dots of housing and transit

and general quality of life. and so we have a good set of about 30 communities that went through this that was a benefit to those communities. there was also a benefit to hud in getting to see that process and understand how we can provide good data to these communities and then let them lead the effort to come up with their plan. we do not intend to come up with a plan for them. this is going to be a locally driven effort to come up with these plans. >> thank you. i see i've competed my time, mr. chairman, so i will pass it back to you. >> thank you very much, sir. mr. quigley, you're recognized, sir. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good afternoon, mr. secretary. i'll go back to lead, lead paint, in my hometown of chicago. as you are aware, we have a lot of incidents relating to section 8 housing and lead-based exposure. since 2012, around 178 children that we know of that have

experienced elevated blood lead levels. two thoughts on that. i believe under the current department regulations, the lead-based paint standard or public housing is four times the cdc recommended level. are we working to adjust that through rulemaking or some other process? >> you're correct, and we are working with omb on that. we don't have anything to announce now. but that is something that is on our radar screen and we're working toward. let me just say as well that since fiscal year 2013, that every notice of funding availability for lead assistance grants has recommended the cdc definition of elevated blood lead levels. so in the work that's being done out there, much of that reflects the cdc definition, even though you're correct, that right now there is a discrepancy between the cdc definition and hud.

and we would like to bring that into conformance. >> i appreciate that. i understand the housing agencies are required to inspect the premises before people move in, something like a year after that as well. but as far as i understand, that's about the only way they're determining whether there may be lead-based paint issues. is there something else we can do to determine the level of risk out there? >> well, certainly the communities that are part of our lead hazard control grants are those that have identity issues in their public housing or other housing. so they're affirmatively addressing these issues and remediating them, along with our funding, it helps to improve the overall health of that household. we're always looking for ways that we can be more effective in the future. so we would love to follow up with you on that. >> yes, i would like to work with your folks in chicago as

well. second point, as you know, lgbt youth have an extraordinarily high rate of housing instability and homelessness, more than the general population. and transgender americans are the hardest hit, with one in five transgender americans experiencing homelessness. on behalf of the lgbt quality caucus, we want to thank you and support you for your proposed rule dealing with this issue. it's a crucial step forward in ensuring transgender people seeking emergency housing and shelter are able to find the protection they need. how do you plan to implement this rule? are there specific issues you're going to have to address? >> well, first, thanks for the recognition on the effort. we believe that this is important. as you know, beginning in 2012, with our equal access rule, we started to address concrete

issues that present themselves to the lgbt community when they seek housing and shelter. this rule addresses the responsibility of shelters and single-sex facilities. that is in process right now. and this is something that we're working to get done during this administration. and once it's rolled out, it's also clear that it's going to take i believe quite a bit of partnership with local communities and providers to ensure that this rule is implemented smoothly. i believe that just as the rest of the equal access rule has been, that we can do that. >> and i think some of this is going to be your help in working with communities and shelters on education and some training and understanding specific issues here and how to help people who are at their most vulnerable point. >> no, i agree.

>> thank you so much for your service. >> thank you, mr. quigley. mr. yoder, you're recognized, sir. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, welcome back to the committee. i note you were in kansas city earlier this year. i represent kansas city, kansas, amongst other places. you were there to talk about connect home. i appreciate you coming to our area. i wanted to talk to you a little bit about that program. you know, google fiber came to kansas city and provided a real opportunity, we were one of the first communities in the country to have this high speed internet. one of the challenges that quickly arose is that we have a digital divide. we have citizens, low income families that have no access to the internet in significant portions. so i guess i just wanted to hear from you, how big is this a challenge across the country? it's certainly a challenge in my community. how much of this is a priority for your agency? and what can we do in terms of

public-private partnerships to really resolve some of these discrepancies? this is one of those areas that ought to be bipartisan in particular because this is a bottleneck on access to opportunity. and if we're serious about giving people the tools to succeed in this country, giving them the levers to rise out of poverty, if they don't have access to the internet, it makes it that much more challenging for them. i wanted to turn that over to you and hear your thoughts on those questions. >> i appreciate the opportunity to speak to something that i agree with you, i believe ought to be bipartisan, as other issues have been before this committee. we're very proud of it. number one, this is a great example of a public-private partnership. all but $50,000 of this effort is being invested by the private sector, internet service providers, and nonprofits. connect home is an effort to connect up residents of public housing in 28 communities, 27 urban communities and one tribal

community, the choctaw nation in oklahoma, to the internet, because the fast majority of them are not connected now. google fiber are great participants in this. the idea is we believe that folks of modest means need 21st century tools in order to compete in this 21st century global economy. if we expect them to become self-sufficient. so this effort will connect up to 200,000 children. and we're actively now working toward expanding that. in this budget we requested, because remember, right now it's only been $50,000 plus the staff time that's been devoted to this, we're requesting $5 million toward connect home. for those instances where just with a little bit of a public investment we might be able to get a community hoodiked up,

because we think those dollars can go very, very far. the fact is almost all of this has been private sector so far. at the end of the day, i believe this is going to mean that we avoid more intergenerational poverty in communities in the united states, so that those kids especially that do get an internet connection, they're more likely to do their homework and apply for college and working age folks who can apply for a job. you're going to improve their upward mobility through this internet connection. >> i appreciate your leadership there. and i appreciate you coming to my community and highlighting that as an important investment for helping children rise out of poverty. i want to turn your attention to your proposal to support the administrative support fee on the fha lenders again. and i'm pleased to see it has a sunset clause this year. i have a few questions about how it's to be implemented. congress has rejected this proposal. so i'm not necessarily pleased